The Last Experience Point

As Zach stumbled over his own two feet and almost fell down, he realized that the lack of sleep was really starting to get to him. Nevertheless, he sucked it up and continued to trudge his way onwards with the rest of the raid through this Gods-forsaken hallway that definitely had an end but didn't seem to want them to get there.

Once again, the level of excitement, which after ten days had peaked to its highest level, had reverted back down to its lowest point; actually, it had really started to plummet right around the seventh time they had to stop, back up, and wait for the mages to deal with yet another floating book.

When does it end? Zach thought with a moan.

"God, this place is sweet," Jimmy said. "I hope this never ends, baby!"

The contrast between Jimmy when he was raiding and Jimmy at any other time was just…it was stunning. Zach should have been used to it by now, but it continued to blow his mind. His energy levels only seemed to increase regardless of how low everyone else's fell.

"Hey, Jimmy," Zach said.

"Yeah?"

"How are you not so tired that it hurts? I mean, you can barely swim from Elendroth to Shores of Wrath, yet somehow, you can stay up for three nights in a row and still look well-rested? I just don't get it."

Jimmy laughed. "Gamer shit," he said. "We do all-nighters all the time."

"If you so say so…" Zach yawned. "Gods, I can't take much more of this."

With the raid having basically mastered the best way to kill these book mobs, there was no longer any sense of danger, and since most of the raid couldn't even participate, every time one of the elite tome mobs was spotted up ahead, they would begin a routine that was starting to feel rehearsed.

Zach, for his part, found these moments both annoying but also relieving in a very strange way. Put simply, they'd now come far enough down the hallway that the light levels had plummeted to complete and total darkness. Not even the slightest bit of light remained. It had now become a journey through a pitch-black hallway—except for whenever they encountered one of the mobs.

For some reason, any time one was around, about 100 inn-room doors' worth of distance from the mob were fully lit with every bit of brightness that existed back at the beginning of the hallway.

The moment the mob died, however, the hallway lights above would begin to dim before turning off completely in around 20 seconds' worth of time. Thus, while it was annoying to have to stop whenever they came across one of these elite "book" mobs, it was also helping to preserve the sanity of the raid, as the oppressive darkness was at least abated for a while. And seriously, it was oppressive.

With no means to recharge their electronic devices and many people's phones already having died, the number of people who could be asked for the time or date was rapidly dwindling. And that was to say nothing of the constant bumping into one another. Someone had even stepped on Fluffles' tail, but the cat thankfully forgave him immediately and didn't seek revenge.

Yeah, as if…

In actuality, Fluffles had opted to take immediate and disproportionate revenge. The cat had blasted the poor adventurer so badly that he now whimpered whenever the cat came near; worse, Fluffles would go on to claim it had been "self-defense" despite clearly being an accident.

I almost stepped on him just now, I think. Zach couldn't be sure, but he thought he heard a little "pitter patter" of the cat's footsteps as it ran back and forth in the dark. Fluffles was actually having a really good time, come to think of it. He and Jimmy were the only two who still were.

The rest of them? Not so much.

It seemed like everyone else was becoming more and more on edge as the boost to enthusiasm and excitement was blunted thanks to a return of more endless hallway repetition; only, in addition to the repetition, they now had to travel together in all-encompassing darkness. And while a few hours of this was fine, it really started to become maddening after an entire day.

Complicating things even further was the issue with food and water. Currently, they were at the end of day 10. And soon, they'd be on day 11 because, having stayed up for three nights in a row, everyone badly needed sleep, and just now, Donovan decided to order a halt to the raid to allow for some rest.

This meant that, even under their best-case scenario, they'd have just three days' worth of food and about five or six days' worth of water, but it was the latter that was the real issue. A person could technically go for months without eating and not die. But water was a whole different story.

It might even be too late to turn back, Zach thought.

This was actually a theory that Jimmy had floated. He'd claimed that their best bet would be to find this dungeon and hope a door back to Angelica's existed within it. He was probably right, too. In all honesty, they should have turned back on day 7 like they were originally supposed to have done, because now, there was a very real and growing threat of serious, life-threatening dehydration in their near future.

"All right," Donovan said. "Listen up."

From the sound of the man's voice, he must've been right next to Zach—within reaching distance. Yet Zach could not see so much as an outline of the man. In fact, if Zach held up his hand and put it right in front of his face, he wouldn't even be able to see his own fingers.

"We'll keep going for another half hour, and then we'll turn in for the night."

Someone spoke up. It sounded like Maric. "Don, do you think we could at least find a mob first? That way we don't wake up in total darkness?"

"Yeah," Kesten agreed. "I need light. This darkness is starting to drive me insane."

Donovan made an affirmative sounding grunt. "We'll try."

To this point, they had now killed a total of eight of the elites, with each one providing the raid only a small portion of what it would be worth if slain while solo; even still, progress was progress, and Zach was well on his way to his next level-up.

As they continued on, the adventurers were mostly quiet, but Zach did manage to spark some conversation by casually making an observation.

"You know what's weird?" he asked. He reached out and blindly tapped the wall to his left. "All these inn rooms are still functioning, working rooms, right? Isn't it weird that someone could technically live here if they really wanted to?"

"I doubt these rooms work," Rian said. "There are mobs here. I would be surprised if you could claim any of these."

Lienne did not seem to agree. "I bet you can. They're all valid rooms. There's no reason why they couldn't be claimed—not that anyone would want one."

Eldora laughed. "I'm sure it's fine on the inside. It might feel mysterious and cool to live all the way out here."

The sound of Eldora's voice reminded Zach of the fact that, with him here, they had certain advantages they might not otherwise have had. And it was only now that he recalled one of them in particular.

"Hey, Eldora?"

"What's up, Zach?"

"You have that torch ability, right? The one all Elves get at level 1?"

"I do."

"Can you give us some light?"

Following this question, what sounded like a dozen adventurers all chimed in at once, begging the man for some relief from this painful darkness. But he refused nonetheless.

"I can only use it three times a day, and I want to save it for an emergency."

This resulted in disappointed and, in some cases, angry groans. But Donovan and Zephyr were both quick to back him up. "He's right," Zephyr said. "We can't afford to waste it. I don't know about the rest of you, but my phone is dead. Eldora could soon turn out to be our only light source. Well…the only reasonable one, anyway."

Zach understood why he'd hedged on that last statement. Technically speaking, it wasn't true that Eldora's torch would inevitably become their "only" light source. Many of them had weapons or armor that gave off tiny bits of light, and an even greater number of them—Zach included—had ways to make light appear, either briefly or for a prolonged period of time. But none of his abilities were practical for the purpose of simply being able to see, and that was probably true of the rest of them as well. Lienne, for example, had numerous ways of conjuring fire, but since no one had anything flammable to use as a torch, it would just be a waste of exertion.

We'll just have to deal with the dark, he thought, sighing. But then, almost as though his thought had become an answered prayer heard by the Gods themselves, Jimmy, up front with Donovan and Zephyr, became suddenly excited.

"I see something!" he shouted. "Up ahead!"

"Me too," Donovan said. "We've got something up ahead!"

And just like that, energy and vitality returned to the raid. Despite it being just a half-hour before they were going to lie down and sleep, the adventurers released a howl of excitement as they collectively began to jog faster and faster. They were stopped, however, as Donovan began threatening them to slow down and remember where they were.

"This ain't Angelica's anymore!" he scolded. "Stop acting like a bunch of children. We're officially on a raid now."

Up ahead, there was indeed something to be seen, though Zach wasn't sure what it was. It looked like it was just more hallway, only, it was actually visible. It was as though the lights were slowly beginning to turn back on. And indeed, as they ventured into this lit section, which began very dim, the lights progressively became brighter until quickly returning back to their normal level. Now, Zach could once more clearly see everything around him, including the numbers on the doors.

"Wow," he said aloud. "We've already passed four million rooms?"

"Looks that way," Donovan said. But his voice carried a note of bitter disappointment. "So…did anything around us change? Or are the lights being back on the only thing that's different? Anyone see anything new? Something that makes it look like we're actually fuckin' getting somewhere?" He spat on the carpeted floor. "What a load of shit."

"Wait a second, isn't that something different?" Zephyr asked him, pointing at something and immediately drawing the attention of the entire raid. Zach could actually hear an echo in the hallway produced just from the sound of more than seventy bodies shifting at the same time. Tracing the path of Zephyr's finger, Zach saw that there was indeed something "new." Or at least, something that he hadn't spotted until Zephyr pointed it out just now.

What is that? he wondered.

A bit ahead of him, there was a seemingly random, red laser beam that extended all the way from the left side of the wall to the right side of it. It was the sort of thing one might accidentally trip over if it had been solid. But what was it? Did it have any significance? Donovan clearly didn't appear to think so, as he scoffed at it.

"Who cares, Zeph?" he asked, seemingly content to walk right on by it. "It's just some dumb little—"

"Donovan! What in the fuck are you doing, dude?" Jimmy screamed at him. "Oh my God, stop! Stop, you idiot!" Then there was a loud bang followed by a series of gasps as Jimmy, moving with the utmost of urgency, actually dove into the air and rammed his entire body into Donovan's black, plate-covered chest armor, which caused the man's back to slam into Inn Room 4061045.

"Jimmy!" he barked. "What in the fucking hell was—?"

"Zephyr, stop!" Jimmy shouted, peeling himself off Donovan and then ramming Zephyr into the opposite door, this one labeled 4061046. "Everybody, chill!" he shouted. "Stop moving! You're gonna get us all killed!"

Angry growls came from Donovan, confused stares were returned by Zephyr, but Zach, catching on quickly, became worried for the others in the raid. With the same urgency Jimmy had displayed, he spun around, held up his hand, and gestured for those behind him to stop. "We should definitely listen to Jimmy! I've been in this situation with him before. If he's saying not to move, you'd better not move."

"Yeah, you really better not," Jimmy agreed. And now, as though aggrieved, he glared at Donovan and Zephyr, the both of whom regarded Jimmy with their mouths agape, clearly perplexed. Yet Jimmy continued to stare at them and even mutter something foul under his breath, only a few words of which Zach could ascertain. It was like they'd somehow personally offended him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" he asked. "Are you two stupid?" They stared back at him blankly, and before they could even open their mouths to question what his issue was, he pointed at the laser on the floor. "You guys just almost purposefully walked into the most obvious-ass laser trap I've ever seen."

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Laser trap?" Donovan asked.

Jimmy became even angrier. "I hate how you people don't know shit! Yes, laser trap. When someone walks through that, it causes an explosion. How does nobody know this?"

Zach shrugged. "Excuse us for not having secret simulation knowledge, Jimmy."

"It's not a secret, Zach!" he snapped. "It's obvious."

"No, really, it's not," Rian said. "Why would anyone just think that walking through a little red light would make an explosion happen? Who would just naturally come up with that conclusion?"

"I have to agree with my brother," Lienne said. "You get way too frustrated with us when we don't know something."

"Well, it's not my fault none of ya'll motherfuckers ever played an RPG before."

"And it's not our fault that we weren't born on the last human colony of a dead planet," Maric said, his booming voice carrying a note of disappointment but also gentleness. It never ceased to amaze Zach how such a massive tank like Maric could be so soft-hearted. "Jimmy," he continued, "you need to stop scolding us every time we don't know something."

Jimmy looked like he was about to shout even more loudly, but instead, he merely exhaled. "I can't believe how close we just came to setting that off." Abruptly, he changed the conversation, and in an even stranger way, too. Turning around and heading back towards the raid, he began darting his head around as though looking for something. "Hey, uh, anybody got a gun?"

"I'm sorry, did you say a gun?" Rian asked.

"Yeah."

Kesten snorted. "No, nobody here has a gun, Jimmy. I do think we have an archer, though."

"Okay, we need him."

"Why?"

Jimmy looked annoyed, but he at least answered. "So, uh, in games—err, I mean, simulations—you deal with these by throwing something at them or shooting them from a distance." At this, the adventurers all erupted into a round of laughter, but it was extremely short-lived as Jimmy began glaring at them all. "That's not a joke. I'm deadass. That's what you do when you see a little red laser beam. There are probably explosives hidden inside the walls."

"Wait, he's actually serious?" Zach heard Lienne whisper to Rian, who shrugged.

"I'm not bullshitting you."

"Couldn't we just, I don't know, hop over it?" Rian asked.

"Nah. First of all, if there's one, there'll be more up ahead that are even more dangerous and harder if not impossible to get around. And secondly—and please don't take this the wrong way, little dude—but I don't trust Fluffles not to just run through them and explode them on purpose."

As if to prove his point, Fluffles, who was now being held captive in Maric's arms and struggling, began hissing and scratching. "Fluffles want make boom! Daddy let Fluffles make boom!"

"No!"

Donovan and Zephyr looked at one another, and then both nodded. "Frenk," Zephyr called out. Zach recognized him: he was the father of that teenage mage who'd insulted Alixa earlier. At the mention of his name, he came hurrying over.

"You need me, Donovan?"

"Sure do." He pointed at the laser. "Would you be able to shoot that from a safe distance? The arrow would have to pass right through the laser, assuming I understood Jimmy correctly."

Frenk laughed. "You bet your butt I can."

Although the man had said absolutely nothing wrong or even attention-grabbing whatsoever, Ishina reacted as though he'd just said the most embarrassing thing ever spoken in Galterran history. She began muttering about how he should have stayed behind.

She doesn't know how lucky she is to have a dad like that, he thought.

At any rate, Zach, along with every other adventurer, retreated about thirty doors down the hall in the direction they'd come from. Once there, everyone crouched down and began covering their ears.

"Remember, this shit could be really loud," Jimmy said. "I mean, it could also just be a tiny little explosion, too, but better cover your ears just in case."

With that, Donovan nodded to Frenk. "Take the shot," he said.

The man nodded. "On it," he replied, speaking those two words and only those two words. But you might not get that impression from the way Ishina's entire body cringed. Her entire body. She twisted like a contortionist at just those two words.

"Oh my Gods. He's just so embarrassing!" she blurted out for absolutely no logical or sensible reason—or at least none that Zach could tell. But he decided not to wonder too deeply about it. Instead, he kept his eyes on her father as the man reached into a seemingly empty quiver on his back, causing a sparkling, magical energy to briefly dance off his fingers as one materialized in his hand.

Now, ducking his head lower for cover, Zach observed as Frenk nocked an arrow in his bow, lined up the shot carefully, and without wasting any time, he released it, causing it to zip straight down the hall and, with perfect accuracy, it sailed right through the laser, briefly disrupting its trajectory. But…there was no explosion.

"Oh…kay?" Rian said. "I guess Jimmy was wrong about the—"

A loud, ominous thunk filled the air as, rather than an explosion, the entire floor of the hallway—all of it—slid down and open as though it were a trap door. And before Zach even had time to rationalize what had just happened, he, along with the entire raid, were already being ejected from the inn hallway, falling straight, directly downwards into a black, potentially eternal abyss.

"J-Jimmy!" Zach screamed—as did so many others. "JIMMY!"

"My bad!" he shouted back as they began picking up speed as they fell into a world of total, complete darkness. It was pitch black! Zach, terrified, wondered if they were falling into the nothingness outside of the universe where Angelica's was located. If so, he could not imagine a more terrifying demise.

But no one—no one—was more terrified than Tyson, who released a blood-curdling scream that went on and on and on and on as they fell and continued to fall. His scream was so loud and high-pitched it drowned out all others. It wasn't even the typical "ahh" that everyone else was releasing. It was almost musical. It was more like: "OhHAAAAAA! OhHAAAAAA!" and it ended with an "EEEEEEEEEEEE!"

This, he kept up as they fell, and fell, and fell, and fell, and…actually, it'd been close to twenty seconds now, and yet they were still falling. Did this mean they really were falling into an endless darkness that existed beyond the bounds of the universe? Gods, that would be such an awful, scary way to go. And it was probably the thought going through a whole lot of minds right now, as evident from Rian's sudden bout of rage.

"Jimmy, you fucked us!" he cried. "We're falling into a literal void in space. Great job, Jimmy! Everyone clap for Jimmy's leadership!"

"At least you're weightless out here, you fat-ass bitch! I did you a favor."

"Fuck you, Jimmy! Never let a drunk lead!"

"Man, am I gonna have to spend eternity listening to this pasty-faced, dough-boy-ass motherfucker? Rian, shut your ass up."

"Make me, Jimmy."

"Maybe I will."

"I'm waiting."

"So, come float your fat ass over here, Rian. I'm ready for PVP. Flap your arms and come get some."

"You know I can't see you."

"You can hear me, right? Float over here, Rian. You hot-air-balloon-looking-ass bitch."

"Both of you, stop!" Donovan snapped, and though Zach could not see him—or anyone, for that matter—he could still hear him just fine. "Stop acting like children and think. We can still breathe, can't we? And you can still hear me, yeah? And do you hear that sound of wind hitting the robes some of you fuckers are wearing? That means this ain't what you all think this is."

At once, much of the shouting came to an end—just not from Tyson. And also not from Fluffles, who was making a continuous "WEEEEEEEEEEEE!" as though delighted by all of this.

Zach, for his part, found himself relaxing as he realized that Donovan was correct. "He's right!" Zach shouted out. "We aren't dying or being suffocated or whatever. That means we're actually going somewhere. This isn't some void in space!"

"But where?" Alixa asked.

"No idea, but as far as I can tell, it's probably going to lead us to a—"

And then it happened.

Amid the complete darkness, something appeared. Something that changed the mood so drastically and to such an extent that, despite falling through a pitch-black world or dimension or wherever in the name of Gods they were—the adventurers' cries of terror turned to shouts and cheers of pure joy.

"We did it!" Zephyr shouted, his voice sounding like it came from behind and slightly above Zach. "We found a new dungeon! Good work, everyone!"

"This is exactly what I said would happen!" Jimmy called out, laughing. "I knew this exact thing would happen just the way it did."

Zach also laughed and joined in on the cheer. And then so did every last one of them with the sole exception of Tyson, who appeared to be stuck reacting to this as though they were still in the first few seconds of their fall.

"We're going to die! Sir Calador! Sir Calador, save me, please!"

Zach ignored him. Instead, he turned his attention towards trying to understand where exactly they were. "Eldora, now would be a great time to use that torch ability."

"Already tried, Zach. It's not working here. It's like the darkness is eating the light."

"Where even are we, then?"

From somewhere above Zach, he heard Maric's voice call out to him in reply. "We're likely in the same kind of place we always go through when we travel between dungeons: a 4th dimensional construct that connects two different points in spacetime."

"Okay, but where are we heading?" Lienne asked.

This was a question that, quite obviously, everyone wanted to know the answer to, as they had now been falling for several minutes. Yet, even still, it would actually take several more before they found out.

And so, roughly a half hour after they began their initial fall, Zach, who had actually dozed off, awoke from a free-falling snooze as he felt his speed suddenly and drastically change. He was slowing down.

"S-something is finally happening!" Lienne cried out.

"Look down there!" Jimmy yelled. "I can see something!"

Zach, already free-falling belly down, only needed to open his eyes to see what appeared to be some kind of massive, island-sized structure approaching: one that seemed to exist in the middle of this void-like darkness. And they were all heading straight towards it.

"What in the hell is that?" Rian asked.

As they drew nearer, it looked to Zach like a gigantic mansion. But "gigantic" really didn't do it justice, as this one structure was around the size of all of Elendroth. It was so large that it had to be over a hundred miles in length and about fifty in width.

And they were all dropping straight down towards the center of it.

The speed at which Zach fell slowed to such an extent that, by the time he was just above the roof of this structure, he was barely moving. And as a testament to its size, he could no longer see the beginning or end of it; the structure was actually so large that, once Zach had gotten close enough, it stopped resembling a mansion and instead kind of just looked like the surface of a planet with a perfectly black and starless sky up above.

"Finally," Tyson whimpered. "Finally, solid ground."

As it turned out, he needed to wait just a little bit longer. Rather than land on the red, brick-colored rooftop, they seemed to phase through it, and now, they were in some kind of absurdly huge hall with thousands—no, millions—of paper books stacked against the walls in row after row after row with a huge, spacious indoor area awaiting them. And so, they continued to slowly float down about twenty stories' worth of distance until at last Zach felt himself come to a stop in an upright, standing position.

The only problem? There was now a tremendous, disgustingly huge creature waiting for him. One that was staring directly at him and the other adventurers. Once again, Tyson began to shriek. Several of the adventurers gasped, too.

In terms of physical size, the creature was about as large as the Mare of the Primordial Void, only with a far more threatening appearance. It had the body and mane of a lion, but the wings of a drake. It also had a name above its head, too, one that caused Jimmy to let out a cheer, whereas everyone else began to grumble.

"Boss fight, baby!" Jimmy said enthusiastically. Then he even began to dance. Fluffles started hopping around, joining him. Everyone else just looked upset and tired—at least until the creature spoke to them.

"Hello, adventurers," it said, its voice booming and powerful. "I am Gardreth, the Manticore, and I welcome you to the Grandest Library, where you will be challenged and pushed to your furthest limits in over three hundred floors of glorious raiding!"

Following these words, a collective groan resounded all throughout the raid—from everyone except Jimmy and Fluffles; in fact, the cat was now "paw-fiving" Jimmy, and the two were dancing or hopping around together merrily. "Three hundred floors, Fluff."

"We get all the loot and chicken!"

"Hell yeah we do!"

"I, Gardreth, the Manticore, challenge you to combat!" the manticore roared—literally. He actually roared, causing the hairs on the back of Zach's neck to stand on end.

Fluffles and Jimmy continued to cheer, and the other adventurers continued to groan. "Aww, shit," one of them said with a moan. "I'm so fucking tired, you guys."

"Me too," a young woman agreed.

"Everyone, just…just try to get ready," Donovan said, raising his weapon.

Jimmy and Fluffles, still dancing and hopping and "paw-fiving," only seemed to grow more and more excited.

But then…then the manticore said something else, and all the light and happiness in Jimmy's expression was wiped out of him. It was all just annihilated off his face.

"Today is the day you shall become my meal!" the manticore continued, adding in another roar. "Of course…if you feel that you must first make preparations at Angelica's, you may now use the door to my right and return when you are ready to—"

"Oh, thank the Gods," Lienne said as she just straight-up began walking towards the door with the other adventurers, Donovan and Zephyr included. Zach, sighing with relief, joined them.

"W-wait," Jimmy said. "Wait! We have to do this! All three hundred floors. Wait!"

"Let's go, Jimmy," Donovan said impatiently.

Zach actually felt badly for him. He looked absolutely miserable. "How are you all gonna bitch out like this? It's only a T6. Are you for real? Guys, come on."

No one even bothered to turn their head. That was how out of the question such a request was. Jimmy then started to lie and say that, unless they defeated at least this manticore, the gate to Albion-4 wouldn't spawn. But nobody believed him, and everyone continued to walk to the door.

"Fine," Jimmy said. "I'll solo it."

******

Ten hours later, Zach exited Inn Room 8, which was now technically a "home" of his—though it was still just an ordinary inn room as he hadn't begun transforming it yet—to find that many of the adventurers were still around and about, and a number of them were snoring with their heads flat on Angelica's tables. Zach climbed down the stairs and headed towards Tyson, who was sitting next to Donovan and Zephyr.

Then, abruptly, those who'd come on the raid and who were still awake began tapping one another on the shoulder to rouse them from sleep as Jimmy now walked through Angelica's door covered head to toe in a suit of armor made entirely out of what looked like a lion's fur. He even had wings on his back. "Guess what, bitches," he said, striding arrogantly into the inn. "I got a Legendary Rare item that lets me fly."

Zach blinked, wondering if he was still dreaming, as Jimmy's wings actually began to flap, and he started hovering above and then over the tables.

"Wait, you guys left him behind?" Zach shouted at the drowsy, groggy adventurers, most of whom had chosen to sleep down here rather than return to the hallway. It was like they had some kind of inn room PTSD after the long, endless journey they'd all just been on together.

"I…I thought he was with you," Donovan said.

"He was!"

Jimmy laughed. "I soloed it in just 10 hours. It was weak to poison." He taunted them all as he flew around Angelica's while making the most annoying buzzing sound that Zach had ever heard.

Bzzt! Bzzt!

"Jimmy, take that shit off," Donovan demanded. "You look ridiculous."

"I know I do," Jimmy said, bedecked in an actual lion suit with wings. "It's called rage bait. It's a reminder of your failure." It seemed Jimmy could control the noise level of the buzzing sound to some extent, and without a doubt, he was purposefully flying as loudly as he could and directly over their heads as if to simulate a gnat or a fly. Then, as he flew over them, he began dropping random pieces of Rare and even Epic Rare loot. "Free loot!" he called, watching as several adventurers—in particular, the newer and lower-level ones—began rushing towards it and scooping up whatever they could.

This is the kind of antic that will be talked about for fifty years, Zach thought with a chuckle.

But Jimmy was really starting to push his luck as he dropped a two-handed hammer that broke a table and smashed three plates. "No flying in here!" Angelica shouted at him, running out from behind her counter. Her name flashed red, and at this, Jimmy seemed to come to his senses. He immediately landed and apologized. Then, she frowned at him. "And by the way, Jimmy, you really do look ridiculous. I hope you don't walk around like that."

"I'm never taking it off," Jimmy said.

Zach again chuckled. "Jimmy, if you had any idea of how stupid you look."

"Oh, I know. Like I said, it's called rage bait."

What is wrong with this guy?

Zach laughed for the third time—and then immediately stopped as he realized that he had, like, five hours to contact Mr. Oren, who was probably freaking out. All of them were. And Tyson! Tyson was missing—had been for almost two weeks. There were just so many things in the real world that were happening right now, and Zach's absence had probably created a nightmare scenario for so many people. He needed to get out of here and make a few calls: Vim, Haisel, and Mr. Oren, in that order.

No, Kalana first.

Gods, he had so much to do. "Does anyone have an exit door in Galterra?" he asked aloud.

"Where ya looking to go, kid?" an adventurer he didn't know asked.

"Anywhere, I don't care. As long as it's North Bastia."

"Whispery Woods good enough?"

"Yup. That's fine. Perfect, even."

The man smiled at a lady friend sitting next to him. "I'll be right back, one second." And with that, he got out of his seat, walked over to the door, and simply opened it. "There you go."

"Thank you!"

"Not a problem."

Zach hurried through it. He needed to get back immediately.