Limitless Path

It was early afternoon before Beth roused herself and dragged Blood away from her little smoke session with Rell, the wolf complaining doggedly about the disturbance. She was happy to have Blood sit around and do nothing if the lupine woman desired, but she wanted her there for the meeting with the Hall Master before she was set to her own devices. Beth also knew that Blood would keep up with things; despite how it always looked and seemed, she knew the wolf was often working even when sprawled on the couch. She would be meditating and pondering her skills, or doing something to focus on her humanization, or even doing some studying on her communicator.

"We're going to meet with the Hall Master, then we're going to bed," Beth said to Blood as they walked across town.

When they entered the Hall, they moved over to the front counter, waiting for a few minutes in line before they got to an attendant. The woman they spoke with gave off a bit of a bored air, likely because she was fielding a lot of very tedious questions about how to properly fill in an application form. She noticeably perked up at Beth and Blood's approach, especially once they flashed their Silver Emblems, asking what she could do for them.

"We need to see the Hall Master," Beth said with a sigh. She continued before the woman could say anything, "Sorry, but we talked to the Red Castle Hall Master a few days ago and we need to talk about the same issue to this Hall Master. Can you tell them it's the people who talked with Hall Master Tad a few days ago, if they need to double-check?"

"Sure, give me one moment," the woman replied, bringing up a screen, though likely piping it internally through her communicator. After she spoke with someone, presumably the Hall Master, based on the amount of silent nodding she was doing, she then asked them if they could wait another few moments. Eventually, she said, "Sorry about that, but the Hall Master did a quick check and is willing to meet you right now, if you have time. They're in room 8A12."

"No problem, sorry for the trouble," Beth said, giving the woman a nod before heading back further into the building. It took only a minute before they were knocking on the door to the Hall Master's office, entering when a woman's voice emerged from the wall panel inviting them in. They found the office much the same as Tad's, though it boasted floor-to-ceiling windows on the far side that let in great quantities of sunlight and presented a stunning view of the center of the city.

The woman who had invited them in, the Hall Master herself, was short and thin, with long white hair and glowing red eyes. Her skin was a healthy tan and she wore a long dress made from some kind of dark red and black material that looked quite fancy. She rose as they entered and, much like Tad, gestured them to the seating area she had set up to the side. Beth and Blood took a small couch while she sat across from them in a deep armchair, relaxing back into the cushions with a sigh before a steaming cup of tea appeared in her hand.

"I'm Cassandra Allerain, but just call me Cass. I spoke, rather briefly, with Tad about your business. This relates to the Silver Hammers and to the Lord of Traversal?" she introduced herself and then asked.

"Yeah, that's right," Beth said, leaning back in the couch and stretching her arms out along the back. "We met with a member of the governor's staff this morning and got totally stonewalled, despite throwing around our weight. They didn't really seem to care that much about the Lord of Traversal, which says…something, I’m sure, but strangely enough, they got pretty nervous when I threw around a little weight. They seemed particularly upset when I talked about getting the CRA involved and having them get to the bottom of things."

"Well, that's a lot of feelings and conjecture," Cass said. "But, what I will say is that the CRA has a universal power of adjudication, allowing us to mediate situations. The governor might have a lot of weight on this world, politically speaking, but we have agreements with the people in charge of her entire empire that go way, way over her head. I could definitely see how that would cause some concern, getting us involved in what's already ready to turn into a huge problem."

"You think that's it? She's worried the CRA will come in and play peacemaker and what, it won't go well for them?" Beth asked.

"Partially," Cass replied, sipping her tea. "I suspect she's much, much more concerned with our ability to conduct third party audits and make recommendations. Additionally, she might be even more concerned about our ability to not just point out directly criminal activity, but prosecute it."

"We can interfere in their legal system like that?" Beth asked, raising a brow, noting that Blood was merely turning back and forth, watching the conversation like a tennis match.

"Oh, we can do quite a lot, trust me," Cass replied with a sigh. "With just as much responsibility and scrutiny. But yes, if things get nasty, we might audit them, which might turn up something best left in the back of the books, if you know what I mean."

"I'm guessing, just based on what we've seen and know so far, that the audit is what had her pissin' herself," Beth said with a slight smirk, getting an agreeing grunt from Cass in response.

"I don't doubt it," Cass said after another sip. "Most places have some small level of graft, and we often ignore a bit of it, but if this big bullshit with the trade unions is really about some crazy embezzlement scheme, there's going to be hell to pay. And hours of paperwork." She muttered the last part under her breath.

"So, is there any pressure we can bring at this point?" Beth asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

"Do you have evidence?" Cass asked.

"Nothing solid," Beth replied with a shrug.

"And are you actually the Lord of Traversal himself?" Cass asked, her tone clearly suggesting she was going through the motions for Beth's sake.

"Of course not," Beth said with another shrug.

"Then you're going to have to get something more compelling to ask for us to do an audit. You won't need something quite as serious to get us to adjudicate, but that's going to be its own pain in the ass," Cass explained before finishing her tea.

"Hey, can I ask something random?" Beth asked, leaning forward in preparation to stand.

"Sure, go ahead," Cass said, waving a hand lazily.

"What's your eye power? I haven't seen anyone with glowing eyes. Or rather, not anyone that has eyes glowing without actively doing something with their eye power," Beth said.

"Oh, yeah, I don't really mind," Cass said, showing Beth a screen with a flick of her finger.

Eye of the Blood Sovereign Diamond[1]

{These are eyes of one who has total rulership over blood, a being that has seen and understood all of its secrets. Nothing about the power, movement, or strength of blood can be concealed from your sight. Activating this skill will allow you to command all blood that enters your sight.}

"Holy shit," breathed Beth, frozen right before trying to stand.

"Haven't been shown a diamond-level eye skill before?" Cass asked with a laugh.

"Nope, never seen any description of a diamond-level skill. Seems really strong," Beth commented.

"Oh yeah, it's quite powerful. It's also influenced by just how powerful I am, including everything; stats, magic strength, mana physique, and even any reinforcement to my soul," Cass explained. "It also has a ton of depth the description only hints at, but I can't give all my secrets away for free. You'll see when you eventually get a gold-level skill."

"I'm sure I will," Beth replied with a chuckle, giving Blood a not-so-subtle elbow when she was about to interject. "Thanks so much for your time, Hall Master."

"Hey, once you're at Silver, you're basically a full member. You still don't have all the responsibilities and privileges, but you're not a Copper anymore. You're gonna be treated better, including meeting a busy Hall Master when you need to. Once you get to Gold, all barriers disappear, so keep working hard."

"Thanks and don't worry, I've got Gold in my sights," Beth said with a chuckle.

"You have to be at least Empowered for that, however, so you've got some time," Cass said, waving to dismiss them as she got up and returned to her desk.

Beth pulled Blood along and took her back down to their room, making their way through the main building first and stopping at the cafeteria to get some food. They didn't stay there and eat, taking their stuff to-go, perfectly acceptable for a Silver member to do, and retreated to their room. The amount of dishes they carried barely fit on the large, low table in the center of the living room in their suite, but the dishes didn't stay full for long, so it wasn't a great concern.

"You want me to take these back up?" Blood asked, Beth just grunting an assent. "Alright, I'll be back in a minute."

Blood disappeared, returning everything to the cafeteria while Beth got comfortable on the couch, sprawling out with her arms across the back of the upright portion. Blood found her like that a minute later when she returned, making sure the door was closed before diving on the couch herself, curling up with Beth. With the way her breathing became very even after just a moment Beth figured she was meditating, though it was possible she was just sleeping.

Beth held out for a bit, but she soon drifted off, snoring quietly as she still tried to recover from her ordeal of pushing a skill to gold. Blood roused for a moment, checking that Beth was asleep and alright before nestling against her and resuming her meditations. Blood was doing just as Beth had suspected, working on her skills and, mainly, her humanization while meditating. Humanization in particular was a thing most sapient beasts didn't focus on for many years, as it was a very, very difficult matter to master, and the slow and grinding progress was both tedious and only gave very small increases to strength. Blood, however, had a natural talent for humanization, especially when pushed in a difficult fight, and she would often meditate on her gains or to push her level even higher.

The afternoon and evening passed like this when Beth was woken up by a call on her communicator. She checked her surroundings as soon as she woke, lucid immediately thanks to her stats, finding Blood basically laying on top of her. She checked her internal screen to see that it was Rell giving her a ring, and she answered with a thought.

"Rell," Beth said.

"Lassie," Rell replied. "We have an update, for now. Ain't good, but it ain't bad. Looks like we'll be stayin' in the capital for a while."

"Hit me with it," Beth said.

"We got a meeting in a week, that's seven days from now, and we were able to stir enough of a hornet's nest that the woman from today and the governor's trade accountant will both be there. There'll likely be some other busybodies there, and I expect the meeting to be a long, boring waste of time, but we're spinnin' our wheels forward a bit."

"You want us to meet you guys at the hotel that morning?" Beth asked.

"Aye, lassie, that'll do fine. You two are at loose ends until then. Remember, this is the capital, plenty of things both to do and to buy. It's a center of commerce, after all," Rell explained with a chuckle.

"Got it. There's definitely some stuff we need to pick up, and that's outside of all the stuff we need for our next rebirth. Thanks, Rell," Beth said.

"No problem, lassie, we'll see ya in a week," he replied before ending the call.

Seeing the time, Beth lifted Blood off herself, to several grumbling protests, before throwing some clothes on and heading up to get some food. She grabbed some for Blood as well, also getting herself two mugs of hunting spice, before heading back down to the room with her bounty. Blood perked right up at the meal, and they ate rather quickly with Beth returning the plates and dishes up to the cafeteria when they were done. She returned to find Blood "meditating" on the couch, and joined her for the rest of the night.

Beth was up early the next morning and ready quickly, even considering she showered off before heading out the door. She was going to take Rell up on his advice and look around the city, particularly if she could find any shops that had good prices. There was always the CRA commissary, but what they carried was limited, to a certain extent, and sometimes they didn't really have the best prices, whether it was buying with coins or with their points. Also, like Rell had said, it was a center for commerce, with the planet being a hub where many useful items were both created as well as exchanged.

Blood had expressed no interest in the shopping trip, but then she also did her own shopping and carousing at times when Beth was occupied, as demonstrated by the acquisition of the pipe and leaf at some point. Beth's first plan was just to…wander around and see what there was. She had plenty of time to do whatever, both a whole week before anything important was happening and an entire day just today she could burn. Couple that with a quite fast walking speed and easy access to shops and businesses around the city center, and she didn't need a set plan to be able to cover much of the important stuff in just one day.

It was nice to just be able to walk around and relax, something she hadn't really done in quite some time. The single sun this planet orbited was just rising in the sky as she started down the street the CRA Hall sat on, moving towards the very center of the city as her first destination. She meandered a bit, walking to a street just a block away from the capitol building itself, finding quite a number of high-rise buildings the whole length of the street. The smallest of the buildings had a footprint of about a quarter of a city block and was about fifteen stories tall, while the tallest building in the city center was over fifty. It likely would have been higher, but it was an additional energy expenditure to extend the mana shielding that blocked the city from the air, one that the current government was clearly unwilling to pay.

The first building Beth entered happened to be the shortest on the street that she had identified earlier, and the entire thing was a single shopping complex. Not only did it extend fifteen stories up, but it also stretched a number of floors underground, and every single bit of space was dedicated to selling something. This included two different floors that had bazaar space where individuals could purchase a stall and sell their own goods, whatever they may be, as long as they followed the law and the bazaar's own loose regulations.

The first shop Beth entered was one selling minerals, as even taking it easy, she was thinking about their progression. Both she and Blood needed rare minerals for their True Rebirths, and she was hoping that she could at least find some available for purchase, even if their prices might be extreme. She was still in need of more than half of her diamond hearts while Blood still needed ten Ruby Hearts, though she didn't expect to find enough of the rare minerals in one shop, or even one trade city, for them to just buy outright. She also needed a Star Essence, which would often be counted as a mineral, though she wasn't sure if a place that dealt mainly in ore and gems would have such a thing.

She wouldn't say she was delighted after talking to one of the several workers in the store, but she was quite pleased to find they had two Diamond Hearts for sale, both of which she bought after very limited negotiation. Such things were rare and valuable, but weren't in super high demand for a number of reasons, so the clerk was more than happy to cut a slight deal since Beth was buying both of their stock at once. She still learned what a deal Baelvyr had given her by charging her the four platinum coins per heart, as she wound up paying twelve for the two, fifty percent more than what her instructor asked for.