Limitless Path

She walked around the area, making sure that none of the 'captives' were about to die, and Blood moved out to scout. Beth moved upwind of the seven then, not wanting to think too much about what her punches had done to their insides, particularly that girl with the polearm. Smelled like a bunch of her insides had wound up on her outsides; specifically in her underwear. Beth wasn't envious of that clean-up job.

None of the seven stirred in the next five minutes while Blood guarded the perimeter and Beth watched them. Beth suddenly slashed out with her right arm, her greatsword appearing mid-swing before being stopped with a light *clink*. She turned her head to the right to see John with one finger held up, stopping the edge of her blade with that one finger while glowering at her.

"You knew it was me," he snapped.

"Keeping you on your toes, old timer," Beth replied, her blade disappearing.

"What the fuck is this shit?" John asked, looking around with his nose wrinkling. It was hard to tell if he was being literal or not.

"Bad guys? Assholes? Dunno, but they wanted the dungeon here so much they were willing to attack us. And that was after we showed our badges and were explaining how we were here on official business," Beth explained.

"Damn greenhorns," John muttered before moving around so fast he seemed to just appear and disappear. Every time he appeared beside one of the members of Team Bronson, he put what was essentially a pair of advanced handcuffs on them and injected them with a lower-level healing ampoule.

"Can't believe you wasted ampoules on them," Beth said once he had cuffed and cured all of them.

"These ones are kinda shit," John muttered, showing her one.

Lesser Restorative Ampoule

{These ampoules provide a quick boost of instant healing to help rapidly patch up serious wounds before most of the remaining effect increases regenerative rates over the next twenty minutes.}

"I see," Beth nodded with a murmur.

"Yeah, they're split more like twenty-five to seventy-five, with that twenty-five percent being a burst just to make sure the person doesn't keel over. The other seventy-five percent boosts regeneration and self-healing effects for a decent bit of time, but it's not a massive boost. Even less so with this being the cheapest Restorative Ampoule, which is more than enough for you zero rebirth noobies," John said.

“Wasn’t Tazeen sending ‘several’ of the Senior Enforcers?” she asked.

“Did I say I was alone?” he asked with a big smirk.

“Point,” she replied with a nod. She then asked, "So, what now?" nodding down at the seven bound, unconscious individuals.

"Now, we handle it, and that 'we' is the Senior Enforcers," he replied, shaking his head at the group. "You know we have the power to punish, and we'll certainly be using it. Normally, we have the ability to issue a fine, which we use for a lot of cases. CRA is special in that we can issue people a fine and if they don't pay within X amount of time, they get penalized. If they can't pay, they can come back to us and work the debt off, though there's strict conditions on how much the fine can be and how much work we can make them do, among other things. Wouldn't want people abusing the system.

"And speaking of abusing the system," he continued. "If'n you haven't read up on it yet, we do have internal auditors who check shit. They ain't likely to bother a lowly Silver, but once you get to Gold they definitely will be reviewing your conduct, and they cross-check each other. Gotta make sure you ain't skimping on missions, or abusing your authority over contract agreements, or taking advantage of people by saying they did shit wrong and fining them even if they're clean." He shook his head before adding under his breath, with a bit of a shudder, "And don't mess with the auditors. Some scary motherfuckers."

"You need our help with anything else, or can we get to doing this dungeon?" Beth asked him as he seemed to get lost in thought, his eyes getting a faraway look.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, don't worry. I got this," he shook himself before picking all seven up with some kind of spell. "I'll take these back and get them squared away with ol' Taz-boy. He really hates people messing with our members, so he ain't exactly gonna be gentle with these stupid fuckers."

"Blood and I are gonna hit this dungeon up then. Just give us a call if you or Tazeen need anything on this," Beth said then.

"Nah, we got it, girlie," John said with a slight shake of his head. "We trust your word that they were the aggressor. We'll file a report and write the whole thing up. Tazeen'll probably want you to take a peek at it before he submits it, but you can do that shit later, it won't be urgent. We'll process 'em and punish 'em in the meantime; don't need the report finalized if guilt is obvious."

"Thanks, John," Beth said, echoed by Blood who had walked over after finishing scouting.

"Hey, what I'm here for; nice, relaxing jaunt on a new planet to get five years of rest," he replied, rolling his eyes on the last part before he and the seven KO'd people disappeared with nothing but a very slight whoosh.

"So, about that dungeon," Beth said, not able to see Blood's eyeroll but pretty sure of it based on the very slight tilt of her head and the one ear flicking.

"It's there," Blood said calmly. "We've got more lizardmen first."

"Oh, joy," Beth replied flatly.

The rest of the cleanup took an hour or so, just for them to finally have a clear path to the entrance to the dungeon. The lizardmen's weapons were decent, but Beth didn't really think the mana steel was worth trying to stack a ton of them in her necklace or forge room. The scales were likely worth something, and Blood spent some time as their resident leatherworker harvesting some of them, but they were up against the classic dilemma of taking a bunch of time to harvest something of at best moderate value versus spending that same time trying to get much greater rewards.

And speaking of those greater rewards, Beth walked down a short tunnel in a small hill that seemed to be the true location of the dungeon entrance. The tunnel was roughly carved through the dirt and stone and stretched about a hundred feet, far enough back that it was noticeably cooler than the late summer heat in the large room Beth walked into at the end. The room was about thirty feet to a side and was essentially a cube with rough stone walls and no lights, though that was not much of an impediment to Beth at this point, especially with the little bit of light that managed to filter down the tunnel. She examined the tall arch at the center of the room with a critical eye, looking closely at the red and black pillars made of some kind of stone polished so smoothly it was glossy. The top of the arch was pure black and the portal in the center was a nearly pure white with a few streaks of red around the edges, which she noted idly before examining the portal with her eyes.

First Hall of the Red Lizard King

{This Hall is the first seat of power of the old Drakkar king that first conquered the Wyrm World. The Hall is as it was in days of old, with some of the greatest of the Red Drakkar warriors standing guard over the ancient armaments. Conquer the Hall and challenge the ancient king.

Properties: Closed, Very Large, Greater Mana Well

Starting Level 210}

It was the first time she had seen Very Large in the dungeon properties, which she assumed meant it was an order of magnitude bigger than Large. It was also the first time she had been able to see the starting level of a dungeon, and while that was very good overall, it wasn't great in this case. They were still at level one hundred eighty-eight, so diving into something twenty-two levels above them, particularly when that gap included the huge boost beasts got at level two hundred, wasn't something that she thought they were ready for yet.

"That doesn't look great," Blood said after entering the room and glancing at the gate.

"Yeah, this has become an actual problem now," Beth replied with a sigh.

"How so?" Blood asked.

"You think we can clear this if we're level two hundred," Beth responded with a question of her own.

"Maybe?" Blood's ears twitched and she shrugged.

"Level two hundred ten is the starting level, by the way," Beth emphasized. "That means it could go who knows how high, maybe even level two-fifty. Think we could handle that?"

"No," Blood said definitively.

"Which means we need to level like crazy, and even then, we might be in trouble. We need to rebirth, and then level back up to two hundred plus, and we have to do it fast, or we're in the middle of a beast tide," Beth explained.

"I'm not looking forward to this," Blood sighed in response.

"Here," Beth said, handing Blood a crystal.

"Oops," replied Blood. "Forgot that the cooldown was up."

The lupine woman then held the crystal to her forehead for a few moments before giving a bit of a shake and handing it back to Beth. She put the Spatial Step crystal back in her necklace and then led the way out of the little tunnel with the dungeon entrance. They stopped for a moment so she could phone home to Tazeen and tell him what was happening.

"Ms. Beth," he answered.

"Update, Tazeen. Dungeon starts at level two-ten and goes up from there. Blood and I are gonna speedrun a True Rebirth and then level back to two hundred, but it might take us a while. We cleared some of the beasts around the entrance, but that's only a small factor in a tide, so somebody else might need to clear it once over the next couple months to stop a tide. Don't know if that would invalidate Blood's mission."

"I will have Navere do it. He enjoys challenging himself to perfect his sword technique in low-level instances by using nothing but a stick or penknife. He will clear it once in a couple weeks to bleed off some mana, and likely again a month after. That will only be enough to slow the approaching tide, allowing your mission to remain valid, but I would urge a cautious haste, Ms. Beth," he explained in reply.

"Got it, Tazeen. Thanks," she said before disconnecting. She turned to Blood and said, "Time to farm. Hard."

The lupine woman frowned, though Beth couldn't see it through her mask, and both her ears drooped a little. Despite that, she followed along gamely as Beth led the way to their grinding spot before opening her gate power. This time they were even more determined to go fast and to get it done quickly, forgoing returning to the CRA Hall after their usual two weeks to stay out until it was done. Starting at one hundred eighty-eight, that meant it would be about six weeks or a little more objective time, with a subjective time of over a year, before they were able to hit two hundred.

Fortunately, the grinding gave Blood a chance to train her new skill to the limit of Copper, adding a major boost to her arsenal. It also gave them just enough stat points to be even for everything, allowing them to 'waste' basically nothing when they eventually did their rebirth. And speaking of that rebirth, they were at two hundred and could see their lists for what was required for the True Rebirths, and just how much of a pain that was. Beth needed fifty medium-grade beast cores, ten kilograms of pure mithril, and one heart of a fell beast, while Blood needed beast cores, six royal wolf hearts, and what sounded like a very precious gem. Beth reviewed their stat pages before they headed back to the Hall.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Brawler

Level

200

Strength

552

Dexterity

300

Endurance

400

Intelligence

60

Wisdom

60

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress' Inheritor

Skills

Acid Resistance Copper[8]

Ancient World Gate[2]

Beastly Body Silver[9]

Blacksmithing Apprentice[9]

Celestial Annihilation Silver[7]

Crush Silver[9]

Earth Resistance Copper[8]

Flame Resistance Copper[9]

Focused Meditation Silver[0]

FrostFlame Eye Silver[5]

Ice Resistance Copper[8]

Indomitable Heart Silver[4]

Lightning Resistance Copper[8]

Lordly Reconstruction Silver[8]

Monstrous Blow Silver[3]

Pain Tolerance Silver[9]

Spatial Step Copper[9]

Swift Silver[7]

Swords Journeyman[9]

Toxic Resistance Silver[2]

Unarmed Journeyman[9]

Wealth

2d 71p 10g 9s 5c

Emblems

CRA Silver Badge (150CP)

Bonds

Blood

Name

Blood

Race

Red Wolf Queen

Level

200

Strength

360

Dexterity

500

Endurance

300

Intelligence

60

Wisdom

60

Free Points

0

Titles

-

Skills

Acid Resistance Copper[3]

Blood Queen's Claws Silver[9]

Earth Resistance Copper[6]

Eyes of Hallowed Truth Silver[1]

Flame Resistance Copper[8]

Ice Resistance Copper[7]

Leatherworking Apprentice[6]

Lightning Resistance Copper[6]

Meditation Copper[9]

Pain Tolerance Silver[6]

Regeneration Copper[9]

Rending Bite Copper[9]

Spatial Step Copper[9]

Swift Silver[9]

Toxic Resistance Silver[1]

Unarmed Journeyman[4]

Wealth

1d 96p 1g 12s 4c

Emblem

CRA Copper Badge (100CP)

She was pretty damn happy with their final result for their first cycle, even if she was a little worried that they had taken a bit too much time. Compared to others of the same sort of level and experience, they were far ahead, but Beth still wasn't as happy with their progress as she would like. They made it back to the Hall before she could shake off the thoughts, stopping to speak with Tazeen briefly before heading for their room.

"Ms. Beth. Ms. Blood," he said. "The dungeon is contained, but barely. I hope you can find what you require if you intend on a True Rebirth."

"We actually have most of the items already; at least, I think so," Beth replied. "We'll check with Jaq after we clean up and see if he has the rest."

"I believe he will, but do not tarry too long," Tazeen said with a slight nod.

"What about our new best friend, Bronson?" Beth asked.

"They have been…dealt with," Tazeen replied coldly. "They will likely have to do some scut work to make up the difference, but I have them in hand."

"Good to know they're being properly taken care of," Beth answered firmly. "We'll take our leave then. Let us know if there's a change."

"Will do," he replied stoically.

The two made their way down to the room quickly, showering and cleaning up at a rapid pace before they were out again, it still being early enough that Sabs wasn't present in the room. Their next destination was Jaq's little old shop, hoping that the surly cyborg would have the last few things they needed for their first rebirths.