Limitless Path

"Ready?" Rell asked them once they were re-adjusted. "We're gonna move faster."

"Lead on," Beth replied simply.

Rell gave a grunt of acknowledgement, starting to jog down the road, slowly accelerating until he was running. Beth and Blood followed behind him, both activating Swift to keep up, though they were only spending a mild amount of mana to run it. Itharion didn't have any trouble keeping up either, and it became clear as time slowly wore on that they were following Rell because he was the slowest of the group. He wasn't sprinting, but he was running at the highest possible speed he could maintain over distance and none of the others were struggling with keeping that pace.

Four hours and several battles later saw them moving through the tail end of a north-south stretching mountain chain and coming out onto a large area of open plains. They had made it to the capital without encountering anything overwhelmingly strong or any crazy situation, though Beth still wasn't one hundred percent sure why they hadn't just teleported. Despite loving gold, she didn't see what the point of saving fifteen or twenty golds was by wasting most of a day running to arrive at the destination tired and needing further rest and even sleep. She dismissed the thoughts as they rolled up to the gates, stopping to check in with the guards.

The process of gaining entry was rather straightforward, especially once Beth and Blood showed their badges. They had to answer a series of questions about who they were, what they were doing in the capital, and how long they intended to stay. After five minutes of questions and answers, they were let in with an admonishment to stay out of trouble and were free to move through the capital.

"Damn," Beth cursed as they walked down the main thoroughfare.

"What is it, lassie? Ya take an injury in that last fight?" Rell asked with some concern.

"No, I just realized we paid for ten days at the Red Castle CRA Hall and used one. I wasted ninety silvers for nothing," Beth grumbled.

"Hah, I'm sure they could give ya a partial refund," Rell chuckled. "Shouldn't pay for those so much in advance anyway."

"Maybe I can get the Hall here to cancel that one?" Beth said as the four continued walking.

"Wouldn't hold your breath on that," Rell said with a chuckle as they made their way to a large building still in an outer district. Beth realized when they walked into the lobby that it was a hotel, a fairly nice one, though it was still an outer district hotel. It was clearly where Rell and Itharion intended to stay while they were in the capital, but Beth had already stated their intention. The CRA was always both nice and affordable, as well as having plenty of facilities they could take advantage of. On top of that, they would likely be in the capital for some time, which would give them some time to register for and compete in a few ranked matches. Beth's record was already in the positive since the matches against Bai's group had been official, but she didn't really count those. Besides, they weren’t matches on the Ladders, the overall rank system for different categories of fights, just official fights that would show up on their records. The Ladders were a different thing altogether.

"I take it you two are staying here?" Beth asked as they approached the counter.

"It's a nice place, lassie, and not at all expensive for a capital city," Rell commented.

"We'll stick to the CRA," Beth shrugged in response, agreeing to meet the two at the hotel the next morning before she led Blood back out onto the street.

Walking across the city, she noticed one key difference with Red Castle, and that was just how many people were out and about in the late afternoon. The streets were packed with all manner of folks from all manner of species, all hurrying across the city with some clear important purpose in mind. Beth was getting quite used to major cities in this new fantasy reality and didn't think much of the mass of people other than noting the numbers.

The CRA Hall in Lake Hill was even larger than in Red Castle, and covered a very significant footprint in the city's northern district. The CRA was such an institution that nobody, even planetary governors, really thought about it, but that was many diamonds worth of real estate they occupied. The Hall was impressive as always, and it was decorated in the same way as the Hall in Red Castle, with a very unsubtle Black motif that was highly represented in the flooring, ceilings, and the outer walls. Walking into the lobby, they saw the usual arrangements of counters and seating, with quite a few people entering and exiting as well as in the seating and standing in line. Beth joined one of the lines at the main counter as was usual, waiting for a chance to rent a room.

It was finally her turn after twenty minutes or so of waiting; a dwarf, thickset even for his people, assisting her. He started with the usual, "Welcome to the Black Hall of the CRA. What can I do for you today?"

"Two things," Beth said as she leaned on the counter before presenting her badge. "First, I'd like to rent a room, if you have any available?"

"Sorry, lass, but we only have a few one silver rooms available in the underworks," the dwarf apologized with a slight wince.

"That's fine, we're used to it," she replied, glancing at Blood, who lilted her head to the side and twitched an ear. "Also, can I get two keys?"

"Sure, lassie," he said, quickly making up two keys. Beth placed five silvers on the counter, not wanting to pay for too much and get burned again, but not as concerned with a one silver room.

"Alright, you're in 5B44," he said, handing them the keys. "Now, what else can I help you with?"

"Uh, I kinda made a mistake yesterday. We checked into the Red Castle Hall for ten nights but only stayed there one before we found out we needed to come to the capital. Is there any way you can get ahold of them and tell them we don't need the room and maybe, uh, get us some of the money back? Please?" she asked, giving a nervous smile at the end.

"Well, we normally don't do refunds, but that policy bends a little once you get to Silver or higher," he grumbled back, holding up a finger to signal her to wait. He made a call to the other CRA and spoke with them for a minute, having her wait the whole duration, before hanging up with them. Finally, he said to her, "We'll give ya back forty silvers, and I don't want no bellyachin’ about it."

"That's better than I expected," Beth said with a small sigh of relief. The man dropped a pile of coins on the counter in neat stacks and Beth made them disappear almost the second he had placed them. She thanked him for his efforts and then led Blood down the hall and into the back of the building, moving down into the underworks under the arena and to their room, where their first order of business was showering and cleaning their gear.

After eating, relaxing for a while, and then resting for the night, they were up early the next day, with Beth wanting to take a bit of time just to poke around the CRA Hall before meeting up with the boys. She would also like to explore the city, but that was something that would likely take days, if not weeks, just to get a good impression of the place, so better to get their attempt at scheduling a meeting with the governor over with first. She made sure she and Blood were cleaned and well-fed before they left the room for the day, making sure the door was closed behind them. Not that she didn't trust the CRA, but she certainly didn't trust everyone in it, or that could get access to the building. Though, they didn't leave much laying about in their room, as everything was in their necklaces, but it was still more that they didn't want any nasty surprises when coming back after a long day or series of days.

Beth's first priority was, obviously, to locate the cafeteria, in much the same location as it always was and operating like it normally did. They wandered the main building for a bit, finding the library in a different location along with a bunch of high-end rooms, all of which were occupied. The arena was bigger than their home arena by at least thirty percent, and the stands and private boxes all were of an even greater quality than the already nice setup Beth was used to. The underworks was also more expansive, covering ten levels and spreading out into a larger floor plan than her home Hall.

The engineering, both mundane and magical, that supported the place and allowed them to do so much with the space was incredibly impressive, but Beth felt she had enough on her plate already with her current jobs, her desire to keep leveling, and her blacksmithing. Deep analysis of how the CRA and others did such complex construction tasks would have to wait, though she could certainly enjoy the fruits of others' labor. Those fruits also including a fully equipped forge free for any member to use, with a large amount of mana copper and mana steel stock available for Silver members to work with.

Before she could get embedded in the forge too deeply, it was time for their meeting with the boys, and Blood pulled her away from the forge and got them moving. It was still a bit early, not quite mid-morning, and they made it over to the hotel with plenty of time to spare. They found Rell already up and sitting on a bench out front, enjoying a good smoke, greeting them with a tip of his pipe when they approached.

"Lassies," he said in his deep, gravelly voice.

"What are you smoking in that, anyway?" Beth asked, eyeing the pipe dubiously.

"People call it Sweet Water Leaf, a form of plant that's easy to grow in wet places but dries real well," he explained. "It's a very mild stimulant to most and is not usually physically addictive, for as much as that's worth."

"Yeah, still don't think I'll become a smoker any time soon," Beth said, watching Blood sniff the smoke before holding out her hand. Rell passed her the pipe readily and the lupine woman took a deep pull, coughing out slightly bluish smoke as Rell laughed and Beth rolled her eyes.

"It's not-cough-that bad," Blood said as she cleared her throat.

"Riiiiight," Beth replied sarcastically.

"It's not for everyone, lassie," Rell chuckled as he took the pipe back and took a long draw. "Sweet Water Leaf is pretty common, you can get it just about anywhere, including the CRA vendors. Just know there's a lot worse out there that ya could get into."

"I'm still fine, whatever she thinks of it," Beth said with a head shake before continuing. "Are we ready to get this terrible shit over with?"

"Itharion's almost ready," Rell said. "When he's down, we'll go."

Their fourth musketeer showed up a few minutes later, and Rell snuffed his pipe before they started walking. They took their time making their way to the governmental buildings, knowing they'd likely be doing a lot of waiting either way, and so they preferred to take some time with something at least moderately enjoyable. It helped that it was quite a nice day and the city's shielding helped with moderating the effects of weather, from what Rell told them. Not that a sunny, warm day with a light breeze needed moderating, but it was an interesting idea.

The governmental buildings were suitably impressive, and suitably dreary, being a massive edifice of dark gray stone with barely any carving or ornamentation. The inside was similar, though it was more of a soulless feeling in the air, considering the polished marble floors and warm wood paneling on the walls made it appear more pleasant than its drab exterior. It was something within the very nature of the building itself that screamed "bureaucratic tedium," in a way only a governmental office run by a greedy and callous regime could.

Rell lead the way towards a specific counter in the spacious lobby, all four of their boots making a sort of ringing click on the polished floors, their group joining a short line of others. It took a surprising amount of time considering the conversations Beth overheard, mainly about permitting issues or disputes with contracts signed by the governor; nothing that painted a great picture of what was currently happening on the planet. When it was finally their turn, the woman operating the counter, a prim and fastidious-looking lady with not an ounce of humor or personal warmth present in her person, coldly demanded to know their business.

Rell seemed perfectly happy to take this bullet, so Beth let him, the dwarf engaging the woman in a long conversation about trade, working his way around to the topic of setting up a meeting with the governor. He had to go through a roundabout means by invoking several issues with trade that would fall on the governor to resolve, invoking his position as an employee of the Lord of Traversal for the extra clout. The woman did everything in her power to stiff-arm Rell, and the conversation dragged on and on, taking more than half-an-hour. Beth was pretty sure Blood fell asleep on her feet by the end of it, the wolf's breathing too slow and even to be anything other than her meditating or sleeping.

Rell didn't actually get them a meeting, of course, but instead got them through to the next level of paper pusher. That was a level they confronted immediately, again with Rell handling the negotiation with the more animate and friendly, but still stonewalling man. Twenty-plus minutes later saw them moving on to the next boss, as Beth thought of it, which was a meeting that finally saw some progress. That progress was to schedule them a meeting with the governor's undersecretary the day after next, which left them an entire empty day plus the rest of this one free to their own devices.

Emerging from the building into the early afternoon light, Rell said, "Whew, always hate that part of the job."

"Well, we got past the first three bosses," Beth commented.

"Hah, good way to think of it," Rell said. "We've got the sub-boss the day after tomorrow. Might need you lassies to throw some weight in on that one, especially if you've got some CRA backing."

"Not backing per se," Beth replied. "But, we are part of the White Hall, and that comes with an expectation of interaction with high-level figures without someone having to hold our hand or approve it. I don't know that we have a particular amount of weight that would really tip the scales…not yet, but we can throw what we have and what we represent in and see if that at least pushes us into a meeting with the governor."

"That's all we can ask for at this point," Itharion said. "Will you be joining us for the rest of the day?"

"No, sorry," Beth answered. "We have a number of things to do, including signing up for some ranked matches, if we can."

"Aye, a real tough rustle, lassie, but ye seem quite strong," Rell said. "Go give 'em hell, and if'n ya start to make some headway, let us know so we can put a couple licensed bets on yer wins."

"Oh, don't worry, we'll let you know of any fabulous winning streaks," Beth replied.

They parted ways after that, with Rell and Itharion heading off…somewhere, likely to their hotel, while Beth and Blood returned to the CRA Hall. Their first order of business was inquiring about matches, which Beth knew a bit about, but she would need to see what the scheduling here was like, at the very least. It was something they could easily take care of at one of the side counters, not needing to bother the fairly busy workers at the main counter with a schedule and sign-up question.