Limitless Path

They found the compound the same as they left it the day before, other than Rell sitting outside and smoking from a pipe, clearly not wanting to smoke up the inside of the building. He was shirtless, though his long beard and hair covered most of his torso, but he had armored chausses and greaves on, presenting a bit of a weird sight. He saluted them with his pipe when he saw who it was that had opened the outer doors to the compound, motioning them to walk over and join him.

"Care for a toke?" he asked them, gesturing with his pipe.

"Sorry, not a smoker," said Beth with a shake of her head, while Blood sniffed at the pipe, shrugged, and then shook her head.

"Aye, not to yer tastes, lassies?" he asked with a chuckle, taking a deep pull himself.

"Smells interesting, but not now," Blood said with another shrug.

"Not interested," Beth mimed her companion, wrinkling her nose a bit at the smell of the smoke.

"Alright, let me snuff this," he rumbled, putting the pipe out after a few seconds before standing and leading them inside. "I take it you found quarters elsewhere?"

"Yeah, we got a room at the Hall last night. We'll stay there for a while," Beth replied. "We also stopped by the Silver Hammers this morning before walking over, just because I thought that might be the 'easy' one and, well, it didn't go great."

"Alright lassie, let's discuss it before we head out," he said. He then shouted down the hall, "Itharion! Get your feathery ass out here already."

There was some muffled cursing yelled back from further down the hall, which Rell ignored as he led them into the front room to sit and wait. They were only there a minute or so before Itharion joined them, giving a Rell a glare that just bounced off. He then got a drink, something akin to tea without any alcohol, hopefully, before sitting at the table with them and raising an eyebrow at Beth.

"We're staying at the CRA Hall and we stopped by the Silver Hammers already this morning, to catch you up," Beth said to the feathered man.

"Not surprising," he said, sipping his drink.

"I take it the governor is our next target?" Rell asked.

"I'd be careful about that kind of language, even in here," Itharion immediately cut in, shooting Rell another glare that did get a slight scowl out of him this time, followed by a healthy sigh.

"Right, right, watch me language," Rell grunted before turning to Beth. "It ain't gonna be easy to handle this, and by that I mainly just mean getting the meeting. We'll have to call ahead or go talk to the secretaries, set something up, impressing on them how important this is, and try to get something scheduled before the heat death of the universe."

"You think they'll stiff-arm us?" Beth asked.

"Oh yeah, lassie, they'll schedule our first meeting for the second Tuesday of never and make sure that they never hear any complaints about it. We need to get on the books and make sure it sticks," he replied.

"So, go there in person?" Beth asked.

"After your performance earlier, that might be a worse idea," Blood commented, Beth attempting to put the wolf in a headlock in return, but the lupine woman ducked her arms with immense speed.

"Well, the best way to learn is to do," Itharion said. "You won't get good at negotiating without actually negotiating."

"And she needs a lot of learning," Blood growled, this time getting an elbow in the ribs for her trouble.

"So, where do we go?" Beth asked, not knowing where the governor's offices were.

"Gotta leave the city," Rell replied. He continued at her confused look, "Governor Ana'Va has offices in the planetary capital which, unfortunately, is an entirely different city from Red Castle. She operates out of Lake Hill, a city about five hundred miles to the east as the crow flies, though the terrain between here and there is more broken and gnarled than what you might expect."

"What about teleporters?" Beth asked.

"What about 'em?" Rell replied, raising an eyebrow at her.

"I mean, the way you talk about it, it sounds like you expect us to run to Lake Hill. Are we not going to take a teleporter there?" she asked.

"Nah, lassie, waste of money," Rell replied. "The four o' us are more than enough to deal with anything along that route. No reason to waste dozens of gold coins to save us a day of travel. Well, a day of travel each way, but I have a feeling we might be in the capital for at least a few days, so the return trip is less an issue."

"Is money really that much of an issue?" Beth asked, noting out of the corner of her eye as Blood slowly turned her head to stare at her.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Beth?" Blood asked before the others could respond.

"You're on a real roll today," Beth answered with a frown, taking another swipe at the lupine woman that she very agilely dodged.

"Anyway, to answer the question, yes, money can be a quite large issue," Itharion said. "We have backing from our lord, and are reasonably strong ourselves, but even we would balk at paying dozens of golds for teleports that would save us a handful of hours of travel. We can't be so free with money, not when we have to repair and upgrade our gear, buy provisions, pay for training, and so on and so forth. I'm sure you get the idea."

"And we might as well get started," Rell cut in. "We can debate it all day, but hittin' the road and getting there will be enough of a pain as it is. Let's get up and get going."

Itharion grumbled, but followed suit, getting his gear on and getting ready. Beth and Blood stepped out into the courtyard first, waiting a minute for the other two to be ready. When they also stepped out and started moving, the two girls fell into step behind them, allowing the local experts to lead the way.

"Don't need to grab anything, lassies?" Rell asked as they strode down a broad lane.

"We always have extra gear and rations on us," Beth explained. "We don’t need to stop anywhere before leaving."

"Then we'll head for the northeast gate. That'll be fastest to get us on the right path," Rell said, turning down a slightly smaller street as they continued forward.

"Not just the east gate?" Beth asked.

"Nah, lassie," he replied with a quick shake of his head, his thick beard braids bouncing across his chest. "The east gate is really more for workers headin' to the fields they have just outside the city and a few people exploring the swamp that's out there. We want the capital, and that means heading around the swamp, so we'll take the good ol' north road past."

"Alright, sounds like a plan," Beth said, sharing a quick glance with Blood and getting only a shrug in response.

Beth looked around the city as they walked, moving through the outer districts where the buildings were only five or six stories instead of being giant skyscrapers. She found the amount of greenery present, especially along the walkways and side streets, to be quite pleasant, making the air seem at least a bit fresher. Many of the buildings showed little signs of age, little wear marks or nicks various places, but most of them were kept in fairly good repair, their brickwork and paint kept up to date. The rooves were made of some kind of clay or ceramic tiles, mostly colored red and blue, giving a warm and vibrant feel to the city even from street level, and many of the buildings had more than one large window propped open in what felt like early summer air.

Finally approaching the gate, Beth focused back up, just to make sure she had a note of how the security procedures worked for the cities on Luttraine. The process was rather simple, at least for going out, and was made even more so when both Beth and Blood produced their Silver Emblems and were immediately waved through. Apparently, Silvers weren't asked any questions at all when leaving, showing again the value of just the second overall level of the badge. She imagined Gold Emblems might not be questioned at all, going or coming, but she would have to wait to find out, though it would be some considerable time before either her or Blood got to Gold.

Once out of the gates, they passed by a small handful of people making their way inwards before hitting the road. They kept to a rather brisk walk for the first few minutes until they were well away from the walls, assuming a brisk jog, more than a full-on sprint would have been before Beth had stats. They kept to that pace for fifteen minutes or so before the road, while still well maintained, entered a much rougher territory, a wild-looking forest with plenty of underbrush and plants scattered about.

"Edge of the Blue Hill Forest," commented Itharion. "We won't go in too deep as the road just skirts it, but it's a good place to look for herbs and rare plants."

"And get in over your head," rumbled Rell. "There's plenty o' nasty shite further in that I wouldn't tussle with before ya got to at least Empowered-level of strength."

"Something to check out later," Beth said, earning an eyeroll from Rell.

"How's the pace, lassies?" he asked then as they jogged down the road.

"Don't worry about us," Beth replied. "We're quite fast."

"More worried about keeping this up for hours," he said.

"We have plenty of stamina, trust me," Beth said.

"Alright, lassie, if'n your sure," he said before picking up the pace. Both he and Itharion accelerated until the terrain was blurring by. Beth and Blood followed along without any effort, not yet having to activate Swift to keep up with the other two. They continued like that for almost ten minutes before anything changed, but it wasn't their speed that was different.

"Beasts," Rell warned, slowing while pulling his greathammer from its loops.

Beth and Blood also slowed, orientating towards the north where a half dozen beasts looking like wolves with scales were charging. Blood launched herself forward, slipping forward through the trees and around the wolves without any of them getting close to her. She certainly got close to them, slashing two of the beasts with her claws as she slipped by and causing long, bleeding wounds. Beth moved to Rell's left and quickly scanned the opponents.

Level 150 Salamander Wolf

Level 155 Salamander Wolf

Level 158 Salamander Wolf

It went on like that for all six of them, all in the one-fifties in level and all labeled as Salamander Wolves. Blood had managed to pick out the strongest two and slash them, which also disturbed the order of the beasts, causing them to go from a hunting pack to a disorganized mob. It was good for everyone but Rell, as he wasn't particularly mobile, but his level and stats still allowed him to push into the center of the beasts without much issue. Beth and Itharion were quicker and lighter on their feet, especially Itharion, who hardly seemed to keep his feet on the ground even though he didn't have wings.

Beth was always a small bit cautious, but this wasn't a fight that she was at all worried about. One of the scaled wolves leapt for her and she punched it out of the air, throwing in a bit of a Crush just to casually shatter its scales and do heavy damage. She kicked the second one out of the air with a quick twist of her hips, darting to the side and making her new greatsword appear in her right hand, bringing it down with one arm on the second wolf, chopping into its neck. She then backhanded the first wolf out of the air, the beast having leapt for her while she was attacking the downed second wolf.

Beth raised her blade and brought it down again, the second wolf having flailed after the blow and tried to roll back to its feet. She added some Monstrous Blow into it, not fully investing the max mana in the skill, but more than enough to cleave the opponent apart. She spun and brought the blade up to catch the first wolf in the chest, knocking it away and giving it a large cut for its trouble. She pursued, darting forward with a burst of Swift to catch up to the beast before kicking the side of its head, sending it staggering and almost collapsing before bringing her blade around with both hands and finishing it off.

She turned to survey the battlefield, though battlefield was a bit of an exaggeration considering the six low-level wolves versus the four high-level Wayfarers wasn’t much of a fight. Itharion had killed one and was fighting a second, while Blood had killed two, both of them having focused on Rell, allowing the lupine woman to easily finish the two beasts with a flurry of quick claws slashes. Itharion finished chopping apart the second wolf he had fought and then the four regrouped back on the road.

"Handle yourselves well, lassies," Rell said after they were back on the road and had mostly cleaned their gear.

"It wasn't a difficult fight," Beth replied with a shrug, ready to get rolling again.

"Your actions in how you approached it, how calm you were, and how easily both of you dealt with high-level monsters was still commendable," Itharion explained.

"Aye, lassies. Don't undersell yourselves," Rell said before straightening up from adjusting his greaves and reseating his hammer. "Anyway, let's keep moving."

The four moved back into a fast trot, devouring ground as they dashed down the road, which was comprised of large, precisely cut stone blocks fit together so well the seams were barely visible. It made maintaining a quick pace quite easy, and they devoured miles in minutes as they dashed down the wide road. They didn't encounter anyone or anything for quite some time, not until their next run-in with beasts, which was a huge pack of what looked like shrimps that had taken too many steroids and learned to walk on land. They were annoying opponents for many on Luttraine, as they were a fairly common beast species with very hard shells, powerful pincers, and the ability to lash out with those pincers for truly devastating, clobbering strikes.

They had more than met their match in Beth's small group, however, as Rell had just the sort of blunt response that could get their attention. Coupled with Beth's ability to Crush their tough shells with relative ease, the two front liners softened the beasts quite easily, leaving many torn open and limping and easy prey for Blood and Itharion. The lupine woman and bird man were able to deliver precise, rending attacks into the gaping wounds, shredding the beasts' more delicate innards with only a few attacks.

It took a handful of minutes longer for them to clean up after this battle, Blood not minding wading through shrimp guts to get the handful of beast cores they dropped. Blood offered Rell the five cores she dug out, but he waved them off, not really caring about tier two cores. Blood shrugged and made the cores disappear, not trying to hide her storage item as they had seen Rell using a storage item as well. That was another bonus of working with well-established people from a well-established faction; things like spatial storage that might be greatly coveted by others were pretty commonplace. The Lord of Traversal possibly could even make such items himself, considering he was a master of dimensional magics, so seeing Blood make items disappear didn't even register with Rell and Itharion as something unusual.