Limitless Path

"Just like that?" Beth asked, glancing around one last time before looking at him.

"Just like that," he smiled broadly. "This small courtyard belongs to my company, and there should be two young men staying here right now. Take these two small chits; they'll give you access to the building. You may stay here if you want, or you may run over to the CRA and use that Silver-level discount to rent a room."

As he finished speaking, two young men, likely the said men working for him, burst from the front doors of the building, both loaded for bear. The first of them was short and stocky, with a very thickset build that made Beth instantly think dwarf, that thought not debunked by the equally thick and heavy beard in five large braids that spread down across the front of his torso. He was wearing chain mail and had a large hammer strapped to his back, while his head was free, revealing the rest of a rugged face above the brown beard with eyes that glittered gold and bronze in a distinctive pattern.

The second young man was of average height but bore distinctly avian characteristics, mainly represented through the fact he had feathers instead of hair. The feathers were a light blue with some of them having green edges, and Beth could see some more peeking out around his collar. The man also had a very broad and heavy nose, which did remind her of a beak, and it was clear he had quite a few other avian characteristics, including his lack of human ears. Beth wasn't able to judge just by glancing at him in his full plate, but she was pretty sure he wasn't quite as progressed in his humanization as Blood was. The man had two swords at his hips that had a decent curve to the blade, looking very much like scimitars.

"Oh! My Lord, it's you," the dwarf exclaimed.

"Yes, Rell, though I'm leaving now. Let me introduce you before I go," Mortaine said. "These are Beth Bell and Blood Bell. They have recently accepted one of my invitations and will be helping with investigation into our little supply problem."

He then turned back to Beth and Blood and said, "And these young men are Rell Stonefist and Itharion Amellion. They are currently assigned to Luttraine, both to deal with my business contracts here, as well as to assist with the purchase and transport of materials. I hope you can work alongside them to bring this strange situation to a swift resolution."

As soon as he was done with the introductions, there was a massive twisting and folding of space and, with a soft *pop*, Mortaine was simply no longer there. Beth rolled her eyes yet again and grumbled at the eccentricities of thousand-year-old men and their thinking in odd patterns before turning to the two men. She found them both much less discomfited, clearly more use to antics like that from the famed Lord of Traversal, and she briefly Identified them before speaking.

Rell Stonefist, Level 180 Dwarven Hammerguard

Itharion Amellion, Level 185 Macaw Swordsman

She was just a bit surprised, as they definitely didn't have the sort of beginner classes she was used to, but then again, her class of Brawler didn't really sound like a starting class either. She felt a very brief metaphysical touch, a little push, that was the sign that somebody with an advanced Identify was using it on her.

"Good to meet you," Itharion was the first to speak, walking forward and offering his hand. He sent his communicator details over when Beth shook it, so she reciprocated the gesture.

"Hail!" the dwarf, Rell, boomed in a deep voice, joining in on the handshakes. "Welcome to our little slice of heaven."

"Shall we go inside," Itharion offered, his voice a little breathy, especially in comparison to Rell's rumbling boom.

"Of course," Beth said, though she gestured for the two to lead the way. They moved back to the front doors, a set of two plain wooden doors, though Beth noticed they were quite thick and had traces of mana flowing through them, obviously enchanted. Once inside she found a small entryway, with enough room for someone to remove their shoes and cloaks, in the case they didn't have a storage item, and a doorway leading to a long hallway. The building stretched quite a bit further back than Beth had first thought, likely being at least sixty feet long, if her estimations were anywhere close.

"In here," Itharion said, moving into the first doorway on the right, a sitting room with several couches and chairs around a table. Beth recognized the table as a fairly complex piece of work, one of those game tables that could be set up to play card games or dice or many other things. It had a fully finished top which likely folded out or was picked up entirely to present the felt surface, though now it had a starburst design of whitish wood inlaid on the table’s generally much darker grain. There were places around the edge that could be used to set drinks and Rell poured something from a large brown bottle into a glass before sitting in one of the armchairs.

"Help yourself," he rumbled, indicating the small bar. Blood ignored the bar and made a beer appear in her hand, an off-world brand the wolf really seemed to love, while Beth walked over and quickly found some hunting spice. She set a glass on a little enchanted heating plate that very quickly and uniformly heated the drink before mixing in some redgold salt. She took a seat on the loveseat next to Blood by the front wall of the building while Rell was to her left and Itharion sat across from them.

"Never seen anyone mix something in hunting spice," Rell commented in a bit of a leading tone.

"It's redgold salt. Something I acquired a taste for a little while ago," Beth replied with a small smile, noting out of the corner of her eye Blood suppressing a grin before taking a swig.

"An expensive taste," said Itharion quietly.

"It's not that bad," Beth shrugged in response.

"Not that bad at six or seven golds a bottle," Rell snorted. "And that's if the merchant ain't scammin' ya for all they're worth. Better to just get a little sugar and salt in a bottle, if you want that taste."

Beth wrinkled her nose as the four started to relax, Blood leaning back next to her and crossing her legs under the table. Beth leaned forward a little and said, "It wouldn't be the same, and you know that, if you're confident enough to talk about the price per bottle. It's a lot more than just sugar and salt, especially with the mana that's mixed in."

"That's right, lass, it's more, but it's an expensive habit, 's all I'm saying. Just think about it when the bottom of your stat screen has a buncha goose eggs along it," Rell replied, holding his hands up in a mixed defensive and calming gesture before returning to his own drink.

"Now that we've got the drinks discussion out of the way, why don't we move on?" Itharion asked. "We should give a brief little introduction of ourselves, just so we know each other's backgrounds and what we're roughly capable of. You don't have to share any secrets, of course, including your Presence Beth, if you don't feel like it."

"It's not a problem," Beth interjected before he could continue. She flexed her power for a moment, making her crown appear and settle on her head, giving the two thoroughly surprised young men an opportunity to exam it before she made it vanish just as fast.

"I'll be a drasaa's mother, lass, that was impressive," Rell exclaimed first, Itharion's mouth opening and closing in a much more fish-like, rather than bird-like, manner.

"You can just call it so quickly? And dismiss it so fast?" Itharion finally blurted out.

"I've got a lot of practice, and I'm not half bad, if I say so myself," Beth replied, straightening her shoulders and tilting her head up a bit haughtily, the illusion only somewhat ruined by Blood's cackle, which she silenced with an elbow to the short ribs.

"It's still quite impressive," Rell said, his deep bass almost enough to vibrate their various glasses and bottles. "I've been walking my Path for nearly thirty years now and I don't think I could call mine quite that fast, and certainly not dismiss it so fast. And you've already done a rebirth, to boot!"

"Yeah, we've each done one," Beth replied before taking a sip. "Ah, that's good. Anyway, we're a little stymied right now, another reason why we came over to accept Lord Mortaine's invitation. We're trying to gather the rest of our lists, and it looks like that's gonna take some time and effort."

"Lists?" Itharion asked, eyebrows quirking up, though from the light of recognition in Rell's eyes, he understood.

"They're goin' for a True Rebirth, the both of them," his next statement proved Rell understood. He continued, "Remember, you need a list of materials to get that done."

"Ah, yes, that's right, I just wasn't quite so quick on the uptake. But my word, doing a True Rebirth after the first becomes much more expensive; I can't imagine what it's going to cost you to do a second," the bird-like man said with a little tutting sound at the end.

"I'm sure it'll be a good handful of diamonds and then some," the dwarf laughed, finishing his first glass. He got up to pour another, saying, "As for myself, I'm a hammerguard. Pretty standard class that focuses on END first and STR second, with just enough DEX to keep up. I plant myself somewhere and flatten everything around me; good for holding a position, not so good for fighting in tight quarters with a team."

"I slash things," Blood chimed in, showing her soulbound gauntlet, which she re-equipped briefly to run some energy through the claws. "And I'm fast."

"As you saw, I use dual blades to fight, adopting an aggressive style that mixes in some light aerial combat moves," Itharion explained. "Ah, and Rell and I are working towards our third rebirth right now, so we're a bit ahead of you two."

"So, what's the problem here, in your minds?" Beth asked, wanting their takes on the issue.

"Politics," Rell snorted angrily before taking a heavy drink. "There's a guild here that builds…uh, well, it's some sort of energy controller. It regulates energy flows through systems, which our Lord needs in his advanced starship construction projects. They, however, are being stopped from production by the planetary governor, and the planetary governor is interfering in their production because she has an investment in a resource they use that is currently being contested. The whole thing's a sloppy mess."

"And that resource isn't just any junk, either," Itharion added. "We're talking about aspected mana crystal here. The fight over it, who gets to mine it, who gets to use it, market restrictions, etc., is such a major pain in the ass. And the biggest problem is the problems with the caravans."

"That's right," Rell picked up the discussion. "The mine they've been using is in a very unsafe area, so caravans with a ton of guards have to go out, gather the ore, then haul it all back to the city. The city's mayor is a limp-wristed little cockup that couldn't find his own arse with both hands and a flashlight, so it comes down to a power struggle between the woman in charge of the planet and the guild that has been using a bulk of the mine's production for forty years."

"And the new governor doesn't give a damn about prerogatives, just demanding that the crystal supply be safe and that she can buy her mandated portion. Using the authority of her office to make sure she gets her cut even if others are getting screwed; how very typical," Itharion added. "So, what we have to do is somehow resolve this issue without stepping on too many toes."

"Okay, dumb question, but why don't we just make sure the caravans are safe?" Beth asked.

"It is an option, as I'm sure you saw if you read the brief," Rell said. "But a temporary one, as everything under the sun is attracted to that much mana crystal, including other people."

"But how did this suddenly become such a big problem?" Beth asked. "That shit wasn't in the notes. Everything was working fine until suddenly it's not?"

"It's basically that simple," Rell said, as he started to refill his drink a second time. "Everything was working ‘fine,' because there was an Ascended here keeping the place in check and making sure the caravans weren't fucked with. He's gone now, so now we gotta figure out some other way to keep bandits and level four hundred beasts from occasionally ransacking everything."

"I don't suppose we could just, ya know, hire an Ascended?" Beth asked with a tiny bit of hope in her voice.

"You got a couple a' dozen mithril coins layin' around you feel like burning?" Rell asked sarcastically.

"Okay, so, that's a no," Beth grunted as she finished her own drink and made another. "So, then, what's our attack angle."

Itharion hummed a bit as Beth sat back down before saying, "The real target here is the governor. We have to convince her to do more while taking less, which is fighting against her greed. That seems an uphill battle, but I don't really know what else we can do."

"The only way to ensure safety is an Ascended?" Blood asked as she sipped her drink. Beth had caught her switching out empty bottles with full ones from the corner of her eye, knowing she wasn't on her first drink anymore despite appearances.

"Well, not the only way, for sure," Rell muttered, taking a long pull. "But that's the best way, gets the most bang for our buck and let's us get back to what we were all doing before this all hit the fan."

"And what're our other options?" Beth asked, leaning back and throwing an arm over the back of the couch as she nursed the second drink.

"Well, a group of Enlightened could do just as well as an Ascended, though we're not talking too much difference in price," Rell said, pondering with a distant look in his eyes.

"That doesn't help much. What else?" Beth said.

"Well, there's always using the CRA to help, but that comes with its own considerations, both monetary and political," he replied.

"And nobody prepared anything in case this happened? Surely everyone didn't expect that Ascended to just stick around forever?" Beth pressed in frustration, one eyebrow perfectly arched.

"O’ course not, lass," Rell replied irritably, his accent thickening before he cleared his throat. He continued, "But even the best laid plans get messed up by political games, and unless we get the politics resolved, even getting teams to do regular sweeps might not fix the problem. Hell, even a team of Enlightened might not get us there without the politics getting fixed."

"So, who do we need to talk to? Other than the governor, of course," Beth asked.

"Head of Silver Hammers. That's the guild's name, by the way," Itharion answered.

"Alexander Coleman," Rell said. "That's the old hardass in charge of that lot. Not a terrible person, but a stubborn old asshole who wants things done his way, and for operations to keep happening 'How it's always been done,' without changing anything."

"To sum it up, we've got a greedy governor who is possibly overstepping versus a traditionalist guild that wants things back to how they used to be. Somewhere in the middle of all that we need to find a solution to caravans getting robbed or destroyed to get Lord Mortaine's projects back on track," Beth summarized.

"Yeah, ye've got it lass," Rell said, letting his accent seep through thicker as he took long pulls of his drinks. "So, ye wanna take a day and get settled before getting started?"

"Yeah, I think it's a good idea we check in with the CRA before anything else. Wouldn't want to step on any toes," Beth said.

"Ah, ye ain't gotta worry about that, lassie. They know we're working for the Lord. They won't do anything as long as we don't go too crazy," Rell said.

"No, I need to make sure I'm not getting in anyone's business," Beth said, showing her Silver Emblem.

"Ah, shite, I didn't realize ye were a member," Rell replied, shaking his head. "Sorry 'bout that, lass. Good idea fer ye to check in, then. Stop back by t’morrow and we'll get started."

"Sound like a plan," Beth said, standing up with Blood following suit. "Thanks for the drinks, and see you tomorrow."

"Anytime, lassie," Rell said, saluting them with his mug before downing it. Itharion gave a slight nod before they walked out, Beth returning it as they left the room and then the compound.