Limitless Path

Beth collapsed to her knees, sitting on her heels as she panted heavily, feeling like she was going to pass out and puke at the same time and wanting to do neither. Blood appeared beside her a moment later, knowing that the monster was dead from both the notification and level-up, dropping down next to Beth and wrapping an arm around her back. They stayed like that for a minute, Blood supporting Beth as they waited for her to recover from whatever it was she had just managed to do, both of them coated in mud and blood and dirt and sweat and gore. Beth reached over and ran a gauntleted hand through Blood's hair, causing the wolf to close her eyes and growl happily, opening them when Beth chuckled. The shorter girl had pulled a small bit of stone out of the wolf's hair, flicking it away to the side.

That wasn't her only reason for brushing a hand through her companion's hair, nor was it just the feeling of comfort it brought the two of them, but it was to check what had happened to Blood's ears. The wolf hadn't seemed to notice, but she had some changes compared to before they engaged in that fight, the most noticeable being the lack of large, pretty, lupine ears on the top of her head. Beth looked her over, glancing up and down as her breathing evened, noticing there was also less fur on other parts of her body, though her furry mantle remained intact.

"What?" Blood growled. "We're both dirty."

"How're the ears feelin'?" Beth asked with a smirk.

"They're fin-" Blood started before seeming to realize something was strange. She had clearly tried to flick an ear manually, realizing when nothing on the top of her head moved, that something was different. Particularly when she felt the side of her head twitch a little, her body naturally interpreting her thoughts to make her very human, very pretty ear jump a little. She reached up and ran a hand through the hair over the top of her head, clearly feeling no ears there, before reaching both hands up and grabbing her 'new' ears, carefully feeling every part of them.

"Do I…do I look weird?" she asked Beth quietly.

Beth just sighed before tackling Blood, hugging her firmly while calling her names, the wolf grumbling and growling below her before wrestling free. Beth stood up slowly then, clearly not in the best of shape after their battle, before giving Blood's hair another stroke. The wolf growled happily before springing upright, standing just as tall if not slightly taller than before, looking around as she sniffed the air before tilting her head.

"My hearing seems fine," she muttered. "In fact, I think it might be better?"

"Didn't we read that you'll get stronger as your humanization progresses?" Beth asked with a tired sigh before plodding towards the west. "Come on, help me find what was left of that arm I tore off."

She started looking around for the arm, not finding it right away, but she didn't really need to have bothered. Whatever the changes in her humanization factor, Blood's senses were just as keen; no, in fact, they seemed even more keen, the wolf easily able to hear and smell things that even her superior senses in human form couldn't have before. She found the piece of arm rather quickly, tossing it to Beth to stash in her necklace where she had stored the corpse when she had stood a minute earlier. Beth, meanwhile, decided to check their status screens, both because she wanted to see if they had made any progress in any skills and to put her points in for her level up.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Brawler

Level

152

Strength

442

Dexterity

242

Endurance

276

Intelligence

60

Wisdom

60

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress' Inheritor

Skills

Ancient World Gate[1]

Beastly Body Silver[7]

Blacksmithing Apprentice[9]

Celestial Annihilation Silver[0]

Crush Silver[9]

Earth Resistance Copper[7]

Flame Resistance Copper[9]

Focused Meditation Copper[9]

FrostFlame Eye Silver[1]

Ice Resistance Copper[8]

Indomitable Heart Silver[1]

Lightning Resistance Copper[8]

Lordly Reconstruction Silver[4]

Monstrous Blow Copper[9]

Pain Tolerance Silver[9]

Spatial Step Copper[7]

Swift Silver[1]

Swords Journeyman[9]

Toxic Resistance Copper[8]

Unarmed Journeyman[9]

Wealth

1d 0p 70g 18s 44c

Emblems

CRA Copper Badge

Bonds

Blood

Name

Blood

Race

Red Wolf Queen

Level

152

Strength

280

Dexterity

412

Endurance

176

Intelligence

60

Wisdom

60

Free Points

0

Titles

-

Skills

Blood Queen's Claws Silver[6]

Earth Resistance Copper[5]

Eyes of Hallowed Truth Copper[9]

Flame Resistance Copper[7]

Ice Resistance Copper[7]

Leatherworking Apprentice[5]

Lightning Resistance Copper[6]

Meditation Copper[9]

Pain Tolerance Silver[4]

Regeneration Copper[9]

Rending Bite Copper[9]

Swift Silver[8]

Toxic Resistance Copper[5]

Unarmed Journeyman[1]

Wealth

6p 46g 81s 22c

Emblem

CRA Copper Badge

It was a good thing she had stopped her plodding march, as she still nearly fell over seeing her screen. She knew that the two of them had pushed themselves quite a bit in that fight, and the skill-ups that Blood had gotten, including pushing her Unarmed not just into Journeyman but to level one, seemed appropriate. She couldn't really say that she had tried any harder than her companion had but compared to Blood's handful of skill levels and one skill rank-up, Beth's gains were a little ridiculous. Points across a ton of skills, Celestial Annihilation to Silver, Swift to Silver, Indomitable Heart to not just Silver but level one of Silver, and even Crush leaping several ranks to the max of Silver.

"You alright?" Blood asked, stopping beside Beth, raising her brows in a concerned look as she patted the shorter girl's arm.

"Yeah, just…just surprised at how much we grew in that fight," she commented a little lamely.

"You grew so much, sister!" Blood exclaimed after a moment, wrapping her arms around Beth and hugging her tightly. "It's good to hunt strong prey!"

Beth let Blood do as she pleased, knowing that there wouldn't be a point that she 'got it out of her system,' but she was content for a few minutes to keep trying to recover her stamina and rest. She eventually popped open a gate, set to standard enemies and with a time dilation of the maximum of ten.

"Sister?" Blood asked, brow lowered and frowning slightly.

"One hour," Beth replied tiredly, walking through the gate. Blood followed her in and Beth continued, "If I sleep for ten hours in here at maximum dilation, it'll only take one hour. You can join me or go hunt; it's just set to goblins right now."

Beth then laid down on the grass, not bothering pulling any camping equipment out of her necklace, and immediately passed out, still in her armor. Blood immediately lay down behind her, wrapping an arm around Beth's waist and also fell asleep. They had long determined that the area inside Beth's portals was always safe around the gate itself, and so weren't concerned about being disturbed. Something could come in from the outside, but unless another one of those insane monsters spawned in less than an hour, they really shouldn't have anything to worry about.

Beth woke in about eleven hours, so a bit more than she thought, but that only put them a little over an hour in objective time. Blood had been awake for a while, but she hadn't bothered moving, Beth able to feel her pressed against her back even through their armor. She stood, disentangling herself from her companion, who grumbled a little at having to get back to actually doing things, before they both stretched and left the instance. Outside was still bright and clear, a sunny day that was a little cool for the last week of Spring, a light breeze almost constantly blowing throughout the day. Beth took a second to re-orientate herself, longer than Blood needed, the wolf immediately heading north-by-northeast, leading the way back to the CRA Hall.

They arrived after a couple hours, shortly before the sun set, heading down into the arena underworks to their room. Beth opened the door for them and they both trooped in, not seeing Sabs anywhere, and the two immediately headed into the bathroom. Blood shucked her armor and showered before getting in the bath, but Beth spent time cleaning her armor first, not understanding why Blood would not clean her gear first. She did understand the feeling of just wanting to get clean, but Blood would just get dirty again when she went to clean her gear off.

She just shrugged and finished cleaning her stuff, laying it out on the floor of the bathroom in the corner to dry before showering. She dried off afterwards and went to make food, prepping just enough for herself as she didn't know where Sabs was and Blood would be a while. After relaxing and eating, taking her time with the food, she sat up on the couch and started to write her report, filling out the quick notes she had taken on everything they found except the last fight, which she hadn't even bothered taking notes on yet. When she had everything, including that fight, written up in detail, she looked up to notice Blood had emerged at some point and was working on her own dinner.

After spending a while chatting with the wolf and doing some more study for the upcoming exam, she decided to go get a couple more hours sleep. She was still a bit tired from the huge fight that was technically earlier that same day, so she made her way into the bedroom. She hadn’t bothered checking in there before, and she kicked herself a little as she found Sabs inside, sprawled naked on the bed, the covers around her thighs, the girl lightly snoring into a pillow. She really seemed to be taking the whole week's vacation thing quite seriously, and Beth wasn't going to complain about somebody taking it easy. She was, of course, already undressed, and slipped in beside the smaller girl, sliding against her before gently caressing her back, finishing by fully wrapping her arm around Sabs's waist and holding her tightly.

-----------------------------------------------------

Despite her tiredness, she was the first to wake in the very early hours of the next morning, finding that Sabs had pressed further against her during the night. She managed to snake her left arm under the shorter girl's head, getting an almost instinctive response as her partner fully turned towards her and partially buried her face in Beth's ample chest. They stayed like that for quite a while, with Sabs snoring lightly as she continued to sleep before she eventually woke, muttering for a short time before she realized where her face was buried. She gave a contented sigh before partially wriggling out of Beth's grip only to crawl on top of the tall girl, raining down some groggy kisses on her before nuzzling into her large breasts for a while longer.

Eventually, Beth wanted to get their day going, eager to report her success and get to the point where she was ready for the Silver test. She gently dislodged Sabs, who actually followed her in getting up this time, and moved out into the living room. She was a bit startled by Sabs giving a squeak upon following her into the room, raising her eyebrow at the smaller girl staring at Blood. It took Beth's brain a second to click just as Sabs herself said something.

"That's you, right, Blood?" she asked. "What happened?"

"Dunno," the wolf, legs sprawled over the center table and back buried deep in the couch, shrugged off-handedly. "Happened yesterday when we got in a good fight. Beth thinks I'm doing the 'humanization' thing better or something."

"Well, you're certainly different," Sabs said before holding her hands up instantly in a calming gesture. "Not in a bad way, sorry. That came out a little wrong. I just meant you look different than you did before…and, honestly, you look even better. Did you, like, somehow get prettier?"

"I noticed that, too," Beth called out from the kitchen.

"What do you mean?" Blood asked, squinting at Sabs from under lowered brows.

"I mean, let's be honest, from the moment you got your human form, you were fucking smoking hot, Blood," she said, pausing a second when she was surprised by the normally apathetic wolf blushing deeply. "But now, it's…I don't know. I can't really put my finger on it properly, and it's not like I disliked the wolf-ears or anything, so I don't think it's that. It really just is like you got even prettier. It's really hard to explain any better than that."

"She got taller, too," Beth said as she entered the room with drinks for all three of them.

"Really?" asked Sabs, glancing between the two of them.

"Pretty sure," Beth said, gesturing at the lupine woman. Blood stood from the couch with a grumble, both of the other girls rolling their eyes at complaining over something that would take a second. Blood walked around the table to stand next to Beth and Sabs took a couple steps back to look at both of them. She was slightly distracted by the simple fact that she was staring at two naked, unbelievable beauties just a few feet away, but she shook it off after a second and tried to gauge the heights. Beth was still just as tall, a hair over six feet, and Blood was taller still. After examining her for a second, Sabs was positive she was taller, believing that Beth was spot on.

"This is not very scientific, but you definitely look taller," Sabs said with a firm nod.

"Is that bad?" Blood growled.

"No way", "Tall chicks are hot," Sabs and Beth answered at the same time.

"Oh, you like taller girls?" Sabs rounded on Beth with a dangerous tone in her voice and glimmer in her eye.

"Oh yeah," Beth said, surprising Sabs slightly with how hard she leaned in. "But I also like short girls, and medium height girls, and petite girls, and curvy girls, and-"

Sabs just tuned the rest of it out, rolling her eyes as she grabbed her drink and sat down beside Blood on the couch. Beth continued on for half a minute, extolling all the 'types' of girls she liked before she seemed to realize that nobody was listening, though Sabs knew that her girlfriend was much more aware of her surroundings than that. She also joined them on the couch, the three lazing around for a while, Beth mainly wanting to spend a few minutes more with Sabs and not just run out the door first thing, despite her eagerness to be about her business.

She eventually got up and moved into the bathroom to get ready for the day with the other two following her. She said to Blood, "Did you clean your armor yet?" while very obviously staring at Blood's dirty armor on the floor.

"I'll get to it," Blood grumbled back.

"You'll get to it now. I'm going to hand in the mission and talk with Tazeen; you get started on the armor," Beth said. Sabs just watched the byplay while she cleaned up for the day, even though it wasn't really necessary. When Beth was ready, she tossed her armor back in her necklace before walking out to join Sabs in the common room.

"You staying here?" she asked.

"I'm not leaving the apartment, if I can help it," Sabs replied. "Hell, the two of you have been a bad influence and I'm not even going to get dressed, if I can avoid it."

"Okay, well, I'll be back in just a bit," Beth said, walking over and giving Sabs a very warm kiss before breaking it off and making her way to the door, having clothes appear on her body right before she opened it. She walked out into the hallway, a boot appearing on each foot before it landed in the corridor, turning to the elevators and heading upstairs. She made her way to the front desk and found Tazeen there all by his lonesome, though it wasn't a fully empty lobby. There were three people gathered together as a group at the counter discussing something with the tall elf, and Beth walked over to rudely listen in while they continued.