Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Twenty-One (Patreon)

In no time at all they reached the pit, descending the spiraling ramp into the gloom, the early morning angle of the sun causing the bottom of the pit to be full of deep shadows blending into a clinging darkness. Beth dismounted as they hit the bottom of the ramp and slung her pack around, fishing out the same lightstone she had used previously and attaching it to her belt in the same manner. Once they had a little light, the two were ready to continue their explorations of the previous day. Beth looked between the two tunnels, eager to head down and get to work on the dungeon, but not exactly thrilled at the prospect of leaving the entire second tunnel network unexplored. Getting beat up in the dungeon only to be ambushed by beasts or monsters because they hadn't fully explored the area didn't exactly seem the smartest move, and Beth turned to Blood to get her input.

"I know I said dungeon yesterday," she started, the huge wolf simply looking at her, "but we really shouldn't leave what could be a huge area unexplored at our back."

Blood shrugged in response as she made a chuffing sound, seeming to indicate that she was ambivalent about the whole thing. Beth took that for as good as she was going to get in terms of agreement from the wolf, turning to examine the opening of the leftward tunnel. It didn't look any different from the tunnel that had eventually led them to the dungeon the day before and, with a shrug, she led the way down the tunnel.

In the opposite of the other tunnel, this one angled leftward as well as down at the start, heading into an entirely different area underground. They journeyed down into the dark for about fifteen minutes, Beth leading the way with the warm light of the lightstone the entire way, before they encountered anything but monotonous tunnel. Unlike the other tunnel that had secondary branches from the start, the first thing they found here was simply a room, barren and empty. They poked around for a minute but, other than a few old chairs and a table covered in dust, they found nothing.

Beth frowned as they returned to the main tunnel and continued, not sure what to make of the room. It wasn't that it was particularly different in any way from what they had found previously, but something just seemed off about it. It only took her a few moments of chin tapping to realize it was the dust itself, as none of the rooms had any dust within at all. Figuring out what had been unusual didn't really help, as she had no idea if there being dust in the room had any actual significance. With a shrug, Beth continued to lead the way deeper down, making sure her pack was secure as they walked.

It took a few minutes for them to find another room, having descended a fair distance by this point. Beth was guessing they were going to find a somewhat similar pattern to the previous day, except finding rooms instead of tunnels. They entered this new one and she immediately noted the dust on the furniture and one shelf within the room, Blood hanging back in the doorway and grumbling at the room.

"Not a fan of the dust, huh?" Beth asked her as she looked around, not seeing anything that jumped out at her right away, either from a loot or enemy perspective. She started poking around as Blood rumbled an affirmative, quickly casing the entire place. With only one room containing a handful of pieces of furniture it took only a minute to look over everything, even trying to be as thorough as possible. Beth sighed as she stepped back out into the main corridor with Blood, having come up empty yet again. She tried not to get too discouraged, but she really wanted to find stuff, even if that stuff was junk. Poking around empty rooms wasn't exactly thrilling.

They moved down the main tunnel again, walking for a few minutes without finding anything of interest. The next doorway they stumbled upon had a suite of rooms behind it, Beth carefully checking the area, still wary of another Kobold Hulk popping out to ruin their day. It turned out there were no beasts within the suite, just more dusty furniture and slightly damp, musty air. The doorways, both the one leading into the area as well as the ones separating the rooms, were empty, no doors or obstructions present. The main tunnel at this point was some combination of stone and packed dirt for the walls and ceiling, but the rooms were all solid stone of the dark green and black variety.

Beth browsed about the rooms, looking around and even under the furniture, as well as attempting to move or twist any little piece like lamps to check for any secret switches like they had found the day before. This first suite was the first of the rooms they had found today that even had any kind of lamp or mana light in it, Beth sending in a trickle of mana with a tap of her right index finger to light up the main room. There were two other rooms branching off this one, Beth guessing them to be a bedroom and office based off the bedframe in one and desk in the other. The main room had a table with the lamp on it, several chairs, and a shelf in the back left corner.

Neither the main room nor the bedroom had anything of interest, and the girls didn't find any kind of secret compartment. Beth checked through what she thought of as the office, finding nothing before she turned to examine the drawers of the desk. They turned up largely empty, the final drawer she checked containing a few loose copper coins and a silver coin. Beth stashed the cash and stood, stretching her back with a satisfying pop before returning to the main corridor with Blood.

As they continued on, she tamped down her disappointment in the meager finds, remembering that she made more than a single dungeon run for one of the two dungeons near her home. She let out a little chuckle as she thought about it, Blood giving a snort behind her at her antics. It took them a little less time to find the next place branching off the main tunnel, another suite of rooms. Beth once again found the whole thing a little suspicious, the way the rooms were spaced out, how they slowly increased in size, how the loot got better over time, and the general inconsistencies throughout the area. If the Path designed these areas to appear natural, it must have had a good few drinks before it ever got to the concept stage.

This set of rooms was larger than the last, only reinforcing Beth's amusement at the steady and 'natural' progression of the area. There were a total of five rooms within this area, with several of them having lamps. Beth didn't see, hear, or feel anything unusual, sure that as soon as she let her guard down she'd have another hulk screaming in her face. She made her way around the rooms, lighting the lamps while keeping a hand on her sword hilt. The new sword in the new position on the side of her pack made actually holding the hilt awkward, but she'd rather awkward than dead.

These rooms were mostly empty as well, Blood sniffing out a small bottle in what Beth thought might be a bathroom. After the wolf had given a grunt and led her to the bottle, she tossed it in her belt pouch before making her way into the 'office.' She once again found nothing but a handful of loose copper coins, not even a silver for her trouble. Hopefully the potion or whatever the bottle contained had some value as she was starting to regret wasting their time down here versus trying the dungeon. At least, it didn't appear there was any danger of anything nasty suddenly barreling out of this area right as they were making their way back from a long dungeon run.

With another put-upon sigh, she led the way back out into the main tunnel and further down, determined to see this area through all the way. She contemplated the lack of enemies in the initial areas of each tunnel as they descended, unsure what to make of it other than the Path having some weird easy-to-hard mentality with these constructed areas. She gradually surfaced from her musings as she noticed a change in the air around her, the tunnel having become colder and slightly damper. She stopped in the corridor, Blood giving a grunt behind her, before she reached into her belt pouch. Now that she had the pack with plenty of supplies inside, she only kept a few small things in the pouch, usually whatever she found aside from coin that was small and light. Other than the potion Blood had just nosed out, she had the ring and necklace from the prior day inside, and it was that first item she was after.

She pulled it out and examined it briefly in the glow of the lightstone before grabbing her left gauntlet and giving it a twist. She shoved it in the crook of her right arm after it was loose and drew her hand free, still holding the ring in her right hand. With a shrug, she held her left hand up to her right hand and slid the ring on her middle finger. The ring was too large at first, sliding down to the base of the finger, before it shrunk slight to fit snugly around the digit, not so tight as to be uncomfortable. Beth felt a strange sensation as the ring settled into place, as if her blood were running a little hotter than normal. It made it feel like the inside of her body itched for a few seconds before it seemed to settle down as she adjusted to the magic. The protection against frost and cold felt strange, as she could still feel the surrounding temperature, it just didn't affect her in the same way.

"You alright?" she asked Blood with a glance back, getting a snort and the best imitation of a shrug a wolf could do as a response. Beth shrugged right back, the thick fur of her companion clearly able to withstand far more than a minor chill, and turned back to their interminable trudge after clicking her left gauntlet back into place.

The next area they came to was more complex than the previous, not being just a set of rooms but something more like a set of buildings. A wide opening to their right led off the main tunnel and into a slightly higher tunnel that ran back for more than fifty feet before ending in what looked like the rough façade of a simple building. Each side of the branch tunnel had several doorways with a little area carved out around them, not enough to be a full imitation of a building front, but more than just a rectangular hole in the stone.

"Clear this first before we loot," she said to Blood, drawing her sword somewhat awkwardly from the right side of her back. She was definitely going to have to practice the more unconventional draw of popping the blade off the side of her pack, but now wasn't really the time to think about that. Blood hung back and watched the large corridor while Beth entered the first doorway, finding a suite of rooms within. She held her sword in her right hand, moving forward cautiously to light the lamp on the table in the first room as she looked around. The lamp did a decent job of lighting the central room, casting long shadows through the doorways into the rest of the suite. She carefully checked every doorway, leading with her sword, ready for a fight.

She was bound to be rather disappointed, as the suite was empty. After making sure it was clear, she returned to the corridor, giving Blood a nod in passing as she entered the second suite. This one proved more of the same along with the next two, all four side suites having no beasts within. This left only the last area at the end of the corridor, the one fronted by a full building-like façade. Beth entered the first room of the last suite to immediately be greeted by a snarling scream. She quickly used Identify on the creature just revealed by her lightstone.

Level 20 Kobold Fighter

Beth moved her left hand onto the hilt of her sword as the stocky kobold charged her. It was definitely more muscular and fleshed-out than the regular kobolds they had encountered the day before. It was wearing what looked like a cheap chain shirt and had a dull blade in its right hand. The beast lurched towards her as it finished its yelling, trying to swipe her with the blade. Beth backpedaled out of the doorway, wanting to give herself the room to maneuver. Luckily, she was easily able to outclass the enemy in terms of agility, the dull blade swung at her not even coming close.

Blood growled but stayed back, her ability to also use Identify letting her recognize that this wasn't a particularly dangerous threat. Beth deflected a second clumsy swing as Blood watched on, returning with a slash starting from her left and cutting across the kobold to her right. The beast was a little shorter than Beth, and her swing took it in the center of the chest. Several of the rings of the mail shirt the enemy wore snapped and cracked, bits of metal and little sparks flaring out of the path of the strike. The kobold had to take an unsteady step back to deal with the force of the blow, only having time to stabilize itself before Beth's second swing slammed into its raised left arm, a snapping *crunch* sounding out as at least one of the bones splintered from the force, likely in the forearm as the mail shirt only covered to the creature's elbows.

Beth had yet to deploy any of her skills beyond Identify, and she decided to try channeling some mana into her new blade to activate the flame effect for her third strike. The edge of the blade immediately lit with a reddish flame that had very faint traces of silver within it, the fire about half an inch thick and almost an inch in width. The fire seemed to startle the beast as it lit the area, eliciting a hissing screech from it. Its discomfort mattered little, as Beth swung the now enflamed blade back again across the front of the kobold, hitting the same area she had with the first strike. More rings cracked and broke, more bits of metal scattering as her blade carved a furrow in the chest of the beast, the flame singing and burning the creature's flesh.

Beth wasn't sure exactly how much added damage the fire did, seemingly somewhere between adding extra damage by burning the creature and helping it a little by slightly cauterizing the wound. Likely it would be more effective against an ice or even water aligned beast or monster. At the least, it only took a small amount of mana to trigger the effect, making it quite efficient in adding extra damage to her attacks.

She was done playing around at this point, and pumped mana into her arms and torso following the patterns of the skill to activate Monstrous Blow, bringing her sword around as the kobold recovered from the improvised flame slash and lunged at her. The center of her new, longer, heavier sword smashed into the side of the beast's torso, the rings of the mail shirt shattering as the blade passed right through. She continued the motion, twisting with her hips as her blade dug in, shearing through the kobold's flesh following the tear she had already made across the chest, nearly cleaving the beast apart. The kobold's blood, with a kind of bluish tinge that gave much of it a slight purple hue, fountain outward in a wide arc, Beth grunting in displeasure. Monstrous Blow didn’t really give her a lot of options to rapidly maneuver, thus forcing her to take a face- and chest-full of sour blood.

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