Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Forty-Four (Patreon)

Beth took two steps back and looked at Jaq, who produced a small marble before flicking it at her face. Hard. She flinched a little instinctively but didn't have time to move out of the way before the pebble hit her. Or rather, hit an invisible screen in front of her and turned to dust.

"What the fuck?" Beth snarled, coughing as she waved a hand in front of her face to clear the dust away.

"Both demonstrating its strength and weaknesses," Jaq replied.

"Huh?" Beth asked rather eloquently.

"He means you're not protected from dust or stuff moving slow," Sabs interjected, shaking her head a little.

"Your partner is correct," Jaq nodded in response. "It will not block slow moving objects, so you will have to be aware of a weapon or some such moving at a slow speed toward your head. A slow swing can still gouge out an eye, and it will take you considerably more mana to rebuild one of your new ones with a regeneration skill than a normal eye."

"Well, that kinda sucks," Beth grumbled, stepping back up to the counter.

"And, as the dust showed, it will not block particles," Jaq continued with a single stern hand motion like a short chop. "If you face an enemy that spews out poison mist, for example, that shielding enchantment will not help in the slightest."

"Also, kinda sucks," Beth grumbled again, giving him a glower.

"The protection is well worth the drawbacks, I assure you," Jaq explained patiently, another pebble appearing in his hand as he made as if to flick it again, Beth practically diving under the counter. Sabs cackled as Jaq sighed, the pebble disappearing immediately.

"Fuck both of you," Beth groused, righting herself and glaring back and forth between the two.

"No, and I do not thank you for the offer," Jaq replied in his usual deadpan.

"Yes, but not now," Sabs replied before blushing, Jaq just rolling his eyes before clearing his throat.

"So, how much," Beth asked, already preparing to be fleeced.

"I won't tiptoe around it, nor haggle," Jaq said firmly. "It's three gold coins."

"Fuck!" Beth cursed, putting her elbows on the counter and setting her head in her hands.

"It's a good deal," Jaq said rather obliquely. Beth responded with a sigh and dropped three gold coins on the counter.

"I was rich, once," she moaned into her palms.

"Go find one of those metal pounders and get your gauntlets fixed if you're going to moan like that," Jaq snorted, turning to head back through the doors.

"Yeah, yeah," Beth grumbled, tossing her damaged gauntlet back in her pack before snagging Sabs' hand again and heading for the elevators.

They made their way up to the lounge first, checking who was in at that time of the morning. Baelvyr, John, and Navere were at various tables, and Beth simply gave a nod as they passed through, leading the way to the lobby. They found both Tazeen and Lyrissa behind the counter, and Beth moved over to Tazeen first.

"How may I help you today?" he asked in his standard impassive manner.

"Can I get an expert opinion before heading out for the day?" Beth returned his question with one of her own. He merely raised an eyebrow in response, and she reached into her backpack and pulled the much-maligned left gauntlet out, setting it on the counter. Tazeen picked it up and spoke as Beth leaned against the counter with her right hip, laying her right arm on the countertop. Sabs busied herself scratching Blood while they waited, getting long strands of red fur on her armor for her troubles.

"You would like this repaired, I assume?" Tazeen asked after a few moments, setting the gauntlet down and looking at her.

"I would like to repair it myself, if possible," Beth replied. "I guess my questions are: 'Can it be repaired?' and 'Can someone in the middle of Apprentice level as a Blacksmith do it?'"

"Repairing it is certainly possible," Tazeen replied with a tiny nod. "However, it might be challenging with your current skill level. What exact rank is it?"

"Apprentice[4]," Beth replied, poking at the damaged gauntlet with a frown.

"I suppose it depends on your requirements, mainly being time," Tazeen continued. "I doubt you would do a very good job, even with guidance, repairing it at that level of skill. You are either going to need to get more practice, or act as second to someone else doing the main body of work."

"Well, hurry up and wait, I guess," Beth muttered with a sigh, tossing the gauntlet in her pack again. "I'll train 'til I can do it. Thanks for the help."

"It is no problem."

Beth nodded to both enforcers, getting no response from Lyrissa, before patting Sabs and Blood on their shoulders and leading the way out of the lobby. When they were outside the entry, she turned to Sabs to ask, "You want to ride or try to keep up?"

Sabs thought for a moment before responding, "I'll stretch my legs and get some practice for Swift."

"Then let's go."

They set off southward, moving at a very good clip as all three girls exercised Swift to increase their speed and maneuverability. Beth and Sabs were stretching their legs and working on leveling the skill while Blood merely maintained their pace, having taken the skill to the top of copper already. They took only a handful of minutes longer to reach the field than Beth was used to, partly thanks to the fact they made use of Baelvyr's Divot, as Beth was secretly calling it.

When they entered the field, Beth halted them immediately and looked around, not wanting to be taken by surprise by another rogue. They seemed to be quite thoroughly alone, and she waved the others forward, noting that Sabs was slightly flushed, but not in any way badly out of breath. They walked across the dried-out field, most of the grass already dying out as the fall chill was already hitting hard during the nights.

They crunched their way across the field to the pit, Sabs peering down with a frown coupled with a scrunched brow. Beth paused for a moment, giving Sabs a raised eyebrow, waiting for her to be ready. The smaller girl bit her lip and glanced down into the yawning chasm again, clenching her fists and taking a deep breath before striding forward and onto the ramp. Beth followed behind, catching up after a few quick steps and wrapping an arm around Sabs' shoulders.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Sabs asked in a subdued voice.

"I mean, no?" Beth replied with a small smirk, grunting as Sabs elbowed her in the gut. "It's a deep pit leading into dark, cold tunnels full of enemies. That doesn't sound safe."

"You're not doing a whole lot to reassure me right now, hon," Sabs pouted, giving Beth another light elbow jab for good measure.

"You'll be fine. You have both Blood and me here, which is more than enough," Beth reassured her with a light chuckle.

The three made their way down to the base of the shaft, Beth pulling out two lightstones and handing one to Sabs. She showed the older girl how they attached before setting her own on her belt and lighting it with some mana.

"So, two tunnels?" Sabs asked, glancing back and forth.

"Yep. Left is housing; right is dungeon," Beth answered simply.

"And how many enemies?" Sabs asked, shuffling from foot to foot.

"A lot," Beth replied with a snort. "But more down to the left than the right. And they don't really seem to wander or anything, so we can avoid basically all of them just going straight to the end."

"So, this place isn't spawning new beasts and sending them out?" Sabs asked as she followed Beth into the righthand tunnel.

"You know, now that you mention it, I don't really know," Beth replied, tapping her chin as she walked. "There are obviously kobolds in the tunnels, and there's a dungeon down here, but I don't know if it's actually generating enemies. And I haven't seen any up top, either."

They walked for a while until they came to the first simple room, Beth showing Sabs the first mana powered lamp and explaining the room had one box with junk in when she and Blood had found it. She also shared her theory with Sabs that these things were just made-up entirely, not moved or copied from somewhere else, pointing out the way the tunnel had no support beams but the room did. They stepped back out into the tunnel and continued on, Beth pointing out the other rooms and side-tunnels as they passed until they got to the first place that had had enemies when Beth and Blood first explored the tunnel.

"Let's see if the first enemy is back," Beth said, leading the way into the short side passage.

"What level?" Sabs asked, all business.

"I believe it was fourteen. Might be fifteen now," Beth replied, just finishing the second sentence before a shriek echoed out.

Sabs darted forward, meeting the shrieking kobold as it lunged out of the room at them. Beth didn't remember it attacking until she entered the room the first time, but then again, they hadn't been talking the first time through. Sabs quite easily deflected a wild swipe from the kobold's right arm with a small flick of her left dagger. She then stepped forward with her right foot and slashed her right dagger against the inside of the kobold's left arm, preventing it from following up with an off-hand swipe. She then swung up with her left dagger in a precise thrust as she was still completing the second deflection, slamming her mana copper dagger into the bottom of the kobold's jaw. The dagger sunk almost to the hilt, killing the kobold instantly, the beast starting to lift its left arm again as if not realizing it was already dead. It then dropped the arm halfway through the motion before itself dropping to the ground, dead as a doornail.

"Sometimes, you're kinda fucking scary, Sabs," Beth said with slightly widened eyes, seeing just how fast the small girl had put even the slightly weak enemy down.

"I'm not trying to be," Sabs said quietly. She then grinned and continued, "I just really like knives."

"Like I said, scary," Beth muttered, shaking her head.

"Do they get much stronger than this?" Sabs asked, glancing down at the beast corpse on the ground.

"Oh yeah, but we can get into that later," Beth replied with a nod. "I just wanted to show you what they're like, but I kinda underestimated you a little. Sorry."

"It's fine, Beth," Sabs said, reaching out and squeezing Beth's left hand as they turned to return to the tunnel. "We haven't fought together much overall, and the last time was also 'easy' stuff."

"Well, you'll have plenty of time to show off in the next few days," Beth replied, interlacing her fingers with Sabs's as they walked.

"John would hate to hear you say that," Sabs replied with a giggle. "He says, 'No excess movements. It's not a show, it's a battle.'"

"John?" asked Beth with a raised brow, glancing down at Sabs. "The same John who lays around calling people 'loons' and slacks every chance he gets? That John?"

"I know he seems kinda shifty and lazy, but when he gets serious, he's really overbearing," Sabs replied with a small shudder before shaking her head. "Not that he, like, abuses me or anything. But it's just a big reminder when I train with him that all this is real and serious and very, very deadly. Also, that sometimes people just seem lazy or whatever, but by no means are they weak. John's a real scary motherfucker."

"Well good," Beth replied. "I mean, not good that he's a real scary motherfucker, though I guess you want those kinds of people to be enforcers. I meant good in that he's not treating you badly."

"Yeah, I would say something to you at least. And I think Baelvyr is way stronger and higher rank, and he seems like good people. If somebody were up to something, I would go to him."

"Yeah," Beth nodded vigorously, "that's definitely true. After watching Baelvyr vaporize a guy a good bit stronger than me by running through him, it's pretty clear he's crazy strong. And, despite being so gruff and surly, he really does seem like a pretty good guy."

"Good we agree," Sabs said, smiling as they walked with fingers interlocked down the tunnel. A smile that thinned considerably as she asked Beth, "Is it just me, or is it getting a lot colder?"

"Eh, a little," Beth replied, holding her right hand up and wiggling it. "It doesn't really bother me at all. Other than turning things more blue." Beth pointed at her eyes as she finished talking, a reminder of her new heat vision.

"Well, I think it's getting damn cold," Sabs returned, shivering a little and pressing against Beth.

"Ah, here," Beth said, dis-entangling their hands for a moment. She quickly grabbed the ring on her middle finger and tugged it off with a slight grunt. She then grabbed Sab's hand and slid the ring onto her middle finger before entwining their fingers together once more.

"You know, that could've been really romantic if you weren't grunting and jamming it on so fast," Sabs sighed, shaking her head.

"Oh sorry, let me make it up to you," Beth replied, turning quickly to grab Sabs before planting a firm, if somewhat sloppy, kiss on her lips. She could feel the small girl laughing through their lips and didn't resist when Sabs pushed her away.

"I like your sloppy kisses, Beth, but let's save it for later," Sabs said, still giggling. "And thanks for the ring, it really helps."

"I'm glad; about both," Beth responded with a smirk, receiving another light elbow jab in the side for her trouble.

The three continued down the tunnel, Beth pointing out the side passages as they passed. Blood padded along silently behind, occasionally sniffing the damp, frosted air. Beth pointed the way to the armory as they passed, explaining the fight against the kobold hulk and that the armory was where they pulled a lot of the good loot she had on her about a week ago. Sabs just nodded as Beth recounted the fight, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth and clenching Beth's hand tighter.

They moved further down, eventually coming to the hexagonal room. It was fully dark, and Beth took the opportunity to show Sabs the mana lamps on the pillars, walking her through the process of pushing a tiny thread of mana in to light them. The small girl had to reach just above her head to touch the lamps, but she still managed with only slightly more effort. They took a minute to move around the space lighting all the lamps before reconvening near the entrance tunnel.

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