Limitless Path

"Elana," she said at one point, drawing the dwarf's attention away from a screen she had been looking at while Beth worked her latest piece. "How high a skill level do you think I would need to work mana steel? I want to upgrade my current equipment away from copper, and sooner would be better."

"Hmm." Elana replied thoughtfully. "You could do it at the top end of Apprentice, but I wouldn't really try making full pieces of mana steel until you're a Journeyman. It would be quite difficult and time consuming to do, even at Apprentice nine. Then again, it would be a ton of valuable experience, and even a good way to move up to Journeyman. Either way, I would set your minimum goal to get to Blacksmith Apprentice[9] before you try more than simple things like nails and buckles with mana steel."

"Alright, good to know," Beth replied as she finished her current nail, wiping her brow before grabbing a water bottle she had on the bench and finishing it off. "If I made myself a greatsword of mana steel during our lessons, would I have to pay for that stock. How exactly does that work? I assume some metal is included in the instructions fee."

"Right, it is," Elana replied with a quick nod. "But that's also why I said to check with me before moving on to anything we haven't done yet. At the end of the day, it's an instructor's approval on what you can use for classes. The only other instructor we have for smithing, apart from Baelvyr, if his level's high enough, would be Tazeen."

"Really?" Beth cut in with some surprise. "I wouldn't have guessed that he was a smith for some reason. It's a little hard to picture him at an anvil, bashing away with a sledge," She continued, chuckling at the thought of the ever-stoic Tazeen hammering away at a bar of metal, an entirely bland look on his face.

"Yes, he's a very serious person, but an excellent smith. If I'm not ever around for some reason, you can definitely ask him for help. Truthfully, he's probably even more skillful than I am, and that's certainly saying something, coming from a dwarf on the topic of smithing," Elana replied.

Beth still couldn't really picture it, Tazeen at a roaring forge, heating metal before hammering it out into shape, but she supposed everyone had multiple talents. She returned to what she had been doing as she dismissed the thoughts of Tazeen at the forge, resuming working on creating more nails. She focused on feeling the motion of her arm as she hammered, trying to let gravity and a twist of her wrist do more of the work.

She did notice at some point that Blood had wandered off, clearly not enthralled with the work in the same way Beth was. She knew the wolf would find her at some point later or be waiting at the room in the evening to see what their plans were.

She reviewed each nail carefully when she had finished them, comparing each to the nail Elana had produced earlier. It was absolutely a long, slow process, forging each nail one-by-one before painstakingly analyzing them. She must have been forging no more than four nails an hour, and going on like that for almost six more hours, she found herself physically still fine, but mentally weary. She decided that that was enough for the day and had Elana show her how to properly shut everything down and clean up.

Beth was not, however, done for the day. There was still some time left until she had to either head home or decide to stay at the CRA Hall for the night, and she intended to use every minute she had available to continue to grow stronger. She headed out of the forge to her room for a quick bathroom break and refresh before heading up to the arena for even more training.

She picked her old nemesis from the control panel, the swordsman with the single silvery long sword. She seemed to just barely outclass him in STR stat, but his DEX and skill were both leagues above her own, making him the most formidable being she had yet fought. She knew that this would be the best way she currently had to push her combat skills from Apprentice to Journeyman level, something she really wanted to do as soon as possible. It would give her such a huge increase in combat capabilities without any change to her stats and would only make her stronger the higher she leveled from here out.

She spent another four hours working on her weapons skills, losing match after match to the phantom of the swordsman. She was quite glad the practice like she was currently doing didn't count for anything, not even showing up in a person's match history that they had done the practice. Otherwise, her record in the CRA arenas would be off to a really, really dismal start.

After feeling like she only made a small amount of progress, she went down to her room to clean up and get changed before heading back up to the lobby. She found Blood waiting outside the door when she got down to the room and let her companion in as she made ready to wash up. She intended to head home for the day, but she first wanted to stop and talk to Tazeen. She found him manning his usual post behind the front counter, walking over to him after she exited the hallway.

"Tazeen, good to see you," she said to him, receiving a firm nod in response. "Hey, I want to add time to my room. Can we do that now?"

"Of course. How much time will you be adding?" he asked.

Beth took out ten silver and passed it to him along with her room key. "Ten days, please."

Tazeen took the key and the silver and made the necessary adjustments, setting the key on the panel in the counter and pressing buttons Beth couldn't see. After a moment there was a quiet beep and the key glowed dully for a moment. Tazeen passed the key back to Beth with a nod, resuming his stoic vigil over the lobby.

Beth and Blood left the lobby and headed out towards their neighborhood. As they got close, they encountered a new worrying sign, one of the wolves from the area around the wolf dungeon had wandered out to a nearly half a mile east of their usual territory. The beasts produced by the dungeon were both increasing in level as well as, apparently, increasing in numbers. The wolf was likely just the first of many spreading further from the area around the dungeon, and Beth killed it in just a blink.

The two continued on, Beth detouring them slightly to see if they could catch any other low-level beasts out in the open. Fortunately, or not, they didn't find any more wolves pushing further out in their brief scout, and they rapidly made their way into the neighborhood and back to Beth's house. They passed through a set of newly made gates when entering the development, one shut and one open enough to let people through but not anything bigger. There were two youngish men looking to be in their early twenties guarding the gate, likely more so keeping a watch for wolves pushing out from their territory than anything else. Beth gave the two of them a nod as she passed, not that they even noticed, their nervous attention focused entirely on her companion.

The two finally made it back home after a rather long day, entering through the front door, for once. Beth immediately proceeded to the mudroom, dumping all of her equipment except her pouch there before heading upstairs. She checked to see that both of her sisters' doors were closed, assuming they had both made it home already and settled in for the night. She passed the office right before her room and, glancing in, saw both her parents working into the late evening. She stopped to stick her head in for a minute.

"Hey," she said, a little lamely. "How, uh, how's it going here?"

Her father looked up from his notes with a sigh, leaning back in his chair and rubbing the bridge of his nose with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. Her mother also leaned back with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling as she closed her eyes.

"Oh. That good, huh?" Beth continued, crossing her arms and leaning against the door frame.

"Yes, it's going that 'good,'" her mother replied, leaning forward in her chair and resting her forearms on the desk in front of her. "It's really surprising how much work the end of the world entails. Trying to keep everything organized and keep everyone on track is an immense amount of effort."

"What your mother is saying is correct, but we are managing," her father added. "How are you holding up, sweetie?"

"I'm doing well," she replied. "Found the wolves are spreading further when I was on the way home earlier. Make sure to let people know to be careful of that."

"What do you mean by spreading further?" asked her father.

"Blood and I ran into one quite a distance east of their normal territory. We looked around for a little bit after killing it but weren't able to find any others. Still, I have a feeling it could be the start of them spreading further as the dungeon keeps growing stronger," Beth explained in response.

"About where exactly was it? What level was it at? And what was it doing when you found it?" Her father was immediately in analysis mode, taking notes as he fired off questions at her. She explained in as much detail as she could muster where they had found the wolf and what it seemed to be doing, though she knew she wasn't an expert on beast behavior.

Eventually, her father was satisfied, and proceeded to take more notes while Beth turned to her mother. "Hey, I might not be back for a couple days. I have a ton I'm doin' at the Hall, and staying there is easier."

"I'm not exactly comfortable with you staying out all the time, young lady," her mother replied with a frown creeping across her face. "If you check in with us every other day at a minimum, you can stay at the CRA Hall, but only there. No running all over God knows where. You understand me, young lady?"

"Yeah, yeah. I hear you," Beth replied, standing up from her lean, dropping her arms to her side.

"Just be careful out there, sweetie," her father said. "I don't want anything happening to you because you are pushing yourself too hard, OK?"

"Yeah, I got it. I'm careful," Beth replied, turning and heading into her room. She took a quick glance around on entering, finding Blood already curled up on the floor and, disappointingly, no cute girl anywhere. She had already cleaned up at the CRA Hall, so she simply got ready for bed rather quickly before hopping in for the night. She sent Sabs a quick text goodnight, which she thought the older girl might not see until the morning, before she dropped right off to sleep.

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Beth woke up the next morning before it was even light, that gap growing wider and wider as the days grew shorter as fall progressed. She hopped up out of bed and quickly made her way into the bathroom, relieving herself and freshening up. She changed into a set of her CRA clothes from her pouch once she was ready and then made her way down to the kitchen.

She cooked enough food for several people, not sure if her girlfriend would be popping up in short order, before making sure both Blood and Wiggles had fresh water to drink. She took a minute to look around for the family cat as she had a free minute during the meat cooking, finding the now quite large house cat sitting on one of the two armchairs in the living room. She gave him a little attention and affection for a minute before returning to the kitchen and finishing up breakfast.

She was just about ready to eat when she heard a light knock on the kitchen window, looking over to see Sabs outside, bundled up a little bit against the increasing chill of the early mornings. Beth quickly slipped into the mudroom and unlocked the back door, locking it again after she had let Sabs inside. The older girl took her boots off before heading into the kitchen, Beth wrapping an arm around her waist for the short walk, then sitting close to her at the island.

"So, how are you?" Beth asked as they started eating.

"Oh, good. I was thinking about staying here last night, but I figured I'd stop home and circle up with my parents," Sabs replied, digging into the food after she'd spoken.

"Right, your dad made it home a couple days ago, right? Or he was on his way is what you were saying," Beth said before shoveling her face full as she waited for Sabs to finish her current bite and reply.

"Yeah, he actually got back just the day before yesterday. He was pretty lucky as flights aren't too dangerous yet, and they're trying to keep regular flights between Europe and the Eastern US," Sabs explained.

It seemed like the breakdown of unshielded electronics coupled with beasts in the air and unusual currents caused by mana movement was making flying into a bit of a nightmare at the moment. It was still possible to run some flights, and a combination of the civilian airlines and the Air Force in the US had been working already on hardening planes to resist magic, apparently with somewhat mixed results.

"They need to either get or buy the information from the CRA," Beth said with a tinge of frustration as they finished their food. "Them just guessing about shit like that is gonna get people killed for no good reason."

"I'm sure they're doing everything they can," Sabs replied as they cleaned up, bumping her hip against Beth's. The two took as many opportunities as they could to brush against each other as they went about the chores. They eventually finished and moved over to the living room, Beth grabbing hold of the short girl and pulling Sabs into her lap as she sat on the couch.

The two snuggled up together while they waited for the others to wake up, a part of the morning that was becoming routine for Beth. It didn't take much longer for Kim to show up, starting on breakfast for her and Soph. She was finished with the much lighter meal before Soph showed up, lacking the END of the others to reduce her need for sleep and increase its restfulness.