Limitless Path

The object had certainly been what had caught Blood's attention, the nearly three-story high edifice of black and silver metal emitting both a certain presence and smell into the surroundings. The best Beth could describe it as would be old vegetable oil; a greasy, oily, vegetal smell that wasn't quite rancid, but certainly wasn't pleasant to the nose.

The two approached the new discovery cautiously, not wanting to be caught by surprise by some beast or security system. Considering the person she bought all her goods from was apparently a nanotech-wielding cyborg, Beth made no guarantees there weren't any sci-fi types of security systems just waiting to electrocute them at a new location.

As she drew closer, she observed the black and silver was not just some form of forged metal, but appeared to be active, for lack of a better term. It looked like there was either some type of circuitry embedded in the arch, or there was some kind of power being pushed through the material. Stopping a few paces away to observe the pulses of what seemed to be electricity in the metal, she was startled but not shocked when a burst of energy rippled through the space in the center of the open frame.

Taking a few quick steps back, checking that Blood was still tucked in behind her while she did, Beth drew her sword and waited to see what, if anything, would emerge from this new occurrence. As she readied herself, she watched the power coruscating through the opening gather into a tight sphere of about a four-feet diameter over the course of three seconds. The blue-white sphere of energy pulsed twice before a large dinosaur suddenly dropped from it. The sphere disappeared immediately after, leaving Beth staring at what could only be described as a smallish triceratops. She quickly used Identify on the creature before it turned and roared at them.

Empowered Triceraton Level 20

Beth watched the dinosaur as it slammed its front left leg into the ground twice, lowering her stance as she anticipated the charge. And what a charge it was! She didn't know if it was because the mottled dusky brown and orangish beast had the 'Empowered' descriptor, or if it was just something a four-legged dinosaur that was nearly four feet at the shoulder and over two tons could do, but the beast absolutely stormed across the intervening distance.

Beth danced to the right just as the beast lowered its huge head and made to ram her flat, nimbly sliding to the side as she reversed her grip on her sword. Flipping the blade slightly in the air, she grabbed the hilt with the palm of her left hand facing down, blade pointed to her left, and set her right palm against the pommel. As the prehistoric freight train rushed by, she inverted her momentum, stepping back to the left and lashing out with the tip of her sword, driving it forward with all the strength in her right arm.

It was a good thing she had, for the blade didn't quite punch half-a-foot into the side of the beast, leaving a wound that would be much more annoying than crippling. As the beast roared again and slowed, preparing to turn for another pass at her, Blood leapt in from the side with a full powered body check. What would have normally sent an opponent tumbling with broken bones barely caused the opponent to sway, the wolf darting back away as the dinosaur spun slightly to its left away from Blood, lashing its thick tail towards Blood's side.

Beth didn't waste this opportunity, the beast both distracted and presenting its wounded left side to her. She had resumed her normal grip on her sword, and now she slammed the blade point first into the large gash on the beast's side. It roared again, an infuriated, warbling bellow that made Beth's teeth rattle and vision blur. She ignored what might have been a skill, or perhaps just the force such a powerful creature could generate was enough, stepping forward with a snarl herself as she buried the blade nearly to the hilt in the Triceraton's side.

The beast bellowed again, a sound which turned into a hacking cough halfway through. Beth didn't let up, digging her heavy boots into the ground as she shoved with her now quite powerful arms, carving the dinosaur apart from the inside out. The beast staggered again and made to thrash its head at her, but before it could twist around more than a short distance, Blood appeared again beside it. This time, the massive wolf slammed her gaping jaws into the beast's neck, sinking her dagger-like teeth in up to the gums. As Beth continued to push, Blood began to pull, tearing the creature's tough flesh as it staggered to the side.

With her own bellow, Beth infused her arms with a massive burst of mana, hearing her joints crackle and pop as she felt her muscles swell. With a large step forward, she exerted enough force to start the dinosaur toppling, swinging up with all her might. The skill Monstrous Blow was fully active now, and Beth grunted as the sword was stopped in its path of carnage by the beast's backbone. With another snarl, she pushed with her legs while twisting her torso and bunching the muscles of her back and arms.

The spine of the beast blew apart with a *CRACK* like a rifle shot, the sound echoing across the field as blood and viscera sprayed from the nearly bisected beast. Beth pulled her feet out of the furrows they had dug into the ground with a grunt, stepping back and shaking out her arms as she inspected the corpse with a critical eye. Blood, meanwhile, had let the neck go and was sniffing about at the open wound, eyeing it to perhaps see if she could pluck a choice organ out.

"Adventuring really is dirty work," Beth muttered, scrunching her nose as she stepped back up to the large corpse. Setting the blade of her sword into the opening she had recently created, she twisted the weapon to the side, opening the remains further with a wet, crunching, tearing noise. Blood barked enthusiastically, shoving most of her massive head into the gaping opening. Beth backed up with a grunt, practically scrunching her whole face as she turned from the scene of Blood's feast, dismissing the kill notification as she walked back toward the archway.

The opening of the arch was about fifteen feet across, with the black metal pillars themselves being about three feet in diameter. Beth tried to use Identify on the construct but got nothing in return, once again lamenting that she had neither a more advanced skill nor a separate one that worked on objects. Beth moved forward again, sword held firmly in her right hand, approaching the left side of the arch itself. The construct did not react this time, the pulses of power across its surface continuing steadily as she stepped up and touched the metal. It was warm, which she could tell even through her gauntlets, meaning it was actually somewhat hot.

When she placed her hand against it, there was no reaction, nor did the currents pulsing through it shock her. She supposed the summoning of the dinosaur might have been some kind of defensive reaction, as she didn't see any other beasts of any kind in the field, but it could just as easily have been part of its routine functionality. She continued to inspect the metal for a minute, trying to see if it matched anything she knew of from her study of smithing, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Once Blood had finished her impromptu feast, she jogged over to join Beth at the side of the arch. Beth finished her inspection before signaling to Blood with a wave of her hand, stepping around to stand in front of the arch. With a quick glance at her companion, she took a deep breath before stepping forward across the threshold.

Nothing changed. Looking around, Beth was disappointed to find that they were teleported exactly nowhere, and she was just standing a couple steps further across the field. She glanced at Blood again, who simply returned the look, before they returned to the outer edge of the arch. After a little more investigation, Beth decided there was nothing they could do here without some other skills or equipment.

Remounting her lupine companion, Beth had them curve out further westward with an eye towards moving back north. While what felt like endless days of training had given her a bit of cabin fever, she still wanted to get back to the Hall before it got dark. Considering they were a couple hours away at a decent pace and it was moving just past midday, Beth thought it better to turn homeward sooner rather than later.

They had seen surprisingly few beasts so far, though of the handful they had encountered, about half were into the double digits, a sign Beth found a little worrying. Considering her and Blood's levels and the sheer presence a high-level, six-hundred-pound wolf could emit, she assumed the beasts they did encounter were likely the strongest and/or stupidest around.

Beth's thoughts were interrupted by a low rumbling groan, and it took her a moment to process what she was hearing. The two had just entered a section of field which apparently belonged to a dairy farmer, the rumbling noise having been a large, truly fat cow greeting them. It seemed non-hostile and, if Beth were being entirely honest, maybe just a little stupid, watching them approach it with big, glistening doe-eyes.

She could about look the bovine directly in the eye from her seat on Blood's back, though she did still have a slight height advantage over the white and black-spotted monstrosity. She used Identify on the animal just to check as it curiously bumped its massive, blunt nose against her.

Contented Dairy Cow Level 9

Well, no real surprise there, other than somehow it had Contented as a prefix modifier. Beth hadn't been aware that such…simple…labels could be appended to beasts out in the wild, but it was a good note. The cow, content that they weren't anything interesting, went back to its lazy grazing, and Beth noted a few others scattered across the field. With a pat to her neck, Blood was off again, still tracking a little more west than north.

Maybe their two discoveries during the first part of the day were lucky, but they found little else until they were somewhat close to the CRA Hall, having finished heading westward and moved back east as they were making their way north. They were probably not more than twenty minutes away from the Hall at a good clip when they stumbled upon what Beth could only describe as a Goblin village. They slowed atop a wooded hill to survey the scene.

The village was little more than a ramshackle group of long houses and a couple outbuildings lumped together. There were a handful of stakes driven into the ground around the area, perhaps supposed to be a defense, but even Blood, with her massive size, could have walked right between most of them. They saw quite a handful of goblins scattered around the village, many either wandering out into the surrounding area or returning from a foraging run.

Beth dismounted from Blood and started down the hill, holding off on drawing her sword just yet. In many video games and stories, goblins were low-level, stupid, and aggressive enemies that proved an annoyance for early on, but she didn't want to make any assumptions in this new world. As it turned out, she could have been rather spot-on with a few assumptions based off her pre-change knowledge.

As soon as a few goblins in the village spotted them, they immediately drew whatever pathetic excuses for weapons they had and charged, screaming incoherent war cries the whole time. The furor quickly attracted more attention, spreading through the village like a wave of overcharged madness. Beth drew her sword while Blood flexed her neck and shoulders, getting ready for a few minutes of bloody work. She used Identify as the first goblins started to near, not impressed with what she saw.

Goblin Vandal Level 8

She was even less impressed with the little creatures as they mobbed her, the light of intelligence very clearly missing from both their eyes and tactics. The beasts, even the three with spears, just mindlessly threw themselves at the two budding enforcers, only interested in ripping apart their tasty meat. This village was clearly not a group of enlightened goblins, and Beth sneered a little, adopting a bit of a frustrated grimace as she hacked through the wave of beasts.

The battle, if one were to be fairly generous with their labeling, lasted about three minutes, mainly due to the sheer numbers that the little village had disgorged. Thankfully, Beth mused to herself, it appeared the village was some kind of generated thing like a dungeon, as there were no children or elderly present. While the goblins here were of both genders, she judged them all to be in the prime of their lives, whatever age that was for the mindless version of goblins, and quite weak. Having Identified a few more during the time she and Blood spent ripping the mass apart, she found none of them had any special modifiers, and the most advanced of them had the Vandal "job" listed after their species.

Beth and Blood left the beasts where they fell, a morass of muddy, bloody bodies and body parts in a churned-up area outside the outer stakes of the village. They entered the area, Beth keeping her sword at the ready while Blood swept the area with her keen senses, but it seemed the initial wave was the whole village. She stuck her head in the first outbuilding and nearly projectile vomited from the stench, reeling back outside with eyes watering while she gagged and swallowed her bile. While she suspected the village was something more akin to a prop than an actual functional village, the Path certainly made sure to make the smell as realistic as possible.

She dug in her pouch for a second, but quickly remembered she didn't have any extra clothes or anything she could use as a mask. "Add a note to get some kind of masks or full fucking rebreathers to the camping gear list," she said to Blood, who still paced around the center area of the village, having not tried to repeat Beth's mistake. The huge wolf just barked in response, acknowledging the comment while she tried to find anything useful outside the buildings.