Limitless Path

When she got up to her room, she took off her sword and leaned it against the wall in the corner. After locking her door, she stripped out of her armor and dirty clothes, throwing the clothes in the hamper, and hopped in the shower. After cleaning up, she enjoyed the hot water for a few extra minutes before exiting and throwing on some underwear and a loose shirt.

She then sat at her desk to go over her gains. Thinking for just a moment, she dumped her two free points in INT and opened her status screen.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Brawler

Level

4

Strength

11

Dexterity

10

Endurance

10

Intelligence

10

Wisdom

9

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress Inheritor

Skills

Ancient World Gate[0]

Crush Copper[3]

Identify Copper[0]

Pain Tolerance Copper[4]

Swords Apprentice[0]

Unarmed Apprentice[1]

Wealth

3c

The only stat she had below ten now was WIS. Based on what other people had shared online and the little she could glean, 10 was not average but actually fairly high for a stat. Someone with 10 STR was a very fit person, and someone with 11-12 would be a top professional athlete or weightlifter. Somebody at 13 STR would be the absolute top of humans, like that man who had played the huge warrior on that famous TV show. Beth heard he had broken some kind of thousand-year-old record for lifting a crazy amount of weight. Somebody like that would likely have at least 13 STR, if not even 14.

Beth was also somewhat satisfied with her skill progress. Gaining the Swords weapon skill after a part of the day was pretty good and gave her some variety in her fighting methods. She would need to do a little more to level Crush again, and she knew it would take even more to level Unarmed.

Beth was tired, but it definitely felt like a good kind of tired. She grabbed her phone and plugged it into the charger, setting it on her nightstand. She rolled into bed and picked the phone up briefly to check for any notifications before changing her alarm from the usual 7AM for weekdays to 8AM. She wanted to be up in time to have breakfast and head over to the meeting hall a little early. She set her phone down and rolled over, asleep as soon as she stopped moving.

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Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Her typical alarm, a loud bell ringing, woke Beth at 8AM. She actually felt pretty good, swiping the alarm off and hopping out of bed. Maybe it was the difference having a lot more END made, but she felt totally refreshed after a regular night's sleep, even with how much she did the day before. As she was enjoying the feeling, her stomach made known its emptiness. Beth quickly powered through her morning routine and, grabbing her phone, was out of her room and down the stairs.

She entered the kitchen to find only her mother and father present, her sisters nowhere yet in sight. Her parents were both working on finishing up a huge breakfast spread, seemingly also taking into account Beth's new high caloric requirements.

"Morning," Beth said happily, sitting at the island and grabbing a plate.

"Good morning," both her parents replied as she loaded the plate high with food.

"The jock and the princess still asleep?" she asked jokingly, digging into the huge amount of eggs and hash browns she had taken.

"I'll get them in another few minutes if they don't show," said her mother, giving her a side-eye, but whether it was from the food or the light insult, she couldn't tell.

As Beth finished shredding her way through her first plate, Kim showed up, tiredly slumping into the kitchen while scratching her stomach. She slouched onto a stool and grabbed a plate, tiredly dishing some food onto it.

"Late night?" Beth asked, now filling her second large plate.

"I slept like crap. And I had to help dig while standing guard, not like some wild child out in the woods," Kim grumbled in response.

"Hey, I offered. Someone wanted to take a nap instead of go look for treasure," Beth replied before starting to shovel food into her mouth like an industrial earth mover filling a gaping pit.

Their mother left the kitchen heading for the stairs at a brisk clip. A few moments later, they heard from upstairs. "Sophia, it's time to get up. Breakfast is waiting." There must have come some kind of reply because it was followed by, "Sophia Stephanie Bell, if I do not see you in the kitchen in sixty seconds you will be on ditch digging duty all week, no questions asked."

A moment later their mother reappeared in the kitchen and primly sat on one of the stools, beginning her own breakfast. Less than a minute later, a bleary-eyed Soph stumbled into the kitchen, hair frazzled.

"It was less than a minute," she pronounced. "I will not be forced to perform, ugh, manual labor, this week or any week."

"We will see about that, young lady," their mother responded. "Physical work builds character."

Soph glared at everyone in the room but didn't speak further, sitting down and seeing about her own breakfast. The rest of the meal proceeded smoothly, apart from more glares from Soph, almost exclusively directed at Beth's gorging. When everyone was done, they all pitched in, the girls with various degrees of reluctance, to clean up the kitchen.

Everyone left the kitchen and made ready to go to the meeting hall. Beth grabbed her armor and sword from her room, equipping herself for another long day of battle. She stopped for a moment after buckling on her sword, thinking about how crazy and scary her life had become. But she dismissed such thoughts, her excitement for this new world outweighing her more negative emotions.

The family headed out of the house and towards the meeting hall, bumping into a few other people on the way. When they arrived at the hall, there were a number of tents set up outside, including the one Zack had been using two days prior. Many people were standing around under the awnings talking, as there was still some time until 9:00 AM.

Ten minutes later at 8:59 AM, Zack stepped out of the meeting hall and called everyone inside. The central part was full of chairs, and there was space left still to stand. The hall was full, with several people standing around the edges, but it wasn't everyone. This was not a mandatory event, and they had no way to make it so. A number of people in the neighborhood were sheltering in their houses and did not want to leave for any reason.

"Alright, let's run through this. I'll make it quick, we have a lot of work to do, so listen up," Zack started the meeting with a loud clap and a quick statement. He quickly went through work assignments for the day, mainly crews for the ditch and wall effort. There was also a crew that would be making a drive to some of the local grocery stores to try to stock up on a large amount of food and necessities. He finally dismissed the meeting, saying, "If you weren't called, stick in the hall. Everyone else, fall out! Oorah!"

The rest of the people emptied out, and Beth assumed the remainders would be who joined her today on the first trip into the woods. She was a little surprised at the people that remained, as it included the neighbor boy, John, the oldest neighbor girl, Jessica, Zack, two middle-aged neighbors she was unfamiliar with, a neighbor girl who looked to be about her own age, and even her own mother. Zack walked to the back of the room by Beth and motioned everyone else over.

"We'll talk under the big tent," he said as everyone walked up, leading them out front. There weren't any people directly out front, as everyone was already headed down the street in one direction or the other, getting to their assignments.

"Alright, here's the situation. This group is going to be heading through the north end of the neighborhood with Beth here, where we will be heading into the woods. Beth is the only one who has been consistently fighting these monsters, so I want you to listen to her. If she or I tell you to jump, I don't want you asking, 'How high?' I want you in the air. Understood?" Zack glared at the group and received nods in return. "Good. Before we march, any questions?"

"Are we going to be able to fight?" asked John.

"Yes John, you will get a chance, though you might not find it to be everything you hoped for," Zack answered. "Anyone else?"

Nobody else seemed to have any questions, so Zack motioned for them to follow and led the way up the street further into the neighborhood. The group was all armed in some form, with Beth being the most obvious so far to embrace the new adventurer style. Zack was more traditional, with a pistol on one hip and a large knife on the other. He wore a tactical vest over a heavy shirt that had a number of pouches with ammo or other small supplies in each, as well as two smaller knives strapped to it. Beth would have bet money he had at least one knife in a boot on top of all the others.

The rest of the group was far more moderately outfitted. Most of them wore regular clothes with only a single weapon. For basically the entire group this was some form of knife, with the other girl that was Beth's age having what looked like two kukri on her hips. Beth figured they could at least deal with level one ants if nothing else, and she was there to handle anything bigger. It would seem like the morning would be fairly long as well, since only Beth, her mother, and Zack actually had leveled beyond zero.

The group arrived by the Bell's house and walked around the structure into the backyard. Heading into the woodlot in a loose grouping, it took until just past the rock jut for them to encounter an ant. Beth used Identify to check it.

Common Ant Level 1

"Level one," she said.

"How do you know that?" asked one of the two middle aged men in the group.

"Before that, let me make sure we all know who's who," Zack interjected. "You all know me, and either Zack or gunny is fine. This is Beth, who is currently likely the neighborhood's best combatant. Next to me is her mother, Rachel. Then we have John and Jessica here," he pointed to each person in turn. "Over here are Andy and Chris. Finally, we have young Sabrina over here." Everyone gave either a nod or a wave when Zack had finished with the rough and dirty introduction, Beth making a note of the other young girl’s name before the conversation moved on.

Andy was the one who had asked about the level. Beth turned to him and answered, "Just look at the ant from here and think about trying to see its stats or more information about it."

Everyone else in the group turned to follow her instruction. In a moment there were a number of surprised exclamations and even Chris waving a hand in front of his face. When the group calmed down, Andy continued asking, "So how much more stuff like this is there?"

"Not really sure what you mean. I haven't really found anything other than using a sword with some tiny level of skill got me a Swords skill. Everything else I have came from my class, which I got at level one," Beth replied.

"Alright, cut the chatter," Zack stepped in again. "Let's get this ant taken down. I think it would be better for the people who haven't been out in the woods yet to do rather than see. Why don't you handle this one, Andy?"

"Me? Sure, I guess. Let's try," Andy's voice quavered a little, but he still started heading toward the ant.

"They notice you within about twenty or so feet at level one," Beth called out, Andy nodding in response as he continued.

Beth watched him approach the ant, reaching down and slightly loosening her sword in its sheath. She knew that anything could happen, and was ready to step in, just in case. Andy drew the knife he had on his hip as he got close, the ant taking note of his presence and turning toward him. Andy took another step when the ant charged, and he suddenly stumbled a little, seemingly taken totally by surprise. He recovered as the ant neared, brandishing the knife awkwardly to his front.

The ant arrived and Andy inexpertly slashed at it. Without looking over, Beth could hear Zack facepalm. "Not going to get a knives skill like that," she muttered, likely only Zack and Rachel being able to hear her. Andy's blow deeply scratched the chitin on the ant's head but did little else. The ant lunged for his leg, and Andy stumbled back, flailing the knife at the ant.

Beth heard a clicking noise and looked over to see Zack had undone the leather strap at the top of his holster, getting ready to draw his pistol while shaking his head. She held up her hand to him in a wait gesture and started walking forward. "Fall back Andy," Zack barked, shaking his head even more as Andy staggered backward, clearly well out of his depth.

It took but a few moments for Beth to pass the stumbling Andy. She didn't even bother to draw her sword, empowering just her right fist before she lashed out in a viper quick strike. With a loud *Crunch* the top of the ant's head seemed to implode, a spurt of ichor flying up and back.

Common Ant Level 1 slain.

Andy stopped his stumbling, getting the glazed look of screen browsing for a second as he too saw the notification, and likely several others. Zack had refastened the safety strap of his holster, in the meanwhile, and walked up to Andy. "That was just about the most piss poor performance I have ever seen a recruit display," he lectured, flipping slightly into drill sergeant voice.

"Hey, these things are actually pretty scary. I'm just a regular office worker," Andy protested.

"Well, this," Zack answered him, gesturing at Beth in her equipment and the dead ant, "is the new regular, so get your head screwed on. Why don't you stay back now that you have a level."

"Alright, fine. I just have some questions about this class stuff," Andy replied.

"I'll help," Beth volunteered. She then gave the whole group a quick rundown of stats and classes, including explaining the two seeming "default" classes that everyone had been getting. After her explanation and answering another couple questions about stat points from the group, they moved forward into the field beyond the woodlot.