Limitless Path

Beth led the way inside, showing the rest of the group the suite, with Blood showing them where the potion she had sniffed out had been located. Beth then showed how she had found a few copper coins on a shelf to the group, with there being a fresh copper sitting in the same place. Beth found it quite interesting, thinking about how long it had been since she'd cleaned this place out and that it had apparently generated a single copper in close to two weeks. She flicked the coin to Kim as she thought it over, leading the group back out into the main corridor to continue downwards.

"It's starting to get colder," Soph commented with a discernable shiver, rubbing at her arms.

"Yeah, how are you not freezing?" Kim asked. "Well, apart from Blood."

"The cold doesn't bother me anyway," Beth replied with a grin, eliciting several groans and a cocked head from Blood.

"And she put a ring on it," Sabs continued the bad puns, showing off the ring Beth had jammed on her finger a number of days before.

"So, you're, like, engaged now?" Kim asked with a scrunched brow, which elicited a deep blush from Sabs and a hearty laugh from Beth, leading to a small elbow jammed in her ribs.

"No, not yet, at least," Beth replied, still chuckling. "I think it's rather early for that sort of thing."

"Yes, it is," Sabs said, her voice a mixture of testy and embarrassed. "It's a ring Beth found some time ago that gives a little frost and cold resistance, which is why I'm not struggling down here."

"We'll need more stuff like that," Kim said as she bit her lips, eyes distant as she started compiling a mental list.

"We have plenty of time to gear ourselves out," Beth replied. "We could even buy plain rings and have Soph enchant them, if that's been going anywhere."

"It has," Soph said with a nod. "And thanks for the clay, it's helped me get another quick skill level."

"No problem," Beth said with a shrug.

They walked for a little longer before coming to the first of the larger areas, stopping just where it intersected with the main tunnel. The grouped looked down the larger hall area before anyone spoke.

"What can we expect?" Kim asked, drawing her sword in a sign of slightly increased nerves.

"One level twenty kobold, if I remember correctly," Beth said with a shrug. "Considering how easily Sabs one-shot a level fifteen, a level twenty shouldn't be too challenging."

Kim waited for a minute to see if anything else was forthcoming, and when Beth remained silent, she said, "Alright. Let's do this by the numbers. Our usual setup, and cautiously."

The three low-leveled girls fanned out, Kim in the lead with Sabs a few steps behind and Soph well back. Beth and Blood brought up the rear, staying back far enough to not immediately get caught up in a fight, but close enough to jump in if things went wrong.

The girls moved to the center of the area and stopped before looking around, waiting to see if anything jumped out at them. Kim glanced back at Beth, who just shrugged, before returning to scanning the area, shifting her weight from foot to foot. When nothing appeared after a minute, Kim indicated for them to start checking doors. Kim and Sabs moved together while Soph stood back, keeping a general overwatch.

The first few suites branching off from the hall offered nothing, but the fourth suite they checked resulted in a shriek that Beth had become quite familiar with. Kim leapt back with a shout, nearly tripping in her startlement, while Sabs drew both her daggers in a smooth motion and positioned herself to the side. Beth used her new eye ability to give the kobold that emerged from the doorway a quick check.

Level 21 Kobold Fighter

A level higher than she remembered, but still nothing the three others couldn't handle. Kim engaged with the angry beast as Sabs looked for an opening, Soph still keeping watch over everything as the other two fought. Kim and Sabs took their time in dismantling the opponent, in part due to the unknown nature of the new threat, and in part due to the level difference. Fortunately for them, their intensive training and growing pool of combat experience allowed them to kill this first kobold while only taking a long time. No injuries for their first fight up three levels was pretty good, even considering the time taken. Soph was largely irrelevant, not having anything she could toss out in the tight space with her allies in her path.

"Not quite as bad as I thought," Kim commented as she shook the blood off her sword, frowning at the sour smell.

"Could've draw it out further; maneuvered so that Soph could get a clean shot. Otherwise, it was fine," Beth commented, arms crossed as she stood further back in the hall.

"Let's make sure we're clear," Kim said with a nod, the group proceeding to do just that. They didn't find any other kobolds in this section, and they were ready to move on fairly quickly.

Beth continued shadowing the group as they proceeded with clearing the kobolds on the offshoots from the main tunnel. She noted that the levels had increased by one to two across the board, not entirely surprised as Earth's mana level was still in flux and likely would be until at minimum the end of next year. The girls handled level twenty-one and twenty-two beasts with aplomb, though twenty-twos took them some time to eventually down. The upside of spending the increased time showed when it was about time for lunch, as the low-level trio all moved up from level eighteen to nineteen as they finished another drawn-out fight.

Beth had swung her pack to the floor and pulled out a small pile of the ration bars, noting they were almost gone. She would have to speak to Jaq about it, something to lump in with asking about cold resistance gear. Or any resistance gear, for that matter. Having more pieces that were able to provide a boost to their defenses wasn't ever going to be a bad thing.

"What's that?" Kim asked with a raised brow as Beth shucked the wrapper from one of the bars before tossing it into Blood's gaping maw.

"Food," she replied, unwrapping her own bar and starting to eat. She dug out the two canteens as she munched, handing one to Kim, who had tentatively unwrapped her own bar and sniffed it.

"It's not gonna bite you," Beth commented with a snort.

"Smells fine," Kim answered non-committaly, taking a tentative bite.

Soph and Sabs had both taken a bar, with Sabs copying Beth right away while Soph was much more suspicious. The spellcaster sniffed at the bar before taking a very small nibble, her head tilting a little and one eyebrow lifting as she chewed. She then proceeded to take a more normal-sized bite, clearly signaling her acceptance of the meal. Beth tossed a second bar down Blood's gullet as she finished her first, chugging a huge amount from the canteen she had kept before handing it to Sabs, who took several long swigs herself.

Soph seemed much less enthused with having to share a canteen with Kim until she saw Beth take the first canteen and share it with Blood. Apparently deciding sharing with her sister was better than comingling with wolf slobber, she grabbed the second canteen and took her own deep swig, coughing a little as she was surprised by the chill of the water.

Beth consumed two bars and Blood devoured four, while the other girls only ate one apiece. Beth repacked the canteens before stowing the wrappers in a small pocket on the back of her pack, adding yet another mental note to her list, reminding herself to discard the trash that had built up in that pocket later. She hoisted the pack and signaled the other girls to move out, following along as they continued down the main tunnel.

The afternoon went much the same way, the lower-leveled trio handling all the fighting, though they did slow down even further as they ran into the first level twenty-threes. They still put up quite a good fight, the fresh level and increased stats helping to even the odds a little bit. The fact they also had rather good equipment for being such new adventurers also greatly helped, with Soph's staff being a significant boost to their party's power.

Speaking of Soph's staff, it was the tiny terror that demonstrated the rage of the kobolds during the course of the day. She had been of limited help in the first couple fights Kim and Sabs had engaged in, not really able to bring a spell to bear in the narrow confines against a single enemy before the melee-orientated girls finished the fight. She then used a few lightning blasts on the next two fights, figuring that her other rather strong suite, ice, wouldn't do nearly as much here. It was during the fifth fight, clearing a group of kobolds in one of the larger halls that had several houses attached, that she used her first fire spell.

The reaction was instantaneous and quite startling to the less experienced girls, as all the kobold went from their usual shrieks to screams of rage. Beth's hand went up to the hilt of her sword and worried away at it as she watched, ready to step in at a moment's notice, but it proved largely unnecessary. The rest of the group was able to respond to the increase in aggression brought about by the fire without sustaining a serious injury, though even Soph was out of breath by the end of the fight.

"What was that?" panted Kim, trying to get her heartrate back to a reasonable pace.

"Uh, yeah, the kobolds in this area don't like fire. Probably because they're all ice and frost aspected," Beth answered, tapping her chin and squinting a little as she started pondering.

"And you're just telling as now?!" Soph cried out in a petulant voice.

"Figured you would find out on your own. Not something that dangerous, to be honest. You handled it well, and if it looked like it was too much, either Blood or I alone could have killed all of them in two, maybe three seconds," Beth said, looking over to Blood and receiving a chuff in confirmation.

"It's still better that we go in knowing what's coming," Kim replied sternly. "I would really appreciate you not holding information back in the future to surprise or test us."

"Yeah, yeah," Beth responded, holding her hands up defensively. "It was a minor thing, but no other surprises from now on. And nothing else surprising down here."

"It doesn't matter if it was a 'small thing,'" Sabs said, grabbing one of Beth's hands and squeezing it to show she wasn't really that upset. "Even small things introduce a bigger chance of one of us getting seriously hurt or killed."

"You're both right, and I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted," Sabs replied before bouncing up to give Beth a kiss on the cheek.

"Get a roooooom," Kim yelled out from side, causing both of the older girls to roll their eyes.

Other than the 'fire is dangerous and sometimes makes people angry' discovery, the rest of the day was relatively smooth. They stopped in the early evening, not having gotten down to the large room that branched into the myriad sections at the end of the main tunnel. Making their way back to the surface, they discovered it was already mostly dark, the end of November in the Northeast a time when the sun set early.

They made their way back to the CRA Hall first, Soph claiming her place of privilege on Blood's back, luxuriating in the wolf's warm fur as she buried her face in the lupine's neck. It was really starting to get cold now, especially at night, and without a nice ring or the greatly increased END of higher levels, the younger girls, Soph in particular, struggled a little with the temperature.

They arrived at the CRA Hall and all went inside together, Beth signaling that they should enter together. They made their way down to the commissary, Beth unworried about disturbing Jaq at this time, or any time, really. They trooped in to an empty shop, Beth going to lean against the counter while the others spread out to peruse the shop a little.

It didn't take long for Jaq to emerge from the back, walking out the door on the left. The door that, a few days ago, had led down a long hallway. A long, otherwise door-less hallway. Beth narrowed her eyes to slits as she stared at the Senior Enforcer.

"If your new eyes already need correction, I don't sell glasses," Jaq commented coldly.

"I'm fine," Beth huffed, relaxing her facial muscles.

"And how can I help this fine assortment of rabble today?"

"Do you have any frost resistance items?" Beth asked, ignoring his barbs.

"Yes," he replied stoically.

"And…"

"And I doubt you could afford what I have," Jaq replied, holding up a hand to stop her protest. "I have explained this before, but it does bear repeating. I have very little low-level or low-tier stock at the moment. I do have many of the things you ask about, but they are not small or cheap things that you would be interested in at your current level, both of strength and finance."

"Isn't that a little weird?" Sabs asked, leaning against both the counter and Beth at the same time.

"Hmm?" Jaq replied, his inflection ticking up through the held syllable.

"Isn't this a 'newly integrated world?'" Sabs questioned. "Why wouldn't you have more things that low-leveled people could use?"

"That's not how we operate," Jaq replied, holding up his hand again to interrupt the response with a sigh. "By that, I mean that the White Hall doesn't operate like that, and it's lucky I even have the amount of low-end stock that I do."

"What does that mean?" Sabs cut back in. "The 'White Hall doesn't operate like that' part."

"The various branches of the CRA have different operating principles and strive for different things," Jaq began explaining before Beth interrupted.

"There are different branches?!"

"Blood stars," Jaq muttered darkly, rubbing his temples with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. "Yes there are different branches of the CRA. We are all part of the same organization, with the same rules and ideals, but the operating principles and procedures of the different branches are different."

"And what, exactly, are these different branches?" Soph asked, the rest of the group having come over to hear this explanation.

"This discussion is far too long and tedious to have now, but I will explain a few basics," Jaq said, seeing five sets of eyes fixed raptly upon him. "The White Hall and Black Hall are often paired together as opposites. We strive the path of the elite while the Black Hall prefers a more regimented, militaristic approach to their membership. A little of the traditional quality versus quantity.

"You have other halls such as the Sapphire and Ruby Halls, the first of which is concerned with matters of celestial navigation and exploration, while the latter focuses on magic and magecraft. The Jade Hall has a focus on crafting and non-combat, while the Iron Hall concerns themselves with work-for-hire and mercenary work. You will find many senior members of that last Hall the leaders of mercenary companies of great renown in their own right."