Limitless Path

The night was just barely starting to fade, though the area around the neighborhood was rather well lit, as she completed half a circuit of the development. The woods and surrounding areas were quite dark, but plenty of people either had motion sensor lights or just left their external lights on these days to help out in case a strong beast showed up. It was certainly easier to fight something powerful in the light rather than fumble around in the dark.

Beth glanced out into the woods occasionally as she walked, not finding it frightening so much as exhilarating. She completed her rounds without having encountered anyone else yet awake, leastways, not anyone that was outside wandering the perimeter of the development. She returned to the house and lounged on one of the chairs outside, poking at her phone as she waited for the others to wake and ready themselves for the day.

Perhaps because of Beth's new early rising habit, Sabs was actually the first one to show up, making her way around to the back of the house as she texted Beth to see if the younger girl was up. The question was, of course, answered as she entered the backyard, finding her girlfriend lounging in a large chair at one of the tables. Beth was in both clothes and armor which, coupled with her high END, made her quite comfortable in the cool air. Sabs was not as well adapted herself but didn't mind as she sat in the taller girl's lap, feeling her practically radiating heat.

The two moved back inside after a minute, sitting in the kitchen at the island while they waited for the other girls to come down. It was about twenty minutes later that Kim appeared, followed sometime later by Soph, who was practically riding Blood down the hall, face buried deeply in her warm fur. Kim prepped breakfast for the girls that hadn't eaten, assisted a little by Sabs, and they ate fairly quickly. They did a quick cleanup, and Beth headed up to the office to let her mother know that she was not going to be home that night. She had the room at the Hall, and she wanted to actually make use of it.

She returned back downstairs to the group after five minutes of haranguing by her mother before they set out for the day. They ignored the dungeons today and headed straight for the CRA Hall, taking less than fifteen minutes to get there. The roads were still practically empty, which was more than a little eerie, and they hurried on to the Hall and inside.

The girls found a scene in the lobby Beth wasn't entirely unfamiliar with, a group of people in some kind of heated discussion with Tazeen. It was the same group as the last time Beth had encountered a large group, with the rather serious-looking lady taking the lead.

Beth quickly gestured for the girls to head into the back, steering them around the group in the lobby. They entered the long hallway inside the right doorway before the lobby group seemed to take proper notice of them. One of the men in the group, having noticed them, exclaimed "Wait!" and reached for Beth.

Beth easily avoided the clumsy fumbling of the man, slipping away from him on nimble feet. To the others in the room, apart from Tazeen, it looked like she had blurred away from the man's grasp. The group, seemingly composed of the usual suspects, was once again surprised by Beth's actions. Well, a majority of them were, as it seemed there were at least a few in the group that were a little sharper than the others, including the woman who had been arguing with Tazeen.

"Considering I do not believe you had intent to harm, I will warn you this time, and only this time, that you are not to accost one of our members. Attempt something like that again and the consequences will be most severe," Tazeen said coldly.

"Did you actually have something you needed?" Beth asked afterwards.

"How can you get back there? And how are you OK with all this?" the man asked, his tone containing a little anger, but more confusion and a touch of fear.

"I can go back there because I got an emblem that makes me a member. I'm OK with this because I like the new way the world works, it means a lot of new opportunities. Anything else?" Beth replied quickly, eyeing the group as she edged toward the hallway.

"I believe anymore is unnecessary," Tazeen interjected. "Our members are often quite busy, so if you must inquire more, I am always happy to help."

Beth took advantage of the group refocusing on the tall elf to make her break, moving down the hallway rapidly before anyone could notice her absence. She came up to the lounge quite quickly and slipped inside, seeing that the other girls and their instructors had all departed already. Baelvyr was in the back corner, as was his wont, and Elana was sitting at a central table against the back wall with some kind of screen hovering in the air in front of her, glancing between whatever she was working on and the large main screen at the front of the lounge.

After greeting Baelvyr, he immediately stood and led them out of the lounge for their training. Today was a little different, as he led them out into the arena itself and to the far section of the arena floor. He stopped on the far side of the arena and indicated an area before him, which was a long rectangle of the white floor marked out by a rectangle of silver metal embedded within the floor itself.

"We're training here today?" Beth asked as she stepped up in beside him.

"Yep. I want to start gettin' ya used to fighting on the main floor. I also want ya used to fightin' in a standard sized match arena, so we're gonna use the far arena fer trainin'," he replied calmly, gesturing for Beth to enter the arena.

Beth entered the ring and moved to a position on Baelvyr's left, asking, "It's alright for me to use my normal gear?"

"Yeah," he replied. "The full arenas are set up like that. Ya can't really ask people to come in and change all the equipment they're used to usin' for somethin' that we have layin' around. So, there's extra tech and inscriptions in the arenas to account for people usin' their actual weapons and armor."

Beth nodded, the response making a lot of sense. She didn't really notice that much of a difference in the training room using the training gear, but she did notice a very slight one. She was sure that as she continued to level and increase in skill, as well as get more accustomed to her own individual gear, that the difference when using stand-in gear would be much more noticeable.

Beth stood in a circle marked out on the floor from what looked like some kind of metal, drawing her blade as she assumed a ready stance. What appeared across from her in the opponent ring wasn't a shadowy training simulacrum but was instead what looked like a fully formed person.

The person across from her was a moderately tall man holding a single longsword in his right hand, the blade close to four foot in length and bright silver, though rather narrow. He was wearing what looked like leather armor, made of some kind of thick reddish-brown hide with a number of burnished bronze buckles in various places. He wore no helm, and had a head of short black hair, neatly trimmed, and an oval shaped face with sharp features, including piercing light blue eyes.

"They're a full simulation of an opponent ya would be facin' as an unranked Copper. They can hit ya, and it can really hurt, so don't mess around," Baelvyr told her as she stared across the ring a little nervously. He then indicated toward the projection, which bowed slightly toward him in response. He did the same for Beth, who mimicked what she had just seen fairly clumsily. He then raised his arm and a countdown started from five, Baelvyr dropping his arm right when the time hit zero.

The simulacrum of the opponent didn't waste any time, charging across the arena as soon as the signal was given. Beth took a single step forward, choosing to let the man approach her, waiting with her guard up for the simulacrum to arrive in front of her. The man wasted no time in attacking; clasping the hilt of his blade with both hands, he swung it for her head in a smooth motion. Beth countered with a smaller swing of her own sword, the greater weight of her blade knocking his slash away.

The man was quite fast, however, and Beth had no sooner deflected his first strike than the second was slashing for her left knee. She stepped back and to the right, moving out of range of the slash, but was afforded no time to recover, as the man had reversed the swing and was immediately chopping at her torso. Beth parried again…and again…and again. The swordsman was relentless, and Beth was really starting to understand the difference in skill. He was fast and tireless, while deflecting his strikes only led to another strike immediately approaching her.

Beth was tired of being on the back foot, and she finally decided to take the initiative herself. She stepped forward into a strike, bringing her sword diagonally up from her lower left to her upper right, smashing the thinner blade of the opponent away and cleaving at his chest. He seemed ready for such a tactic, barely avoiding the tip of her blade with a minimal step back, his sword already slashing for Beth's throat. She continued forward into his slash, releasing her left hand from the hilt of her blade to backhand the swordsman, smashing her gauntleted fist into the left side of his head. His blade, meanwhile, bit into her left upper-arm, Beth's movement towards him not allowing him enough room to adjust his swing.

He was hardly staggered by her backhand, and he kicked her in the gut as he ripped his blade free of her arm. Beth staggered a step back and had to bring her wounded left arm up in a hasty movement to block yet another slash of his blade, the silver metal biting through her gauntlet and into the back of her wrist. She swung her own sword at him one-handed, but he was able to easily yank the blade free of her arm while stepping back, avoiding her blade by a slim margin. His counterstrike was near instant, Beth having trouble deflecting it with only one hand on her own sword. Her left arm was fairly seriously injured, the damage to her wrist having made it hard to close her left hand properly.

After barely deflecting his counterstrike, Beth attempted to step forward into his guard to strike him with her left hand, lashing out with her partially closed fist. At the same time, she raised her blade over her right shoulder, readying a heavy slam to follow her punch. The swordsman stepped around her punch and seemed to easily anticipate her strike, slashing his blade up to hit her sword with the reverse side of his own. He used the momentum from this to step forward and slash his blade across her throat, slicing her neck open quite deeply.

Beth dropped her sword and clutched her neck in a panic, dropping to one knee on the floor as she felt strength leaving her body. The feeling passed in only a moment, Beth realizing after a few more seconds that her throat had been nearly instantly healed by the arena. The phantom opponent had disappeared, and Blood had trotted over to her. Beth grabbed the huge wolf, burying her head in Blood's neck as she took deep breaths, trying to steady herself. The feeling of absorbing a fatal blow from a sword wasn't one she was going to shake very easily, and she took a minute to gather herself before letting go of her companion and standing up.

Baelvyr had his arms crossed over his prodigious gut, giving her an appraising look as she walked over to him. "Not too bad," he said coolly. "Most people freak out a lot worse when they get badly injured the first time. As ya can see, though, ya got a lotta work to do."

"He was just so fast, and it was like he knew everywhere to swing to put me at the most disadvantage," she replied with a frown.

"He was a pretty typical opponent ya'd be facin' in the arena," Baelvyr replied. "The simulation I had ya fightin' the last couple days were simulating Journeyman zero or one skill. That guy had a journeyman four in swords."

"He was only at journeyman FOUR?!" Beth exclaimed. "I thought he'd be, like, Expert, or something."

"Expert!?" Baelvyr bellowed, his booming laugh filling the massive arena. "If he was even expert zero ya'd've died instantly. Nah, that's the difference between Apprentice and Journeyman, and yer seein' it in a full simulation of a real competitor. That's the kinda level ya got to be at or above to think about seriously competing in arena matches."

"How do I get that strong?" Beth asked, a decided gleam in her eye.

"Practice," he replied a little crossly. "Practice, practice, and more practice. That's what I keep tellin' ya, and ya gotta listen."

"So, what's the best way to go about it?" Beth asked eagerly.

"We're gonna go again. Try not to let 'em get yer neck like that. Ya really need a helm of some kind and the neck piece to go with it," Baelvyr responded, the simulation of the swordsman appearing in the ring again.

Beth took a minute to look at her armor, finding it was totally fine. Where his blade had sliced into her upper arm was entirely whole, while the deep cut through her gauntlet that she was expecting wasn't there either. She asked Baelvyr about it, "What's up with my armor not having any damage?"

"It's what I said 'bout the ring having all kinds of stuff built in to allow ya to use yer weapons and armor," he replied. "At yer level, they basically make yer weapons do phantom damage. The damage it does isn't actually real, both to yer body and armor. It's all reverted when the round ends or when yer eliminated in a group match and get teleported out. Ya can ask Rissa or Jaq about the how of it; not really my area. Now, back in the circle."

Beth moved back into the circle and got ready for another fight with the phantom of the swordsman. She felt like she had learned a lot from the last fight, though she was still trying to process everything that had happened. The best way for her to really get it was to just wade in and fight it out, so she readied herself for the next round.

The match went much like the last one, Beth unable to keep up with the opponent's speed or skill. He always slashed for a vital, and his strikes were both swift and highly accurate. She tried to play aggressive again, swatting his sword away and diving after him, stepping deeply inside his guard and trying to punch him. The problem was his speed, and he was easily able to outmaneuver her, constantly able to avoid her attacks while making attacks of his own. She paid for her aggression with injuries to her left arm and torso.

Though she lasted a little bit longer in the second round, she was ultimately brought down by a similar attack. She had overextended on a swing of her blade she thought was safe, a horizontal slash that the opponent made unstable by sliding his sword against hers, pushing her off balance, and his blade into her chest. Her armor barely seemed to slow his weapon, and she found herself slumping to her knees as her vision started to darken.

She jerked upright a moment later with a gasp as the 'wounds' she had sustained during the second bout all disappeared, leaving her to straighten up from the floor, panting from the memory of the injuries. She took a minute to steady herself before she turned and walked back over to the starting circle once more, ready to engage the simulacrum yet again. She was determined to see some improvements from this, no matter how many times she would have to suffer the trauma of getting 'killed' today.