Limitless Path

Finishing with everything, Beth cleaned up what they had used before heading out of the kitchen, belching loudly right before she left. "Beth, excuse yourself," her mother reprimanded.

"Right, excuse me," she said, sauntering back upstairs with Blood.

Back in her room, she made sure everything was arranged appropriately. She gave a heavy sigh as she went through her clothes, seeing everything that had been torn apart in just the past week. She really, really needed to get some kind of armor or armored clothing to wear so her casual clothes didn't all become rags. Sighing a second time, she tossed several of the shirts that were just rags into an extra box she had in the corner. She could probably at least use them as rags for cleaning her sword and such for a little before tossing them.

Once she had everything arranged, she made sure her alarm was set for early and plugged her phone in before hopping into bed. Blood curled up on the floor in the center of the room, tucking her muzzle in by her side and covering her face with her big, bushy tail. The two of them quickly drifted off to sleep.

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Ding, ding. Ding, ding. Beth woke early the next morning to the sound of her alarm chiming, feeling quite refreshed. She cancelled the alarm and unplugged her phone before hopping out of bed, kneeling by Blood to pet her quite thoroughly. Satisfied Blood was in good spirits, she moved into the bathroom where she brushed her hair and teeth and got ready for the day.

The two of them headed down to the kitchen, Beth stopping by the front door as she got a text. She opened the door to find Sabs standing there, waving her inside before shutting the door behind her. Beth turned and gave her a hug, laughing when a clearly hungry Blood headbutted them both out of the hug. The three made their way back into the kitchen, where Beth and Sabs started food prep for the morning.

They were soon joined by Kim, and somewhat later a slightly disheveled Soph as they finished cooking up breakfast. They ate up relatively quickly, eager to get into the action for the day. Once the food was all finished, they made their way out through the mudroom, grabbing gear as needed. They circled up by one of the tables to discuss the plan.

"What's the plan for today?" Kim asked, looking to Beth.

"We're gonna circle around the side of the development and head south. The fields south of the neighborhood have wolves and a wolf Breeding Ground; that's our target for today," Beth replied, outlining the plan.

"Will Blood have an issue fighting with the wolves?" Kim asked, settling further into her role as leader of the rest of the group.

Blood merely chuffed with a furrowed muzzle in response, a look and sound that showed her disdain for the ‘wolves’ in the fields. Kim nodded in response to the sound, Blood's stance clear to the entire group.

"Alright. Before we get rolling here, let's try another session like we did yesterday in the ant nest," Beth said.

"What do you mean?" asked Sabs with a quirked brow.

"I'm going to walk you four through a skill and see if you can pick anything up, so pay attention," Beth replied, looking at each of them in turn, including Blood.

Over the next half-hour, Beth attempted to explain how her regeneration skill worked. It was still technically too early for her to really be able to teach it to anyone, but they found that that gap didn't make the rest of the group unable to learn it. Instead, the other four, after much grumbling and many admonishments to focus, learned the far more basic Regeneration.

"Now that that's finally sorted, you should also know that Blood and I will both generally be watching today," Beth announced to the group, much to their surprise.

"You want just the three of us to fight?" Sabs asked in consternation.

"Yeah, I do. Blood and I would just soak up all the experience. We're trying to get you levels, Blood and I are fine for now," Beth answered.

"Holy shit, you're level NINE?!" Sabs cried out in shock.

"WHAT?!" exclaimed Soph.

"HOW?!" shouted Kim.

"Blood and I haven't been idle. If you don't work hard, you'll be left in the dust. Now, we're wasting time. Today is gonna be a long day. Fall in," Beth waved away their surprise, getting the group moving.

"Fall what?" asked Soph.

"Never mind, just follow her," replied Sabs.

The group of five trotted out of the backyard with the little ditch, as Beth thought of it, proving no obstacle to them. They made their way eastward first before turning south, circling around the outside of the development. It took them about twenty minutes, but they finally arrived at the highway in front of the development. A week after the world had changed and there still weren't any cars out and about, the road being basically empty. Beth could see a truck in the distance heading away from them, but nobody else.

The group carefully crossed the highway and entered the field beyond, Beth and Blood behind the other three. The lead girls were attacked by a level one wolf leaping out from behind the thicket to their right as they entered the field. Apart from a surprised exclamation from Soph, the group handled it well, killing the wolf quite quickly.

They continued on, the group of three girls not really having any trouble with the one or two level ones and twos they encountered. It didn't take the three girls who were fighting very long to get used to the wolves, being able to easily fight against the low-level ones helping them familiarize themselves in a safer manner. Beth instructed the group on some of the standard tactics the wolves seemed to use at low levels and pointed the way to the Breeding Ground.

It didn't really take long for the group to close in on the breeding ground, and Beth only had Blood step in on the last fight as they approached, as the pack the other girls faced had two level fives and three level fours. The five higher leveled wolves were a little bit much for the three girls to take on alone, their combat instincts and experience both less than Beth's. Beth circled them up again before they entered the dungeon.

"OK, this is the dungeon. Last time I was in here it was pretty simple, a wooded area with game trails linking clearings together. I didn't really care to explore so I just pushed into the center and fought the boss. We might want to take some extra time in here, since the levels and numbers are going to be above you, it's a good time to grind," she explained.

"What do you mean by grind, again?" Kim asked, eyebrows scrunched up.

"It's a gaming term. It's like from grinding a blade to sharpen it; doing a very repetitive task for a long time to get some gains. In this case, we're talking about killing low to moderate leveled enemies a whole bunch, over and over again, to gain levels ourselves. The boss of this place was a level eight Great Wolf last time, which would absolutely require me and/or Blood to kill it. The other wolves range up to level six, I think, and they come in groups as big as seven or eight in one clearing," Beth continued her explanations.

"And we're supposed to fight eight level sixes without help?" Soph asked archly.

"No, the early groups will be something like a level five, a few level fours, and a handful of level ones. It's a breeding ground, so this is where the level one and twos come from," she shook her head at Soph, explaining the groups would be a little easier than what they had interpreted from her first explanation.

"Let's head in and try the first clearing. Blood and I will be backup for now, but don't rely on us to save you. If one of those wolves tears out your throat, you die. This isn't a game, trust me on that," Beth said, unconsciously rubbing her torso where the Great Wolf had grabbed her in its jaws.

The others all nodded and the team moved into the dungeon area together. They walked for a short while before arriving at the first clearing. Again, it operated the same as the ant dungeon seemed to, Beth observing that the beasts' zone of perception didn't extend into the corridors. She Identified the wolves within the clearing.

Grey Wolf Level 5

Grey Wolf Level 5

Grey Wolf Level 4

Grey Wolf Level 1

Grey Wolf Level 1

Grey Wolf Level 1

She couldn't quite recall, but it seemed the wolves were roughly the same. Maybe there had only been one level five in the first group last time? She wasn't sure, but she waited for the others to analyze the enemies and ready for the fight. When they seemed to all be ready and set, she waved them forward, her and Blood stepping into the clearing behind them.

The wolves all turned and charged the intruders as a pack. They used slightly better tactics than the ants, in Beth's opinion, but it wasn't that much better. The higher levels were much faster than the lower levels and they didn't wait, charging ahead as a smaller group while the level ones lagged behind. This split the room into two waves and gave the three girls an opportunity to damage or kill the high-level wolves before the low levels got involved, almost opposite to what would have been the best overall strategy for the wolves.

The three managed to clear that first room with little difficulty, slaughtering all the wolves in the room. Soph was pretty key to their team, as her heavy damage from long range could insta-kill low-level enemies, and greatly damaging higher leveled beasts. They moved on, going from clearing to clearing, killing anything that stood in their way. Soph experimented a little with her spell, shooting a wave of electricity that slammed into a group of enemies, killing two level ones and shocking the rest. From there, she followed up by creating a dense orb of ice mana, throwing it into the next clearing, blowing it up just as the wolves noticed it and freezing everything solid. The effort was a little much for the tiny terror, Soph collapsing from the intensive use of mana with Beth catching her before she hit the ground. That forced them to take a bit of a rest, with Soph being alright after meditating for a few minutes and recovering.

The group then made their way to the boss room after clearing much of the rest of the area, Beth taking the chance to guide them through more rooms than they needed to clear to get them a little bonus experience. They examined the boss clearing as Beth looked on, a little intimidated by what they were up against.

Grey Great Wolf Level 8

Grey Wolf Level 7

Grey Wolf Level 6

Grey Wolf Level 5

Grey Wolf Level 2

Grey Wolf Level 2

Grey Wolf Level 2

Grey Wolf Level 1

Grey Wolf Level 1

Grey Wolf Level 1

It seemed the same, perhaps the level seven had been a level six, but overall, the room wasn't really much different. The other girls simply stared at the room slack-jawed. After a moment, Sabs turned to her with a mixture of confusion, fear, and slight awe.

"You and Blood killed a room of ten wolves when you were lower level, including a boss?!" she asked incredulously.

"No, I didn't have Blood yet. I got her from this room as a special thing for being the first to clear this dungeon. I soloed this room," Beth replied calmly.

"What the fuck?!" Sabs cried out.

"I don't know if we can do this with the three of us, and you did it alone? Are you, like, a monster or something that looks like Beth?" Kim's eyes seemed like they couldn't get any wider.

"Look, it's not that bad. I got hurt, but I was alone. The three of you have a powerful mage and two strong melee fighters. Plus, Blood and I are here. If things look like they're going poorly, either one of us could probably solo the whole damn room easily. It won't be a problem for us to step in and lend a hand. You should formulate a strategy, rather than just make fish faces at me," Beth answered Kim.

"I just have a hard time wrapping my head around it," Kim answered, looking back out across the boss room.

"Less gawking, more planning," Beth said.

"Fine. Do you think you can frost the room, Soph?" Kim asked.

"Sure, but I don't know that it will really affect the level seven or that really big one," she answered hesitantly.

"That's alright. Here's the plan: Soph, ice blast the room. Sabs, you rush down the six low levels, try to kill them all in one go. I'll move in and start dealing with the high levels, depending on how affected the level seven and eight are. Soph, back me up on the high levels after the frost orb. Any questions?" Kim outlined the plan for the other two.

"No, I can do that easily," Soph answered.

"Nah, I can take out the low levels super quick and help clean up the high levels," Sabs said.

Beth interjected here, "I will be moving in right behind Kim along with Blood. We'll try not to get involved, but the wolves in here are fast and lethal. I can't stand way back and have enough time still to save you if something goes wrong."

"Right, that shouldn't be a problem. I'd rather get through this safely than worry about having you help making the reward less or something," Kim replied with a nod.

"You know what you're doing. Whenever you're ready," Beth said, gesturing at the clearing.

The group managed the fight well, with Beth only having to interfere at the end to keep the boss from tearing Kim apart. That did mean the group got less experience from the room, but they weren't complaining. The three lower-level members of the team were exhausted by that point, and they took plenty of time to rest.

The group stayed in the clearing for an hour before they were rested enough to move out. They headed back out of the dungeon, emerging fifteen or so minutes later back into the fields. They headed across the fields, only having to kill a couple low level wolves before reaching the highway.