Chương 102: Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Two

The three left the elf to his vigil, heading down the corridor and into the arena, bypassing the lounge and other areas. They trudged to the elevator and rode it down to Beth's floor, moving to her room where she let them in with her free hand. Sabs pushed the door open for them, allowing Beth to get in without fumbling about. The tall girl moved to her left after entering, thumping the chest down in the corner where they typically dumped their gear.

Sabs dropped her gear after Beth set the chest down before moving across the room.

"What else?" asked Sabs, plonking down on the couch.

"I should either grab Tazeen or Elana and get started on my gloves," Beth replied with a sigh, dropping her pack before pulling the damaged gauntlets out.

"They took a real beating," Sabs said, looking at the mess the gauntlets were in.

"Yeah, saved my arms from taking even more serious damage," Beth replied with a grunt.

"I'm gonna just chill, if you don't mind," Sabs said, grabbing the remote and leaning back. Beth walked over, tucking the gauntlets under her left arm, before leaning down and kissing Sabs warmly.

"I never mind, Sabs. I'll also see if I can get a second room key from Tazeen to give you. You should think of this place as yours."

"Beth…" Sabs said with a big grin before pulling the tall girl back down into another warm kiss. When they broke off, Beth looked over to Blood, asking, "What about you? In or out?"' I will stay with the cute one.' Blood replied mentally.

"She says she'll stay with the cute one," Beth said to Sabs, getting a blush out of the older girl.

"Alright, I'm off for now. I'll be back in a few hours, at most." Beth stopped in the corner and grabbed her hammer from the small pile of loot she had accrued, hoping maybe to get one of the two senior smiths to walk her through repairing the gauntlets herself. She headed out of the room, letting the door close behind her before heading to the elevators. She headed to the lounge first, checking for Elana. She found only Baelvyr in the room, sitting in his usual corner and drinking from a massive stein.

He had a screen hovering in the air in front of him and just to the side but seemed rather distracted by what was on one of the large TVs. Beth walked over to his table and gave him a nod.

"Hey, thanks for yesterday, if I didn't say it before," she said.

"Hey, no problem, girlie," he replied with a shrug.

"All part of the job."

"I take it I can look forward to such things in the future?" Beth asked.

"If ya mean more of them bastards poppin' up, then maybe," Baelvyr responded before taking a mighty quaff.

"If ya mean doin' stuff like that yerself, helpin' the greenhorns, then maybe wait until ya ain't so green yerself, first."

"Yeah, yeah," she responded with an eyeroll.

"Have you seen Elana?"

"Yep," he replied, "she took that kiddo she got under 'er down to the forge a little while ago. Might wanna check there first."

"Thanks, Baelvyr," Beth said, turning to head to the door.

"Ya need trainin', ya know where to find me," he replied.

"I will then, since I hit Journeyman off that fight," Beth answered, stopping halfway to the closer door.

"Damn, kid. Must've really pushed ya, huh?" he said with a small chuckle that Beth still felt like a slap.

"Guess so, but now that I'm here, I need to figure out the differences. And I want to start pushing toward Expert."

"Maybe keep yer feet on the ground and try to get used to what ya have now first," he commented with a snort.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll hit you up the day after tomorrow. I wanna help with the power and water stuff for my neighborhood that Jaq's working on tomorrow."

"Again, ya know where I'm at," he said before draining what was left in his tankard. She just saw him doing his typical trick of pulling bottles out of nowhere as she stepped out of the room, shaking her head slightly as she started back into the arena section to head down to the forge. She made her way to the elevators and headed down to the bottom basement floor, walking down the brightly lit hallways to the back of the basement.

She pushed open the door to the smithy, a bit of heat and a large amount of noise washing out, as both Elana and James hammered away at metal.

"Elana!" Beth called out, letting the two know she was there as well as getting the senior smith's attention.

"Girlie," the smith teacher answered, placing the piece she was working on partially back in the forge as she finished her last few hammer blows. Turning to Beth, she gave her a nod as the tall girl walked over to the dwarf's work area. Beth set her gauntlets down on Elana's anvil, holding her forging hammer in her left hand with the head set on the top of the anvil as well. This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"Well, girl, let's hear it," Elana said, putting her hands on her hips as she glanced at the gauntlets.

"Got advice from Jaq, of all people," Beth replied.

"He said these would be fixable; might be some good experience for me to do it myself, provided I have supervision."

"We can do that, but you aren't currently paying for any lessons," Elana replied, eyes narrowing a little as her hands remained on her hips.

"Yeah, yeah," Beth said with a snort, flicking Elana a gold.

"That's two months' worth," said the woman as she caught the gold, taking her hands off her hips during the process.

"For my sobbing wallet, it should be even more," Beth muttered darkly.

"Relax, girl, you make plenty already. Once I hammer you and this slob," she said, jerking a thumb at James, who's head popped up with a frown, "into shape, you'll make plenty just with that fancy hammer of yours."

"Right, but don't expect me to hammer all day, every day," Beth said with a shake of her head and a slight frown.

"I've got shit to do. Including killing."

"We all remember being young and hot tempered, girl, no bonus there," the dwarf replied with a brushing motion from her right hand.

"Let's have a look at these." Elana picked Beth's shredded gauntlets up and examined them. She started with the right gauntlet which, while dinged and a little dented, was still at least in a relatively useable state. Elana didn't rush, doing a thorough inspection, but her skill let her check from fingertip to elbow-joint in good time.

She set the first gauntlet down only to pick up the second, giving it a more critical eye, even going so far as to stick the index and middle finger of her right hand into the rent and pull at the metal. Beth watched the metal visibly move at the smith's ministrations, not really surprising, considering Elana had to be rocking well into the single digit thousands of Strength, if not into the low tens of thousands. Beth followed up on that thought, curious if the smith would mind sharing.

"Say, you're pretty damn strong, mind giving me a ballpark on your Strength stat?"

"What do they say, girl? Knowledge is power," the stocky smith returned with a scowl.

"Just askin'," Beth replied, holding her hands up defensively.

"It's more than five thou', if that can satisfy you," the smith said, not even blinking as James dropped his hammer after listening in from his workstation.

"And don't treat your tools like that, you oaf."

"Sorry, sorry," the young man apologized, picking up the dropped hammer before turning to pull some mana copper round stock out of his forge and start hammering it. Beth was pretty sure it wasn't hot enough, and that he was just doing it to look busy to avoid more tongue-lashing.

"Heats it four times, hammers it ten, and listens zero," Elana muttered, low enough Beth was pretty sure only she heard it.

"Anyway," the smith continued, putting the damaged gauntlet back on her anvil, "you want me to hammer this back into shape, or you want to work on it yourself? It will take some time to do it right, at your skill level."

"I've got time," Beth replied with a shrug.

"I just want them fixed for now, and besides, I have a chest full of mana steel in the room now; I'd like to start working that sooner, rather than later."

"Ah, why didn't you say so?" Elana responded.

"Bring it on down and we can have a look."

"I'll grab it if you want, but Tazeen already looked at the bars," Beth said.

"He said they're around mid-quality, and that I should wait for Apprentice[8], at minimum, before I tried doing anything with them."

"Ah, if he's looked at them, then I trust what he says," Elana said with a nod, crossing her arms as the conversation continued.

"I would personally recommend waiting even longer, at least Apprentice[9], if you can stomach it." Beth just sighed, saying, "I don't want to wait, but I know it's smart. Just means burning more time, but at least I have tons of that now. And it's not wasting the time, I'm still learning."

"Alright, let's talk about these," Elana said, gesturing with her left hand before replacing it in her arms-crossed stance.

"Tell me how the damage happened, not that I don't have a good idea, so I know exactly what I'm working with."

"Kobold boss," Beth started, going on to explain about the fights with the kobolds, including the massive boss that pounded the snot out of her and Blood.

"Alright, good, that fills everything in," Elana nodded as she uncrossed her arms and picked up the right gauntlet.

"Lucky for you, no ice or frost mana invaded the metal. That can happen at higher levels, usually not until close to or over level one hundred, but that's not a hard rule. Since there's no hostile mana or skill remnants in the metal, we only have to worry about repairing the metal's shape and strength. Don't want it too thin after we're done, at the very least." The smith led Beth over to the workstation on her other side, the two of them setting it up so she was working third in their line counting from James.

The room had far more than three stations, but they occupied the three centermost and left the rest alone, though everything in the room was kept well clean. When the forge was heating and the tools were arranged to Beth's liking (just some tongs and a set of pliers beside her hammer), Elana tossed the left gauntlet on the workbench before placing the right gauntlet on the anvil.

"We will work on this first, as it's easier," the smith started, gesturing to the dents in the solid armor vambrace section.

"We will bring these dents back out to flush and check the integrity of the metal. I'll show you the first part."

"How can we hammer the dents out without getting our hammers in the inside of the gauntlet?" Beth asked, frowning as she looked at the damage.

"We can't, so we won't," Elana replied with a shake of her head.

"We won't hammer the dents back out, but instead, we'll use a tool designed to pull up dents. We can also heat parts of the gauntlet and use pliers to help push the metal a little, but that's trickier and usually doesn't solve the problem fully. Let me show you." Elana proceeded to slowly demonstrate the techniques for pulling dents out of pieces of metal where it would be inconvenient to try to take them apart to hammer or roll them.

Beth learned quite a bit and, after two demonstrations, was ready for her own attempt. Elana supervised her first attempt, correcting her tool placement before eventually giving her passing marks on her fix. Beth spent the rest of the afternoon working on the right gauntlet, working through the less serious dents before packing it up for the day.

Normally, she might have headed up to the arena for some evening training before stopping for the day once night was truly well under way, but she had a very cute girl waiting for her in her suite, so that was her next destination. It took only a minute to head up to the rooms, leaving Elana grumbling over James's latest attempt at nails, Beth taking the elevator up and walking down the hallways while rolling her shoulders.

She entered the room to find Sabs in undies and a T-shirt sprawled on the couch, Blood sprawled out on the floor in front of the coffee table. Beth tossed the gauntlets and her forging hammer in her Pile of Much Loot, already getting in the habit of keeping everything that belonged to her in a location she considered secure.

With only the Enforcers, Sabs, her sisters, and James allowed anywhere beyond the lobby, she wasn't really concerned with her things growing legs and wandering off, but she wasn't in the habit of leaving her stuff laying out for other people to mess with, and she wanted to get in the habit of consolidating it in her room. Beth cleaned up quickly and had dinner with Sabs before the two spent a little bit of time together on the couch.

After watching a few shows, they headed in for bed, curling up together on the bed and passing out right away. The two woke early the next morning and got up relatively quickly, getting breakfast and taking care of their morning needs. When they were all finished, they armored up and headed out, Blood joining them as they left the room and moved through the underworks. Beth figured they should start by going straight to the source, assuming that even though it was still a little early, Jaq would be up and about.

The three entered the commissary in short order, walking up to the counter and waiting to be noticed. Beth leaned against the counter as she glanced around, Sabs and Blood simply standing and waiting. It only took a minute before the central door silently opened, Jaq emerging from within with a small frown on his face.

"Bothering me in the commissary is not going to make today's work go any faster," Jaq started off with immediately.

"Good morning to you, too," Beth said with fake cheer and a very insincere smile. Jaq just glowered in response, giving them a look, and Beth continued, "We wanted to maybe... help?" Jaq continued to glower and, just when Beth opened her mouth to speak again, he said, "Very well. Follow." He turned and slid the section of the counter open that Beth had used many days ago when she threw the scraps of her old clothes away.

Beth gestured for the other two to proceed first, following at the back and managing to figure out how to slide the counter closed behind her. Jaq opened the lefthand door and led the way down a long corridor, Beth narrowing her eyes to slits as she followed behind the others. She was quite sure Jaq's mysterious doors didn't lead to hallways, but she held her tongue… for now.