Chương 104: Limitless Path Chapter One Hundred Four

"Beth, what job?" her mother almost shouted, clearly highly exasperated.

"I mean, it's likely I'll be doing that kind of stuff as a job," Beth replied, lifting her left arm to start gesturing at her mother. At the same, likely subconsciously, she slid her right arm down around Sabs' midriff, pulling the older girl against her.

"Jaq and Baelvyr are senior members of the CRA, which are usually referred to as Enforcers, and I plan on joining those ranks. It'll take a long time, but I'll be like them one day."

"Or you'll be dead in a ditch somewhere, Beth!" her mother scoffed back.

"What would have happened if the others didn't show up to help? You could've died the other day and now you're just shrugging about it!"

"Could've died a lot more than just yesterday," Beth muttered a little too loudly, as everyone clearly heard it. Before Rachel's already burning fuse could reach the end, Sabs' mother stepped.

"Rachel, my dear, why don't we discuss this for a minute with that nice young man that just helped the neighborhood," she said, stepping up to Rachel and taking her by the elbow.

"Don't try to distract me, Maria," Rachel snapped, but still let herself be pulled away by the much shorter and gentler woman, who took her over to where Jaq was chatting with some of the others. Beth did a double-take at that, eyes wide at the ornery shopkeeper actually socially interacting with others without chasing them away.

"I just hope that you're not dragging my daughter into quite so much danger?" Sabs' father asked with a raised eyebrow and a bit of a frown. Before Beth could respond, Sabs answered her father, "She is not dragging me anywhere, Dad! I am doing exactly what I want to do, exactly how I want to do it."

"Easy, babe," Beth murmured, leaning forward to nuzzle Sabs while looping her now free left arm around Sabs' midriff as well.

"I know, I know," Sabs' father replied to her outburst, holding his hands up in a calming gesture.

"I just worry about your safety, as well as the fact that we both know you haven't always been the most…assertive person."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Sabs replied, a little softer but still with some heat in her voice.

"We just worry about you going along with others to fit in, honey," her mother, Maria, had returned after having successfully passed Rachel into the conversation with Jaq.

"We're not having this discussion again," Sabs replied, crossing her arms over her chest right above where Beth was holding her.

"I'm an adult and have no problem making my own decisions."

"As long as you're sure, Sabrina," her father said softly, wrapping his arm around his wife.

"I'm fine, Dad," Sabs answered calmly.

"Well, that wasn't awkward at all," Beth mumbled into the side of Sabs' neck.

"Not that you helped," Sabs muttered back, lightly elbowing Beth in the side.

"Sorry."

"It's fine, Beth."

"Then let's get going," Beth said, sending a thought to Blood before following through on her earlier thought and picking up Sabs outright. She carried the weakly protesting girl to the front of the truck just as Jaq finished with his conversation and turned to move to the truck as well. Beth hopped up into the passenger door and moved back onto the lefthand bench with Sabs now in her lap, the smaller girl wrapping her arms over Beth's and leaning back against the younger girl.

Blood hopped in and moved to the back, Jaq having to close the passenger door after getting in himself with a grumble. Beth could very, very faintly sense the truck starting to move, only her greatly increased stats and slightly better kinesthetic sense allowing her to detect anything at all. The trip back to the CRA Hall was even quicker, with Jaq now having a fully accurate idea of the layout and distances involved. He parked the truck and hopped out, followed by the three girls right on his heels.

He gestured to the far corner of the garage area, where there was a metal door different than the one they had entered through earlier, saying, "Your Emblems can get you in and out of that door. Use it to return to the underworks." With that, he immediately headed through 'his' door, allowing it to slide shut as soon as he had passed the threshold. Beth and Sabs just looked at each other for a moment before Beth shrugged and led the way to the far door.

Upon reaching it, she found a small plate in the wall similar to what many of the rooms, including the training rooms, had to allow various members access. She moved her right hand up to the plate while thinking about her Emblem manifesting in it, hearing a click and seeing a small light flash white when her hand was close to the plate. She returned the Emblem to her stat screen as she pushed the door open, holding it open for Sabs and Blood to enter.

She noticed a small emplacement on the ceiling, something she might normally not have taken notice of, but it was nice to know all the secondary entrances to the Hall had security measures monitoring their usage. She was sure Jaq both had access to the feed and kept it regularly monitored, meaning that nobody who wasn't a member was getting in, even if they tried tailgating an actual member. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

The three made their way up to Beth's room first, where Sabs immediately started stripping out of her gear. Beth grabbed her forging hammer and gauntlets from the same corner that Sabs was using, the older woman frowning at the slightly disorganized state of Beth's loot pile. She started organizing it a little better while Beth moved to the door, pausing before exiting.

"You gonna stay in here the rest of the day?" Beth asked.

"Yeah, we wasted a little too much of the day helping the neighborhood for me to go bother John for training. I'll just hangout for now," Sabs replied.

"And just to double-check, but the hammer and broken gauntlets do mean you're going to the forging room?"

"Yeah, sorry, I'm heading down to put some work on these. Depending on if Elana and James are there, I might wind up heading back up in just an hour, or it might be early evening."

"We'll be here," Sabs said, sitting on the couch in her regular clothes while hugging Blood. Beth waved a hand as she turned and moved out through the door, heading over to the elevators to descend to the forge. She made her way through the underworks and into the forge, finding both Elana and James present. It seemed they had just beaten her to the room, as they were both handling setup for their areas before starting work for the day.

Beth naturally moved to the area she had been in the day before beside Elana, getting her own setup prepped before starting to work on her gauntlets. She got a little help from Elana in identifying what the next few steps would be in the work, giving herself something solid to do for the next few days. It would likely take a couple of sessions just to get what Elana had pointed out done, and that was before the dwarf gave her another suggestion.

"It is just about time you started on something more complex than nails," Elana said to her.

"Like what?" asked Beth in response.

"Maybe not weapons yet, but we should have you try make a set of hinges."

"Hinges? Like for a door?"

"Or a chest or gate," Elana replied with a nod.

"Give me a demonstration of that first, then I'll work on the gauntlets," Beth replied after tapping her chin for a moment.

"Right, just watch what I do," Elana said with a nod. She moved over and pulled out some mana copper stock and set it in her forge to start heating. She then walked Beth through the process, explaining everything she was doing as she shaped and molded the metal. Beth soaked it all in like a dry sponge pulling in fresh water. Once Elana had demonstrated making a hinge, Beth moved back to her work area and started working on her gauntlets.

The first thing she was trying to do was get all the dents pulled as even as she could. After that, her next task was to even out the rents and tears in her left gauntlet, which included removing excess material so the edges were much more even and uniform. Just the first of those two things would take her longer than the rest of the time she was willing to commit today, and she did what she was able before the early evening rolled around and she packed up her work area.

She returned to her rented suite, dropping her gear and hammer in the corner before moving to the bathroom to get cleaned up. As soon as she had entered, Sabs had moved to the kitchen to get dinner started, and the food was ready by the time Beth was done with a slightly long shower. She sauntered through the central room wearing nothing but a towel, as per usual, distracting Sabs as she set the food on the table.

After Beth had changed and they had eaten, they spent some time on the couch watching weird and wacky interstellar programming, as was becoming something of a habit. They then retired to bed for the evening, Blood occupying the floor of the living room while the two made use of the rather large bed. Another three days passed in this way, as Beth spent most of her time in the forge working on both her gauntlets as well as the new items Elana was showing her how to produce.

She also spent a small bit of time training with Baelvyr, but the majority of her time during the day was spent in the forge, while the majority of Sabs' time was spent training with John. The older girl did head out to do some dungeon clears with Beth's sisters as well, something that Beth didn't really bother with at this point as she saw the low-level dungeons as a waste of time.

On the fourth day after Beth had started devoting her days to fixing her gauntlets and general smithing, which was a Wednesday, according to Beth's phone, she headed up to the lounge with Sabs in the early morning. The short girl gave her a little bit of an eye as they walked through the halls of the underworks but refrained from saying anything as they made their way to the lounge. Once there, Beth signaled for her sisters, who had just entered from the opposite door, to join them.

They took places at Baelvyr's table, the ogre just grunting at them as he worked his way through a slightly late breakfast.

"Little late for food…" Beth commented with a nod at his platter as John and Navere walked over to see what was going on.

"Sometimes, girlie, they make me do some damn work 'round here," he rumbled in response.

"Sounds tough," she replied with an eyeroll before focusing on the rest of the group, ignoring his phonebook-being-ripped-in-half snort in response.

"I think we're going to change up the rotation for today."

"The hell you talkin' about?" John asked grumpily before anyone else could speak.

"I'm gonna take them down to the place with all the kobolds to keep them leveling steadily," Beth replied, narrowing her eyes a bit as she stared back at the dour rogue.

"Well, Navere," John said, standing and placing a hand on the elf's shoulder, "looks like it's day drinking for us." He then led the way back to their table in the center of the room, the two pulling out drinks as they sat down.

"Maybe I oughta take some lessons in getting him off my back," Sabs said with rather narrowed eyes, watching John start on his day drinking. Beth rolled her eyes again while also placing her hand atop Sabs' on the table before saying, "We're heading south today, you two. Any questions?"

"Yeah; what?" asked Soph.

"There's an area with kobolds that would be a good spot for the three of you to gain some levels to the south. We're heading down there today."

"And it's…safe?" asked Kim.

"As long as we don't go in the dungeon."

"There's a dungeon down there?" Kim persisted.

"Yes, Kim. There is a dungeon down there. One that is too high of a level for anybody else," Beth replied, turning to Baelvyr as he snorted and saying, "Don't you start."

"I've already been down there," Sabs volunteered.

"Didn't really seem too bad, other than it is underground." Soph just groaned, thumping her head down on the table in front of her. Baelvyr gave another snort as he finished his food and pulled his tankard out to start his day of drinking. He started mixing from several bottles as he said, "Now that ya have yer plan, leave my damn table."

"Yeah, yeah," Beth responded, standing and motioning the rest to follow. She moved around the table and lifted the still head-down Soph right out of her chair to an awkward squawk, setting her on Blood's back, which immediately quieted her down. The group of five left out the far door and headed down to the lobby, where they found Tazeen on desk duty, giving him nods as they passed. Beth led the way south, Kim and Sabs jogging behind her, as Blood brought up the rear with a sleepy Soph still on her back.

They went a lot slower today, as Kim didn't have any kind of movement skill yet, and she would rather not ride double with Soph. It took them closer to half-an-hour to get to the shaft dug straight down into the field, Kim giving it a dubious eye as they walked up to the edge.

"This really doesn't look safe," she commented, glancing over the edge with a growing frown.

"It's fine," Beth replied with a shrug as she started down the ramp.

"Just don't trip."

"Thanks for the jinx."

"No problem!" The day went about as well as Beth could expect, walking the group through the layout of the underground space and what it was like to fight down there. Nobody had any real problems with the kobolds, though they did discover just how averse to fire they were when Soph set one alight.

Other than the burning smell of all that hair, or fur, as the case may be, things turned out well and the other got quite a good bit of experience and a small bit of coin before they decided to call it a day and return to the CRA Hall.