Chương 58: Limitless Path Chapter Fifty-Eight

It was evening time now, but not too late into the night, and besides, Beth had never seen anything that indicated the commissary was open only during some specific hours. She led the way down the halls, making for the elevators first before walking over to the shop, finding it empty as usual. She walked up and leaned against the counter as she waited, Blood not interested in giving everything inside another sniff today.

It wasn't long before Jaq emerged from the right-hand door, giving her a particular stare as he walked opposite her behind the main counter. He was looking crisp and fully rested, as always, and it made Beth wonder if someone at his level and power even slept anymore.

"Yes?" he asked after the silence stretched a few moments.

"Hey, do you even sleep?" she blurted.

"A slightly rude question, but yes, I do sleep," he replied with a small frown.

"I take three or four hours of rest once a week," he continued a little primly.

"Oh, okay. Sorry, I've just had to rest less, and seeing how you and the others are all high level, I got curious," she replied, lifting her right hand to start tapping at her chin.

"Is that what you came in here for?" he asked a little crossly.

"No. Or, well, I have a question for you," Beth said to him.

"Right, and I'm sure I have an unsatisfactory answer stashed around here somewhere," Jaq responded, face stoic.

"Right, sure. Do you have any boots kinda like these gauntlets, but with the heavy plating only on the front? And maybe a blade on the kneecap?" she asked, waving her right gauntlet at him to emphasize her point.

"What you're talking about is a custom order. I can't secure you something like that, at least, not right now," he replied with a small frown.

"So, you don't have anything like that? Or can't make it?" she asked, a little depressed.

"Well, I specialize in Engineering, so I couldn't make something like that. I could make mechanized armor-""Like power armor?!" Beth interjected excitedly. Jaq sighed before continuing, "Yes, like power armor. I could make you a set of boots that didn't link to a full loadout, ones with their own internal power syncs. But the simplest set I could make would cost you forty golds. I could make you one boot for twenty."

"What the hell would I do with a single power armor boot, Jaq?" Beth asked, frowning and crossing her arms over her chest.

"I don't know, kick people?" he replied acerbically.

"You know, your customer service stinks."

"I run a commissary, not a daycare," he retorted, scrunching his brow while hitting her with a glare.

"So, do you have any better boots?" she asked, beginning to get exasperated.

"Give me a minute," he replied before disappearing into the middle door. He returned a moment later with two pairs of boots in his hands, setting both on the counter in front of them. They were of two somewhat different designs, and he simply allowed Beth to inspect both of them before discussing them. The first pair he had brought were very similar to her gloves, and she imagined it might have even been the same Apprentice or perhaps Journeyman smith that made them.

They were a little oversized for her, Beth wondering if Jaq simply had nothing in her size. She commented as much to him as she set them back down.

"The type of make of those full plate boots is designed for you to wear boots underneath. That or good shoes and thick socks," he replied, pointing out how the spacing of the boots was basically designed with room in certain places to accommodate a leather boot inside.

"Oh, I see. But there's not enough room for the leather boots I have with the scale armoring now, so I'd have to buy a pair of boots too," she replied, her finger tapping away at her chin.

"Right, but this is the nature of a lot of heavy armor. What you're wearing right now is medium or even light armor, by some definitions. With most heavy plate armor, it's expected that you wear not just clothes, but often a padded suit underneath. These would be something like a gambeson, which is a padded jacket, for the torso, and quilted or padded pants for the legs," he explained, something Beth wasn't super familiar with.

Most video games and even fantasy novels tended to skip the padded armor layer, just having the player character or hero wearing plate armor over their clothes. Beth picked the other set of boots up and examined them. The design was almost entirely different, as these were a pair of heavy leather boots that had then been modified. The smith that created them had somehow welded, not stitched, heavy plates of dark metal armor over the entire boot.

The heel had a very short spike sticking out parallel to the ground about half an inch from the base of the boots. Beth rather liked the look and was happy with the idea that the boot was a whole piece. If she bought and used these, she wouldn't also have to keep track of a separate pair of leather boots or shoes.

"How much are these ones based around the leather boot?" she asked.

"One gold for the pair," he replied calmly.

"Wow, I cannot afford that," she replied, a little disheartened.

"What about the other pair?"

"Sixty silvers."

"Wow, I cannot afford that," she said again, causing Jaq's eyes to narrow.

"Well, when you can afford to buy something, you can come back," he said calmly.

"Can I at least get some more sets of clothes?" she asked.

"How many?"

"I don't know, five?" Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Hold on," he said, pressing something on the wall. There was noise for a moment while he picked up the boots and walked down the counter, leaning down to place them under the end of said counter. There was a light thump, and Jaq returned to open a panel in the wall and pull out a stack of clothes.

"Two silvers," he said. Beth made the coins appear and set them on the counter, Jaq making them disappear even quicker. He handed the clothes to Beth, who nodded before asking, "Oh, uh, by the way, is there somewhere to wash clothes around here?"

"Closest down here is basement level three, room thirty," he replied calmly.

"The better suites have those facilities included."

"Right. Well, thanks, Jaq," she responded, taking the clothes and heading out of the commissary. She made her way back up to the room with Blood in tow, setting her new clothes on the top of the dresser in the bedroom. She made sure the dirty clothes were in her pouch before heading out to find the laundry, Blood again following along behind. It didn't take long at all to find the laundry area, Beth becoming increasingly familiar with the CRA Hall layout and numbering.

The room was fairly large, at least forty feet deep, and was filled with machines that had a look similar to the washers and dryers she was familiar with. Beth walked over to one of the washers and tossed her clothes in, closing the machine and examining the control panel. There was a line of text that said to hold up a key and, not knowing what else it could mean, Beth held her room key up to the panel. The was a beep noise, the door locked, and then the machine had a second panel light up.

It had several different options, and Beth simply pressed the 'Regular Wash' option. The machine started running and displayed a timer of ten minutes. Beth supposed it had a reserve of detergent or something within, and she decided to just wait the few minutes for the clothes to be finished. Once the machine was finished, she opened the door and took out the clothes, which were barely damp and smelled rather nice, and moved them into a dryer.

She repeated the same process, and the machine started up, displaying an estimated time of only two minutes. It was barely enough time for her to do anything, so she simply petted Blood for a minute until the machine pinged. Once the machine was done, she pulled the clothes out, finding them to be warm but not hot. She tucked the two sets of clothes into her pouch and left the room, wondering if she had been billed for using the service.

Back in the suite, she and Blood sprawled out together on the couch, with Beth grabbing a remote off one of the end tables and fiddling with it. The power button was pretty obvious, and pressing it turned the screen on the wall opposite the bathroom on. The screen didn't display a random program but had something more similar to a phone or tablet, showing a list of channels and applications.

Beth paged around and selected something that said Combat History Viewer, which opened to display a large list containing recorded combat matches from various places throughout the Milky Way. Browsing through the listings, she picked one at random, not really drawn to anything on the first part of the list. The fight was interesting, someone using two swords versus someone using a greatsword, and the fighters were so fast that Beth couldn't track them.

She had to use the slow-motion features of the recording to even see them exchange strikes, and it was exhilarating to watch. The fight was over all too soon, and she was eager to see more. She paged through the listing of fights, selecting another at random and watching. She watched the entire fight, a duel between two young women, before moving on. Fight after fight played out, all of them incredible, including one where two teams fought against each other on an open field.

The team fight was very explosive, with ten people all using skills and casting spells at the same time in a small arena. The arena would be large for her, but the speed and range the fighters possessed made it crazy close quarters, turning the fight into a big brawl. It was more chaotic in many ways, and obviously more exciting to watch, but it was also a lot harder to keep track of what was happening.

The end of the fight seemed to come out of nowhere, going from a frantic melee to one team suddenly celebrating victory. Beth pulled up more matches, watching one after the other, until she realized that it was late into the night. She roused herself from the couch after turning the screen off, Blood following her into the bedroom, where they lay down again for a few hours of sleep. Beth woke the next morning and checked the time, noting they had only slept about three hours, not much more than a long nap.

She hopped out of bed and proceeded to the bathroom, where she got ready for a new day, including throwing on one of the new sets of clothing she had grabbed from Jaq earlier. Finished with her morning routine, she moved back out into the main room. She stepped into the kitchen for a moment to discard the remaining bottles and packets she had in her pouch before returning to the main room and equipping her armor.

Strapping on her sword, she exited the room with Blood, heading up to the front desk, where Tazeen waited as always.

"Greetings," Tazeen intoned, a slight warmth in his voice as Beth walked up to the counter.

"Uh, good morning," she replied, noting that Tazeen was alone at the counter currently.

"Can I extend my rental of the room?"

"Of course. For how long would you like?" he asked in return.

"Um, what about ten days?" she asked, taking out ten silvers and putting them on the counter.

"Your key, please," Tazeen replied, taking the silver and the key. He made the silver disappear behind the counter before setting the key on a spot on the counter and adjusting something only he could see for a moment. He then picked the key up and handed it back to her, Beth placing it in her pouch when she received it.

"Thanks, Tazeen," she said cheerfully, receiving a nod in response. She turned and led Blood back down the corridor, heading all the way into the arena complex area before moving back down to their room. Upon entering, she put several of her extra sets of clothes in the dresser and put her old gloves off to the side. She then led Blood back up to the lounge, where they found Baelvyr just finishing a massive breakfast in his usual spot.

Beth joined him at the table, pulling a bottle of water from her pouch and taking a swig before setting it on the table.

"See ya had some results," Baelvyr said after a moment.

"Yeah, but I have a bunch of questions. And we definitely need more training," she replied, Blood tilting her head and giving Beth a look, as if saying "What 'we'?"

"Haha," Baelvyr boomed out a laugh that rattled her teeth.

"Anybody who's anybody needs more training; good to see ya learnin' that early," he chuckled again and took a deep quaff, today from a large tankard.

"Yeah, that's for sure. We were having some real problems yesterday in the dungeon," Beth said, wiggling her eyebrows at him when she said dungeon.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it," he replied with a snort.

"We were having trouble actually dealing damage to the enemies we were fighting," she continued.

"Do you think we should get more attack skills?" Baelvyr shook his head before taking another swig.

"No, ya need to hone what ya have right now. Getting some other weak skill at Copper zero won't help with the problem."

"So, what do we need to do, just train more?" Beth asked with a frown.

"I told ya before girlie, the next thing ya should do is get those weapons skills to Journeyman. There's no kind of magic requirements for that, just skill and understandin'. Ya get even one, like Unarmed, to Journeyman, you'll be twice as strong."

"It just seems like it's going so slow," Beth complained with a sigh. Baelvyr couldn't help laughing at that, a deep boom that rattled Beth's water bottle on the table.

"It's always like that, girlie, with everythin' in life. Seems easy at first, but once ya get into it, ya figure out it takes time and effort to master. People can spend a year to get where yer at, so doin' it in a month is really somethin'. But, and I tell ya this to make sure ya know what yer in for, it will only get harder from here. Tougher physically, tougher mentally, and hell, even tougher spiritually. If ya want to be strong, yer gonna hafta suffer more than a little to get there."

Beth had her arms crossed on the table in front of her and looked down at them while frowning. Having one of the strongest people around, probably one of the strongest warriors in the entire galaxy, tell you doing what you wanted was going to be incredibly difficult was no joke. She finally sighed and took a huge drink of water before turning to Baelvyr again, "What about professions, like Blacksmithing?"

"What about 'em?" he responded, finishing off his mug.

"You think I should pick one up? What professions are there, anyway? And are you able to teach me any?" Beth fired off rapidly in response.

"Most people at least dabble a little. There's a whole slew of things ya can learn; best to read one of the summaries of 'em in the library," he replied, leaning back in his chair and settling his hands on the top of his stomach.

"I know a bit of smithin', but not really enough to teach. Ya'd need to go to Elana for that, and that'd cost ya a decent bit."

"Money, money, money. It's always about money. How are you supposed to do anything if you're not from some rich family? Killing monsters gives you pennies, clearing entire dungeons a silver or two," she huffed angrily.

"That's how it is. Fight, kill shit, earn a handful of coppers, pay for dinner and a room, get up the next mornin' and do it all again," Baelvyr said with a deep sigh.

"Ah, the good ol' days."

"What about arena fights?" Beth plowed on, gamely ignoring Baelvyr's reminiscing.

"I know I sound like a broken song-shifter, but get to Journeyman," he replied, patting the top of his huge stomach a few times with a thump.

"This sucks," Beth grumbled, resting her right cheek on her right hand while slouching slightly to the side.

"Ya can either mope or train. Figure out which one yer more interested in," Baelvyr grumbled back.

"Let's go, then," Beth said, hopping to her feet and starting for the door. Baelvyr stood himself with a deep grunt and followed her and Blood, the three heading down to their typical training room.

"So. What are ya at right now, anyway?" Baelvyr asked her as he grabbed the control tablet from the front of the room. Beth got what he meant after only a moment and shared her skill section of her stat page.

Skills Ancient World Gate[0] Crush Copper[9] Focused Meditation Copper[6] Identify Copper[7] Lightning Resistance Copper[3] Lordly Reconstruction Copper[8] Monstrous Blow Copper[8] Pain Tolerance Copper[9] Swords Apprentice[7] Toxic Resistance Copper[4] Unarmed Apprentice[8]" Unarmed first then," he said calmly.