Chương 645: Limitless Path Chapter Six Hundred Sixty-Four

"We got what we need?" Beth asked.

"I think I have an idea how to track him," Val said.

"Stone sent us the location of the dead drop," Sera said.

"Well, we can try a couple things," Beth said.

"Probably best to lay low for a minute and use the dead drop to request a meeting."

"Val following him might have spooked him," Sera said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Val asked, willfully misinterpreting the statement.

"Nothing, dear, you're great," Blood said, distracting the kresnik.

"Bjorn," Beth said.

"Easy," the titan said, disappearing surprisingly quietly and quickly for someone of his size.

"Let's find somewhere to wait," Beth said. Bjorn was, surprisingly, rather good at this kind of thing. If Beth weren't simply operating on a much higher level than other Enlightened, she doubted she would have even been able to catch the exact moment he moved by the location and dropped the small note. He also moved through a very circuitous route on the way back, not that Beth thought that that would really lose anyone that was particularly skilled at espionage or spycraft.

Once again, she really felt they were out of their league, but maybe that wasn't a terrible thing; it wasn't necessarily bad that their team wasn't brilliant at every single thing under the sun. Then again, maybe they should look into getting someone on-board, even as a contractor, that could handle this stuff a lot better. Funnily enough, she didn't think any of the people she knew, and she was mostly thinking of Exalted and Manumitted with that, were even that good at it.

The best person to ask would probably be Laselle; someone that ran the best mercenary org in the whole galaxy probably had some pretty good intel people at her beck and call. Now was the worst part of everything, which was playing the waiting game and seeing if anyone showed up. Beth let the rest of the team off the hook, though it wasn't her being entirely altruistic; she could monitor the dead drop location from so far away that she doubted anyone but a powerful Ascended could detect her.

Then again, there were just so many skills and tools out there, she wouldn't ever make any guarantees about any of that. The rest of the group stayed within a certain range, mostly the opposite direction from the dead drop, and Sera stayed with her, laying on the couch beside her with her head buried in Beth's lap.

Beth did have to work just a little to stay focused; spending time with her wife only got better and better as time passed, and she always had the urge to, as they say, jump Sera's bones at just about any time. Them getting randy on a stakeout mission seemed like a bit of a blunder, so she contented herself with with scratching Sera's scalp with one hand and rubbing her back under her jacket with the other.

The dragon still liked to wear a half-jacket with no undershirt or bra a lot of the time, enjoying how distracted basically every single person that saw her became by the insane amount of cleavage that presented, and it was easy for Beth to reach under the half-jacket and rub her scales and skin. Beth wasn't sure if it was a scheduled thing, or just the assassin having been spooked, but it took over a day for anybody to show up.

The dead drop was a little box with a little door that was meant to look exactly like a brick in a brick wall, so other people just walked by the area without getting close. When someone took a step into the alley from the main road, that got Beth's attention, and when they stopped another step later and made a motion to the wall, that really had her focus.

She was using her spatial senses, empowered by her Ideal, to watch what was happening, which was not giving her the clearest picture of things, but she had enough 'definition' at that range that she could not only get a good read on the person's location, she could see their limbs moving. Not with great precision, but she could see them stopped within an arm's length of the right brick and one of the arms move towards the wall and then back.

It wasn't like she could see colors or things like that with her spatial sense, but she could get some detail, and that was also confusing. The person that touched the brick and walked off was a woman; she had enough clarity, even from this distance, that Beth could tell that.

"Someone took the bait. Or the offer? Or whatever we're calling it," Beth said out loud, still caressing and scratching Sera.

"Mmm," Sera just moaned slightly. She sighed after a moment and sat up, kissing Beth firmly on the lips before climbing off the couch.

"We should get going."

"You want us all to move? They might notice something," Beth said.

"They've already taken the note and we're far away. As long as we're careful, it should be fine. Better all of us are nearby and focused, even with your level of strength. Catching a slippery fish like this takes more than power," Sera said.

"Yeah, still don't know all that much spy stuff. Just what I got out of a couple cheap novels," Beth replied, standing and messaging the others.

"Dumb as it sounds, numbers do matter a lot in this kind of thing," Sera said, exiting the room they were in.

"Being able to comb an area efficiently, or slowly corner someone just by having so many people after them, is an effective tactic. And, remember, not a ton of people have teleporting skills or spell, even in the spy and assassin game. Forcing someone into a corner works a lot more often than you think, but even without teleports, these kinds of people are tricky."

"Like the fact it probably wasn't them picking up the note?" Beth asked, though her tone made it more a statement. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Right. Based on this person's knowledge and skills, and the fact it seems like they are a total psycho like that last one—wasn't his name Dean, also? —this person's a pro. They're very unlikely to do anything but the actual work itself in person; I wouldn't be surprised if even 'in-person' meetings was them using a cut-out or apprentice or something like that," Sera said as they moved slowly through the city.

"It's a good thing to keep in mind. I'm so used to us just going and doing stuff that I forget that a lot of people use other employees or secondaries," Beth said.

"Yeah, we're unusual in that we don't use any support staff at all. Think about even when Val was with the Young Scions; they had a lot of fancy equipment and stuff that let them have portable houses and all kinds of things, but they still had support staff. They had people to cook and clean and do chores, at the very least, and other people to help with other things like buying supply and ferrying them out to the team when they were on long missions or expeditions," Sera said.

"True, we just do everything ourselves, even cook," Beth said.

"Maybe we should at least hire a chef. Then again, we go really dangerous places. That moon we just went to for Mortaine would be dangerous for anybody but an Ascended chef unless we also had other staff or guards that just sat in the camp while we were in the dungeon."

"That's true, but sometimes you do forget our other benefits," Sera replied.

"You mean my gate?" Beth asked, slightly confused as they turned a corner and slowly walked down another street. Well, slow for them, but they were keeping pace with the person that had grabbed Bjorn's note, even catching them slightly.

"Well, that too," Sera said with a small laugh.

"I mean, even with all the stuff you have and powers and everything, it sometimes shows that you weren't born into this and raised around. You've been at it a while, but we have spatial storage, I say as I explain it to the space mage of the group."

"Right, we do…" Beth said, agreeing, but also slightly confused.

"Beth, we could hire a very skilled pro chef to stay at the mansion on Zephyr and cook for us any time, and if we're going out on expedition, we could have them, and possible their team, cook us hundreds of meals we just stash away. No more going to random restaurants, other than we want to, or us having to cook or anything," Sera said, chuckling a bit again as Beth got a slightly surprised look and then a very thoughtful one.

"You know, that's not bad," she said, checking the others' positions.

"We could hire someone who really loved to cook and just have them stay in the mansion. I'm sure living in such a nice place, with so many amenities, and even with access to a time dilated dungeon quite often, would be some big incentives."

"That last one would be really big depending on the person," Sera said with a nod.

"Some people, a lot of people, they just want to live their life and enjoy things. There are some planets where everyone has decent housing and good food, and a certain amount of basic utilities like electricity, water, and even mana flux, covered. Working a little to pay for nicer food, luxuries, entertainment, the extra money to raise a family in comfort, that's more than enough for a vast majority of people."

"Yeah, that's true," Beth said, nodding as she thought about it.

"Isn't it, like, close to seventy-five percent of people don't hit their first rebirth?"

"It's something around there, yeah," Sera said, following as Beth turned a corner.

"It's something like one percent of one percent of people hit Empowered, which is rebirth five, right? Or actually, I think it's even less, and then out of that one-in-ten-thousand group, or less, it's something like less than a percent that even hit the barrier at the end of rebirth nine and struggle with their Mana Physique."

"Right. Something like one in a million, or even fewer, people just making it to where Mana Physique even matters does put it in perspective a little. I mean, we had a pretty fast rise, everyone on the team, and it's pretty likely that we're all going to hit the top of Ascended, at bare minimum," Beth said, squeezing Sera's hand as they walked.

"And, I have my immortal dragon wife who will always be there."

"You're cute, Beth," Sera said with another chuckle, squeezing back.

"Still, it's a good-""Hold on," Beth interrupted quietly, pulling Sera over to bench just beside them and sitting down.

"Something happen?" Sera asked, equally softly.

"I think they might have just handed the note off," Beth whispered back.

"Shit, I think they did. Fuck, it's hard to track precisely at this distance, especially without just blasting my power out like a fucking star going super nova in the middle of the city."

"Another reason having a bigger group to do this shit is better," Sera muttered, giving Beth a reassuring squeeze.

"Fuck, okay, we can have Blood reposition," Beth said.

'Blood, move in closer and follow the woman. She's on Fifth and Ducat right now. I think she just handed Bjorn's note off, but I want to make sure that wasn't a bluff,' Beth sent.

'Got it,' came back the growl over the communicator and the wolf sped up immensely and repositioned just a block or so behind the woman.

"Let's moved a little. The guy she handed the note to is moving back this direction, though he's still quite a bit away," Beth said, standing and tugging Sera along, the dragon giving her hand a squeeze as they walked.

"You think this might be the guy?" Sera asked.

"Nah, I think it's another cutout," Beth replied.

"Good, you're picking some stuff up," Sera said with a small grin, her tone light and a bit teasing.

"Yeah, it's not hard to guess. There's not much point using a cutout and having them come right to you or even bump into you while walking and hand things off. Having them drop the goods off somewhere else or hand the stuff to a second person that drops it somewhere is smarter, even if it is a pain in the ass. Especially our asses," Beth said, grumbling at the end.

"Spycraft and espionage are things of patience," Sera said with a quiet laugh.

"The whole point of this stuff is exactly how you're feeling right now. Make others confused and frustrated, hoping they make mistakes or give up or even both, and always be cautious. Good spies and assassins, though more the spy part, usually get caught when they slip up and get hasty. Hell, the only reason we're onto them right now is the other reason that they usually run into trouble, and that's running head-first into a much stronger, or more well-connected, opponent.

The fact you can watch all these guys a mile away through a sense or mana method nobody would even think to try to detect is cutting out so much hassle from what we're trying."

"We could have just let the note do the work," Beth said.

"We should still try this because we might have spooked them," Sera said.

"Val following them, or what was possibly a cutout or spy of theirs, might have really spooked them or set off alarm bells. No offense to Val, but she really isn't cut out for this line of work. I can, in fact, imagine her trying to spy on someone and following them while wearing a fancy dress, too big hat, and having paparazzi following her and taking pictures."

"Yeah, not the most subtle person in the group, even if she is very fast," Beth said, laughing at the image of Val in a fancy sundress and heels, the floppy hats she thought hid her face held by one extra long arm, as she tried to 'stealthily' follow someone around.

"Wait," Beth said suddenly, stopping and pulling Sera up next to her. Not that she thought anyone was watching, but she like pulling Sera into and onto her whenever she could.

"The guy that might be our guy, or another cutout, just went in a building. A building that's interfering with my senses a bit."

"We should wait a minute and see if he comes back out," Sera said, leaning against Beth.

"I think it's a bar," Beth said.

"Strange that something's interfering.

"Let's wait but have Bjorn circle around," Sera said, asking the titan to do just that. After a minute, Beth said, "Either he made the handoff in there, or it was just to try to throw people off. Or he wanted to wet his whistle. He's back out and moving in the same direction down the street again."

"We should have Ms. Subtle check in the bar and we should keep following," Sera said.

"Let's do that," Beth said, tugging Sera along while sending a message for Val to check the bar and for Bjorn to move again.