Limitless Path

Sera and Blood had a bit of an easier time, of course, but that wasn't anything very strange at this point. Sera's list was worse than Blood's, in terms of rarity and price, as void-related things were not easy to come by, but Blood's list was easier than either of theirs. Easier to acquire still wasn't easy, but Blood was going to be able to get most of her materials within a few weeks just by buying them without having to go out on any crazy limbs.

Beth was thinking about the amount of time they still needed to go through, as well, considering what their goals were and where they were currently at. Their next big goal was to get everybody to rebirth ten, though that was more about Sera and Blood, as they would be building their Mana Physiques when they got there. They wanted to get that done before going to visit Sera's family, so those were two early to mid-term goals for them to pursue. Their near-term goal, lest they forget, was to finish earning their Gold Emblems. Beth did want to get a Platinum Emblem, and eventually more, but that wasn't part of the near-term goals, as Platinum would take quite a while. Besides, they needed a break from CRA work for a while, or would, once they had completed the last few missions they needed for Gold and passed the tests.

Of course, they had several long-term goals already, but all of those were much longer-term things that they could do little about at present. Visiting the City of Mended Dreams, exploring the Eternal Depths and rescuing Liveria's wife, helping Liveria herself and those in the reliquary, figuring out what happened to the giants and titans, and possibly even challenging the Maze of Eternity were all on the future roadmap. All those things, however, required them to be at Ascended to even start, and many of them wouldn't be particularly safe or easy to try to look into until they hit Exalted, which wasn't happening any time this century. Literally.

The next century was still a bit much to worry about, considering it had only been a handful of years since Beth joined the Path, though it had been a few decades of subject time for her. Not that those decades were extremely elucidating, considering most of them had been spent in a grassland fighting the same beasts over and over again for a hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand hours. Not a lot of chances for learning or growth, other than levels, in such an environment. Maybe that was why Beth still really did think of herself and the others as mostly being in their twenties, even if they were a lot older. Well, except Sera, who was technically in her late forties in objective time, but she often felt like the youngest of the group, though it could be a toss-up between her and Blood.

All that was neither here nor there, as they had a lot of work to do, and that was a lot more than just their referee duties. They were a bit limited in their abilities to track down items right now, being tied down with said referee duties, but that only really meant they couldn't go out hunting for the items themselves. They could take a day and teleport somewhere to shop or to discuss acquiring the items, though Beth just sent Mortaine a text message, as trying to physically track him down was often a fool's errand. There were many people on her contact list that were much easier to track down in person, however, including her first stop.

As soon as she had a bit of time off, that being the next weekend after they had gotten plenty of rest, they left the Hall and the world, teleporting to one of their favorite places, though only because of their favorite people being there. Well, two of their favorite people; Mortaine was his own kind of interesting, and Zane and Fallon were already growing on her, but she had a first finders bias for a particular angel and demon. It helped, in several ways, that the two in question were highly ranked in a very well-connected trading firm that could earn Beth immense wealth and get her almost anything she wanted.

Luttraine was the same as it always was, the new governor getting along well by this point; they better be, or Beth was doing another citizen's arrest. She might not even need a peak Ascended to back her up this time, either. But she wasn't here for that, not that she had really expected it last time, but they were here to get some items. And maybe get some money, if their luck was with them. Beth led the way across the city, just Sera and Blood with her for now; Kris and Bjorn were holding down the fort back on Earth, more than content to stay there for a while considering the high-level zones they knew the planet had.

They were really becoming familiar faces at the Seven Lights Firm, that branch in particular, and Beth noticed that the front desk and concierge workers were extremely polite to them, while she was betting her emerald token wasn't the only reason. It didn't take very long for somebody they were very familiar with to appear, multiple pairs of glowing white wings drawing the eye when she entered. Alex gave them a very broad smile as soon as she laid eyes on them, coming over and giving them a moderately chaste hug each, though Beth suspected she needn't have bothered being so demur. She then led them back into the building and up to Selene's office, which was empty when they entered.

"She'll be here in a little bit, if you don't mind waiting," Alex said, giving Sera and Beth each a much less chaste kiss now that they were out from the view of prying eyes.

"So good to see you," Sera said, sticking more closely to Alex as they sat down. Blood had ignored all the byplay and draped herself across an armchair in the office as soon as they entered, watching the others with mild interest and a slight sense of exasperation.

"It's been too long," Beth said.

"It really has," Alex agreed, giving them both warm smiles. "But enough of that, what brings you here."

"More lists," Beth said, catching the lifting of Alex's brows and the widening of her mouth.

"Really, already? But, you just…then again, I suppose you do have certain advantages. But still, so soon," Alex said quietly, floundering just a bit.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

"We're pushing pretty hard, but it'll likely be quite a while for our next one," Beth said with a shrug. "We're stuck doing ref duty right now and we also have to get these lists fulfilled. I don't really see us as going all that fast."

"Maybe from your perspective, it does seem slow," Alex said. "But I have to say, it's been something to watch so far. The three of you are moving fast, very fast, and I mean that when taking into account how you're doing True Rebirths every time. I can't really believe you're already looking for more materials; we just helped a bit with fulfilling your last orders."

"We have free time, so we level up," Beth said with another shrug.

"I understand that we're going fast," Sera added. "But it's not that fast. I know several people who have gone faster."

"Wait, who?" Beth asked, not having heard this before.

"Somebody who I met at the Rose, funnily enough, is one. At least, if what she told me is to be believed, then she got to Enlightened less than ten years after she started leveling and trying to grow stronger," Sera explained.

"Well, we're at something like eight years or so right now," Beth said.

"Sometimes, I forget you're so young," Sera cut in.

"We're not that young," Beth defended herself.

"It's not an accusation," Sera said with a laugh. "Besides, you and Blood haven't even hit thirty yet in objective age. That makes you quite young, just for Wayfarers, and then there's the fact you're talking to a dragon right now, and we tend to live a rather long time."

"Sorry, I got a bit snippy," Beth said. "And that's a good point, I suppose, about people's ages, or I guess I should say longevity. I've been doing this decades at this point, if you count subjective time, and it still hasn't really sunk in yet. I never really even thought that much of living a hundred years, but to think about people living for thousands, about me living for thousands of years…it's still pretty crazy."

"I can't really say I empathize," Sera said with a laugh. "I grew up around people thousands of years old or older, hearing stories about even older people the whole time. Living a long time is just a, uh, cultural thing with dragons, I guess. It's kinda weird to think about living less than a hundred years without dying in battle as the cause of death. It's just not something that I'm as familiar with."

"Everybody has different perspectives," Alex chimed in. "Different people for different amounts of time, placing different values on that time. I think it's best to just value your time and make the most of it. You can't get bogged down in thinking about how much longer you'll live or what you should be doing with your time instead of doing something else. You'll stress yourself to no end like that."

"I try to have a little bit of planning," Beth said, shaking her head. "I do get what you mean, though, especially having to live with this one."

She had pointed at Blood at the end of her statement and the wolf cracked an eye open, somehow understanding that she was the focus of the discussion for a moment. Seeing her input wasn't required, she closed said eye again and pretended to go back to sleep, or studying the insides of her eyelids, or whatever it was that she had been doing. Beth, as always, remained very suspicious of what exactly it was that Blood was doing when she was 'sleeping,' but she supposed as long as the wolf was keeping up with them overall, it didn't really matter all that much what was, or was not, happening behind those eyelids.

"So, let's see those lists," Alex followed on, unaware of Beth's thoughts.

"Right, here," Beth responded, flicking them over.

"Hmm, let me see," Alex said, getting a distant look in her eyes for a few minutes. She sat back and worked on something, likely looking items up, checking their stocks, checking prices, etc. Beth and Sera just waited, giving her some time to work while they relaxed, enjoying Selene's quite richly appointed office, including a very well-appointed bar area. Beth had developed a slight bit of an eye for the valuable bottles, though she was still a novice overall, but that did let her get the best of the best of what Selene had. Considering Selene had a taste for the fine (and could one possibly say Alex was very firmly part of that taste?), she kept some rather expensive and quite delicious drinks in her liquor cabinets. Beth picked something rich and earthy, while Sera went for something very sweet and light, the dragon having an inveterate sweet tooth.

"This is going to be expensive," Alex said a handful of minutes later, rubbing her eyes for a moment. Beth had always found that little psychosomatic tick a bit amusing, considering someone at Alex's level of strength, with her level of body reinforcement and skills, would likely not be getting dry or sore eyes.

"Well, we knew that," Beth said.

"How quickly do you need or want this?" Alex asked with a sigh.

"Sooner is better, but we can wait if that will make a significant difference in the price," Beth said.

"Well, significant is relative," Alex muttered. She then said, "Nothing on these lists is going to be less than thirty diamond coins if you get it through our firm; and yes, I'm talking about lots of items, not the individual pieces. This is going to be a major pain in the ass."

"What's a major pain in the ass?" asked a silky voice, Beth and Sera turning to see their favorite greater demoness walking in through the door. Not a big surprise, considering it was her office.

"Good to see you, too," Beth said, though her big grin belied her words and mocking tone.

"My, my, feisty, are we?" Selene asked, going over to Alex first to give her a very warm kiss before turning to Beth and Sera.

"How have you been?" Sera asked as Selene started with a quick kiss to Beth.

"Busy," Selene replied, giving the dragon a kiss before moving back and taking a seat beside her wife. "We've been doing rather well, overall, though I see it isn't nearly as well as you've been doing. You've all made quite some strides, it would seem. Ah, I remember the heady days of my youth."

"Alright, grandma, spare us," Sera said in a teasing tone.

"I can't believe you'd say that," Selene fired back, feigning distress as she leaned back in her chair and gasped.

"I wouldn't quit my day job for acting, if I were you," Beth commented.

"I thought it was rather nice," Alex said quietly.

"Biased," said Blood, surprising them all.

"Well," was all Alex could come up in response to that.

"So, what do you have for us?" Selene asked.

"Here," Alex said, sending her the information.

"Well organized," Selene muttered as she reviewed the files. "These are not going to be cheap. How soon do you need these by?"

"Well, like I said, sooner rather than later, but we can wait a bit if it means saving a good bit of money," Beth replied.

"Well, that doesn't help much," Selene said quietly.

"Just do what you can," Beth said. "We have some time right now, so we're willing to wait. Is there anything there that you think you can't get?"

"Space Anchoring Cores," Selene said. "I can tell you right now that if you wait for Seven Lights to get them, you'll be waiting a couple years. I can look into some other contacts to find them for you, but ten is a lot. If you know anybody else that can get them, somebody like Mortaine, perhaps, then you should ask them for help."

"I'll get on it," Beth said with a slight sigh, sending out some messages. "But you can get the rest of it?"

"Given time, yes. We'll see how long it takes, but we can get you much of it in the next month," Selene answered.

"Sounds good. Great, in fact," Beth said with a smile.

"We do aim to please," Selene said.

"In more ways than one," Sera responded with a raised eyebrow.

"Good, that's my cue to leave," Blood growled, slouching off the armchair and leaving the office.

"Well, goodbye to you too," Alex said, getting a laugh out of the rest as the door closed behind Blood.