Limitless Path

"Yeah, we've got-" Erosh started before stopping, his head snapping to the side.

"That's a look of something dangerous," Beth said with a frown. "But there shouldn't be anything nearby that's that strong."

"Not a what," Erosh grunted. "A who."

"Hmm," Beth replied, crossing her arms and looking in the direction that Erosh was facing.

All of the other Ascended had keyed to the disturbance at roughly the same time Erosh did, though Beth had some idea it wasn't a threat. That assumption proved true a moment later as a massive red and golden figure walked out of the forest into the large clearing at quite an appreciable speed. Beth thought it was pretty funny the way all the others, apart from Sera and Blood, who both recognized the person, were so focused on the figure, and so intently, at that. Beth was always surprised by how quietly he could walk, with such little disturbance to the ground or anything else, when he set his mind to it, the mountain of armor coming to a stop in front of her. The helmet folded back to reveal Baelvyr's face, the ogre giving her a rather sour look before glancing around at everyone.

"The hell ya doin', girlie?" he grumbled. "Throwin' some kind of weird party or somethin'?"

"Eh, something I got my hands on," Beth replied, flicking him the details.

Baelvyr looked over the details for a moment before releasing a massive snort that sounded like a mountain collapsing, saying, "Ya should warn people before ya play with forces ya don't understand, girlie."

"Yeah, because that's what I'm known for, thinking ahead," Beth replied with an eyeroll.

"And who's this?" Erosh asked, glancing between Beth and Baelvyr as the others all walked over.

"My mentor, Baelvyr," Beth said with a sigh.

"Way to undersell it," Andrea said, looking up at the ogre. "You're the Adamantine Colossus, aren't you?"

"Yeah, yeah, that's my Champion Sobriquet," Baelvyr grumbled. "Nobody bothers with that crap anymore these days."

"That crap?! But, like, you're a living legend!" Andrea exclaimed, giving Baelvyr a starry-eyed look.

"Yeah, sure, I'm a big deal or whatnot," he replied with a huff that rattled the branches of the trees at the edge of the clearing. "I'm just another CRA Enforcer right now. Ya don't gotta get all hyped up about it or nothin'."

"Are you…are you embarrassed right now?" Beth asked with a slight grin on her face.

"Nah, I got fans all over the damn galaxy. Just don't make a big deal of it these days; gets tirin' real fast, girlie," he said with another snort. "But anyway, what about this lot?"

He looked around at the Ascended from the Reliquary, all standing surprisingly respectfully while their conversation played out. Beth figured that Baelvyr was stronger than them each individually, which should be pretty obvious, but the way they acted, she thought he might be stronger than quite a few of them together. She also knew that he was, in a way, everything they hoped for, as basically all thirteen of them had wound up trapped in their current predicament because they were trying to reach a place Baelvyr had already achieved. Even as strong and well-connected as they were, it must still be a bit of a shock for them to stand, and so casually, in the presence of an Exalted, and not at all a weak one, either.

"Baelvyr," Liveria said then, not unkindly.

"Sorry 'bout the missus, Liv," Baelvyr said. "I know that it's a sore subject, but there's a lot goin' on right now. I ain't had time to try to do anything about it."

"I understand," said Liveria with a sigh. "It's not really your responsibility, either, though we would both be insanely grateful for any help you could provide."

"Hmm, I ain't got much time or attention for it right now," he grunted back. "I know the girlie's got some stuff on it. Don't wanna make ya wait that long, but it's probably not gonna be until she hits Ascended that I, or a couple of the others, can put any time into it. I hope that we won't be too late."

"There's nobody free to hire right now? Laselle?" Liveria asked, biting at her lip and sounding a mix of desperate, despondent, and resigned.

"Busy," Baelvyr replied shortly, using his pillar-like fingers to scratch the top of his bald head. "Mortaine's involved in something I can't talk about here right now, and Laselle is tryin' to stabilize three different houses of cards right now. We all got too much shit on our plates at this moment in time, though I know they're lookin' into it. The girlie knows Laselle; maybe ya can get 'er to go over and ask a favor."

"We'll talk about it," Beth said, seeing the confused looks on quite a few people's faces. "We still have some time, or I think so, at least."

"How far along are you, if you don't mind?" Erosh then asked Baelvyr.

"Hmm, well, I ain't been an Exalted all that long, but I'm more than halfway to Manumitted. I got the basics of my Truth figured out, so I got a good understandin' of Soul Freedom. Ain't got all the pieces, but I don't think it's impossible I'll get Manumitted, or even that I'll get it in the next five hundred years," he said before grunting heavily. "Maybe more like a thousand years, given that aforementioned shit fillin' up my plate. Ain't got enough time to do all the shit I need to do, let alone push hard for levels or take time studyin' for my Truth and grapplin' with it."

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"What are you guys talking about?" asked Beth, looking between them.

"The level after Exalted is Manumitted, girlie," Baelvyr said.

"Duh, I knew that," Beth retorted. "I met two Manumitted recently."

"You what?!" Liveria cried, several of the others exclaiming in surprise.

"Yeah, there's something like three or four Manumitted in the Milky Way right now and we met two of them," Beth said, gesturing to herself and Sera and Blood. "Mortaine knows them and introduced us, though we actually met one of them before by chance."

"She's like the Manumitted whisperer or some shit," Baelvyr grumbled sourly.

"Hey," Beth said, giving him a frown. "Anyway, we got to know the two of them a bit, and they even helped us with some training for a couple objective weeks."

"Do you think…?" Liveria began hopefully.

"They know 'bout it," Baelvyr cut in. "Both of 'em are also occupied with other stuff right now. Sorry to cut in, girlie, but I do know these things, even if it ain't look like it. They don't have the time to help with the delve, not right now. Like I said, we just gotta hope things don't go tits up in the next couple decades; probably can't make it any quicker than that."

"Shit," Liveria swore quietly.

"Would you mind talking with us a bit?" Farahduul asked Baelvyr then. "Your insights could prove invaluable to us."

"I can talk a bit, but not right now," Baelvyr replied, his helmet folding back up and locking in place. "I got shit I gotta take care of right now. Have the girlie come find me later; I can talk to you lot then, though I don't know that I'll be all that much help. I got a pretty big natural instinct for resolvin' the barriers between tiers that might not translate well. Either way, I gotta go put out some more damn fires. Keep this lot in line and don't go takin' 'em out all over the planet, girlie."

With that, he turned and strode off, each of his stride eating up hundreds of feet, though they were still silent and didn't even disturb the grass. It must be some kind of skill he had, or maybe it was just an Ascended or Exalted thing that Beth didn't yet understand. The group all watched him go before shaking off a kind of awe or reverent fugue that they had been in in his presence, though Beth, Sera, and Blood were entirely unaffected from being in his presence. Val as well, likely used to people close to that powerful, or even that powerful, also wasn't too much impressed, though from the look on her face, Beth thought she might have been a bit impressed with Baelvyr because of who and what he was. It was a funny thing, considering he was her mentor, but she had never really poked into his past too much, and the awed reactions many people gave him made her make a note to look further into it. Andrea's reaction was something she had seen one or more times before and she was particularly overawed in the big guy's presence.

"That was a bit anti-climactic," Beth said with a frown.

"Were you expecting a fight?" Erosh asked.

"Nah, I was just expecting, you know, a bit more vim and vigor," Beth replied. "Also, all his answers were also 'No, I'm busy,' and 'No, we can't help.' "

"Well, people do have pretty busy lives," Odorra added helpfully.

"Ah, whatever, we'll get it done," Beth said, waving a hand. "Didn't realize releasing you all together was going to create some great state of alert, either."

"Yeah, you should be careful of that in the future," Zelmainne said calmly. "We are, despite the appearances, a large group of peak-Ascended who are all powerful in our own right. Thirteen of us just popping up, even in the wilderness, will cause a stir."

"Thanks for the brilliant revelation there, chief," Beth snorted. "Now that we've all been scolded by the teacher, everybody can tell we made a little mistake. Incredible."

"Anyway," said Sera, redirecting them. "Now that we're not registered as a threat anymore, maybe we can get back to what we were doing?"

"Let's get back to work," Beth agreed, waving a hand and dismissing everyone back to what they had been doing.

Erosh stayed with her, saying, "I didn't quite believe it, but you really do have an Exalted as a mentor."

"Yeah, I'm pretty awesome," Beth replied, pointing at herself with both thumbs while grinning at the big man.

"Oh, please," he rumbled, shaking his head and sighing.

"Anyway, did your eye power tell you he was an Exalted?" Beth asked.

"No, I could feel his Ideal," Erosh said. When Beth gave him a questioning look, he explained, saying, "When you get to be particularly powerful, you'll be able to sense even more, even without using powerful skills. I could sense his Ideal, which alters the flow of mana, and the perception of it, around a person. It's in a very narrow area around that person, but I could sense it around him."

"Oh, I see," Beth said. "So, what is an Ideal, really? Like, how is it different than a Mana Physique?"

"Hmm, how's a good way to explain?" Erosh muttered, crossing his arms and looking into the distance. "So, let's just go over the basics. You have three big milestones early on; well, I say early on, but it's really until you become Manumitted, which I suppose some would consider early on their Path. The first of these is Mana Physique, then Ideal, then Truth. You've already built the first one, so you have some idea what I'm talking about."

"Not a Presence?" Beth asked, watching the others talking and training.

"Hmm? What's that?" Erosh asked, giving her a questioning look.

"I mean, your Presence isn't the first milestone?" Beth clarified.

"No, no," he replied. "Besides, you have a Presence, but many of those here have Humanization instead. That's something that's a natural part of a person's basic progression, like learning how to move mana through your body or how to swing a sword. Doesn't count for what I'm talking about."

"Right, sorry, go on," Beth said.

"Anyway, quick and dirty; Mana Physique is the link between your mana and your physical body. Now, it's a link, so it's not making you some kind of gestalt or specter or something like that; it's just a strong connect between your mana, and I mean your mana, and your physical body. The next piece is Ideal, which has to do with the soul. That's your connection between your soul and your magic, tying back into your body and linking all three. That's just a general overview of it; Ideals are things people realize about the core of themselves and how they want to influence the universe around them. I can explain more later but saying it that way leads into the third thing; Truth.

"Your Truth comes after you have understood your place in the universe and how to manipulate it. Knowing that is all well and good, but you can't progress by just being a part of something else. No, you have to become something more, so you learn your Truth, which is how you learn to step outside the restrictions of the universe. That's why they're called Manumitted, because they're free of the restrictions. It allows some strange things, like blending in perfectly with everything around them, which seems counter-intuitive, but it's a way to remove oneself from what's around them that makes others look right by that person, all done using their Truth."

"So, recap," Beth said, holding up a hand. "You build a Mana Physique, which combines your mana and your body together. Sorry, links them together. Then, you understand yourself at a super deep level, which reveals your Ideal, which then links your soul into the mix. Finally, you learn your Truth, which moves beyond the Ideal and sees you step beyond the restrictions the universe puts on you. How's that?"

"Pretty much got it," Erosh confirmed with a nod.

"But what was that stuff about Soul Freedom or whatever?" Beth asked.

"Look, maybe I shouldn't teach you about this yet, but I'll just give you the outline," Erosh said. "Again, quick and dirty; Mana Physiques all have some very broad and general rules they follow, mostly, but they're often unique or differ greatly from person to person. A person's Ideal is even more individual of a thing and there are even fewer rules on how to realize one, how it acts, and a bunch of other things. That changes a lot for Truths, however, as they all operate under a similar manner. Put it like this; the result is the same for understanding a Truth, in that it frees you, mostly, from the restrictions the universe places on you, but getting to that answer has many different solution vectors. Soul Freedom is what we call the end result; in other words, people get there differently, but your Truth is really about achieving the state or the paradigm known as Soul Freedom. Soul Freedom is the goal; your Truth is how you get to it."

"Not sure I one hundred percent get it, but I think I understand that explanation," Beth said.

"Yeah, you won't need to know about that for a very long time," Erosh said. "Your Ideal is next and that takes an immense amount of time and self-reflection to achieve, so you should just be focusing on that. You don't even need to start on it now, either, as you have a long way to go before it really starts to become relevant."

"Gotcha," she said.