Limitless Path

Wrapping up the family visit, Beth felt like she had done her due diligence in seeing them, though she knew there would be subtle complaints about spending more time at home or visiting more often. Her parents were nice enough, and they had raised her well, but she and her mother still butted heads more often than not, and her father could be a bit much in more than small doses. She preferred her current companions, despite their own quirks, and she didn't enjoy actually being in her childhood home all that much anymore. She checked in, made sure everyone was okay, the town wasn't on fire, and nothing needed investigated, dropped a few coins on the kitchen island, and left. That was fine with her.

They returned to the Hall early that night to find there several of the team had appeared from the ether, with Bjorn and Kris having shown up earlier in the day right after Beth left while Neph was just getting back. That left Andrea, Adam, and Veren, if the latter decided to show himself, but they still had a bit of time before they had to leave, so they could wait and see. Everyone had already hit the max level for rebirth ten, so there wasn't much point in them killing beasts in Beth's gate, but they could spend some time training. Being level limited didn't stop one from improving one's skills, whether that was standard fighting skills or weapon skills, it applied to both. Beth and the others that had done the Grand Palace had plenty to work on, considering it would be rather easy for them to push their new skills all the way to Diamond; they may, in fact, be the first Diamond-rank skills that each of them had.

Slightly surprising to Beth, Veren showed up next, though Baelvyr popping up just a minute later and scanning the man and giving him some feedback was more surprising. Veren seemed a little distracted, but he couldn't turn down the chance to train with Baelvyr, and, in fact, it might have been just the exact thing he was looking for. Whether Veren was having some kind of crisis or had something he couldn’t figure out in terms of skills, which is what Beth thought the most likely by far, he didn't speak of it, just accepting Baelvyr's offer of guidance. The only thing that was a real concern was if he was battle-ready and could get in the ring and dish out some damage, but she should never doubt Veren on that point, and it would be one hell of an overwhelming opponent that could get to the powerful swordsman, even if he was distracted.

Andrea and Adam showed up, though not together, half a day after Veren had appeared, and it was in that that their team was fully ready, if not maybe prepared on who they were fighting. Baelvyr insisted it didn't matter that much, especially as they didn't have the niceties of the fights Tazeen had managed; they were going to be using a system of drawn lots to determine fights. It could result in some matches that were a total loss for Beth's team, though she doubted that, as even Neph and Andrea, ostensibly the two weakest of her group, still packed a hell of a punch. It would also very likely go the other way, considering that whoever matched against Beth, and to a lesser extent Sera or Blood, was pretty much entirely fucked. If somebody that had barely scrabbled their way into Enlightened and had terrible skills pulled Beth as their opponent, well, it was their funeral, perhaps not just figuratively.

Baelvyr was in no hurry for them to get going, as their trip wasn't exactly going to take all that long, and so they reconvened and discussed what they had missed. Well, Veren mostly ignored the group, even though he had been out of touch the longest, but the rest discussed their most recent outings. Bjorn and Kris had taken a bit of a trip just for them, going to a place the titan knew that he was keeping close to his chest, and Beth was happy the two were getting along quite well together. Neph had gone to train, actually making use of some of the massive pile of wealth that participating actively with Beth's group tended to accrue; a nice change of pace. Adam had gone to see about some materials for building a formation that he wasn't commenting on, no matter how Val pried, but he did mention something about his Mana Physique, which was intriguing. Andrea had gone far simpler; she had spent several weeks at her favorite arena getting into as many duels as she possibly could. That led to a long sidebar between her and Beth about the fights and the arena which the others eventually had to break up or they would've had to listen to arena fights talk all night.

When the time came to head out, Baelvyr led them through a series of teleports which was just the standard experience. Some people at the CRA jumped to attention quicker when they realized his Emblem was made of something above Diamond, but by the point they realized, most of the checks were done and the group was already on their way. It was a relatively short journey, especially as those things went, as it was only four teleports. The issue with the teleportation networks was always coverage, and how some things weren't directly linked or were even linked to some things that weren't in the same grouping. It added a layer of inconvenience in traveling far distances, but most people didn't have to deal with it that much, as most didn't find themselves gallivanting from one side of the galaxy to the other. That and many people could get where they were going with two or three long teleports; having to do seven or ten was much more a problem that someone having to go both very far and to a very specific place had to try to handle.

The place they arrived was a space station; it wasn't totally unheard of, especially considering the places Beth had been in the last year or two, but it wasn't all that common. Space-based infrastructure was just more expensive and costly, not just to build, but it also represented a great cost to maintain. Any kind of beast that could survive in space, and there certainly were beasts in space, would be very powerful; defending against those kinds of enemies was not a cheap proposition, either in manpower or in automated defenses. There was also the idea of what the value add was, as the only major reason for stations was as hubs for ships that had trouble entering atmosphere or planetary gravity wells. Sure, there were a small number of stations that were highly specialized, an absolutely prime example of that being Zane's station that controlled multiple singularities for energy, research, and other esoteric reasons not easily understood.

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The station they found themselves on was rather different, as it was a massive shipping hub, a place where both bulk goods and passengers agglomerated and then disappeared in stultifying, boisterous waves. The place had a much more form-over-function design and aesthetic, with steel plates for the floors, plastic walls of some kind of dull gray composite, and the smell of too many bodies and too much greasy food for the air filters to effectively handle. The whole thing was brightly lit, but almost shone in a wavering, mocking parody of what the future could look like if the fervent industrialists got their way over all other concerns. Beth immediately hated the place, a near totally opposite reaction to Zane's home and environs. The station had only a single redeeming quality, a huge arena that was used more to pacify the unwashed masses transiting through the system than for true combat excellence, its austere design and lacking accomodations reflecting that. Beth hated it from the moment she stepped inside.

Beth also got her first look at the opposing team, or some of them, when they first entered the arena. There was a great mass of people in the arena, both on the floor and in the stands, the whole place a chaotic swirling mass of only somewhat washed bodies and yelling, hollering fools. Arenas were, by nature, loud, and that was normally not a great bother, but it was the lack of all discipline turning the place into a frenetic mess that made her team frown and set Beth's teeth on edge. Baelvyr didn't react one way or the other, but Beth had enough experience with the massive ogre that she could tell his blank, carefully controlled expression was one of displeasure, and the way he bulled through the crowd without overmuch care for who he was trampling added to the impression.

The members of the other team that were present were about two-thirds of the way around the arena from where they entered, a little knot on the floor of people that were standoffish with everyone else. Many of them were casting a spurious eye at their surroundings, which Beth couldn't blame them for, but they were also displaying a very condescending and arrogant attitude. Something about it, beyond the way they naturally carried themselves, just rubbed her the wrong way, and she was even more looking forward to smashing their team into the dirt. Their level also didn't really appear particularly threatening, at least if they were true, as one of them was still at rebirth nine and the others were in the very long double digits. If that was true and not just a show, then they better be rather extraordinary if they even wanted to put a fight, let alone if they thought they could crush Beth's team. The leader of the team was a beady-eyed man that was lecturing two of the other team members, but the person in the same position as Baelvyr, the one overseeing the fights for the team and guaranteeing the outcome, was a tall and aloof elf, no surprises there, that was observing their surroundings with mild disdain.

"You're too early," was the elf's first words to Baelvyr which, considering he only showed up as an Ascended to her, seemed a little ballsy as an opening line to one of the maybe fifteen or less Exalted in the entire galaxy. She also had to very, very strongly muffle the urge to step on Baelvyr's toes with a quote about a wizard being neither too early nor too late. The big guy could certainly handle himself.

"Figured ya'd wanna get this done. Ya too busy wipin' these kids' asses, I can understand," Baelvyr responded.

The elf tilted his head just slightly, his eyes sliding over Beth's group before snapping back to Baelvyr. "If you are so determined to lose, I suppose we could start early. Understand, however, that you still need to be here for the ceremony, so there truly is not much point to it."

"We can at least draw lots and get matchups decided," Baelvyr grunted.

"We'll arrange it for tomorrow morning, no sooner," the elf said, dismissing Baelvyr with a casual wave.

Baelvyr, in a move a bit uncharacteristic for Beth's experience with him, loomed over the elf and growled, "See that ya do."

He then turned and walked off, gesturing for the group to follow him out. Beth kept her eyes open as they left, observing the people in the arena and stealing a couple covert glances at the opposing team before they were out of sight. She didn't like the enemy team, more from an attitude standpoint than anything else, though it was only their manager that she had any real impression of at that point. Still, that was enough to sour her on the whole thing, or at least on the whole team and what they stood for, considering they didn't mind having somebody wedged that far up their own ass as a manager. Baelvyr led them out and through a section of the huge station to a an area set aside for VIP guests and people that just had a lot more free capital than other travelers. He didn't so much rent a set of rooms for them as he did loom over the nervous attendant working the front desk, who barely stammered his way through the interaction. Beth took over, realizing that this was just a service worker doing his job, which both let them get a room with the workers having a heart attack, and let Baelvyr stew a bit without killing someone with a bad glare. For all Beth knew, he could and would do just that. As much as she knew him as a thoughtful, skilled, and even kind instructor and mentor, one had to remember that he found his footing when he was very young through a series of bloody, brutal conflicts that tore several worlds apart. He could be downright vicious when he wanted to be and still sleep soundly that night.

Fortunately, mainly for the service worker, Baelvyr let Beth finish the booking, including setting it up to charge to the elf's account, which was a bit of really smooth talking on her part. Hey, they were the away team; accomodations should be part of the package, in her humble opinion. They were all given keys, which let the large party, in more than just numbers, get out of their lobby and back to their quarters. Having Bjorn, Baelvyr, and Sera all in the same room took up quite a bit of space, not that she was calling her wife fat, but Sera was certainly big, taking not too much less space than Bjorn. It was the tail that really did it.

They were forced to wait more than a dozen hours before the other team even sent them details on where to meet to do the drawings for their fight order. It was something akin to a mild agony for Beth, as the arena was a cesspit that she didn't really want to engage with and the place wasn't considered safe ground, so no gate opening. She also wasn't popping out her pocket Ascended in such a situation, taking even training of a simpler nature off the table. She was over to go over some forms with Baelvyr, something slow and tedious that could help her really push her way through Master if she buckled down and focused on it, but she felt like she lacked enough practical combat experience to really make rapid progress. She wasn't like Veren with weapons; none of her group were, really, and Beth in particular needed to really absorb any training through a lot of practical experience. That had become more true as her overall skill increased; every level in Master was a far bigger jump than in Journeyman and required her to get hands-on in a way that hadn't been necessary in those earlier ranks.