Limitless Path Chapter Seven Hundred Nine (Patreon)

"The city, firstly, is doing fine,” her father said, leaning back in his chair and rubbing at his temples with the index finger and thumb of his right hand. “We’ve got two problems, though when I say we, it’s not really the city that is the issue.”

“You’re doing a great job of not explaining while explaining,” Beth said, crossing her arms. She wasn’t wearing any armor or weapons other than her armored boots, which she liked wearing over her pants when she wasn’t wearing a skirt, and she had on a loose top with short sleeves.

“Sorry, let me start over,” her father said. “The biggest issue is that, while the area has settled, there are still some problems that haven’t been fully resolved. Not in the immediate area, mind you, but within a few hundred miles.”

“But that’s talking about stuff down in what was Pennsylvania or up in Canada at that point,” Beth interjected.

“Right, but those borders don’t really matter anymore, as I’m sure you’ve seen yourself over the past couple years,” her father replied. “The CRA has been a big help, but they don’t do everything or interfere with everything, so some things we have to take care of ourselves. I was hoping you might be able to take a look at one thing before you head out again, if that’s alright?”

“Trust me, it won’t take me any time to check,” Beth said, shrugging.

“Well, we know you’re strong, but it’s quite far, and it’s not necessarily something easy to handle,” her mother said, hesitating as she shared a glance with her father.

Beth just smiled, quirking an eyebrow slightly as she looked between them.

“Fine, fine,” her mother said, sitting on the edge of the desk as Beth’s father thought for a moment.

“I can send you the location,” her father said then. “There’s an area that is either a dungeon or something else that is producing beasts in far too great numbers and it’s become a real problem. The beasts have, yes, come down as far as where we are, and nobody seems to know what’s going on. The CRA doesn’t want to get involved right now because of something with their purview or jurisdiction or something, but you’d likely know about that much better than we would. It’s not an urgent ask, but if you could swing by and just look at what’s happening, we’d at very least like to have a report on what’s going on. Right now, we don’t even have a clear idea what’s happening.”

“How long has this been going on?” Beth asked, frowning a bit.

“Six months,” her father said. “At least, that’s how long we’ve known about something being wrong up there. Could be that it’s been brewing for years, but that doesn’t seem likely based on what little we know.”

“Alright, send me what you have and I’ll look at it,” Beth said, waving a hand idly. She knew her parents were worried about her and didn’t want to send her into danger, but she also was amused that they were still a bit lost about just how powerful she was at this point. Anything that could really threaten her would be a genuine existential threat to the safety of the Earth, something that the CRA would not just ignore and let others handle. She would be able to take a look and assess the situation and the danger with hardly any effort and basically no danger to herself.

“I’ll send you the information,” her father said with a relieved sigh, sorting some papers on his desk before sending her a communication.

“I’ll check it out,” Beth assured him.

After that, she spent another hour with her parents, who were eager to show her around the place, but it was more that they were eager to spend some time with her. She was fine with her parents, but a few hours here and there were enough for her quota most of the time, and after checking out the changes of the last few years, she bid them goodbye. They had shown her the updates and upgrades to their house as well, which was nice, and she was glad they were happy with it, but it also went even further to make the place feel less like home. The manse on Zephyr Prime felt much more like home to her these days than just about anything else, though she spent enough time in the residence area of her gate that that also really felt like home.

After leaving the city behind, she took a step and disappeared, reappearing more than a hundred miles away before scanning the area around herself. It didn’t look like there was anything too crazy, so she took another step and appeared nearly two hundred miles further away, in what would have been Canada before the change, looking around to see if there was anything close. She constantly both her basic senses and her magical senses to scan around her, and visually checking was always a good reference or fall back option. She wasn’t in any immediate danger, and was still a few miles from her destination, so she took a minute to more carefully scan to her east and north, finding a lot of beasts in the area. She could sense them from how they moved and disturbed the mana, though it was still a bit imprecise, especially as she was relying on there being so many to let her detect them.

A quick leap sent her hurtling through the air with enough speed that she would have created sonic booms and torn the air apart if she didn’t twist it slightly with her spatial manipulation to fold around her, and she flew towards the massive wave of beasts she had sensed. It was rather strange, as it wasn’t a tide, but it was an enormous gathering of beasts that were moving about in a relatively fixed group. Just the overflow from that group was moving out as groups of dozens, if not more than a hundred, causing a large pack or herd to stomp across the area and head for the eastern part of Canada or northern New York, or what would have been those areas. She was a little puzzled why they didn’t head west or southwest, but they seemed to be avoiding Lake Ontario and the surrounding area for some reason, which in itself bore looking into.

Beth didn’t exactly undergo a parabolic arc, as she was able to use her Ideal and spatial skills to fly at this point, though doing it for long periods of time could start to get tiring. Still, most people didn’t have good ways to fly into they were well into Ascended, partially due to that being the point where the had the kind of efficiency from their mana condensing enough that such skills were sustainable, but Beth using her Ideal helped her cheat. Spatial magic was also pretty powerful and, since it directly affected or manipulated where things were, also great for floating or flying, even if it could be a mana hog.

The first thing that had attracted her attention when she had appeared nearby was the fact that she wasn’t alone out here, which was already a bit strange. The area she had moved to was a decent shot away from any major, or even minor, city that had been in the area, and after the world had changed, she was pretty sure just about everyone moved away from such places. She would expected a lot of people to have moved to Syracuse or over to Ottawa or somewhere like that, but then again, she was only sensing a group of modest size. She wasn’t able to get a good read until she was closer, but it was less than a hundred people, and they were all moving, so she assumed they were out here to fight, either to contain this situation or to farm the area for something.

Her suspicions were rather accurate, as she drew close and saw a fighting line with a dozen people in melee supported by almost twice that at range, including some people who were clearly healers or support personnel. Beyond that was an area with people resting and eating, guarded by a handful more people on watch, but the beasts had started to mostly give them a wide berth, moving away from the group as a whole. It looked like they were there for more than farming, as they could have sat back at a greater distance and had plenty to kill, but instead the group was pushing into the center of the beasts and making their way towards whatever the source was. Beth did a quick check with the CRA using her communicator to make sure this wasn’t some kind of expedition from there, but there wasn’t any data on an expedition or a request to handle this. Not anything that had been approved, as she saw, though there were a few notes about the beast area and keeping track of whether it was a forming Tide.

Beth watched them work for a few minutes before moving herself with a quick teleport down to the resting group, appearing behind them and a little to the side. The group was better than she had first given them credit for, as she was noticed immediately and focused on, but, on the other hand, they hadn’t noticed her floating just under a mile up and observing them, so she wasn’t giving them full marks there. The quickest way to diffuse any building situation was to show her CRA Emblem, and that worked here exactly as it had and did everywhere else, letting her go up and talk to the people without any more fuss. Someone did check the Emblem, which was just smart practice, and let her know that these people were more experienced than the novices she was still used to running into on Earth.

“Thank God they sent someone,” said the very first person to walk up to her before even saying hello.

Beth held up a hand right away, saying, “Don’t know what you mean, but let’s start right. I’m Beth and someone told me about there being a danger up here when I was nearby. Care to fill me in?”

She hadn’t mentioned that nearby was close to two hundred twenty miles as the crow flew from where they were currently standing, but it also wouldn’t do to mention that ‘nearby’ for her at this point was anywhere contained with Sol’s Oort Cloud. The man who had spoken first, a short, thick-necked fellow with a tower shield on his back and a heavy mace at his hip, was the first to answer.

“Sorry, got too excited. We’ve been asking the CRA for three months to help with this little group to take care of this problem, and they haven’t been too eager. Name’s Don, Don Hopkin,” the man said, offering her his hand. Beth shook it firmly, seeing his eyes widen slightly, as, without even playing any of the usual games, it was quite clear her Strength stat was miles beyond his. “Holy shit, how high are your stats?!”

“Don!” barked a woman in armored robes behind him, some kind of mage with bits of lightning crackling around her.

“Right, sorry, personal question,” he grunted, shaking his head. “So, if you’re not here directly from the CRA, who sent ya out?”

“My family lives not all that far away,” Beth answered, hedging a bit. “They mentioned they’d heard about it, though they haven’t been affected by it directly yet. I’m a, uh, I guess you could say early powerhouse from Earth? I don’t want to brag or anything, but I’m pretty strong at this point, so I figured I’d check it out before looking into the couple other things I came to the area for.”

“Well, if you’d like to help, we’re not going to turn down a Gold Emblem, not with the kind of Strength you’ve got,” Don said, shaking his head a bit. “As long as you don’t want too much of the loot. While we appreciate any and all help, we did put this group together to get some money and materials out of it.”

“I have no need,” Beth said, waving a hand. At his disbelieving look, she pulled out an orichalcum coin and showed it to him, which made more than a few pairs of eyes watching the exchange bug out. “I really doubt your group is going to pull even a fraction of one of these out of this place, and I have more than one of these. So, no, I don’t care about the loot; the only thing I’ll likely take is any kill money, as I’m probably going to wade into the middle at some point and see what’s causing all this in the first place.”

“Right, kill money’s fine,” Don said, rubbing his face absentmindedly, trying to recover from the shock of her having held up a coin worth more than everything the expedition had, including coin and equipment, combined. “We’re hoping to get to the bottom of this ourselves. There were people that came out here almost nine months ago, when it was less of a problem, to look into it. They thought it was some kind of special zone, not a dungeon, but a zone that generated beasts. Wasn’t an issue, not at that time, so it got left alone ‘till it became a big issue. Ain’t that always the way of it?”

“And now there’s so many beasts that it’s giving you guys a hard time,” Beth finished the thought.

“Right. These lizard and reptile bastards that it spawns eat up everything, attack everything, and make a giant mess. It was fine at first, when there weren’t half a million of the fuckers clogging the place up, but now it’s gone from good farming to a real problem,” Don explained, shaking his head. “We need to either fully take care of the source, or at least get this shit under control. It’s gotten to the point where it’s putting pressure on Ottawa, and Syracuse area is also getting some stragglers. They aren’t going near the lake, go figure, but the rest of the area is starting to get fed up with ‘em.”

“What’s wrong with the lake?” Beth asked, glancing towards the direction of the nearest great lake.

“Ain’t been around much?” Don asked with a raised brow. At her head shake, he continued, “There’s some nasty shit in the great lakes. Nothing likely would be too much for someone at your level ‘cause hot damn! Level five hundred sixty? No wonder it felt like your hand’s made of steel.”

“Don!” someone else snapped.

“Yeah, right, yeah, just ride my ass,” he shot over his shoulder to some mutters and laughs. “Anyway, there’s some way nasty shit in the lake right now, eh? People and beasts both have started avoiding it mostly, though some people can still navigate it. Think there’s some kind of firm that hired off-world help to protect their ships and crews.”

“Right, but that doesn’t really matter for this group,” Beth said, redirecting.

“Yeah, that’s a different can of worms,” Don agreed, shaking his head again.

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