"How much did you lose?" Beth asked Sera casually as they were sitting on the couch.

  Sera winced. "Oof, don't want to talk about it."

  "Why'd you bet a lot against that," Beth asked, jerking her thumb at Bjorn, who was drinking like it was the first time he'd ever encountered liquid.

  "I am not a that," he said crossly.

  "Well, you're certainly something," Beth said, eliciting a couple chuckles.

  They made small talk for a while as they waited for Andrea to return, which she did late that night. She had gained twenty levels during the course of the day, hinting that it wouldn't take very long at all for her to catch up enough to use the gate with them. Andrea showered off quickly and joined them in drinking in the main room, and Beth had to say, she cleaned up quite nicely.

  A couple days passed like that, with Andrea catching up, the others spending time training and studying, and Blood sleeping. Though, of course, Beth knew better than anyone that Blood was quite likely doing just as much as the rest of them even without seeming to. Once Andrea was caught up, enough for her satisfaction, at least, Beth started opening the gate in the suite, allowing everyone to train. The entire group took advantage of it for two days, which was close to twenty days of subjective time.

  At that point, the next two people, the last two, showed up at the room. It was very amusing to watch, as well, as Beth and Blood were both in the room resting, the two of them not really needing to level that much currently. There was a knock at the door and Beth leapt over the couch with a huge grin, knowing exactly who it was in the hallway outside. She walked over to the door quickly and threw it open, revealing a lonesome Val in the hallway, shuffling just a bit before her gaze locked on Beth.

  "A little nervous, are we?" Beth teased, laughing as Val pushed past her into the room.

  "Val!" Blood exclaimed before trying to shift back to her stoic mask.

  "Blood," Val said, her voice calm, but Beth could detect a slight tremulous note in it.

  "Just kiss already," Beth quipped from behind Val, dodging a swing of her multi-jointed arm as she cackled at the normally calm princess's flustered attitude.

  Blood ignored Beth entirely, or seemed to, as she had levered herself over the back of the couch and approached Val. The tall, pale woman wrapped her arms around the wolf girl before letting out a small, surprised sound when Blood kissed her directly on the lips. Val didn't hesitate at all, returning the kiss with quite a lot of passion, ignoring Beth giving a catcall and laughing as the two got lost in each other's lips.

  Val was the second to last person to show up and, truth be told, Beth really wasn't expecting the last person to even show. Her rather surprised expression was understandable when, just a handful of minutes after Val, there was another knock on the door. Beth laughed as the other two didn't even notice, Val lost in Blood's eyes as the two lay intertwined on the couch and talked quietly, though they were doing an awful lot of kissing. Beth quickly made her way to the door and opened it, revealing Veren.

  "Veren," Beth greeted him with a nod.

  "Beth," he replied coolly, eyeing her up and down. "I see we haven't made much progress."

  "Shit, I forgot how much of an asshole you are," Beth grumbled, stepping out of the doorway to allow the tall young man to enter.

  "Your group seems even smaller," Veren said before focusing on the portal. "Unless the rest are in this strange gateway."

  "Training realm. One of my powers," Beth explained shortly.

  "Aren't we full of surprises?" he said, though he remained deadpan.

  "You're welcome to use it," Beth said, leaning her hips against the back of the couch and looking between him and the gate.

  "Unnecessary," he replied calmly.

  "Really?" Beth asked, somewhat dubious.

  "Absolutely," he replied, just as calm.

  "Then I guess you're joining us in waiting. The others still need some levels," Beth said with a shrug.

  "Who are these others?" Veren asked, walking around to the couch and sitting with a smooth grace. He glanced over at Blood and Val, quirking one eyebrow just slightly before smoothing his expression back to neutral equanimity.

  "Girl I met on the world we met on who is pretty strong," Beth began listing, ticking them off on her fingers. "Phoenix clan lady that has some strong elements; heir to the titans with a lot of defenses and high strength; dragon girl who I will be marrying; our newest companion, companion to Blood, who is still rather low leveled. The last is just going to train for a while; she's not up to the point where she can join us with what we're doing."

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  "An…interesting group," he said, casting a critical eye over her once again.

  Beth gave him a very critical, and thorough, exam before asking, "You haven't built your Mana Physique yet, have you?"

  "Oh, you realized?" Veren asked, which was enough to interrupt Val's 'conversation' with Blood.

  She turned to Veren and was about to say something before exclaiming, "It's you!"

  "It is, in fact, me," Veren said, yet again remaining very deadpan.

  "You beat us on Luttraine. Don't you remember?" Val insisted, waving one of her hands at a slightly odd angle as she spoke.

  "Did I?" he asked, and Beth could tell he wasn't being a dick about it, he just genuinely didn’t appear to remember.

  "Yes! The Young Scions? You challenged us to fight you all together. You're not remembering any of this?" Val continued, leaning forward as she questioned him.

  "Look, if I remembered every dreg I beat with a swing of my blade, my head would be full of nothing but losers," he responded caustically.

  "Hey, hey, now," Beth said, already seeing the very pale girl flushing red.

  "You're a fucking dick," Val snapped at him.

  "A very different appearance from the normally calm and collected leader of the Young Scions," Veren said with a patronizing smirk.

  "So, you do know who I am!" Val snapped.

  "Unfortunately," Veren answered with a light shake of his head.

  "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Val demanded.

  "One cannot turn around without seeing fifteen adverts for the galaxy's 'young, strong, noble saviors,'" Veren said with a rather sarcastic edge to his voice.

  Beth got the feeling that Val's flush was converting from anger to more than a bit of embarrassment. "Oh, you've seen those?"

  "Indeed, I am not blind," Veren replied with a single, slow blink.

  "Well, if neither of you need to train, then you're stuck with us for a day or two," Beth said.

  "It will not take longer?" Veren asked.

  "Time compression. Ten-to-one," Beth answered, explaining when she saw his next question coming.

  "Good," he said, settling back into the couch and getting lost in his communicator.

  Another three days passed before Kris, Bjorn, and Andrea were ready. Beth had Neph leave the gate as well, not wanting to keep an instance open in their suite while they were out. Especially since she couldn't open more than one gate at a time; having the option to open the gate and retreat inside could be a lifesaver. Neph was going to be staying in the CRA Hall and doing some training, and a good bit of relaxing. She was almost level one-sixty, so there was plenty she could do in the area as well, including the ant dungeon if she really wanted.

  "Okay, Beth, we're all here and ready. What's going on?" Sera asked.

  "I think it might be better to show. Isn't that what they say, 'show, don't tell?'" Beth asked.

  "I'm dying of curiosity at this point," Sera said, running her hands over Beth's torso.

  "I’m curious what you think it has to do with me?" Bjorn added in, giving her a questioning look.

  "Then let's go," Beth said, starting to lead the group out. "You'll be fine, Neph?"

  "Yeah, sure. Even if it takes a while, I have plenty of money and plenty to do," she said.

  "The room's paid for another fifty days. Remember that," Beth said before leading the party out.

  Beth led the group out of the CRA Hall and towards the south, moving along the overgrown trench that reminded her of the time Baelvyr came to her rescue. They went through some old farmland, a small woodlot, some open plains that Beth assumed was farmland left fallow, and then an area of woods before coming out into the field with the pit into the ground.

  "Oh, here, is it?" Blood asked, understanding now where they were heading.

  "Yeah. We can't do anything with the shield yet, but we can take the other path," Beth answered.

  "The shield? The other path? What are you talking about?" Sera asked with both brows raised.

  "Check this," Beth replied, leaping across the field to the pit. The rest of the group followed her, standing on the edge of the shaft that looked like a giant cookie cutter had plunged into the field and taken a cylinder out of it.

  "You've led us to a hole," Veren observed.

  "You're good," Beth said, pointing a finger-gun at him and winking.

  "Beth," Sera laughed, swatting at her lightly.

  "It's what's downstairs that's interesting," Beth said. Before they could go any further, however, several kobolds appeared from the inky depths, trundling up the spiraling ramp towards them. Veren snorted and flicked two fingers of his right hand, slicing their heads off with a gesture. The rest of the group, other than Beth and Blood, just stared at him, wide-eyed at his display of weapon prowess. He had become so skilled that he used his fingers as a sword and cut the enemies apart with sword waves from a distance. Maybe he was already approaching the top of Grandmaster?

  "Let's go," Beth said with a laugh, gesturing at the others before leaping down into the pit. The drop was something that used to strain her legs to do all in one go, but now she slammed into the ground at the bottom of the shaft feeling as if she had just taken a step.

  "Left?" asked Blood after the others followed her down. They had all leapt down, though some bounced a few times on the way down, not trusting the open shaft even if Beth had thrown herself into it.

  "Let's just show them the other side first," Beth said with a shrug.

  Blood took the lead and disappeared down the righthand tunnel, scouting ahead of them, though it didn't really matter considering the level of beasts in the underground space. Really, it just meant that Blood was killing a handful of beasts ahead of them as they proceeded. Andrea stopped to examine a corpse, joined by Kris who gave a brief summary of the enemies. It was nothing that Beth didn't know or expect, but it was interesting to have someone who was rather knowledgeable about beast physiology with the team.

  They emerged into the cavern shortly, finding the place just as filled with beasts as Beth remembered, if not more so. For this group, that wasn't any kind of concern, however, as each of them was capable of wiping out multiple beasts of this level with a single attack. That wasn't even counting anything crazy like using their Presences or any special abilities they possessed, just killing them with overwhelming power and battle experience. Everyone followed along a short distance behind Blood now, slowly navigating the broken-up remnants to where the weird shield that they had discovered still covered an area of a hundred feet or so.

  "What the hell?" Val murmured, immediately walking up to inspect one of the pyramidal objects covered in runes that Beth assumed was responsible for the field.

  "Yeah. We discovered this a while ago, but Blood and I don't really know enchanting, nor are we that good with runes. Not yet, at least," Beth explained while the group examined the shield.

  "The shield is quite powerful," Veren commented. "I don't know that I could cut through it even using my blade and strongest skill, and I can cut through quite powerful formations."

  "It's certainly meant to keep people out," Bjorn commented. "Rather than hold something or someone in, that is."

  "These formation anchors are very complex," said Kris as she knelt next to one and examined it. "I’m an alchemist, not an enchanter, but I know a decent bit of rune lore. This stuff is pretty damn strong, something I'd expect out of either Grandmaster or Sage enchanters. This looks like it was put together by a group of Enlightened or even an Ascended."

  "I agree," Val affirmed. "This was done by a group of Enlightened, from the rune work. I'm guessing it's at the level where it's meant to have been crafted by a group of Grandmasters together, whether it really was or the Path made it."

  "Think you can crack it?" Andrea asked, having stood back with Beth and Blood while everyone else examined the shield.

  "Hmm, I'm not that good, not yet," Val said, inspecting one of the pyramids. "These formation anchors are just too complex."

  "Then can we crack it the old-fashioned way?" Andrea asked, cracking her knuckles.

  "Not a good idea," Sera said, eyeing the shield critically. "It's likely to explode or give out a crazy backlash with the way it's designed. I wouldn't try brute force unless we have no other options."

  "It's a really good find, though. I can get a lot of benefits just studying how they set this up," Val said, clearly taking pictures of everything with her communicator. Beth was a little amused that her eyes weren't constantly flashing from taking the photos, as it was her eyeballs that were linked to her comm.

  "It has something to do with the other thing on this side," Beth said.

  "I was going to ask," Val replied, "but this thing is linked to something. You know what that is?"

  "Yeah. There's a portal at the back of this room that leads to a weird space with no beasts. Except for one, anyway, but that's a sapient beast. He's trapped there, and we don't really know exactly what's going on, only that we think this formation thing is linked to that trapped beast. We didn't have the time or resources to explore this any further the last time we were here," Beth explained.

  "Well, if the trapped person is linked to this, then we need to figure out what's going on with this first," Sera said affirmatively.

  "That's right. It won't be fast, but I can study this and try to unwind it," Val said.

  "I don't think there's a time crunch, unless you guys think otherwise?" Beth said.

  "Not that I see," Val answered with a shrug.

  "Then we can head over to the other side," Beth said, waving for Blood to lead them once again.