Sabs didn't say anything to Beth as she entered the kitchen, walking up to the taller girl and reaching up to wrap her arms around Beth's neck. She buried her face in the top of Beth's now somewhat ample chest and breathed deeply, enjoying the slightly sweet, somewhat musky scent of Beth's body. Beth, in turn, wrapped her arms around Sabs and kissed the top of her head gently, holding her quite tightly in a warm embrace.

The two stayed like that for a few minutes, losing track of time in that hazy, slightly euphoric way that lovers can so easily fall into in each other's company. Beth was the one to eventually break the embrace but caught Sabs' hand as they separated. The two still had not spoken, nor did they need to, as Sabs happily followed along behind Beth as the younger girl led her up to her bedroom.

Blood slipped in behind the two of them and flopped on the floor in the corner, letting a deeply contented huff as she curled up slightly. Beth led Sabs over to the bed and had her sit before turning to her dresser and grabbing some clothes.

"Sorry, let me shower and then we can hang out," she said, giving the blushing older girl a slight grin as she clearly emphasized 'hang out.'

Sabs nodded with a smile in return, flopping back fully onto the bed as Beth entered the bathroom and started the shower. Despite the prospect of spending some quality time with her girlfriend imminently, Beth still took some time to luxuriate in the hot water, letting steam near fully fill her large shower before cutting the water.

Once dried and in some loose clothes, she quickly joined Sabs on the bed, eliciting a squeak as she leapt right over the older girl to land next to the wall with a bounce.

Sabs put her phone down as Beth slid toward her, commenting, "You're crazy, jumping around like that."

"Good crazy or bad crazy?" Beth asked with a grin as she wrapped an arm around the smaller girl.

"Definitely good cra-mhmmm," Sabs replied smartly, the end of her sentence garbled by Beth's lips pressing against hers.

Sabs leaned into the kiss, still blushing from a bit of embarrassment at their romantic antics, but finding her desire the strongest of her emotions. She reached both arms up and wrapped them around Beth's neck, sliding the fingers of her right hand into the silken, inky locks of Beth's hair, lightly caressing the back of her head as they continued to kiss. The two once again lost track of time in each other's arms, kissing and holding each other through the evening.

The only pause came for a brief minute when Beth dis-entangled herself to turn the lights off, saying to Sabs, "Message your mom that you're staying over tonight."

"Oh, okay. Sure," Sabs responded a little dully.

"Don't want to?" Beth asked as she returned to the side of the bed, getting ready to turn the nightstand lamp off but pausing for a second.

"No, no, no," she replied quickly. "I was just a little spaced out still. You're such a good kisser, it kinda took my breath away."

"Plenty more where that came from," Beth replied as she turned the lamp off, climbing on top of Sabs on the bed and nuzzling at her cheek.

"Let me get this message off, honey," Sabs grumbled a little breathily, attempting to type out a message with Beth propping herself up overtop Sabs on all fours and kissing the small girl's left shoulder.

"I like it when you call me honey, babe," Beth murmured in Sabs' left ear as she continued wandering her lips all over the older girl.

"Sent," Sabs said before setting her phone down and reaching up to Beth, again sliding her fingers deep into the taller girl's lustrous hair before guiding their lips together in a firm kiss.

Hours blurred by as the two kissed and caressed each other, eventually falling asleep facing each other with Sabs using Beth's upper right arm as a pillow, her face planted in the younger girl's chest. Beth had her left arm wrapped around Sabs back while Sabs had folded her hands together in front of her chest, her arms squished between the two's bodies.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It took nine days.

Beth spent all day, every day, training. The rest of the girls continued to train as well, though not nearly as long or hard as Beth. She had to renew her room today, making that the first stop of the day as she headed out to the lobby, having used the room the previous night.

She checked her status page right before entering the lobby to confirm her current wealth, or lack thereof, and noted the improvements with a smile.

Name

Elizabeth Anne Bell

Class

Brawler

Level

28

Strength

84

Dexterity

40

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Endurance

62

Intelligence

24

Wisdom

24

Free Points

0

Titles

Silver Flame Empress' Inheritor

Skills

Ancient World Gate[0]

Blacksmithing Apprentice[4]

Crush Copper[9]

Focused Meditation Copper[6]

Identify Copper[7]

Lightning Resistance Copper[4]

Lordly Reconstruction Copper[8]

Monstrous Blow Copper[8]

Pain Tolerance Copper[9]

Swords Apprentice[9]

Toxic Resistance Copper[4]

Unarmed Apprentice[9]

Wealth

0g 29s 49c

Emblems

CRA Copper Badge

Bonds

Blood

Nine days of insane, grinding training and hard work had brought both her Unarmed and Swords up to level nine, and she had gotten another level in Blacksmithing with a couple late night sessions in the forge. She closed her status screen with a blink as she entered the lobby and walked over to Tazeen. She stopped in front of him, returning his nod, before setting her key and ten silver on the desk.

"Another ten nights?" he asked calmly, already having made the silver disappear. Beth nodded as he moved the key over the panel and updated it with a quiet beep.

"Thanks, Tazeen," Beth gave him another nod as he handed her key back, giving her a very slight quirk of the lips in return, practically a radiant glow for him.

She and Blood left the Hall and quickly made their way home, meeting the rest of the group in the backyard. The five of them moved quickly through the woods, silently eliminating any ants they encountered without even breaking their stride. The ant dungeon followed; the internal level of the enemies having continued to steadily increase. It wasn't enough to match Beth and Blood, but it was enough to help the other three continue to steadily level.

They moved on from the ant dungeon to the wolf dungeon, only eliminating any ants or wolves that directly crossed their path on the way over. They also speed cleared both dungeons, interested in the experience less than quickly getting the two silver coins and getting on with all their other plans for the day.

Making their way to the Hall as a group, they made a "quick" stop at Beth's room, Soph's habit of long baths and slow movement in anywhere comfortable only holding Beth and Blood up. The other girls made quick use of the shower and were off, heading up to continue their own lessons with the instructors. All three had progressed three levels in the past week-and-a-half, with their skills also receiving some noticeable bumps along the way.

When the little sorceress had finally finished with the bathroom and left, Beth and Blood shut down the screen and headed out as well, Beth sealing the door behind them. The two moved up to the lobby, waving to Tazeen as they slipped out the front doors. Beth had gotten a bit stir-crazy, only doing the two dungeons before spending twelve to fourteen hours a day training and practicing. It was time to explore, and she had quite some confidence in doing so.

It was likely she was one of the strongest people in the area. There could be others stronger, of that she didn't really have any doubt, but she should be able to at least get the hell away from most people, and there were certainly few beasts that could challenge them. Also, if anything truly troubling popped up that she couldn't handle, there was always the ability to send an SOS signal that the nearest CRA Hall would detect. As long as it wasn't some world ending calamity, she and Blood only needed to hold out for a few minutes at most before someone would arrive as back-up.

Beth hopped on Blood's back, steering them southward as they hadn't done any kind of exploring in that direction as of yet. They loped along or, rather, Blood loped along while Beth monitored the area around them, looking for signs of a good fight or a new dungeon to explore.

The two of them encountered a whole lot of nothing for an hour, Beth guessing that there was nothing high level nearby. They did stumble upon a single ferret the size of a large dog, but Beth killed it with an empowered punch from Blood's back as they charged by it without even breaking their stride.

Blood stopped suddenly just over an hour into their journey with a soft whine, raising her head to the left, seeming to sense something to the east. Beth patted Blood firmly on the right side of the neck and gave her a nod, indicating that they could follow her senses to find out what was giving her an unusual feeling.

They continued that way for just under three minutes before Blood pulled up suddenly again, starting to sniff around the area where they had stopped. They were in a field with a handful of houses a couple hundred yards to the north and what looked like a warehouse with several tractor trailers in the lot further to the east.

It didn't take a huge amount of effort for them to discover what was unusual in the field, with Beth being rather happy she had been on Blood, as it might have been a little more abrupt discovery otherwise. In a slight dip in the field, they found an area of more than fifty feet across cut out as if a giant cookie cutter had descended from the sky and sliced away the earth. There was a winding ramp around the inside of the pit leading down into the gloomy depths, but Beth was still glad she hadn't tripped into the chasm and fallen down onto a lower portion of the ramp.

She hopped off Blood and the two of them proceeded to investigate the area around the sheer edge of the pit, but found nothing of note. There were no interesting beasts, no herbs or ores, nothing but grass and a few shrubs in the field.

"Well, time to see what this is all about," she said to Blood, leading the wolf to the edge of the long, rough ramp spiraling down into the pitch dark. The wolf merely chuffed in response, following behind as Beth began to walk down the long curve.

The pit was surprisingly…bland. After walking for nearly ten minutes, it had gotten fairly dark, but there was little change otherwise. The ramp was still rough, fractured stone, and the walls were still a damp, hard-packed dirt. Beth trailed a hand along the wall as they continued to descend, noting that while it was a rather dark color, the dirt was quite dry.

Just as Beth was starting to wonder if the pit had any end, they arrived at the bottom. There was no chamber or room, the pit looking like someone had taken an apple-corer to the Earth to carve out a perfect cylinder. The pit, however, did have two tunnels leading outward from the bottom, across from the base of the ramp and separated by about twenty feet. It was quite dark at the bottom of the chasm, but Beth could see that each tunnel led away from the other, so as to have the right tunnel leading off at a rightward angle.

She drew her sword as she and Blood stepped off the ramp, finding the floor of the pit jagged and uneven, with clumps of gravel loosely scattered around. She proceeded towards the right-hand tunnel, turning her head to say to Blood, "Watch the footing, though I think I'll have more trouble than you will."

Blood chuffed in response, following along behind as they made their way to the opening. Taking half a minute to cross the floor of the pit to ensure a stable footing, Beth peered into the tunnel, seeing, "A fat lot of nothing."

Blood snorted in response to this.

"What, you smell something?" Beth asked, turning to the huge wolf, noting how her emerald and golden eyes glowed in the low light. Blood shook her head, accompanied by a slight growl, Beth picking up the clear idea that all the wolf could sense was more dirt.

"This place is pretty weird," she continued. "Way different than the area around it, plus we haven't seen any monsters anywhere nearby. Makes me a little nervous."

Blood growled again in response, doing her best imitation of a shrug, as if saying 'I'm a wolf, what do you expect me to say?'

"Well, let's head back for now," Beth replied with a shrug of her own. "As much as I want to see what's down in the uncharted depths, I'd rather do it with a flashlight. And maybe some other much needed supplies."

At an affirmative bark from Blood, the two turned and carefully made their way back to the ramp before jogging up the spiraling path at a brisk clip. It took them far less time to return to the surface than it did to cautiously make their way downward, and Beth mounted back up as soon as they confirmed the coast was clear.

They resumed their journey southward, taking some time to roam east to west and back again as they went, trying to cover a larger area. Beth was hoping to find something else interesting that maybe wouldn't require them to have anything but their wits and their weapons at the ready.

It took nearly another hour for them to encounter anything unusual, Blood once again proving the strength of her senses, detecting the anomaly well before Beth could see or hear anything. The large wolf carried her to the west and south this time, veering from their almost due south heading with little more notice than a bark. In about a minute or just over, they approached an open section of field surrounded by a wooded area. There was a section of highway just visible further to the west through a gap in the trees, but the two paid it no mind as Beth hopped off Blood near a large archway.