"Guess Veren bailed," Andrea said when they all gathered together.

"Likely he wasn't feeling challenged or some such," Val said. "He does whatever he wants and, while it's really arrogant, he has the skills already to back up that annoying arrogance."

"So, what's our plan?" Sera asked, redirecting the conversation.

"Go to floor two hundred, then regroup," Beth said. "Does anyone think they want to climb the next floors as a group?"

"I think we should do it as groups," Bjorn said. "Some of the floors even before two hundred will be quite difficult, and I do not know that everyone here can safely navigate them."

"I would take that as an insult, if I thought you were talking about me," Sera said idly, eyeing the titan descendant up and down with a slight frown.

"Do you want me to put it plainly?" he asked coldly.

"No, we all know you're talking about me," Andrea said.

"And her," Bjorn said, pointing at Val.

"ME?!" Val croaked, looking like she was choking on her indignation.

"Did I stutter?" Bjorn asked calmly.

"Alright, enough," Beth said, making a chopping motion. "We'll split into two groups. Bjorn, you take Kris, Andrea, and Val, unless you want a different formation? I'll take Sera and Blood."

"Swap Andrea and Blood," Val said quietly but firmly, her very pale cheeks flushing when everyone looked at her.

"It doesn't matter to me," said Andrea, walking over and hopping into Sera's lap at the tactical station.

"Okay, then we'll do me, Andrea, and Sera. You four go on and take on the tower as a block. Remember, please stop at two hundred; Veren said beyond two hundred was much harder. Let's not test two-oh-one yet," Beth said.

"Got it," Bjorn grunted, turning and thumping out of the bridge.

Beth waited for the second team to slip off the bridge, walking over to Neph and giving her a diamond coin, making sure to refund her for the challenge. Neph was still rather young and Beth didn't feel it was fair to have her spend so much of her own tiny savings on doing crazy challenges to keep up with them. She then walked over to Sera, putting a hand on Andrea's head and stroking her hair while she chatted with the dragon girl for a moment.

"You think we can do it faster than them?" she asked Sera.

"Sure, I don't see why not," Sera said with a shrug, Beth noting how the gesture made Andrea bounce slightly in Sera's lap.

"Well, they have a lot more damage than we do," Beth said. "And I'm not saying that as an insult to Andrea or anything; you're a tank and we don't really have a spell caster, plus we're a member down with Veren having fucked off…wherever he went."

"Yeah, I need a new skill soon," Andrea added, leaning back against Sera while also enjoying Beth's touch. "I don't have anything that does any kind of elemental damage. I need to grab something like that, or something that does more than just physical damage multipliers."

"Hey, physical damage can still be very powerful," Sera commented, scratching at Andrea's stomach with the claws of her left hand. "There are some very, very powerful Wayfarers out there that have pure physical builds. Not even adding anything like void or obliteration or annihilation or anything like that, just straight up physical damage. As long as you get at least some defense piercing or shredding effect, you're fine."

"I still want something a bit flashier," Andrea said, enjoying the dual attention. "I want, like, a flame fist or a lighting kick or something."

"Well, there's plenty of stuff out there," Sera said. "Also, always an option to make your own, or make a well-known skill, rather. Making something new is so rare…"

"Yeah, I'm just whining," Andrea said. "Buying a crystal costs money and I'm being stingy, while creating the skill from scratch takes so much time and effort. You not only have to work on it a long time, it's really inconvenient to do other stuff while you're focused on the skill creation. I want to keep leveling and doing dungeons and stuff, and working on creating a skill can really slow you down."

"True, true," Sera said. "Well, you'll just have to bite the bullet and buy, or rent, a good skill crystal."

"Yeah, I know," Andrea sighed.

"Well, we've already given them a bit of a head start," Beth said. "Let's head out. Neph, you're fine on the ship for now?"

"Yeah, it's fine," the bee girl said. "I have plenty of alchemy stuff to do. Even if Veren's an exception, doing it in one night, it shouldn't take you guys more than a couple days, anyway, right?"

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"Yeah, that's true. I don't think it'll be more than three days for us to get through this," Beth said. "Just try not to blow anything up while we're gone."

"Don't worry, John gave me a really good pill furnace. He said it can even make the strongest non-Enlightened poison there is," Neph replied happily.

"I really need to have a talk with him," Beth muttered as she escorted the other two off the bridge. "Just don't let any strangers in!" she called over her shoulder before leaving.

"I know, mom!" Neph called back sarcastically.

The group of three made their way to the entrance to the tower and each paid the fee, Andrea grumbling a bit at having to pay several diamond coins over the course of just two days. Beth didn't say anything, just handing a diamond to Andrea after they entered the tower at floor one hundred. Andrea didn't say anything, either, taking the diamond coin with a flick of a finger before giving Beth a quick kiss on the cheek. The three moved into the fighting area right after that, confronting a group of a hundred enemies, which they killed rather easily.

They climbed steadily from there, taking the first handful of floors quite quickly, slamming through first ten, then twenty floors. Beth found the challenge to be much higher than the first hundred floors, but that's not to say it was exactly difficult. Especially with the three of them working together, the combat stages were still pretty simple to defeat. Sera was so tough most attacks couldn't even make her stagger or flinch, let alone actually damage her, and Andrea and Beth could both deal rather extreme amounts of damage.

The puzzle stages were the easiest of all, as Andrea had quite the knack for solving them. Not that Sera or even Beth were slouches in that regard, but Andrea could look at a wall of symbols, press three of them, and the door to the next level would appear. Combine that with their ability to kill everything in the combat floors in a matter of a couple minutes, and they made far faster time than Beth had thought. That lasted until floor one hundred fifty, where there was a small but noticeable jump in difficulty. It wasn't enough to make Beth worried for their safety, but it was enough to slow them down, forcing them to fight a bit more seriously in the combat encounters.

They still made better time than Beth had thought, clearing up through floor two hundred in just over a day and a half. They cleared floor two hundred as well, as that was still at the same level they had been challenging up until that point. That led them to floor two hundred and one, which Beth wanted to take a crack at. Sera tried talking her down from the ledge, with no help from Andrea, who also wanted to keep fighting. The dragon girl eventually relented, agreeing to take a crack at the room with the others. The room was a combat challenge, and the levels and difficulty had greatly increased.

They were presented with twenty enemies instead of a hundred, but all twenty were at the level of dungeon bosses. This wasn't anything Beth hadn't dealt with before, but it was a new experience for Andrea. Sera didn't much care, taking up the center of the battlefield and absorbing hits that would cripple others like they were simple taps, pushing the bosses back with her spear with insanely powerful thrusts. Beth simply picked an enemy and dueled it down, beating a boss into bloody pulp over the course of five minutes thanks to her combination of two platinum-level skills.

It was a battle of attrition, which was something Beth was quite used to, and Sera had started acclimating to, but Andrea only had a bit of experience with. All of that experience, funnily enough, coming from her prior time with Beth's group. That meant Andrea was the first to start to slow down, but it was just a single floor, and they had wiped that floor with most of the bosses' bodies before that happened. Sera and Beth were easily able to clean up the rest with Andrea taking a more passive role, Sera able to last forever thanks to her very high END and skills while Beth was just a total monster.

"I think that's plenty," Sera said once they were done.

"You're telling me," Andrea said, collapsing to sit on the floor.

"Come on, let's at least unlock the next floor," Beth said, chuckling as she went over and picked up Andrea.

"I don't like being so touchy feely with people, but with you two, it's different," Andrea muttered as Beth walked over to the door with Andrea in her arms.

"Just tell us if it bothers you," Beth said with a laugh.

"Definitely not," Andrea said, snuggling against her right before they stepped through the far door to the next floor.

The floor was very similar to the previous, only the enemies were even stronger, and that's where they decided to call it. Beth was sure that this would be a challenge, even for a group, especially if they weren't quite as strong as this group was. She always remembered good ol' team Dream Snake, and often compared her and her allies' strength to theirs. It was a long time ago, true, but Dream Snake always came up wanting in her memories and comparisons. She put Andrea down, carefully, before they left, letting the shorty walk out on her own, though they all just headed to the airship.

It turned out that Beth had been a bit optimistic, as they found everyone else on the bridge, including Neph. Apparently, having four people, including a powerful spellcaster, was just a bit too much of an advantage. It also helped that Bjorn was even more of a wall than Sera, able to shrug off everything before floor two hundred without a flinch. Neph had also managed to not blow up the ship while they were gone, though she said she hadn't really made much progress on her alchemy. Not really surprising, given that she only had two days.

"Well, now what?" asked Kris quietly.

"Now, I think we're heading back to our home CRA Hall," Beth said. "There's a bunch of stuff I need to work on, but most of it is just time-consuming grinding."

"Well, we can split out to do our own thing," Bjorn said. "It was good that you asked me to come look at that remnant. And it was good that we learned this tower was here."

"Yeah, feel free to tell people about the tower. Oh, and the dungeons," Beth said.

"Which dungeons?" asked Bjorn.

"There's a variable dungeon by where my parents still live," Beth said. "They're building a hotel there, supposedly, so people can come and challenge that dungeon. There's a second dungeon nearby as well, though it's fixed-level and at nearly two hundred right now."

"There's also that mystery formation we couldn't figure out in that area with all those kobolds," Val pointed out.

"Yeah, but I don't think that's gonna be a huge draw," Beth said with a slight chuckle. "I think the variable dungeon will be a much bigger draw, which is why I'm shamelessly using you guys as free advertising."

"Right, that's true," Val said. "And I need to get back, anyway."

"Yeah, are you still with the Young Scions or what? How'd you have so much free time?" Beth asked as Blood got the ship flying.

"Well, despite what I said about dedicating years to the cause, or whatever, we do occasionally take a few breaks," Val replied calmly. "And, for once, I shook off the press and snuck away, though I think Honored Ancestor not only knows where I am, I think she might be here. You never know, with her."

"So, this is your vacation?" Beth asked with a laugh.

"Well, it's not exactly laying on the cushions in the smoking parlor, but it's definitely better than dealing with those louts, even with Veren included in this group," Val said. "I can't believe I have another four years, at least, before I'm free from them. The only one I can fucking stand is Blue Wave and she's just as much of a meathead as Beth is."

"Hey!" Beth said from the captain's chair.

"It's true," Blood said.

"You are kinda dense, honey," Sera said.

"You're good at smashing," Bjorn added, sitting on one of two lowered jump seats at the back of the bridge.

"This feels a bit unnecessary," Beth said with a sigh.

"Cheer up; you're more than pretty enough," Andrea said, laughing at Beth's expression.

"Anybody else? Kris, you wanna pile on for some reason?" Beth asked in an aggrieved tone.

"Y-you are very pretty," Kris stammered.

"Not what I meant, but thanks," Beth said, rolling her eyes but grinning at the same time.

The trip back was rather uneventful, with Blood focusing on flying the ship the entire time. The ship's sensor did detect a small anomaly at one point, but Beth linked in through her communicator and found someone hovering in the air near them despite their speed. The person had to be a Senior Enforcer, and they merely observed the ship for a moment before disappearing at a speed so fast that the systems couldn't properly track him.

Blood landed the ship outside what Beth thought of as 'their' CRA Hall a few hours later, and the group disembarked. Kris, Andrea, and Bjorn left almost immediately, with just a quick farewell before they were off. The remaining five headed up to Beth's suite, with Val sticking around for a little to spend some more time with Blood. None of the rest minded at all, as Val fit in quite well with their little group, and she matched Blood at an almost perfect level. Despite her image in public, in private, Val lazed around naked even more than the rest did, swore like a sailor, drank impressive amounts of alcohol, and smoked the same kind of water leaf that Blood did like she was an old chimney, using a very fancy pipe to burn through the leaf at a prodigious rate.

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