Beth, Sera, and Blood all retreated to one room, Beth still feeling like she needed some rest. The dragon and the wolf would, of course, never say no to more sleep, taking either side of Beth as she slept. They were like that for a surprising amount of time, almost a third of the short trip, before Beth was awake and up again. Blood continued sleeping while Sera got up as well and sat with Beth, who was taking things out of her necklace.

"What's up?" Sera asked.

"I need new gear," Beth said, gesturing to what was basically a huge pile of scrap in front of her. "My Epic gear got totally trashed, and then my backup, much worse Rare set got totally trashed. I checked as well, leaving the armor out, and none of the repair enchants are working anymore."

"Yeah, not with your gear in that state," Sera said with a shake of her head. "Minor enchantments can do a small amount. For instance, say your gear had some dents and a cut or two from a strong attack slicing it; minor repair could handle that. Regular repair, which would just show up as repair, could fix a bit more. Then, there's greater and grand enchantments, which are both way better. Beyond that is the legendary, almost unheard-of omnipotent-level enchant, but you never see that. Like, never."

"Good to know," Beth said before sighing. "I just wish our first big mission with senior CRA members didn't destroy half my available gear and all my good gear. Well, all of it other than my sword, which is still fine."

"We'll just have to get some replacements. Not like we're poor," Sera said with a shrug.

"I'll ask Meg and Baelvyr, but I think we might wind up with Selene and Alex again," Beth said with a small smile.

"I didn't go with you last time. I'm looking forward to it," Sera said with a much bigger smile.

"We should see about grabbing some elixirs or something, too. We could use a few boosts on hand to even out stats. It's little, but I know we've lost stats one or two times on the last two rebirths because we didn't bother to get the extra five points and it's rounded down," Beth said.

"It does make a difference, but even over tens of rebirths, it's so slight…" Sera said hesitantly.

"Well, if it's not too much, we should do it. After all, you just pointed out we're basically still swimming in money," Beth said.

"Future True Rebirths are going to be very, very expensive," Sera warned, but seemed to concede the point.

"That's fair. We'll ask some people," Beth said, giving Sera a quick kiss.

"You can do that a lot more," Sera said in a low growl.

"We've got time," Beth replied with a big grin.

The rest of the trip passed rather quickly, if blissfully, with them arriving back in more civilized space. They docked and picked up several people, none of whom Beth and the others met right away, though they would bump into them a day later in the cafeteria as they were underway. Baelvyr was in the room with two elves and a man of a race Beth had never seen before, with four arms and skin that looked like old, weathered iron. She nodded to the four when she entered the room, Sera behind her, while Blood was off on her own.

"Girlies," Baelvyr said. "These three are the buildin' crew. Rav, Lesh, and Alair."

The elves were Rav and Lesh, while the strange man with extra arms was Alair. Each of the three nodded when Baelvyr pointed to them.

"Lads, these two girlies are two of my students. They're both Silvers, getting started on the process of goin' for Gold. They're gonna watch the build of the two Halls, just to get an idea of how everythin' works," Baelvyr continued.

"No problem," said Rav, who had a very deep voice, nearly matching Baelvyr's, though not as rough.

"Good to see more people going for Gold these days," Lesh said with a nod, his voice slightly high but with a strange soothing quality to it, like a background hum that relaxed whoever heard.

"Just don't get underfoot and we're fine," Alair said, giving them another, sharp nod.

"Nah, they're fine," Baelvyr said. "Sorry 'bout Lesh's voice, but he's got a skill that's always runnin'. Just keep yerself aware, or it'll put ya to sleep even if ya ain't at all tired."

"Part of my abilities as an Ancient Mesmerist," the elf explained.

"These three are all at least Gold Emblems," Baelvyr explained. All three then showed Platinum Emblems, causing him to make a sour grunt in response. "Let me correct myself; all three of these fine, upstandin' gentlemen are at least Platinum Emblems. As ya get in the higher ranks, there's all kinda stuff the Association might ask ya to do; these three are accomplished builders and architects and are often called on to build Halls or outposts or the like. It's a lot more complex and tougher work than it looks, so don't give 'em any short shrift over it."

'Short shrift,' Beth mouthed while Sera greeted the three men.

"I see yer mouth movin', girlie. We get it. I'm old," Baelvyr grunted at her.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Yeah, yeah," Beth said, getting some food ready before joining the others, giving Sera what she had made for her. "I'm Elizabeth Bell, but I just go by Beth."

"Physical fighter?" asked Rav, looking her up and down.

"Crushing Hierophant right now. Got some spatial stuff with it, too," she said.

"And you can just call me Sera," Sera said, to an eyeroll from Beth.

"Black Dragon Clan?" asked Rav.

"Ruler Saertim is my mother," Sera said. The other three all got knowing looks at that, so Beth assumed mentioning who her mother was explained everything.

"There's one other, but she's lazy," Baelvyr said.

"As interesting as them?" asked Alair.

"Red Wolf Queen," Sera said, Beth seeing the raised eyebrows from the three.

"Powerful group," Lesh commented.

"More than ya think," Baelvyr said, but didn't elaborate.

"Do you guys have skills that build the Halls?" Beth asked as they finished eating.

"We use our other skills, of course," Rav explained. "Speed and strength far beyond what others possess gives us many options and is a significant aid. We do each have at least one skill that allows us to build or setup structures or areas of land with precision. You'll see more when we get down there. The biggest thing is that our professions are high enough leveled that we can use them to assist with much of the process, and Lesh will set up the teleporters with his skill as an Enchanter."

"It'll be interesting to see," Sera said.

"Any of you working on your professions yet?" asked Alair.

"We're both smiths," Beth said, flicking a thumb back and forth between her and Sera. "Our other companion that's here is a Leatherworker. We have some friends who sometimes are companions that are Enchanters and Alchemists, but they're not here right now."

"I can show you a few things," Alair said. "I'm a Grandmaster[9] smith right now, on the cusp of moving into Sage. I'll give you a few tips on how to do some things, though I'll be focused on building the next few days."

"We appreciate the help, Grandmaster," Sera said, giving a half-bow from her seated position. Beth echoed her after a moment, figuring she couldn't really go wrong copying Sera's actions during formal times.

"That's all ya need for now, girlies," Baelvyr said. "Ya got two days until we're there, so do whatever ya want in the meantime. I'll let ya know when we're there."

"Thanks, boss," Beth said, leading the way back out of the cafeteria and down to their cabin.

The two days passed in a flash, and Beth didn't see the other three at all during that time. Baelvyr was ensconced in the cafeteria with a metric ton of alcohol, watching things on the large viewing screen and doing, in his words, "Borin' fuckin' paperwork shit." Beth left him to it, knowing he wasn't above pulling her in and making her do scut work if she hung around and pestered him. She pestered Blood a little bit to ask about her humanization progress, but the wolf gave monosyllable answers and just went to sleep in a different room when pushed. Beth wound up spending quite a bit of time with Sera, simply relaxing and taking it easy, still feeling like she needed some time to unwind after the previous events on Red II.

They landed in a different spot than what they had been using for the fighting against the monsters. The other three just got to work immediately, not having to ask anybody's permission, or not bothering to, as they had already agreed to allow it. Beth, Sera, and Blood got to watch as they leveled an area of land, determined several important factors such as the depth of bedrock, the local water table, and more. The constant rains made building a challenge, but the three men removed everything down to solid stone, sunk pylons and anchors into that stone, and began building a multi-tiered basement from there.

The work took about five days to complete everything, and Beth took note that they had some setup that kept rain and weather from affecting the project. When they were done with the first building, they moved on to the second site, setting everything up even quicker. They had learned from the first building and were able to complete the second one even quicker. Beth and Sera got a whole lot of experience in how smithing could be used in construction projects, as well as a little experience with Enchanting and Engineering, but those weren't their profession. Blood had observed with them, but there was a bit less for her to learn, as Leatherworking wasn't really used to build a building.

Beth got a very detailed look at both how the building was constructed as well as all the enchanting work that went into a Hall. It was…a lot more than she had thought was done previously. Everything from durability to repair to increased mana concentration and so much more. It also made the one country that had attacked a CRA Hall with a missile on Earth just utterly laughable; if a Platinum Emblem hadn't sliced that missile apart, it would have likely done little more than slightly soot the stones of that Hall. The amount of defensive works built into every Hall was incredible and just went to show that only the CRA leaving or choosing to give up a location would get them out of it.

Alair was nice enough to break in the forge room in the second Hall they built by teaching them a bit of his smithing know-how. They had some time as Lesh had to set up the teleporters, which was an insanely complex and time-consuming ordeal. They were all waiting for the teleporters to be setup and functional before leaving. The staff to man the two Halls would teleport in while Baelvyr took them somewhere else, taking care of whatever his two other jobs were that he wanted them on.

The teleporters were eventually finished and two dozen Gold-and-up Emblems used them to teleport to the two Halls. Baelvyr and Megoria gave them a briefing, one that Beth and Sera were forced to attend, though they contributed little to the overall briefing. They did answer a few questions about what had happened and their very limited dealings with the locals, after which the briefing was completed and the new Hall watchers took up their duties. Each Hall had a Platinum Emblem in charge of its operations while they had a slew of Gold Emblems handling the daily activities, including refereeing duty. They got settled in before Megoria headed out, taking her ship off somewhere, likely towards the center of the galaxy to continue trying to progress her Ideal. Baelvyr led their trio to the teleporter room of one of the Halls, where he took them through a series of jumps.

They had to go through security at every Hall, just as normal, which slowed them down, but they didn't have a hard date on when they had to deal with the next two jobs. The first one they were going to Baelvyr had said he wanted to deal with sooner rather than later, so they got ready to take care of that first. Apparently, there was a world with minimal CRA presence that had made a request to the Association for help. This wasn't a problem with monsters, however, but people, one that Baelvyr explained to them as they were about to move to the destination, the single CRA building, an Annex, that was on the world.

"Couple months ago, we got a call," he said. "Got a problem buildin' up on a world we got minimal oversight on. We got a couple people there just maintainin' a watch, but they ain't really all that great. There's a problem with a local group of mercs that turned bandit that are getting' out of control."

"It must be bad, if we're being called for bandits," Beth said, rolling her eyes.

"Sometimes somebody pops up on one of these low-mana worlds that's a cut above the rest," Baelvyr explained. "Think they're real hot shit, should be the one in charge, and don't care how they achieve that. They start throwing their weight, their very low weight, around, actin' like a badass. All these wannabe kings are all the same. Different world, different day, same shit. We get calls for this shit as it deals with our responsibilities as peacekeepers and judges. We go there, assess the situation, and put down this little band of thugs and criminals."

"Just us for this?" Beth asked.

"Nah, yer just gonna be observin'," Baelvyr said. "They might have called in some outside help of their own, which we're gonna look into. If we make the determination that they did, or that we need a different response, I'll call Tazeen and Jaq. They need to do a couple missions, so they'll take care of this in just a couple minutes. Ya can just observe what happens. It'll be a good lesson fer ya."

"Anything else we should know?" asked Sera as they got ready to teleport.

"Okay, let me think. I guess the biggest thing is; be prepared to kill people," he said seriously. "We don't always get the chance to take people in, and even if we did, if a situation's bad enough, we don't want to. People only got so many options to pay off their debts or make up for their crimes. We don't go around slaughterin' people just out of nowhere, but sometimes, we gotta put some people in the ground. It's tough to decide, but we gotta be judge, jury, and executioner all in one."

"Heavy," said Beth with a sigh, leaning against the wall as they were getting ready to teleport.

"It sucks, but you gotta get ready to do it," Baelvyr said with a nod of his head.

"Won't be my first time," Beth said.

"Won't be mine," Sera said as well.

"I've killed before," Blood said calmly, eying the others.

"Then let's head over there," Baelvyr said, getting the teleporter ready.

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