The den of the scythe swarmers was a real horror, the kind of places one could have nightmares about for many years afterwards. As they go close to it, the floors started to be covered in a thick, murky substance that Beth was hoping was some kind of dirt, but she knew in her heart it wasn't. That sort of, well, mucus, extended up the walls and across the ceiling, with big patches of it hanging from the roof in clumps and stretching between the walls, though Beth thought it surely had to be more than just mucus. Mucus couldn't have that much structural integrity to it…right?

Well, whatever the case, it was disgusting, and things got even worse as they went further in, with partially eaten and half-rotten corpses strewn everywhere. Corpses weren't really something they often had to worry about, as beasts were quite good at taking care of that, but the scythe swarmers enjoyed playing with their food, including killing just for the joy of it, and it appeared they didn't always finish every last bite. It was incredibly disgusting, not at all aided by the amount of mucus and some sludgy brown stuff that Beth was trying to ignore also liberally coating everything on the floor. Even in places with rather high beast activity she wasn't quite so used to encounter nearly as much shit, but plants and other factors on the surface of worlds would take care of a lot of that. Magical plants, or just trees and bushes that were trying to thrive in high-mana environments, used a lot of nutrients, and that meant absorbing a lot of things into and through the soil.

No plants or trees down here, or anything else, really. Anything too stupid that wandered close to the swarmers got the short end of the stick, with even very powerful beasts being no exception to that rule. They walked over a skeleton that was mostly stripped of flesh and would make the troll they had killed earlier look small. Then again, size wasn't necessarily a direct correlation to power, as that beast could have been level one hundred and the size of a building. Whether it was level one hundred or five hundred, it hadn't mattered one bit, considering the thing was now just a much smaller building-sized pile of bones at the edge of a nest of terrible beasts. The corpses stopped as they got much closer to the den, as even the bones weren't spared from the swarmers at that point. That didn't mean the den was clean, especially considering the amount of mucus and shit and old blood scattered everywhere.

Mucus, muck, shit, blood, and pain; that was the experience fighting through the den, or fighting against all its denizens. It was a long and grinding thing, too, as they had tens and tens of thousands of the damn things to kill. They didn't have to fully eradicate the beasts, but they had to do a lot more than just put a dent in the numbers. Killing half or more of them would be ideal, and anything they managed to do beyond that point would just be a bonus, though an unpaid one. Beth wasn't exactly in the habit of doing work for free, though she wouldn't just do the bare minimum, as that would be a sloppy job, but if the CRA wasn't paying more, there was no reason for them to stay down in the shit. And the Stench! Merciful stars, but the whole place smelled so bad it made her throat feel raw and her eyes constantly water; she eventually made a makeshift set of goggles just to try to lightly protect her eyes from getting so burnt by the smells and vapors.

Days of work reduced the number of beasts significantly, trimming it from a massive flood to a more manageable stream. When they had not just cleared out a space, but had gotten to the point where their skills could read that there were noticeably fewer of the beasts, they slowly fought a fighting retreat out. They had pierced into the den quite deep, reaching to places that likely no other person had, even considering the den was something that had been there a long time and been suppressed in the past more than once. They had reached several chambers in the center of the several massive caverns that were filled with eggs, eggs that burned very nicely in dragon fire. That was probably why the swarmers had become enraged and pursued the girls for days, even after they had left the den, chasing them all the way back up to the edge of the surface. It was a constant running fight, the only benefit being that nothing else in the caves and tunnels dared to get anywhere close to them, as even most other beasts didn't want anything to do with the nasty insects.

They did eventually shake off their pursuers, now even more reduced in numbers after days of the fighting retreat, making their way back towards the city. Beth was satisfied that they had done plenty to go above and beyond the mission minimums, meaning they would be leaving a lot less of a problem festering. It would be up to the Hall Master to decide how to handle things moving forward, though Beth doubted there would be any more Gold missions coming from any of it for a while. She turned in their report after they were back at the Hall for a couple hours, having had to write up an official one for the mission. The killing beasts and discovering cool things was fun, the paperwork far less so, and having to give a detailed write-up of the kind of mucky horror they had encountered down below was not a pleasant writing session.

Sadly, she was very right about no follow-up missions popping up right away, especially when she explained about burning the egg chambers and how much of a massive reduction in numbers they had managed. It was a bit disappointing to get a Gold mission certification, a couple platinums, a hundred CP, and a pat on the back for everything they had to go through. Beth hadn't even bothered to try to wash the clothes she had been wearing under her armor, just directly burning them once they were away from the swarmers. Blood had done similar, as well as applying a powerful, caustic cleaning agent to all her leathers that had scrubbed away all the smell and dirt. Beth and Sera had to spend even more time cleaning their armor, especially the boots, which had untold layers of filth caked into them from their several days working their way through the underground hell that was the den. They had all spent plenty of time in the shower, too, and with the way they were acting about everything, Bjorn and Kris were both quite glad they had made other, more productive use of their time.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Something strange did happen before they left the city as well, though Beth at first dismissed it as some weird coincidence or something. She had been getting food in the cafeteria, of all places, and had been piling a tray high with dishes when someone approached her and tried to strike up a conversation. At first, Beth thought it was just someone who was an extrovert, possibly a Copper Emblem or something like that; not everyone went around wearing CRA clothes, even when on-duty, so it could be quite hard to tell sometimes. That notion was rather quickly dismissed, however, and not in a very pleasant way.

"You're with the big one, yes?" the man had asked her.

"If you mean Bjorn, then yes? I mean, there are plenty of big people out there," she said with a bit of a frown.

"The boy with the blood of the lost," the man said, nodding. "That's exactly who I mean. Do you know what he is?"

"I'm not sure I know what you mean, and I'm not sure I like your tone, either," Beth said, eyes narrowing quite a bit and her frown becoming pronounced. "Explain."

The man started a bit, as Beth's tone had been one of command, and there was quite a lot of force in her voice. Quite a bit more force than he had been expecting, but her pressed on anyway, saying, "The ancient is thin and weak these days, but we still remember what they did, and what they stole. If you don't know, it would be wise of you to stop associating with them."

"Let me get this straight," Beth said in a deceptively calm voice, setting her tray down with a clack. As she did so, power swirled around her in waves, crushing the entire cafeteria, forcing the man in front of her to stagger back while some of the members eating at the tables swayed and nearly fell out of their chairs. "You come here, to my place, the CRA, to tell me who I can and can't talk to? To tell me to abandon one of my friends because you don't like his…ancestry? Can you give me a good reason I shouldn't knock your teeth into your stomach?"

"You've been taken in by lies, I see," the man said, straightening up, though Beth could see his initial confidence in his approach had been entirely replaced with wariness. "Those that are left know a lot more than they say, and they still have to answer for what they did. What they stole. Don't make a mistake in who you know or who you trust. It would be wise to…understand exactly who, and what, your associates are. I wouldn't want you to get involved in anything you aren't ready for."

"I don't know about getting involved in something I'm not ready for, but I'll get you involved in something right now," Beth replied hotly, not having liked the man from the moment he stepped into the cafeteria. He was somewhat short and fat, with thick, greasy hair and a general oiliness about him that had instantly set Beth's teeth on edge. His near-crazy ramblings about one of her friends and teammates hadn't really done anything to redeem himself in her eyes, and she cracked her knuckles while bringing her power up yet another level, noticing the man go quite pale at that. Disappointing; she hadn't even released her Presence yet.

It was not to be, however, as her little display had caught quite a few people's attention, from the people who had been trying to eat to workers at the Hall to the Hall Master himself, who had coming storming into the cafeteria, and it didn't look like he was after a bagel. His presence, not Presence, but still, it crushed down on everything in the cafeteria, further increasing the discomfort, though he had to wrestle hard, quite hard, to push Beth's power back. Beth gave a grunt and pulled in her power, though she didn't dismiss it, keeping her skills running but not exerting influence on the mana around her with any of them.

"What is happening?!" the Hall Master demanded.

"Think maybe we have some things to settle in the ring," Beth said, staring at the man who had been badmouthing.

"I will not fight you over it," he said, raising his hands and back up a bit, trying to act demure in front of the Hall Master.

"Explain," the Hall Master demanded.

Beth gave the Hall Master a quick explanation of what happened, though she was a bit surprised to see that the oily stranger readily agreed with her explanation. Apparently, he thought that he was more in the right than Beth was giving him credit for, which the Hall Master didn't seem to agree with at all. After he had asked a few pointed questions, he thought for a minute, conferring with one of the others that had been in the cafeteria and was a worker at that Hall. When he was satisfied that he understood, he let all his pressure fade and turned to the room.

"You," he said, pointing at the man. "Do you accept her challenge?"

"No, of course not," the man said, mustering some indignation that it was even being considered.

"You," he said, pointing at Beth. "Is this a matter for judicial interference?"

"No," Beth said simply, fully understanding what he was asking.

"Then you," he said, pointing at the oily man again. "Take a month and cool off."

When the Hall Master finished speaking, before the oily man could do anything, he popped out of existence. Not that he was dead, but it was the same kind of trick Beth had seen Tazeen pull more than once. The man had just been banned from CRA premises for a month, though it likely meant very little to him. Beth had a suspicion the man was a Copper, and perhaps even a recent one. Very recent.

"As for you," the Hall Master said, pointing at Beth. Beth gave him a frown that was much more a glare than anything else and he stopped pointing. "Watch how you throw that power around in the common areas. Don't make me, or someone like me, interfere. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah," Beth said, waving dismissively. The Hall Master was an Enlightened, but she wasn't really scared of him, nor his authority as leading that Hall. Still, she agreed easily enough, it not really costing her anything, and he seemed barely satisfied with that. He gave her a nod and turned on his heel, striding away to put out some other fire now that this one was done burning.

Beth returned to the suite they had rented, informing Bjorn about the whole thing. "Then he just sort of insisted that you were bad because of being a titan. Do you have any idea what he's talking about."

"Could be a lot," Bjorn grunted in response. When Beth turned her heavy glare on him, he clarified, "There's all kinds of shit out there; you know some of it. The titans stole legendary artifacts, the titans transcended the mortal universe, the titans kidnapped huge numbers of people for secret experiments. The list goes on and on and, sometimes I think unfortunately, my ancestors did absolutely none of that. In fact, nobody really knows much of what they did do, and even I only have a few scraps to work off of, despite what many think. I suspect your, uh, 'oily' character was part of a group that think the titans stole valuable artifacts, or secrets, or both, from other peoples and groups. I've dealt with their type before, and it usually ends pretty messy."

"He was an annoying piece of trash," Beth said, drinking some hunting spice while she sat and stewed. "If those are the kinds of people we're up against to pursue the secrets of the titans, I'm less worried. Well, I'm less worried about having to fight over it. I'm more worried about thieves, backstabbing, assassinations, and weird shit, but I guess that goes with the territory."

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