LimitlessPath
patreon
Limitless Path Chapter Three Hundred Forty-Two
🕑 Added 2024-12-10 18:00:05 +0000 UTCThe woman led them to a counter in the next room over, which was directly connected to the teleportation room via a short hallway. This was the lobby for the entire building or complex or whatever it was they were currently in. The room was the size of a football field, the floor entirely made of marble and polished beyond a mirror sheen. There were chandeliers and light fixtures made of pure mana crystal hung from the ceiling and walls, while the furniture was made of a light, finely carved wood with extremely high quality, white and blue cloth upholstery covering every piece. The front desk itself was a massive block of the same yellowish-white wood that was exquisitely carved with fantastical shapes and patterns. There were two others behind the front desk, another woman in very minimal clothing, and a man in something resembling bike shorts and rather fancy shoes. Beth had a good idea of what the place was like just from the staff, let alone the lobby, and wondered if she could really relax somewhere like this for a few days.
"How can I help you today?" Casey asked after stepping behind the desk.
"Uh, well, we were asked to come here to deliver something to the Blue Queen herself," Beth began, seeing three sets of raised eyebrows at that. "And then we were told we haven't had a break in a long time, and we should relax for a while."
"The second part we can certainly help you with," Casey said with a warm smile. "The first part, however, I'm afraid we'll have to contact the security detail about."
"That's fine. It's legitimate business, so I don't mind them checking before a meeting or something," Beth replied with a shrug.
"And now, don't be upset, but I have to ask; are you in fact members? Some come here on the recommendations of others, you see," Casey asked.
Beth produced her white rose, which got further raised eyebrows from the group, apparently surprised at the level of her membership. The woman took the rose and examined it for a moment before handing it back to Beth, typing something on a keyboard for a moment. She then tapped a few times affirmatively before turning back to Beth.
"As a white rose holder, you are entitled to a ten percent discount at all our establishments," Casey explained. "Would you like to book a stay?"
"I think we would like that, but we better wait," Beth said with a slight nod, glancing at Blood and getting a slight shrug. "I don't know what's going to come out of the meeting with the Blue Queen, so I don't want to set up something before that happens."
"I understand. If you'll wait a moment, we'll get someone from security out here," Casey said with a pleasant, if very slightly strained, smile.
"No problem," Beth said, walking over and sitting on a couch next to the counter. Blood followed suit, and Beth glanced at her to see her raised eyebrow, neither of them wearing their masks currently.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing. Just not what I expected so far," Blood replied with a shrug as she leaned back into the couch.
Some time passed, and Beth observed that no one else came into the lobby for quite a while. Then again, it wouldn't be that surprising if there wasn't somewhere to go directly out front, but she didn't know the layout of the complex yet. If the lobby was really only used for check-ins and check-outs, it went to show that there wasn't a particularly high volume of traffic to this individual establishment, unlike the two bars she had been in. Someone did come in after twenty minutes, a short woman who was led in by the other woman working the counter.
Beth watched curiously out the side of her eye as the woman registered, pulling out a carved stone red rose from somewhere and showing it to the attendant. After a minute of discussion and negotiation, the new guest was led off by the other woman, and Beth returned her attention to what she was reading. Her current material was more detailed reviews of Mana Physiques, something she was becoming increasingly obsessed over.
She looked up when another person entered the lobby, though this time from deeper in the complex. This person was also not wearing something casual or skimpy, but a full set of intricate armor that covered her from neck to feet, leaving only her head exposed. The tall woman, an elf, Beth noted, walked over to the two of them on the couch and stopped in front of them, briefly inspecting them. Beth could feel the woman's eye power activate, not trying to metaphorically wrestle with her over the inspection.
"You are here to see our Lady?" she asked with a cold tone of voice.
"We have a message from Mortaine, uh, the Lord of Traversal, for the Blue Queen," Beth replied, standing alongside Blood. She heard some muttering from the front desk at her mention of Mortaine, as she hadn't yet said who's business she was handling.
"May I see your proof?" the guard asked calmly.
"Here," Beth said, pulling out the token Mortaine had given them some time before.
After a quick inspection, the elf handed it back and said, "Follow me."
She led the two of them back into the complex, walking down broad halls that were richly appointed. There were paintings along the walls, nooks with statues, small pieces of furniture spread along the passages, carpet runners covering several sections of the floors, and the same ultra-expensive lights throughout the entire building. Beth was more thinking of it as a complex at this point, as they did pass by an area with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out across a massive courtyard where she could see a second building in the distance.
As they walked, they passed by a fair number of people, certainly far more than they had seen just sitting in the lobby. Beth did notice that she had a bit of trouble telling who was who without using her eye powers, and even then sometimes it was hard to tell. People were wearing everything from casual clothes to swimsuits to their birthday suits, and it was often the guests in their birthday suits, if Beth's guesses were correct. Nobody seemed bothered by it, though Beth would have been a little hard-pressed to tell what their escort was thinking considering her constant, cold expression, as if her face was carved from marble.
After quite a few minutes of marching through long, luxurious hallways, they arrived at a very luxurious section with a door guarded by two more elves in armor. The elf that had been leading them stopped outside the door, receiving salutes from both guards, which Beth noted with a slightly raised brow. The elf raised a gauntleted fist and rapped at the door several times before waiting a moment. She got the go-ahead to enter silently, as Beth didn't hear or see anything, and immediately opened the door and marched in. Beth and Blood followed behind her and Beth had to stop a second to center herself to keep from laughing in the presence of an Exalted she was meeting for the first time.
The room was a large office with shelves on the walls to her left and right, a seating area with two couches and four chairs surrounding a table in the center overtop a thick rug with a very complex pattern embroidered on it, a massive desk with a high-backed chair behind it, and huge windows that looked out over a view of an ocean. It took Beth a second to also see there was a set of double doors behind the chair, and the imposing woman sitting in it, that led out to a balcony. The thing that had almost made Beth laugh was the great juxtaposition in the room, mainly due to its occupants. Inside the door were two more guards, fully armored including helmets or masks, one of them an elf and one a human, while the lady that Beth assumed to be the Blue Queen herself sat at the desk in a very finely crafted robe that likely was more damage resistant than Beth's plate. Beyond the three of them, and Beth and Blood and their escort, there were two more people in the room on the couches. One of them was an elven woman dressed in a fancy dress sitting on one of the couches while opposite her was another elven woman wearing nothing, and that nothing included no shoes or jewelry, apart from a set of loose shorts.
The topless elf just stared at the new arrivals from where she slouched with a disgruntled look on her face, while the elf in the fancy green dress sat up even straighter, somehow, and gave them a slight if very proper nod. Their escort had continued forward, leading them in front of the desk with the elf in the robe, where they stopped while the escort stepped around and to the side of the desk. The woman at the desk looked up at them then, the first she had done that since they entered, and Beth could feel the weight in her gaze. She immediately compared it with Mortaine; whereas the Lord of Traversal had a rather mysterious, fleeting look often in his eyes, this woman had a gaze that pierced like a freshly forged spear. One was a researcher and master of strange magics, while the other was very clearly a warrior through and through, a hint of the shadow of death lurking in her red and gold eyes.
"And who is this?" the woman behind the desk asked in a melodious voice.
"I'm Beth and this is Blood," Beth started. At the woman's raised eyebrow, she clarified, "Elizabeth Bell and Blood Bell. We were sent here to personally deliver something from Mortaine."
"Interesting," she replied. "I am the Blue Queen, but you can simply refer to me as Laselle."
"Mother-," the topless elf protested.
"Hush, child," Laselle said and, though she didn't flex her Presence, the force in her words was indisputable. The elf, Laselle's daughter, apparently, quieted down with a frown on her face and slouched back further into the couch. "I apologize for my daughters."
"It's fine," Beth said with a shrug before lifting her hand and making Mortaine's message appear in it. She handed it to Laselle, who took it and opened it adroitly with a single flick of a finger. She took a few minutes to read through the letter, her face betraying nothing as she scanned Mortaine's words.
"You have the items?" was Laselle's first question after finishing reading.
"Yes," Beth said, setting the things Mortaine had given her on the Blue Queen's desk. Laselle examined each piece carefully and quickly before making them disappear into an item or storage power.
"Now, what else?" Laselle asked. Beth glanced around at everyone in the room and Laselle added, "There's nothing you can't discuss here; despite my youngest daughter's slovenly state, she's reliable."
"Mother!" the elf said again.
"Hush," Laselle commanded again and again, the topless elf subsided.
Beth withdrew the book and opened it, finding the previous pages still there. The book would sometimes 'lose' or erase things that had come before, one of the ways it never ran out of pages, so Beth couldn't always be sure that a previous message would remain. The time at which the pages went blank varied, but it often took months or years to happen, so she really needn't have worried. When she found the pages, she opened the book wide and flipped it around, handing it to Laselle. The Blue Queen accepted the book with one hand and read through the pages before handing it back to Beth.
"I understand now what Mortaine meant," she said calmly. "There's nothing you, or we, can do about it right at this moment, but preparations need to be made. You are associated with Liveria?"
"I'm her successor," Beth said, hearing a gasp behind her. She glanced back and saw the elf in the green dress with a hand over her mouth.
"As I said, forgive my daughters; they're not used to controlling their reactions," Laselle commented, shooting her other daughter a look.
"It's fine," Beth reiterated with another shrug.
"Mortaine mentioned I would have work for you?" Laselle said, framing it more as a confirming statement than a question.
"That's right," Beth said.
"We'll take care of that later," Laselle said. "For now, why don't you enjoy the hospitality of the Royal Rose? I'm sure a stay here will be something like you've never experienced before."
"Of course, we'll stay for a little," Beth said with a quick nod.
"I'll have the captain take you back to the check-in and make sure they take care of you," Laselle said. "Do you have a membership?"
Beth produced her white rose, which Blood mimicked, and Laselle nodded. "I did not expect you to have a white rose, they are somewhat rare."
"Well, we were asked to help someone out, who Mortaine seemed to recognize, with finding one of your bars. The people there and, uh, I guess not the owner, but the manager, caused some trouble, which the person took care of. It involved us though, so the manager apologized with white roses," Beth explained quickly with a small shrug.
"And where was this establishment?" Laselle asked archly.
"Luttraine," Beth replied.
"Luttraine…Luttraine…hmm. It's not ringing a bell immediately," she said.
"Red Wing Empire," the security guard that had escorted Beth, who she assumed was some kind of chief or captain, said.
"Right, right, that place," Laselle said with a slight moue of distaste. "Very well. Captain Seph will take you back to the check-in, if you have nothing else?"
"That's all for now. Though I would like to ask you a couple questions about what you and Mortaine are brewing, but I'll save that for later," Beth said, giving the Blue Queen a nod before turning to follow the captain out of the room.
Seph led the two of them out of the Blue Queen's office and back through the labyrinth of hallways to the front lobby. Though Beth described it as a labyrinth, it was by far the most pleasant of such she had every experienced. From the lavish decoration of the halls to the constant windows, many of them stretching the entire height of the wall, the place was open and bright and very pleasant to look at. The amount of beautiful people, many of them in various states of undress, didn't hurt the situation at all, either. Seph was totally stoic as she led them back to the front, dropping them off at the check-in desk where Casey was still standing, along with the other woman, though the man that had been there earlier was nowhere to be seen. There was also a customer asking about something, though they had been helped by the time Beth and Blood actually got to the desk.
Comments
Garrett Byers
Sort of but not really. That's going to fade away over time as we see her affections continue to develop.
SDCard
Thanks for the chapter! Seems like an interesting place, certainly a change of pace from what the two normally get up to... Also, I'm currently reaching through this entire story once again, and I completely forgot that Blood has a crush on Soph - is that still a thing? It hasn't been mentioned since they left earth
RedLeaf
Well, this will be a "learning experience". The big question is just what Beth and Blood will be learning at the Royal Rose...
