If Beth only had one thing she could say about the Royal Rose, than that thing would definitely be luxury. Luxury in a manner that wasn't tacky or overblown; none of what was in the buildings, in the halls or the rooms or the facilities, was in any way gaudy or lacking in a certain sophistication. Everywhere had just hints of gilt, small items of high value displayed in a way that blended with the rooms and environs, little pieces of art and small tapestries at just the right location to break up blank walls or provide a sense of calm and contemplation. The whole place was worth a mind-boggling amount, and decorated in an incredibly complicated and subtle way, but it also didn't scream its wealth or complexity in a visitor's face.

If there was a second thing she could say about the place, then it would be that the staff and the service were unbelievable. She had, of course, met Sera here and hooked up with her, finding her to genuinely be the most beautiful being that Beth had ever seen or imagined, but that wasn't the end of it by far. Even the little demoness that Blood had hooked up with last time they were there was both unimaginably gorgeous and a consummate professional, in all aspects. That extended to every single worker and member of staff at the facility; the only people who were not warm, welcoming, and very accommodating were the security staff, which was to be expected. One didn't want the people in charge of protecting the grounds and the people within to be overly friendly or to be too far underestimated, and the guards that were present in the halls and posted at specific points were cold and short, though they were still the minimal level of polite and civil to not be overtly disrespectful.

"Is Laselle here?" Beth asked Sera that second afternoon, Val having settled in with Blood quite comfortably.

"No, she's out on campaign," Sera said with a shake of her head. "There's a war heating up out there between two great powers. Likely she has a lot of work coming in."

"I can't imagine hiring an Exalted to fight in a war," Beth said.

Sera laughed at that, giggling a little while she caressed Beth lightly before saying, "She very likely won't fight. There are only a couple Exalted in the galaxy right now; I doubt there'd be any reason for her to actively take the field. I also highly doubt either of the belligerents would ever be willing to pay the kind of fee she would charge for taking the field for even a single day. She's there to monitor the contracts and the work and make sure her people don't get pulled into something they didn't bargain for. If you hire a merc company and the boss, who's stronger than anybody you have on your 'side,' is there to watch things, you're going to play dirty an awful lot less."

"Makes sense," Beth replied, giving Sera a kiss on the nose before settling back into the couch.

"We should do some shopping at some point," Sera added then.

"We're not even close to our next rebirths," Beth said.

"You're so mono-focused," Sera said with a chuckle. "I meant we should shop for some clothes and accessories. Maybe get a few more fancy things tailored for us, if we have the time."

"Oh. Right. I knew that," Beth said, frowning a bit. "I have enough clothes, though."

"You can never have enough clothes," Val said sharply, surfacing from kissing and teasing Blood to scold Beth.

"I have plenty. I have two pairs of boots, a pair of sandals, three damn pairs of shoes, four dresses, and a bunch of pants and shirts. I have nearly a dozen sets of underwear, all of them matching pairs of panties and bras. I don't need any more clothes."

"That is a tiny wardrobe," Val insisted. "I can't imagine how you can get by with just that. You should have at least a dozen pairs of shoes, of each type, and more than twice that number in dresses. You need formalwear, dresses for balls, for dates, for casual shopping, for meeting family, for an excursion with friends, for-"

"Alright, alright," Beth said. "I get what your opinion on the subject is."

"This is a travesty," Val said, easily leaning over Beth to mock-glare at Sera. "How can you let her go about with such a selection. Four dresses, by the Blood Stars! How can somebody live like that?"

"Which is why I said we should go shopping," Sera laughed, grabbing Val's head to give her a kiss on the cheek before pushing her back into Blood's embrace.

"I can't believe you think just three pairs of shoes is enough," Val muttered crossly, giving Beth a very judging side-eye.

"I only ever wear my damn combat boots!" Beth replied, throwing up her hands. "Why would I need even more pairs of footwear I'll never even put on?!"

"We must get you out more," Val said while clicking her tongue. "It just won't do for you to not have any clothes, and especially for you not to have reason to use them."

"Thanks, but no thanks," Beth said, holding up a hand in a negative gesture. "I'll leave that to those much better and wiser, and more social, than I am. I'm perfectly happy punching monsters in the face; you can attend the fancy parties, instead."

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"Hmm, if I were on your team, that's exactly what I'd do," Val mused, picking her pipe up from the table and puffing at it. "Sadly, it looks like it will be years yet, considering each rebirth is going to take us anywhere from two to as many as eight years, by the end. I wish I could hurry those dolts along; I got my rebirth done before any of them and hurried over here. If some of them were less interested in…other pastimes, we might be further along by now.

"And speaking of further along; I notice you three seem even more powerful now. Tell me, how has it been going for you?" she said, cocking an eyebrow at Beth. Blood used that moment of distraction to pluck the pipe from Val's fingers and give it a few puffs herself, the kresnik slapping the lupine woman's wrist, gently, and taking the pipe back.

"Well, we finally got through rebirth six," Beth said with a sigh, her brow furrowing as Val seemed to choke on her own smoke. "Are you alright?"

"Six! You weren't that much different from us even the last time we spoke! How have you gotten so far ahead!?" Val cried.

"We work hard," Beth said with a shrug.

"Too hard," Blood immediately interjected. "That's why we finally got a damn break."

"I'm not that bad," Beth said, wincing as all three of their heads slowly rotated to stare pointedly at her, even Val joining in. "Okay, sure, fine, we could use a few more rest breaks. Then again, we're going to be refereeing for a year coming up here soon, so you two will definitely be ready for a change after that."

"Going for your Gold Emblems?" Val asked with a raised brow.

"Yep, we already have some missions done. We need a year of refereeing and some more missions before we're ready for the tests," Beth replied.

"The missions are always the hard part. The CRA halls always need refs, desk attendants, back-of-house workers in various jobs, etc. There are usually more positions than free workers, and that disparity gets worse the higher you go," Val said.

"What's that mean?" Sera asked.

"There's a decent amount of work for Platinum Emblems, for example," Val explained. "You typically need a Platinum to be a Hall Master, just for a very specific example. Lots of Halls around, lots of slots to oversee those Halls, and not a lot of Platinum and above ranks in the CRA, particularly in this galaxy. There's going to be no shortage of regular and side jobs for you as you rise in rank."

"Might partially explain why we got Baelvyr and Tazeen both," Beth said. "Considering Tazeen is Platinum rank, I'm pretty sure, and I think Baelvyr is Mithril."

"That would make sense," Val said. "Not so much assigning them both; I meant their ranks make sense."

"Well, I'm not going to be sitting behind a desk for years at a time; I'll tell you that right now," Beth said.

"Listen, take what I say with a grain of salt," Val said, puffing on her pipe. "My clan is massive and has associations everywhere, so I know about a lot of things at a surface level, at least, but I'm not necessarily a big expert. I don't know what the upper echelons of the CRA are doing and thinking, but I know what general duties are. That differs between the different Halls too, of course. Actually, if Baelvyr's a Mithril, he'd know more than anybody else; I think there's only two other Mithril-level admins in the whole of the galaxy right now. Can't really get any higher up than that without leaving the galaxy."

"I'm sure he'll tell us what he thinks we need to know," Beth said while shaking her head slightly. "Not that I can really hold it against him, but I don't think he'll let even his mentees into top-level CRA business while they're still Silver-level."

"It's all CRA business; I know enough to have a leg up when dealing with certain matters, but I don't know everything," Val replied lazily, waving a hand as Blood snagged her pipe again while she was distracted.

They passed the rest of that day in idle conversation before splitting up into the two separate bedrooms for the night, Beth noting that Blood was much less abashed about it than Val had been and still was. It wasn't really much of her business either way, other than making sure Blood was happy and not being taken advantage of, which she didn't suspect Val of in any way. She and Sera spent their own night in very pleasurable distraction, the first time they had really cut loose in a while, their usual sessions of the past few months, if not more than a year, having been rather short affairs. This was much longer, a true, deep session of lovemaking leaving them both deeply satisfied, Sera falling asleep sprawled out on top of Beth and snoring like a sawmill.

The next day brought the promised shopping trip, and there were few places better for it. The Royal Rose catered to very high-end customers, people with the power, and the money, to buy whatever they wanted. The shops and vendors spread out about the grounds sold some of the best quality of anything that was available in the whole galaxy, and many of the places had crafters that were at the Grandmaster or Sage rank. If they didn't have something someone wanted, it wouldn't be too long before they would make it, entirely custom, and present it to the person. Not for free, obviously, but their prices, considering their skills and the level of exclusivity of their time and their stock, were very reasonable.

The girls didn't really need some Sage crafter for their clothes, though having at least basic enchantments on everything was a must. Val wouldn't consider wearing it if it didn't have at least durability, repair, self-cleaning, and minor protection. Even a simple dress could act as a weak armor and, despite their ability to materialize their armor on their bodies near-instantly, Val insisted it was a good idea that whatever they wore had defensive properties, even the underwear. It would have been a tough requirement elsewhere, but the quality of the selection at the Royal Rose and the quality of the personnel available meant that it wasn't a stretch for them to get clothing matching or exceeding the demanding woman's standards.

Shoes were another matter entirely and it really didn't take Beth long to realize that Val fit a certain classic stereotype, the woman displaying a passion for footwear that Beth found bordering on obsessive. Despite having dozens of pairs of shoes herself, Val still bought another four pairs during their little spree alone, Beth just imagining a significant chunk of the woman's spatial storage full of shoes. That was even considering Val's family was even richer than Sera's and the woman likely had a spatial item or power that was thousands of cubic feet in volume if not more. That was a lot of shoes.

The shopping trip took most of the day, though Beth was the only who felt like complaining, but she held her peace. Val was in heaven, Blood actually quite enjoyed clothes shopping, and Sera enjoyed picking out new, even more risqué outfits, each of which Beth found more and more distracting. Beth was still thinking she was fine with the clothes she had, not seeing anything wrong with her CRA fatigues, but the others insisted on her sprucing up her wardrobe at least a little bit. She also didn't want to say no to their fun, as they had plenty of fun picking out outfits and dressing each other, her included, and she didn't want to rain on the parade as the other three put clothes and shoes on her and discussed the best fit and look.

They got done with the shopping and returned to the room in the early evening, after which they retired to their rooms early for another very pleasant night before waking late and hanging around for the next day. Beth used the time to fire off messages to some of the people she wanted to keep in contact with, Andrea and Adam and the others on the list, as well as Rell and Itharion and a few others she had made the acquaintance of over the last few years. She even fired off messages to both Zane and Fallon, despite having just seen them, getting cursory replies, not that she expected any deep conversation out of the Manumitted. Also, it was likely the two were buried in a days-long argument about some random topic that few others would understand, as Mortaine had informed Beth that those two's discussions could last quite a long time.

The four of them spent the afternoon in the hot tub and the pool, Beth surprised a bit when Tasha showed up. Apparently, it had been Val's idea to invite her, and Beth didn't ask any further about it. If both Blood and Val wanted more people to join them, more power to them, and that really seemed to be the plan. It was funny that both of them were a little shy about it while Tasha had no problem talking about all the fun the three of them were going to have that night, nor was she embarrassed to put the moves on both of them while they were still out on the balcony, which presented Sera and Beth an interesting show. Sera was clearly not bothered by it at all, and Beth found the whole thing quite funny, including how Val was both shy while at the same time being very into it. The rest of that evening passed like that and they retreated to sleep, though Beth suspected there would be very little sleep happening in the other bedroom, though there wasn't much of that happening in hers, either.

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