Chapter 32: Descent

Her foot caught on an unseen rock, and she dipped forward in exhaustion. A rough set of hands stopped her from tumbling forward before shoving her back behind Blake. Ruby would have glared at the bandit that put his hands on her, but she was preoccupied with watching the ground tilt ever slowly downwards. The air had grown stale, far from the fresh winds of the Ancient Forest, greenery slowly being replaced by muted mud and rotten branches. The downward slope had begun half an hour ago, and somewhere along the way Ruby had realized where they were being led.

After they had been captured, Ruby and Blake were cajoled out of Astera. At some point gags had been slipped into their mouths, not painful, but still rather uncomfortable by anyone's standards. They met up with a second group of bandits, this one being led by a woman in red, tugging a bound Weiss behind her. Ruby felt her face grow hot and bile rise in her throat, and when she locked her furious gaze onto the woman she was met with a black and white skull, a tumbling of messy black locks spilling from its confines. On her waist hung Ruby's first great Luna-metal invention, the sword that Yatsuhashi had bought from her. That had seemed so long ago, and now Ruby was knitting together why the great hunter had gone missing before the Fall.

The woman stared at Ruby for a moment before kicking Weiss towards them and barking out orders for the group to continue. That had only been a few hours ago, and Ruby's feet had grown heavy with exhaustion and mud. Her eyes had wandered towards the bandits holding their weapons more than a dozen times during their trek. Any plan Ruby had come up with to escape was immediately countered by the inevitable logic of their situation. They were trapped on all sides, and all she could stand to do was watch out for Weiss, and offer the occasional glare at anyone who got close to her.

The air grew sour, and Ruby's nose scrunched in disgust as they passed a half eaten corpse of some indiscernible monster. Its flesh had warped and grown slick and black, seeming as if it had been doused in oil and allowed to bake in the sun. The smell however, did not dissipate, and as they grew closer Ruby concentrated on not gagging. Her throat worked in stuttering movements as she held down the contents of her stomach, the gag against her mouth making the movement difficult. When the stench became rank the bandits around them had pulled out primitive masks and attached them to their faces. The dried leather made them appear grotesque and malformed, a filtration system hidden within a bulbous sack that shrank and filled with each of their breaths. Ruby heard Blake and Weiss begin to choke behind her, and when she turned to look at them one of the bandits tapped her on the side of her head with his sword. She let out a grunt of pain laced with frustration, and attempted to focus her eyes ahead. Despite their descent into the toxic fumes around them, none of the bandits moved to provide Ruby or the others with masks.

Ruby's head felt light, and her vision was beginning to blur at each foul breath she pulled through her nose. Her surroundings began to molt and shudder, and Ruby wasn't sure if it was the stench in the air, or an actual warping of the earth under her feet. She could only hold in the muted terror building in her chest as her vision wavered and her head lolled about.

The ground dipped violently below her, and the hard packed dirt was soon replaced by the crunch of pulverized bones. Around her the landscape was littered with bones and dried sinew. Rotted flesh was blotted across the poxed ground, scarce but present, as if it were cancerous foliage, giving a macabre splotch of colors to the muted landscape. Above them stretched crumbling spiderings of vines, snaking their way into the air and hanging over white and brown stone. Upon closer look Ruby thought they were pieces of skin and other ruined flesh, and she could see the hint of light peeking through the stretched translucent canopy. As they came into the steepest part of their descent, she found herself in a tunnel of bones, what must have been an ancient rib cage engulfed them and twisted down further into the caverns below.

A wave of stench hit her face and Ruby tried to spit past her gag. She only further wet it in her attempt to clear her mouth of the foul taste that was building on her tongue. The leader of the bandits gave a quiet order and the rest of her group spread out, each of them striking up a defensive pose with their weapons drawn. Ruby thought now might be the moment to make a move, while they were so much further away from her, but she quickly realized how futile that would be. The fumes rising from the cracks in the ground sapped the strength from her limbs, and filled her head with confusion. Ruby in her haze vaguely understood that this was intentional by their captives. It was becoming apparent that they had used this method in the past to take prisoners, and Ruby doubted that they would overlook something as straightforward as what Ruby was thinking. Perhaps they were expecting it. Clearly the girls would not survive long out in these extreme conditions, and if Ruby was being honest with herself, she was unsure of which direction they had come from. Even if they could escape she understood that they would die quickly without the safety of the bandits around them.

The woman in red stopped as her bandits forged ahead, turning towards Ruby. She stared Ruby down, and she did the same to their masked captor, the two weighing each other for a breath moment. There was a scoff that slipped from underneath the bone before the bandit said in an echoey voice, "Welcome to the Rotten Vale."

A haze settled around Ruby's vision, and she was vaguely aware of Blake and Weiss beside her. They weren't faring much better than her, from what she could tell, but Ruby could feel them steering her forward. It wasn't like the two were offering a guiding hand or shoulder to carry her on. It was just the simple bump of a shoulder, or a nudge forwards when Ruby would stumble. She tried to focus on Weiss, as if the woman could be a beacon of light for her in the miasma they fell into. However, her eyes would come in and out of focus in waves, and she could hardly catch more than a blur of her friends, let alone what they were walking into.

There was a noise, a clambering of claws against bones, and she heard the bandits call out to one another. Whatever was moving around them she couldn't place their location. With the drapings of rotted skin and the jungle of bone, whatever was out there was fast and too small for her to focus on. She didn't think there was any fighting, but she couldn't be sure. She just knew that the three of them were alright, and that was alright for her.

Eventually there was a light, but not from above. It came from below, a blue hue that seemed to sweep up into them. When she breathed in the light her vision cleared slightly, and with each breath things came back into focus. The haze wafted away, and she beheld a cavern of bioluminescent light similar to the one she and Weiss had fallen into so many months ago.

The bandits piled around them more closely, aware of their lucidity as they stirred them towards a curtain of brittle vines. The lead bandit, the one in red, swept back the foliage and hurried them all forward. She kept watch until the last of them were through and then let the curtain fall, hiding them from the blue light.

The cave they had been ushered into was dark, with the hint of light in its corners. Ruby's eyes took a moment to adjust, but she was able to quickly find shape and size in the cavern. Though the cavern outside had been easy enough to see, the light here was much more muted. She saw a few lanterns carrying the bright gunk she had briefly spotted outside, hanging along the walls in haphazard clusters. She was shoved forward and followed the bandits through the passage. After a few winding turns the tunnel of bone and vine opened up into a small cavern. To the side were other passageways and Ruby could see other bandits milling about within them. Some of the residing inhabitants darted into the passages, while others simply sat and watched as the entourage moved towards the left side of the main room.

Ruby got closer to Weiss and was able to wrap a hand around the woman's arm, their chains clanking against one another as she did so. Together they were herded into a small room, surprisingly the door was made of wood. It closed behind them and they heard the lock slide close, the echo of it sliding shut reverberating in the tiny room. It must've only been a minute of silence before she saw Blake remove her gag, her hands miraculously unbound and her cuffs laying at her side. She moved over and quickly untied everyone else.

"Well, can't say I saw this coming," Blake murmured. She ungagged Weiss, who was rubbing at her wrists. Weiss only spent a moment doing so before moving over to Ruby and wrapping her arms around the smith. After Blake removed her shackles, Ruby reciprocated the hug and looked towards the door, waiting for some movement or noise. When none came she buried her head into Weiss's hair trying to rid herself of the putrid stench that clung to her palate. As she tried to calm her mind, Ruby looked back at the door they had come through. She wasn't too sure but something seemed familiar about the door, but she couldn't quite place it.

Blake held her voice at a whisper, eyeing the makeshift cell they found themselves in, "I don't know how much good it's going to do for us to have our hands to ourselves again. I'm not sure if we can get away if we're surrounded like this. Even if I could get the door open… There had to be two or three dozen bandits here."

"Exactly, and who even knows how well they're armed? I don't know if I saw it right… But I think they've been raiding Astera. I saw a lot of your weapons out there," Weiss spoke and then looked at Ruby who simply shuffled closer to her, her eyes still on the door.

"I guess we just have to hope that they'll be reasonable… Or that Qrow will come." Weiss said.

"He'll come," Ruby said, "Qrow will-"

There was a loud clunk and the door latch swung open, two bandits stood outside the door before stepping aside and allowing the red woman to step through. The door closed behind her, and she sat in the corner of the room. Her bone mask glared at them as she hung in the corner, her arms folded across her chest. The longsword she wore across her hip, pushed into her lap as she sat. Ruby eyed it, recognizing the blade forged such a short time ago, but what seemed like ages to her. Her first masterpiece seemed to glare at her, almost as if it had turned traitor.

"Well?" Blake asked, maybe she didn't know but she had positioned herself in front of Weiss and Ruby. The woman eyed them a bit longer before removing her mask.

Yang stared back at them, though it wasn't Yang.

The woman before them did not have the kindness of Yang's eyes, or the warmth of her presence. She was all hard lines, testament to her time in the wilds, and the scowl she gave them seemed like a permanent fixture on her face. They all recoiled as they recognized her immediately. This was Raven Branwen, the estranged mother of the Xiao Long family.

"I must really look like her if that's your reaction," Raven said. It took Ruby a moment to realize that her red eyes were only focused on her. Ruby shifted against the cell floor and sat a little straighter, silver challenging red.

"You're nothing like Yang," Ruby retorted.

"You're right. I'm nothing like Yang. She was raised by soft hearted fools and was coddled, she wouldn't survive out here, none of you would." Raven didn't move when Ruby shot to her feet.

"Don't talk about dad like that! Or Qrow! You don't know anything about any of us, or what we had to go through!" Ruby yelled, there was a commotion at the door, and two bandits rushed in with weapons drawn.

Raven glanced at them before saying, "Stop. I'm actually insulted. You think that I can't handle three unarmed prisoners by myself? Get back outside you morons, I'll punish you later." The bandits shuffled back out, downcasted and nervous. The door shut behind them and the lock was thrown back in place.

Raven turned to make sure that they wouldn't come back in before looking at Ruby. She sighed before she took a hand to her face and covered her mouth.

"You sound just like her. It's like speaking to a ghost," Raven said behind her fingers. Ruby froze for a second before speaking again.

"You're probably thinking I'm going to ask you something about why you left. Why you left dad, and mom. But i'm not stupid. I knew the answer a long time ago, and so do you. You're just a terrible person who doesn't care about anyone but herself. They're dead, and you'll never be able to speak to them, or know the kind of people they were before they were gone. But you probably don't even care do you? You left them behind the same day you left Yang. I hope that fucking burns."

Raven rolled her eyes, "You really are your mother's daughter. Summer said something similar when I left… But that was about Yang. And yet here we are, Yang is here in the New World, and I'm talking to the ghost of my best friend. I have all the opportunity in the world to get to know my daughter, and who she has become. So I guess Summer was wrong in the end."

"You think that makes you right? Why would Yang even want to speak to you?" Blake asked, unable to hide the venom in her voice.

"Well for one, I have her baby sister, and two, her dear little girlfriend she's been fawning over for so long." Blake sat up staring at the bandit leader.

"How do you know that?" She asked.

"Come on now, I couldn't have gotten this far if I didn't know what I was hunting for…" Raven had a sly smirk on her face. "I have to admit, I was a little worried when Astera went down as hard as it did. I knew the hordes would come for it, but I had guessed the Commission would have pulled out before things got as bad as they did. Leave it to that fool Ozpin to lead a resistance against an unstoppable force…"

She tapped her finger against her sword, but none of the trio spoke, so she decided to fill the silence, "Imagine my surprise when I found a rinky-dink team of scavengers crawling across Astera's wreckage. I had thought you would have fled back to the commission months ago, and yet here you are. Were you surprised? Did you really think that the monsters were the only ones watching your pathetic little city? That they were the only ones craving what was inside of it?"

She raised her sheathed sword.

"Good smiths are a dime a dozen, but real talent? Something that only comes once a lifetime? That's something you always have to watch out for," Raven unsheathed the sword and held it up towards the meager light of the room. The oscillating waves of black and silver seemed smokey in the dimly lit room. Raven let the silent threat of the exposed blade remain as she set the sword across her lap.

"Maybe I should count it an act of providence that you came back. We were beginning to think that we weren't going to find any more in the wreckage. It's impressive, even after the fires burnt out your weapons didn't have a scratch on them…"

"Don't you have any shame?" It was Weiss who spoke, "People died and all you can care about is stealing our weapons?"

Raven scoffed, "Words of the weak. The New World doesn't have time for any of that. It demands that you do anything to survive, no matter the cost. This was just the icing on the cake." She tipped the sword in indication as she spoke.

"So what? What do you plan to do? Those monsters will be crawling all over the place if they aren't stopped, soon they'll wipe out the entire ecosystem, and you won't be far behind." Blake said.

"I doubt that. We aren't like you research commission hunters. We've been thriving out here for decades without any help. Astera crumbles when it doesn't have resources delivered to it from the outside. We don't need such things. And as for the monsters? Well, we have an idea of what to do." Raven didn't even try to fight off the smug smirk on her face.

Blake seemed to freeze beside Ruby, her eyes wide, "You know where the nest is."

"Who's to say?" Raven played with the crossguard of her sword, a surprisingly immature action from the seasoned warrior. "Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But what makes you think that I'll tell my… guests anything about that."

"Stop," Ruby couldn't keep the words from spilling from her mouth, "If you think this is funny then just stop. There's no way I'm going to help you, no matter what you say." She was trying to be tough, defiant, but Ruby could feel how fragile her words were, and by the look of Raven's face she knew her bluff wasn't working.

"Oh I'm sure you'll try, but I wonder how long your little girlfriend can last…" Raven's previous mirth had slipped from her face as her eyes settled on Weiss.

Ruby froze tight, her arm immediately searching for Weiss and gripping her hand with her own. Weiss squeezed back as she shot the woman a deathly glare.

"You're a monster," Weiss spat.

"I'm a survivor, and a leader to the last truly free people of the world," Raven stood and moved her way towards the cell door, rapping on it with her sword hilt. The door groaned open and Raven began to step out.

"You're a tyrant and a miserable piece of shit," Ruby said as the woman left, "The people of Astera were freer than anyone who's ever been under your command."

Raven paused with her back turned before saying over her shoulder, "But I'm alive."

As the door closed, Ruby finally understood where she had recognized it from. It was the door from Weiss's room in Astera.