Hello everyone! How are you doing?
We have reached almost 20 favorites and more than 20 follows! I am honestly so happy and grateful to all of you for this, even if you are simply reading the story and nothing more. Giving even a few minutes of your time is something I am grateful for.
I also have to make an important announcement. There will be no upload on December 25th and to make up for that I will be uploading a double chapter next week.
Anyway, here is chapter 33. I hope you like it and have fun till next week!
The walk to the mansion was as uneventful as it was short, despite them being on high alert for an unexpected ambush.
Two large bronze lion heads greeted them through the haze, guarding is base. One of them had a considerable blood splatter on its mane, a small trail forming down its back.
The girls carefully walked up the stairs. "There are signs of combat and blood trails everywhere. For professionals, they did find some unexpected resistance" Yang's voice cut through the silence.
"Can you imagine assassins trying to attack Patch?" Ruby asked, earning a shocked stare from Yang. "Old Man Timber would use them for firewood if they dare mess with his crops" she answered, not joking at all.
"Many professionals underestimate what kind of training villagers and people away from the large cities are forced to have in order to survive" Blake agreed.
"I see..." Weiss concluded "they came here, expecting to find only the Red Family and a few local huntsmen. Instead, they meet hard-boiled villagers who retaliate and are forced to kill them on spot, abandoning all sorts of covert operation."
"Most likely yes. Instead of an assassination, a full-scale battle blows out and gets dragged enough for Grimm to appear." Ruby stood in front of the door. "The assassins make their presence known and have to get rid of everyone."
"Why?" Yang asked. "Why was lying low so important for them that they would get to the point of killing an entire village to hide it?" Weiss sighed. "Gold, possibly. And I have a feeling that Octavios was deep into trouble."
"Whatever that was, he got the attention of something more dangerous than normal Grimm- humans" Blake concluded bitterly.
Ruby tried to open her mouth to retort, but stopped. Instead, she took one step back for momentum and kicked the door open. The rotten wood cracked under her boot, revealing the dark, light-less interior.
Blake steeped forward, taking in the sight before her as the dim light from Yang's lamp enhanced her night vision.
In front of them, a large entrance hall spread. Blake deduced it was at least twenty meters long. On their left and right two half open doors marked the entrance to a pair of waiting rooms.
A red carpet on the floor was covered by mushrooms that shone in many different colors under the artificial light. It formed a straight line that led towards the back and then split in half, following two wide, round staircases.
The walls were all covered in badly- preserved paintings. An ample array of fungi-covered statues and trophies were spread across the hall, glimmering as the girls walked by.
There was, however, another important issue at hand. "Two...three… six. There are six skeletons here" Yang finished counting as they stood in front of the stairs.
"They are all servants of the house" Weiss added. "And in a very bad state if I may add" she snuffed her nose in disgust. "Humidity does that" Ruby, flashlight in hand, knelt next to a statue and poked on the surface with her finger.
"This is the tenth bullet hole; and we are still in the entrance" she said. Standing up, she lit the area in front of her- at the east of the mansion.
"There are paths to the east, west, up and possibly down to the cellar. This place is huge" she exclaimed. "Should we split?" Blake asked her.
Ruby narrowed her eyes at her in question. "We can cover more space this way and many places will be too crowded with all four of us to begin with" she explained.
The reaper looked at her teammates before nodding. "Weiss, come with me. We will check the ground floor and cellar. Blake and Yang, go to the second and third floors."
She took out her scroll and gave it to her sister. "If anything happens-" "Use the siren ringtone to sound the alarm, got it" she winked. "Good" Ruby smiled "let's get moving."
-o-
The second floor corridor was long and as moldy as the rest of the building. Blood splatters were spread all over the place as well. Blake had been forced to look away sadly as they passed by a blood-covered broken window.
They stopped by to check on one more skeleton; another servant of the household. "Quite the massacre" Yang groaned in frustration. "Grimm my ass" she continued.
"There are so many questions about what happened in this place, Yang. At some point, it's very certain that Grimm came." The blonde shrugged her shoulders "it smells like a power- or gold-related conspiracy to me Blakey."
"You may not be off the-" Blake stopped in front of a half-open room and checked at a corpse that was standing there, impaled on the floor.
It had decent weaponry, combat clothes and, the most important, a large pin with the Red Family emblem on his chest; a pair of scarlet blades forming a jagged heart.
"This was an island huntsman" she turned to her partner. "So they got them too, huh. Sounds legit." The pair got up and passed by a few bedrooms and bathrooms, thoroughly checking everything.
"Skeletons, blood and traces of battle everywhere; and nothing else" the brawler complained to the silent agreement of the faunus. They walked to the top floor- and froze in place.
The floor was a total war zone. Piles of skeletal corpses were stacked on the bloodstained tiles. Bodies torn apart and crushed in horrifying ways filled their vision, indicating the use of brutal ways a human's life should never end in.
Stray bullet marks and signs of combat were everywhere. Potted plans crashed, expensive pieces of art defiled, statues smashed and thrown. Blake stopped next to the nearest one.
"He had" she shivered "his throat broken. He didn't even manage to shoot one bullet." Yang walked forward and examined another few of them. "Teeth marks all over their bones- those people were not assassinated. They were eaten by Grimm."
They walked past by the piles, checking the rooms around them. A small bedroom without any furniture, a bath, a study hall; all of them filled with death. Servants, huntsmen, everyone was slaughtered in the worst way possible- eaten alive.
Blake and Yang turned left to the leftmost part of the corridor- and the final revelation the place had to offer. A large, hastily-made barricade out of the wooden furniture stood at the end of the path, mangled corpses all over it.
Yang jumped over the wooden obstacle and checked at the horribly killed people. From the number of skulls, she counted around ten of them, all horribly maimed in an extremely painful manner.
They were armed with sub-machine carbines and bore no marks, emblems or pins at all. Pieces of black, gray and green clothes were laid around the white bones.
"I think now we know why these guys never finished their clean-up" Blake announced from behind her. "Normally I would say they had it coming, but this is way too cruel even for scum like them" she replied.
Yellow eyes rolled as a restrained smile appeared in Blake's lips. It's always amazing how you still try to act tough, Yang. We all know what a softhearted one you truly are.
She carefully got closer to her partner, who had just finished removing the mold and dust from the only door around the corpses. She carefully pushed open to not damage the bodies even more, and stepped in.
The room was another massacre site. Blood was splattered all over- even in the ceiling. The only remaining furniture was a broken chair and a splintered desk.
Among the torn and disheveled armed bodies, broken and shattered pieces of books and office equipment were lying around. Other than that, there was nothing, except for one little thing Blake's eyes caught.
She quickly stepped next to a blood-stained wall and rubbed off the mold and dust, exposing a small object.
"I found something." It was a golden circle made of metal. It protruded out of the stone, letters engraved on it. In its middle stood the Red Family emblem, made of red gems.
She noticed words forming on top of the gems and rubbed the grime off of it. She narrowed her eyes and read;
'Of untold eons long forgotten,
Part of fairy tales now to bear.
His blessing once to his devoted,
Now merely a cause for fear'
"What is this?" Yang got closer but not too close as to not obstruct the faunus' examination. "It looks very fancy."
"It's a metal circle. It has five rings with random letters on them that seem to be rotating for some reason. There's also a riddle-like poem written here, but its purpose escapes me."
The blonde's lilac orbs lit up. "Oh I know what this is!" she happily exclaimed grinning. "It's a mechanical locker with a puzzle! You know, like the ones in RPG and stuff that Ruby plays!"
Seeing the confused face Blake took, she elaborated. "You rotate each ring and then push in to 'lock' a letter. If you put the correct letters in the correct turn, the mechanism activates."
"Really?" it was one of the rare moments that Yang caught her partner visibly surprised. "Why would anyone use such a childish thing to safeguard a locker?" Lilac eyes narrowed "childish?"
"I mean, if you have a combination to open it, why give others a hint for it? Besides, if Octavios was truly Alizar and Cinder's father, he could easily create a room accessible only to him by using his semblance to open the wall."
The blonde took a thoughtful expression "I have no idea but does it truly matter?" "I guess not- I was just curious. I am also curious as to why Alizar didn't even bother with it despite him being around longer than us."
"As for that- maybe we can ask him when we beat the crap outta him. Let's focus now on opening this thing; it must have important stuff inside if they went to all this trouble of sealing it."
She examined once more the phrase and the letters. The rows were as follow. 1st was M, J, R, I, L, A, S, P. 2nd was W, B, O, I, E, A, L, S. 3rd was L,V, B, E, A, I, O, G. 4th one was H, N, M, E, O, I, D, A. And the last one was Q, E, T, Y, L, C, S, O.
-AT THIS POINT YANG AND BLAKE'S THOUGHT PROCESS BEGINS. IF ANYONE WISHES TO TRY ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT ANY HELP BEFORE THE ANSWER IS REVEALED, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO DO NOW. JUST TO CLARIFY SMT, THE RIDDLE IS BASED IN CANON REMNANT LORE-
"Ok. Then, it starts with something long forgotten and speaks of untold eons… maybe the maidens?" "You are out of your element Blakey, aren't you- we are looking for something with five letters."
"Sorry, I am just not good in wordplay." A giggle escaped the taller girl's mouth. "Yeah, you are the bookworm, so I forget that you hate riddles and puzzles."
"Let's ignore that for now. So, if we analyze each verse, what do we have?" Yang scratched her chin "crudely speaking, something old and forgotten is the first clue."
"Right. As for the second, it speaks of something that now is part of the fairy tales. Like something that once was known…"she sighed"…and now has become a bed-time story."
"That something has also been given by someone to his followers" the blonde added. "I am pretty sure that someone was either Ozpin or one of the Gods. I don't know many others that come to mind and Salem wouldn't be addressed as a male" the faunus concluded.
"Damn, my head hurts already." Blake smiled "hang in there; the final clue is that now, which possibly means at his age, it is a source of fear. Which means- Grimm?"
"I don't think there was a point in history where the creatures Grimm were forgotten, Blakey. Besides, there is no 'G' in the first ring."
"Fair point there. So… something old and forgotten…now part of fairy tales, bestowed by someone powerful to his devoted, now a source of fear…"
"Could it be Relic?" Yang said. "The letters fit too" she moved forward to try them, but the faunus quickly jumped forward and grabbed her arm.
"Wha-" she tried to complain, visibly surprised, but the stern look in the yellow orbs made the words die in the brawler's mouth.
"I don't know many things about puzzles, but I know a lot about trapped locks. Don't be hasty, please." Her voice was as calm and professional as Blake used to be anytime the situation turned dire.
"Ok…" she slowly retracted her hand. "Sorry about that…all these corpses and the morbid atmosphere…I got scared for a moment there."
Yang simply shrugged her shoulders and smiled "I forgot it already. Let's see… if it is truly trapped, how are we gonna try it?"
"We simply get to a satisfying answer. 'Relic' is a good try, but I don't think they were common knowledge back then, even with all that magic spread around."
"Yeah, guess you are right…" she scratched her head, but then immediately stopped and shot up "that's it, Blakey!"
The faunus' eyes opened wide in shock "what is it now?" Yang grinned even more widely. "Magic! 5 letters! Forgotten but known back then! Now a part of fairy tales!"
"It was bestowed to humans by the God of Darkness… and nowadays it caused fear to the ones who knew of Salem and the Relics… that's a pretty good guess, Yang!" she admitted, visibly impressed.
The blonde giggled and flared up her aura, just in case, before rotating the five rings to form the word. M-A-G-I-C was created and then Yang pushed the circle.
The sound of cogs moving and old locks and bars getting unlocked filled the room, as a line formed on the wall in front of them. The surface split in half and moved in, revealing a small, dark room inside.
Blake stepped in and looked around. The secret room was decent-sized, with a large, empty wooden desk and a considerable bookshelf, half empty save for a few tomes. A long bench occupied its other side.
She knelt and rubbed the floor with her gloved fingers. Despite a thin layer of dust, there was nothing. No humidity, no grime not even the stench of decay the entire island seemed to drown in. Even the desk's cloth was in considerably good shape.
Yang stepped in, her lamp revealing quite an unusual detail. "The door is trapped!" Her voice made Blake turn around and notice the impressive amount of fire dust planted on the moving wall.
"So, that's why" the faunus affirmed. "If anyone puts on the wrong combination or even tries to force the wall to open, it will explode. It's nearly impossible to enter without solving the riddle. That's why Alizar didn't bother trying it."
"Detective thoughts aside, do you think we could use this dust? It seems in good shape and I am kinda running low." Blake narrowed her eyes "will you please be careful handling it? I don't want-"
Before she could even finish, Yang had already removed the first crystal and put in in her belt. "Who do you think you are talking to? I am dating Remnant's greatest dust expert, you know" she winked.
"Just don't blow us up" she joked and turned to examine the room. The desk was in good shape but other than that had nothing interesting on, so she focused on the books.
After a few minutes of checking the contents, she let an impressed whistle. "These are all hand-written" her inner bookworm was drooling, but she decided now was not the time to feed it.
She picked a book and skimmed through the pages- and her face went pale. "This is… a Grimm manual" she turned to her partner who had just removed the third crystal from the wall.
"A what?" the reply came without the blonde turning her head. "A manual about Grimm characteristics and behavioral patterns. And very advanced at that."
She opened and quickly passed through the books. They were all detailed manuals on different Grimm species, including some very rare ones, along with some very useful pieces of information about them.
Except for the last one. She opened the small, brown leather tome and took a peek. There were truly words and phrases inside- probably. The entire book was in a language that she had never seen again.
Dissatisfied, but dripping with curiosity, she put the books in her arms. "Looting the place- team RWBY style" Yang joked. "I feel kind of bad about it, but I would feel even worse if I let them rotting around here" she replied, flustered.
"Hey, sounds fair to me. Give me a few more minutes and I will be done." Blake wrapped the books inside the cloth and tossed them behind her shoulder forming an impromptu backpack.
She then walked to the bench. It was long and made of massive stone. Strange carvings were spread all over its surface, forming circles and weird shapes. There was nothing else on it, save for a single wooden box.
She took the object in her hands and opened it. Inside it was a pendant. It was made of gold and had green-colored decorations. It was beautifully crafted and no one could mistake its value.
Or the image it depicted. It was so well-made, that Blake couldn't possibly mistake it. The head of a Wyvern, jaws open in a mighty roar.
"Hey, I know this!" Yang said as the raven-haired girl walked watched next to her, still holding the jewel in her arms. She had just finished storing the dust and gave a pouch to her partner.
"You do? How?" she replied, storing it away. "This crazy chick, Cherry, wore one that looked kinda like it. I think it was not a Wyvern, though. But they had the same style."
"This is becoming even more complicated" Blake said, putting the emblem in her coat's pocket. "Come on; let's go see what Ruby and Weiss found."
Also, please let me know whether you tried solving the riddle or not. If you did, tell me whether you liked it or it was boring/too easy/ etc. Thanks in advance!
Edit; I am really sorry for the spam, but for some reason the letters for the riddle didn't get uploaded the first time and I had to upload again