(Timeskip)
It's been around a few hours since we started following the trail, the snowstorm hasn't gotten better either in fact, it's steadily getting worse by the minute. And by now me and Raven are the ones leading since everyone else apart from Qrow and Weiss got slower the longer we went on.
"Ughhh! How long have we been mindlessly following this trail!?" Ruby complains.
"Shhh, calm down Ruby. I'm sure we'll come across something." Roman says putting a hand on Ruby's shoulder.
"But how can you be sure! We're just following what Maria said!" She shouts.
"Hey! I said trails usually lead somewhere. *Scoff* All of you brats, so disrespectful." Maria says on top of Qrow's shoulder.
I hear something faint in the distance but I barely hear because Ruby is still bickering with the others.
"SHUT UP! I hear something in the distance, so if you would shut your mouth you might actually be able to hear it as well." I say.
They quiet down and stop walking to try to listen through the currently howling winds and after some time I can see some eyes widen.
"I can hear it, come it can't be to far away if it's audible through this storm!" Weiss says relieved.
They all nod before we start walking with the reasonably fast pace we started with at the beginning of the trail. Not even five minutes later a large wooden archway is visible and the writing on it isn't visible as it's covered in snow. The source of the sound has now been revealed to be a squeaky gate that's swaying back and forth in the wind.
I punch the archway to knock the snow off and it says 'Brunswick Farms'. Ahead of it I can see houses that seem to be quite old and rundown as if its been abandoned for some time.
"This place feels off to me." Oscar says.
"You're not the only one." Qrow says.
We walk in and not so surprisingly no one is outside.
"Do you think there are people taking shelter inside?" Blake asks.
"If they are then either they are very used to cold because I see no smoke coming out of those chimneys, or they may have abandoned this place." Weiss says pointing to one of the houses.
"The latter seems more likely but I suppose it won't hurt to knock and see if anyone's home or not." Ruby says.
Everyone else nods and we go to one of the decently sized houses and knock on the door a few times but no one came to answer. Qrow tries to open the door, but it seems locked.
"Weird… if they abandoned this place why would they lock the doors?" He asks mostly to himself before turning to us.
"Get ready for anything, we're breaking in." He says before getting his sword ready.
He kicks down the door and everyone else rushes in with their weapons in hand only to be met by nothing but furniture and pictures hanged on the walls. Everyone slowly puts their weapons away and start and start exploring the seemingly empty house.
'Something about this place feels wrong Ker, can you sense anything that seems weird?'
'I've been trying to sense something the moment we got here but I found nothing. But keep an eye out, something is definitely wrong.'
'Alright, let me know if you find anything.'
Suddenly we hear Weiss scream upstairs. Everyone that's in the room looks at each other before we rush up the stairs into the room where we heard Weiss' scream. We run into the room to see Weiss on the floor staring terrified at two people dead on the bed.
But they look like they were sleeping when they died which is odd.
"Alright, let's just get out of here for now ok kiddo?" Qrow says slowly helping Weiss up and leads her out of the room.
Ruby and the others follow along leaving me alone in the room.
'Does this help at all with your search Ker?'
'It helps a lot; this narrows down my search by a large margin. The possibilities now are likely the apathy grimm or a dream eater grimm. But this seems like the work of apathy grimm, since dream eaters latch onto the faces of people to kill them in their sleep and leave marks from where they latch on. And from what I can see, their faces are clear of any marks.'
'What do the apathy grimm look like? And how strong are they?'
'They're humanoid shaped but have lanky hands reaching down to the ground and their heads resemble skulls and they have a sort of ribcage to protect their chest. Individually they're weak and easy to kill but they usually travel in packs and have the ability to drain someone's will causing them to potentially sleep allowing them an easy kill. They can also drain someone's will just by being in the vicinity, but the effects are strongest face to face.'
'And you struggled sensing them because?'
'Because they are so weak that they barely give out anything for me to sense'
'Now that you know what you're looking for, can you track them down?'
'Give me some time, it's easier but still difficult because as I said before, they barely give out anything to sense.'
'Alright, I'll leave it to you.'
I leave the room and walk down to see Weiss in front of the fire they managed to light with everyone but Qrow and Raven around the front of the fire on the dusty sofas.
There's a sound of the door opening and closing and Qrow along with Raven walks in as they get snow of themselves.
"So are the other houses the same as this one?" Ruby asks.
"*Sigh* Yeah, bodies in every bed in the same state like the ones here." Qrow says walking closer to the fire.
"All of them seemed to sleep and never wake up." Raven says walking to the other side of Weiss.
"Surely we're not staying here. Right?" Weiss asks.
"Unless you can magically make the storm out there disappear, we're gonna have to stay inside. The storm's not getting any better out there. Anyone find out why those people died the way they did?" Qrow asks.
"I do actually, it's probably the apathy grimm since they all died in their sleep." I say
"Of course! Why didn't I think of that? *Sigh* My age must really be getting to me if I couldn't even figure that one out." Maria says.
"Wait, what's an apathy grimm?" Ruby asks.
"Basically, it's a grimm that drains someone's willpower either by being in their vicinity or having direct contact. So as long as we don't stay here too long we should be fine and not end up like the previous owners of this house." Maria explains.
"… That means this place hasn't been abandoned so there's probably food and other supplies and maybe a vehicle we could use." Ruby says.
"I'll do another sweep of this place and see what I can find." Qrow says.
"I'll help, it's better than doing nothing here." Raven says following Qrow out the door.
"I'm going too, I agree with Raven. Anything is better than doing nothing here." Ruby says getting up and everyone else except Oscar and Maria follow her.
"You're two aren't going with them?" Maria asks.
"I'd rather just stay here; they can handle themselves." I say.
"I just want to rest; my feet are sore from walking for that long." Oscar says.
(Timeskip)
The sun has set, and the moon is high up in the sky with the storm raging outside. I'm awake to take shifts watching in case anything unexpected happens. I look over to the ones sleeping on the ground and Weiss is still awake.
"Weiss, you have to get some rest. We're leaving early in the morning." I say.
"B-but what if I end up like those people upstairs?" She asks scared.
"You heard Maria; we won't end up like them if we don't stay here for too long. But if you don't get any rest then you're just making it easier for the apathy." I say.
"*Sigh* Alright, I'll try. Thank you, Dominus." She says.
"No problem, now get some rest." I say before leaving her to herself.
'How's the search coming along Ker?'
'I'm almost there, I know that I'm almost there. I'll figure it out tomorrow morning.'
'Alright.'
After a few hours I wake up Raven and tell her that it's her turn. She nods and gets up before I take her spot on the couch. Even though I could have stayed up for several weeks without any sleep, I want to have a talk with Salem. I lean back and slowly let sleep overcome me while willing Salem to come talk to me.
After a few moments I gain awareness that I'm in the usual black void. I turn around to see Salem standing there with a small smile.
"You wanted to talk?"
"Yeah, it's been a while since we last talked. You've been busy scheming and whatever grimm queens do?"
"*Chuckle* Indeed I have, and what about you?"
"Well for starters-"
(Timeskip)
"-and that's pretty much everything."
"*Small laugh* Ozma had it coming, and all it took was a literal spirit created by the gods."
"Indeed, and it seems that we're out of time now, I can feel myself waking up."
"Alright, until next time Kratos."
"Until next time Salem."
After those words were said I wake up in the same place I slept, on the couch. I look around and see that mostly everyone is still awake, and Raven is just waking up. I get up and stretch cracking a few bones in the process before getting some canned food where Ruby said they were yesterday.
I went down to the wine cellar and take a couple cans for me and Raven before heading back up. I can see Raven is about to go down to the cellar but I give her two cans. She thanks me before heading back to main room.
I quietly open the door and take a seat outside because the storm has finally subsided. I light my blades on fire and put it just far away from the can to heat it up slowly. After some time I open it up and start eating while enjoying the nice morning air and the now much more comfortable and cool breeze.
About half an hour later Raven comes out and takes a seat next to me as she takes a deep breath of the air.
"This is much better than yesterday." She says.
"It is, we might as well enjoy it. The moment those brats come out the mood's going to be ruined." I say leaning back and putting my feet up on the handrail.
Raven nods and just leans into the chair before sighing.
Another 30 minutes pass and the others finally wake up and start walking out of the house.
"*Yawn* Morning you two." Ruby says.
She's followed by everyone else with Maria being the last as she takes a seat on the other side of the porch.
"Hey Dominus, we found a wagon cart yesterday. Do you think your grimm could pull it to Argus?" Ruby asks.
'I think it might be quicker if you just agree this time, Ker.'
'Alright, if it's going to be quicker then so be it.'
"He agreed to pull the cart." I say and she nods.
Roman and Qrow come around the corner pushing said cart and just as they stop in front of the well one of the tires pop causing Qrow to growl in frustration.
"…Great! Just my luck!" He shouts.
"You people are just beacons for bad luck aren't you?" Maria asks from her seat.
Blake sighs and sits on one of the steps in front of the house, "I'm starting to think the universe just doesn't want us to get to Atlas."
"It's just a flat tire, I'm sure we can find a spare." Ruby says.
And then they start complaining about why they're even going to Atlas and how it's useless and all that.
"*Sigh* It seems you hit right on the mark when you said they would ruin the mood." Raven says.
"Not that hard to figure out really, with the way they've been acting recently I'd be surprised if they aren't like this." I say.
I look back to Ruby she has the relic in her hands over the well and is contemplating on whether to drop it or not. Something seemed to give her a shock and she drops the lamp into the well and looks like she didn't mean to as she tried to grab it but was unsuccessful.
'Kratos, the apathy are below us!' Ker says suddenly and urgently
'What do you mean?' I ask with the same amount of urgency.
'I mean that they're literally right below us! That well likely leads to where they are!'
'Alright, I'm going!'
I quickly get up and jump into the well with the others shouting at me asking why I'm jumping. I ignore them and land at the bottom and there's water just above the bottom of my feet. I look ahead to see a dimly lit tunnel with wooden supports before slowly walking forward.
I see the relic and hook it on my side before venturing deeper. There's an entrance to another tunnel and when I enter it I see that it's full of the apathy grimm because it matches Ker's description. Ker gets out of my shadow ready to fight.
'Now that we're close I can sense that there's an elder at the end of this tunnel'
'Then lets not waste anymore time shall we. I've been itching for a fight'
Ker nods before we both charge at the horde of apathy. I use my fists to punch through a lot of them before switching to my blades to clear out a lot of them at once. I look over to Ker and he's having an easy time like I am.
The grimm screams and I feel heavier but it's nothing I can't deal. Looks like these guys will give me a decent workout, I smirk before igniting my blades making it even easier to slice through the horde of apathy.
Then swing after swing after swing we finally reach killed all the regular apathy leaving us with the elder one at the end of the tunnel. And from its stance and low growl it's making, it sounds mad.
"Ḩ̵̧̻̌́ō̶̘̦͗̏͜w̸̦͈̥̓̈ ̵̡̽d̸̢̹̾͝ă̷̙̆ŕ̵̢̼̪͝ȇ̷͓͓̤ ̴̫̩̞̿̓̃y̵̩̱̥̚o̶͉͆͜͜u̵̧͚̝̎ ̷̢̛̪b̶̨͇̪͆̐̀ề̵̺͉̀t̴̞̩͗̐͜r̵̼͇̀͠a̸̲̱̖͒̇y̴̠̽ ̴̛̰ÿ̷͔o̴̯̲͉̓̒u̶̙̘̣͑̀̒r̸̜̻̈́̄̈́ ̴͕̝̐̆o̷͈͔͖͗̅̈́w̴̰̓̒̆ṉ̷̊͝ ̷̯̂̊̅k̷̠̕i̵̖̋͑̂ǹ̶̘̲̭͊d̵̮̻͋̋̆!̴̡̌?̵̪̞͌͂" It shouts in a distorted voice.
"I don't answer to you" Ker says.
And before anything more can happen he bites off the thing's head and absorbs it.
'Get anything from it?'
'Nothing, only the normal amount of an average alpha grimm.'
'How disappointing.'
'But not unexpected.'
Then we hear multiple people running towards us and when they turn into the room I can see that it's Ruby, Roman, Weiss, Blake, and Neo.
"We're here!... Where are they?" Ruby asks confused.
"Killed them. Simple as that. You just missed the elder's death too." I say.
"*Sigh* If only we came down here earlier, I could've gotten some of the kills." Ruby complains before folding back her scythe.
We climb back out the well with the relic in tow. I look around and see everyone waiting for us.
"Did you get it?" Qrow asks.
"I did, it's with Ruby. And I killed the apathy along with its elder too." I say as Ruby and the others climb out.
"Alright, let's not waste any more time around here and get going." Maria says getting on the cart.
'Alright Ker, you know what to do. It'll only until we're near Argus.'
He nods before standing in front of the cart as I and Raven tie the cart to him before everyone else gets on Ker starts running in the direction of Argus after some orientation on where we are.
