Belated Happy Fourth to all my fellow inmates of the USA. May your bar-be-ques be tasty and your fireworks not loud enough to annoy neighbors whilst retaining beauty. Thanks going to xTRESTWHOx and NaanContributor for numbing me back onto the path whenever I spell or grammar wrong.
Chapter 88: Glimpse Back and Forth
22nd of Morning Star
Ruby looked at the daggers in her hands, given to her by Artur before she and her company headed northwards, and the man went his own way.
"Are you sure about...giving me these?" Ruby had asked with some apprehension.
"I won't need them anymore," the dying man said with finality. "My fighting days are over. All I need is my bow and skinning knife to carry me the rest of the way, which isn't much longer now." He winced and cleared his throat. "The gift Faolan gave me is slowly wearing out. Soon, it will all come back, and the darkness will finally claim me."
"I...I wish I could help you," Ruby said with tears gathering at the edges of her eyes. "I wish I knew a way to save you."
"Dragonborn...no. Ruby, you already did."
It was hard, knowing that he was somewhere out there, dying a slow, painful death that she couldn't do anything about. Still, there was some small comfort in the knowledge that she had helped the man find peace with his past, and put to rest a tremendous regret that he otherwise would not have been able to face on his own. She could only hope now that his disease didn't make him suffer too much and that he would pass on peacefully.
She set the daggers down and started going through the pieces of her bullet-making kit, filling casings with the newly-created Dust and then pressing the caps on them until they were firmly on. The repetitive action allowed Ruby to empty her mind as she focused on refilling her and Blake's ammunition count. As she ran bullet after bullet through the press, slowly depleting their partly restored Dust reserves, the sound of someone teleporting in stole her attention.
"Hey Rubes," Yang greeted her as she fully appeared in the Refuge's center. "Weiss up top?"
"Yeah, she's been working with Serana on trying to permanently conjure new ground and stuff," Ruby told her as she stood up and dusted herself off. She looked over at the work she completed...and noticed that she had two relatively tall piles of finished bullets on the table.
"Wow! You've been hard at work, sis!" Yang said in amazement as she brought her hands to her hips and whistled. She then chuckled and gave her sister a sly grin. "Too bad you can't make me that many shells."
"Yeah, well, shotgun-grade plastic's harder to make. I'm wondering which would be more of a hassle between that, or modifying your belt loaders to take brass shells," Ruby admitted sheepishly while checking the chronosphere, which Weiss had described as basically being a magical clock/globe, to see that several hours had passed. "Wow, some baby time god I am," she muttered.
"What's that?"
"Nothing. What's up outside?"
"Oh, we're getting pretty close to the place, so Capric asked if I could go ahead and get you guys."
"Ah, right," the younger girl acknowledged with a nod of her head. "Is, uh… Are things still awkward about...the stuff?"
Blake had pushed Capric a few more times about his service with the Thalmor. Some of it he was proud to share, like how he led a platoon of mixed races, including Bosmer, Harpies, and Khajiit, in the defense of their homes, but some of it he was less enthusiastic to talk about, such as when they were sent into Cyrodiil, or his more clandestine actions that were hinted at from different sources. Blake even listed off a handful she apparently overheard some guards talking about. The only one of them he was willing to share anything about was the Thrassian Expendenture, referring to it as 'basically the second coming of the All-Flags Navy'.
"We were attacked by the Sload," he explained. "But they overreached and hit the Maormer at the same time. I was one of the people working as a liaison when several people got the bright idea that the Altmer and Maormer should set aside their hate to face a common foe. Like a lot of things, they thought they were giving me an impossible task, but I managed to pull through."
"You got two races of elves who absolutely despise each other to work together?" Weiss had asked in surprise.
"I think most of the credit could be placed at the feet of Orgnum. He seemed entertained by the...novelty of the idea. I guess six thousand years or so of life has given him a tinge of eccentricity. Either way, fleets from both nations besieged Thras. I was there for that as well. We managed to win, and without getting our ships sunk."
"What counted as winning against the Sload?" Blake asked, an eyebrow arched.
"We should probably have a talk with Blake," Ruby said as she remembered the Faunus' reaction to hearing that ninety percent or more of the adult Sload had somehow been wiped out in the war. Maarah had looked ready to jump the girl when she was screaming at the man, and Ruby had thought for sure that a fight was about to break out among them.
"Yeah. While she's got...more than a few hang-ups that I think kinda blinds her to the weird way things work in this world, she's still got a point" Yang admitted. "I mean, I could be wrong, but even if everyone agrees the Sload are pretty bad news, I'm willing to bet there are some good ones out there."
"Yes, there was one who was rather cooperative," Capric told them after being asked about the Sload. "It's...well, rather complicated. Sload aren't built like most other species and races you know. Most in Tamriel are what you could call...humanoid, for lack of a better term."
"Anthropomorphic?" Weiss suggested, and Capric snapped his fingers.
"Yes, that's right," he replied with a quick nod. "Well, as I said before, we're all cooperative creatures. It's in our nature. We try, usually, to avoid harming others for several reasons, but it mostly comes back to a tendency to want to bond with each other. We make packs or herds or whatever term you want to use. Sload aren't like that. They're generally solitary beings who have to learn all cooperative skills if they want to have any at all. Few are ever cooperative, and even fewer cooperate with races aside from their own. They're all sociopathic by our standards, and only really do anything for their own good. Of course, the more intelligent ones figure out that working with people means a greater amount of good can come out of it for themselves."
"So you're saying there's no such thing as altruism for Sload?" Serana asked.
"Not necessarily," he answered. "I mean, they're not going to help out a starving vagrant or orphaned child, unless they find some sort of benefit in it for them, but if, for instance, they figured out that feeding all the poor of the city could give them an information network that would allow them to slowly compile intelligence that could then be levied to their advantage…"
His voice trailed off, but the implication was successfully made regardless.
"They can't all be like that, right?" Ruby wondered aloud, a sad tone in her voice, and Capric gave a firm nod.
"Trust me, they only think in terms of leveraging whatever advantages they have. All the Sload who died in the Expedenture thought that they, personally, would win, and seemed surprised when they did lose. The ones who surrendered did so because they wanted to gain favorable terms and knew that it was their best chance. The...nice one, he was ancient. He was in for the long haul, and he knew that in what was left of the Sload, he was at the top."
"A proper gentleman, but a wily one," Syndergoth added. "His words and actions were carefully planned and laid out. It seemed to all those Altmeri lords and ladies that he was giving them a few king's ransoms for reparations, but he was playing them like pan pipes." The butler smirked. "He even gave in to Master Capric's requests, for what we later learned was his own way of observing the master's methods."
"Methods?"
"Well, I am a mage and a Warden as well," Capric told them. "I wanted to research the Pillar of Thras. It's a Tower made from coral and has some form of...interdimensional transmutation power. I was hoping I could learn to harness it, maybe even shift it in a way that I wanted."
"And find a way back to Remnant?" Ruby asked excitedly as she realized what he meant.
"I'm surprised you could follow that," her partner teased while nudging her.
"Weiss, that's such a common trope in comic books and cartoons that I couldn't not recognize what he meant."
"And there it is," the heiress groaned. "Still, did you get anywhere with that?"
"Not as far as I'd wish, and I don't get to stay in Thras for very long at a time to find out much more. That's why I'm trying to track down this artifact. With the two, or maybe just the artifact itself, I should be able to get us all back. I have learned a lot of interesting things in my research, though."
"Only took the genocide of a species to get there," everyone heard Blake angrily grumble behind them. Capric sighed while everyone else felt the suspense they thought was gone, return.
"You know, I only personally killed about twenty-three Sload in that campaign," Capric ground out as he came to a stop, turning toward the only other Faunus with glaring eyes. "And most of them had dozens of bodies around them, reanimated and...just dead. Gone. Some of them boasted about adding my body to their little, personal armies. One of them tried to rip part of my soul out directly and was shocked when it didn't tear."
"But still-"
"I don't write Aldmeri Dominion policy!" Capric bit out, his teeth bared in a furious sneer. "I was a soldier pressed into service before the Great War even began! I was told to fight in the army or in a pit until I died. So I fought, and I did so well that I started getting recommendations because doing well meant my friends and I would survive for at least one more day, and failure meant watching them die. I only got out of that cage by accepting the leash that is being a Thalmor agent, but at least now I can choose most of my objectives, and no longer have to worry about some golden-assed lord's third son playing at being commander sending us all to die."
"That doesn't make any of it better!" Blake shot back. "You said it yourself: you're part of the reason that fleet ever worked in the first place."
"Oh yes, I succeeded at diplomacy. A mission I was told I wasn't allowed to fail at." Capric clenched his fists while taking a few quick, deep breaths as if trying to calm himself. "Do you know what it's like for me? I am, in their eyes, an inferior elf. They don't even know I'm a half-breed, and most of them still want to watch me fail so they can point at me and declare that it was obviously too much for a mere Bosmer. I've had to work twice as hard and succeed at everything, especially the impossible to get here. I even had to get the backing of the damned queen along with half the Council to become a Justicar."
"Then why don't you just leave them?" Blake asked, keeping herself calm with some effort even in the face of Capric's rage.
The half-elf stopped and took a deep breath before reaching up and rubbing his face.
"I wish it was that simple." he quietly admitted, then looked away. Blake, meanwhile, continued to glare at the half-elf, while everyone else awkwardly glanced between them. No one really knew what to do in this situation. On the one hand, it was obvious that Capric's hands were tied. It wasn't as though he had much of a choice in the matter. But, on the other hand, he did lead what was truly a genocide. Something that they all understood to be wrong and evil, even if the Sload were as monstrous as everyone claimed they were. At the very least, the argument appeared to have hit a snag for now, but there was no doubt in Ruby's mind that the tension was far from released.
A fluttering of wings through the air made the group all look up to see the two Harpies landing in the branches above.
"It's fine, girls," Capric called up to them, everyone knowing how the two were ready and willing to come to the man's defense. "Just clearing the air, so to say."
"Uh, that's not why we're back. It's just that the little dragons are coming this way," Vertina explained while pointing a wing toward their destination.
"Ah, damn!" he quietly cursed, taking out his weapon, which looked at first like some sort of mace with two ends, but the others quickly figured it to be a baton when he started spinning it in his hand.
"It's okay. We've got this," Ruby reassured him, pulling out Crescent Rose and unfurling it.
"No, I just...shouldn't have lost my temper like that. I probably attracted them all."
"Hey, it's cool," Yang threw in. "Saves us the walking."
More wingbeats were heard, but more akin to the fluttering of bats than the feathery sound of Harpy wings. The clacking of wood could be heard as well, then the distinctive shapes of dragons could be seen coming towards them. Half a dozen scaly, winged forms left the treeline then flew in circles around them, spreading out and landing around the group while letting out screeches and shrieks.
They all looked like dragons, with scales, spikes, horns, two legs, and two wings. But they were all the size of cats or small dogs.
"Huh, okay, I can see how you might mistake these for baby dragons," Ruby said while looking around at the assortment of dragon-like creatures.
"You sure they're not?" her sister asked, taking a tentative step towards one which then hissed at her before arching its head back.
"Fo!" the creature squeaked out as a small stream of frost left its mouth, causing Yang to leap back with a yelp.
"See? Little guy's trying to freeze me!" she shouted, raising her fists in a defensive posture.
"Yeah, I felt a little something," the Dragonborn explained, "but it reminds me more of the Graybeards. They don't have dragon souls, but they have a Thu'um. It's just...tiny."
"Ah good, you can feel their tiny whatevers," the Khajiit spy said with dripping sarcasm. "La'shaina feels so much better now that she'll only be roasted a little."
"Just wait, I've got an idea," Ruby reassured her before clearing her throat. "Mu dreh ni ahraan," she directed at the creatures, who immediately ceased their growling and prowling to focus on her in clear curiosity. "Het...tovit arhk aak."
The creatures suddenly began chirping excitedly, with several of them crawling or gliding over to Ruby and looking up at her in a way that seemed to be adoration. The Dragonborn giggled at the attention she was receiving, especially at the red one that reared up and put its wing claws on her thigh as if seeking attention. She petted the creature, feeling it make a sort of purring sound.
"Okay, what happened?" Yang asked, looking on at the scene in confusion.
"I...might have an idea," Weiss said while looking through her bag. "There was a bestiary that-"
A shriek rose up from the forest the animals came from, and they all turned back around and squeaked in distress as they leaped and flew back the way they came, grabbing onto trees and crawling up and around them before leaping off and gliding toward another. A couple looked back and squeaked towards the group of people as if beckoning them to follow before continuing on.
"I...think we should go after them," Ruby said to the rest of the troupe. "I think there were more, and they were calling for help."
"Well, we ought to look into this," Capric agreed. "It's, at the very least, related to dragons."
"Still thinking they're babies," Yang insisted as she started jogging in the direction the creatures went.
"They're not," Ruby shot back as she took off as well.
After a short sprint with a couple of the group trying to lead their mounts along, and Toggle just following on his own accord, everyone came out into a new clearing, which then led them to a cliff face with a large Word Wall set against it and some scattered ruins and mammoth skeletons on the ground before it. Everyone's attention, however, was quickly taken by an ongoing battle between the dragon-like creatures and a veritable army of Frostbite spiders with strange coronas around them.
"Uh, did that spider just spit out fire?" Blake asked after seeing one of the arachnids spew flames towards its reptilian opponent.
"When did these things become magical?!" Weiss shouted before lancing the closest one with an ice spike.
"Who cares? Stop them from reaching the nests!" Ruby commanded before dashing towards the fight and using a short Unrelenting Force to knock several spiders back.
"What nests?" Capric asked while looking around, his eyes settling on the collection of eggs near the wall set into little divots in the earth. "Oh."
With that, he leaped into the fray, which was rapidly turning out bad for the spiders. His baton spun in his hand before he brought it forward, smashing one spider thrice in the head then bringing it over and under, knocking another one up on its back four legs. His baton stopped and he clutched it with both hands before it extended into a spear, skewering the arachnid's body. Maarah attacked a large one from above, piercing its abdomen with her steel-covered talons and lifting it up before dropping it. Vertina swooped through, slicing at several with her wing blades before turning and focusing. A small whirlwind formed in front of her, then she sent ice into it before launching it through the Frostbite spiders' ranks, further cutting at them and leaving ice razors shivved into their bodies.
The spiders began retreating, and the small reptiles began screeching in victory, often atop the corpses of their enemies. As the adrenaline of battle died down, some of them began disposing of the corpses by eating at them. Toggle trundled over to where most of them were feasting, dragging along his own deceased foe before deciding to join in.
"Well, that was and is disgusting," Weiss complained while turning away from the scene. "Now, let me check this…" She pulled out a book and began flipping pages while scanning the entries. "Ah, there we are. Subterranean Horrors. No wonder I couldn't remember where they were mentioned."
"I mean, these guys can rip a spider up, but they aren't what I'd call horrors," Yang stated. "…and these ones aren't subterranean either."
"Think of it from the point of view of a farmer or any other everyday civilian," Syndergoth told her while gesturing to the nearest creature. "These beasts can fly, breathe fire, frost, and lightning, and travel in packs."
"...Okay, you got me there."
"They're called dragonlings," Weiss explained further. "They're actually rare here, but they have been seen in the Reach. They're just normally found in High Rock and around the Iliac Bay. It could be that these migrated into the area recently."
"Definitely not baby dragons," Ruby added while walking over to a crushed nest. The red dragonling was sniffing around it sadly, but all of the eggs looked to have been eaten or destroyed. She reached over and pet the dragonling's head, soothing the creature a little. "These are adults, and these are their eggs."
"So they are," Capric noted. "But then there were those spiders. They weren't natural. I could feel it in the way they discharged that magic."
"Are magic bugs a thing?" Yang asked.
"In Elsweyr, we have thunderbugs," La'shaina answered. "Giant beetles that have shock magic. Good for pest control. Bad for everything else."
"Morrowind had a species of fire-breathing beetles the Dunmer call shalks," Lydia added. "Might be related."
"How are these things natural?" Weiss asked in concern.
"Magic world, magic beasts," Capric explained in short. "But like I was saying, those spiders weren't natural, which means someone's been fiddling with them, likely in unethical and possibly illegal ways."
"Wait, are there laws against turning animals into magical versions?" Ruby asked, genuinely curious. "Is making magic spiders illegal?"
"In the Empire, without a permit."
"In the Dominion?" Blake asked.
"As long as it's contained, it's allowed."
"So what now?" Yang asked. "We found your little dragons, but they're in a bit of a turf war."
"Well," Ruby considered while looking back down at the red dragonling, which had now sadly circled itself around the destroyed nest and laid down. "This is upsetting the environment, and it might be illegal besides. We should at least look into it all. Figure out where those spiders came from and see if we can't stop them."
The spiders were tracked thanks to the combined efforts of Yang and the Harpies. Where they couldn't spot them directly from overhead, the werewolf was usually able to smell them out or find other signs of their recent passing through the area and lead everyone else to the source of the magical spiders. Their efforts were also helped by the red dragonling that had taken to clinging onto Ruby's back when it wasn't trying to fly alongside them. Ruby had only offered token resistance to the creature, and now was occasionally scratching underneath its chin happily when she found a moment. The tracking soon brought them to an abandoned ruin, where they witnessed one of the bigger spiders with a frosty shield around it having its head caved in by a Breton with a hammer. Bits of his armor were iced over, but overall the man looked unharmed, unlike the five spider corpses around him and the patches of burned and frozen ground.
"That was a close one," the man groaned as he put a boot to the spider and yanked his weapon loose. Calmly the group approached him, hoping the man had more information.
"Excuse me," Weiss started while getting the man's attention. "Do you know what's going on with these spiders?"
"I don't know, but this place is full of them," he replied while gesturing to the doors behind him. "Every one I've encountered has been enchanted or the like."
"Enchanted?" Weiss wondered. She hadn't thought about whether or not a living thing could be enchanted the same way one might do with a weapon, armor piece, or other worn implements. Part of her wanted to experiment with the idea, but another part of her knew that this was likely unethical to the extreme and possibly even illegal.
"Look, I'm getting out of here," the Breton told the group. "Normally, spiders make my skin crawl, but magical spiders? Blech!" He shivered a bit in disgust then began walking away.
"Well, this smells like the place," Yang told everyone when the man walked out of hearing range.
"Saw some crawling in holes higher on the mountain slope above," Maarah added in. "This is their lair."
"Good work, ladies," Capric said while casting a spell, causing his eyes to glow. "Hm, the rock is keeping me from seeing too deep, but there's definitely some spiders a little ways in. Our whole group would be overkill, and we'd probably get in each others' ways in a narrow area."
Ruby perked up at that then cleared her throat to catch everyone's attention.
"Good call, we'll have to split up! Let's see, Capric, you, me, and Blake should head in together. Yang, Weiss, you guys can hang out here with Capric's guys and get to know them a little better."
"My Thane?" Lydia spoke up.
"Oh right. You can come with us, too, Lyd," Ruby sheepishly added.
"Where'd she come from?" Vertina asked, looking confused.
"Wait, you want Capric to go with you by himself?" Maarah challenged Ruby, sounding suspicious of the suggestion.
"No need to worry, Maar," the half-elf waved off her concern. "I can see where she's coming from. We'll be in and out in minutes. Just keep watch in case any spiders or evil mages make a break for it through some secret exit."
The older Harpy didn't look happy as she shifted on her perch, but nodded after a moment.
"Very well. I'll keep an eye on things from above," she reluctantly agreed. With that, she took off, beginning a climbing circle of the mountain they were in front of.
"How do you keep popping up like that?" Vertina questioned the housecarl, who sighed and rubbed her eyes.
"It's all in your head," she explained while following her charge, who was half-pushing Blake forward, Capric taking the rear as they entered the ancient structure.
"So," Yang began, looking at Capric's ground-bound agents, "either of you guys into martial arts?"
Weiss found Syndergoth's growing smile to be mildly unnerving.
"Okay, what's this about?" Blake asked her team leader once they had crossed the cave-like atrium of the ruins.
"Blake, I'm a bit worried about you and...your whole thing with Capric's history," Ruby whispered.
The Faunus woman scoffed and rolled her eyes while crossing her arms over her chest. "And I don't understand why the rest of you are going so easy on him. What are you even worried about? I'm not going to do anything to him, even if I vehemently disagree with everything he's done."
"But you are doing something," Ruby pointed out. "You're...jabbing at it all. A lot."
"That's not… I'm…" She looked over to see Capric standing at the side, waiting patiently. "Do you mind?"
"I...thought I was a part of this?" he asked with a quirked eyebrow.
"You are," Ruby assured him. "It's just… We're trying to get the… Lydia, what's a good word for a talking starting point?"
"Foundation?" Lydia suggested, and Ruby quickly nodded.
"Yeah!" She snapped her fingers. "We're setting up the foundation for the discussion you two need to clear the air between you."
"Ruby, this isn't something that's just simply talked through," Blake began, only to get a finger in her face.
"Nuh-uh, none of that. We saw how that ended up with you and Weiss. You've got to face this kinda thing head-on. And Capric's gonna face it, too."
"I have a feeling I have no real choice in the matter," Capric bemoaned while crossing his arms and leveling a glare toward Blake, who glared right back. "Very well. Where should we begin?"
"Well, to start," Ruby nervously began, "you did do some pretty bad things, Capric. And not all of them were your fault!" she quickly added. "But you at least understand how they were bad, right?"
"Yes," he answered, sighing right after muttering the word. "I know I...said that I did everything for the greater good, but...I will admit there were times when I made the wrong choice or did something horrible, often out of fear for my own neck. There are a thousand things that I'd take back if I could, but I can't let myself dwell on them."
"And Blake, you understand that, right? Where Capric was, he didn't have much of a choice, but he's trying. Just like you tried."
"That's hardly the same…" Blake trailed off as she looked to the side, her ears pressing down a moment as she winced. "It wasn't to that extent."
"But that's why we're working together," Ruby told her while firmly holding onto one of Blake's shoulders, trying to get her to look her way. "Once we find a way home, we find a way to get Capric away from all of this, too. He won't need to keep up his act with the Thalmor, and he'll have a chance to be free, maybe even do a lot of good to make up for things."
Blake gritted her teeth before looking back at Capric. "How does someone make up for genocide?"
Capric's ghost of a smile vanished, his face morphing to one of anger as he seemed to struggle to bring it under control before he looked back at her evenly.
"Do you know about telepathy?" he asked.
"Wha-" Before anyone could stop him, Capric grasped Blake by her head, and then everything shifted for the panther Faunus.
Blake saw from someone else's eyes, in a sensation familiar to her. It was like the time she drank Vaermina's Torpor, only everything felt far calmer than that battle-filled memory.
She saw a broad street full of well-dressed Faunus, businesses lining the pavement and concrete with customers in every one. Her point-of-view seemed lower, closer to the ground than she was used to, and her vision was turned of its own accord to a couple nearby, along with a sight she'd only seen in pictures.
"Forest, good to see you," a much younger version of her father said while shaking hands with a tall deer Faunus with a large pair of antlers. A woman stood next to the stranger that Blake first thought of as another deer Faunus due to her much smaller antlers, but her pointed ears and sharper features told her that she was actually a Bosmer. The view came closer, and then the woman scooped up the person whose memories she was looking through.
"Oh, is this one yours?" the teenaged Ghira asked them while holding out a hand.
"Yes," Forest answered. "He's about to turn five this January."
"His name is Capric,"
the woman added on.
"Well, hello there, Capric."
The memory shifted, and then Blake found herself taller and out of the woman's arms. The view was closer to what she was used to, though not quite there. It seemed to be another part of the same town, with a similar aesthetic and almost totally Faunus-populated. A handful of preteens were grouped up, playing with a rubber ball in a side street. Two were deer with tiny antlers, one a wolf, and another had white, curly hair like a sheep.
"Here, Cap!" a deer girl said while bouncing the ball at him, being careful to bounce it just past a chalk line between them. Hands then reached up and curved, bouncing the ball towards the wolf boy and over his head where he shouted and jumped to try and bounce it as well, only to fail.
"Nice pass, Lana," a voice not Blake's called out from her mouth.
"Anytime, cous," the girl said with a bright smile, teeth shining.
The memory shifted, and this time Blake saw the same girl a few years older, but with dead eyes, hanging by the neck from a lamp post. She felt herself fall to her knees, a gunspear falling from her hands. The town was in ruins, with some of the buildings still smoldering in the light rain, but Blake's vision did not focus on the town itself, but rather the corpses. Many were laid out in the streets, some torn apart, others strangely whole but for a single wound. But the ones that stood out were not the ones on the streets, but above them, hanging from lamp posts, windows, ledges, and tree branches.
There was a scream, and it took a moment for Blake to realize it was coming from where- no, who she was.
Blake gasped as she came back to reality, seeing Lydia pulling Capric's hand away from her. She took a few quick breaths, looking at her surroundings to make sure she was in the dank ruins and not...there.
"What'd you do?!" Ruby demanded of the half-elf as he pulled away from Lydia's grip.
"I just shared some history," Capric gloomily told her, a few tears in his eyes as well. Blake choked on her own words as she realized that the man likely went through the very same experiences he just showed her. While she knew magic could help fake memories, everything in her vision was just too clear for that. Perhaps Capric was far better than Eola at it, but at the same time, faking something like that was far more than he needed to do to prove anything.
Blake rubbed her head, processing what she had just seen, when she remembered Capric mentioning that he was born in the city of Verdanté, but the only Verdanté she knew about was destroyed before she was born at the start of the Faunus War.
Blake went stock still as she put the pieces together. Most people blamed Verdanté's destruction on the Grimm, though she remembered Oobleck trying to explain to everyone that the Grimm only ever destroyed it because it was first attacked by an anti-Faunus militia from Mistral.
"That…" she muttered, under her breath, trying to find the words to say.
Capric took in a deep breath and then let out a sigh before holding out his hand to her.
"I know what it's like," he began, looking steadfast into her eyes. "I know what it's like to see so many people, friends, family, and more…"
"Then...why would you-"
"Please," he loudly pleaded, cutting her off and wincing. "Just...look."
Blake looked down at his hand. Part of her mind thought about shoving him away, punching him, or even reaching to her back…
It was a part she quickly denied as the bone-chilling memory of familiar eyes void of familiar life popped into her mind once again. It was too real. Everything about it. The people were too real. The image of her father in his youth was too real. The pain, shock, and all-consuming grief were far too real to have been fabricated. Not even a master illusionist could have created such memories wholesale. That was one of the things Weiss had told her after looking for a way to combat any further mental attacks or subversions.
Blake wasn't sure what she was going to see, but she reached out and took his hand, and the world sunk away again, this time to greenery.
Massive trees were everywhere, but they were in a clearing that only sported a few saplings near the edge, tents set up all around as Altmer and Bosmer looked through groups of other wood elves, checking out their faces for something she didn't quite understand and taking blood samples that they soon carried into one of the tents.
She turned toward the group next to her. It consisted of a woman, two teenage girls, and a young boy. They looked exhausted and downtrodden, but not exactly ragged. It reminded Blake of some of the people they had saved from work camps who were much fresher than the people who had been trapped for years. A pair of brown-skinned hands reached out and began gently moving their heads and hair around, looking closely at their cheekbones, jawlines, and ears, all wordlessly.
When she came across the boy, however, the checking paused at his ear. Fingers tested the ear's helix as Blake noticed that it was rounder than what she normally observed elves to typically have. The woman - the mother, she realized - was beginning to sob, barely keeping herself from bursting into tears, and the older girls looked on the verge of crying themselves.
'Part human,' the thought came, though she wasn't sure if it was hers or not. Capric's hand hesitated a moment as he looked towards the women and then back at the boy, who didn't seem to realize what was going on. A sigh came, and then a mild glow at the end of his fingertips shone. He pressed upon the helix and pulled at it slightly, pinching near the end. Rather than return to its former shape, it stayed put, to Blake's amazement. He turned the boy's head and did the same on the other ear, making them match. He checked between them for a moment, then went to stand back up.
"Is everything in order?" an Altmer in malachite armor asked as he walked up.
"Just a little harder to check when they have that adorable baby fat," Capric answered while patting the boy's cheeks, making him shake his head and then rub them. "They look all fine."
"Don't forget the blood tests, Spike,"
the Thalmor soldier reminded him, biting at the apparent nickname. The mother's worry began to return, but Capric seemed to nod and pat her shoulder, the feeling of a light Calm spell in his hand.
"Of course. No worries, ma'am. Just a prick of the finger, and we'll be done."
"Yes,"
the Altmer agreed while looking at the woman. "We need to ascertain everyone's health. No complaints."
The soldier continued to watch as Capric produced four vials and a needle from a pack, sanitizing the sharp instrument between each prick that was then used to fill a vial with the elves' blood. The boy was the most squeamish, but Capric managed to coax him into letting the procedure continue. Satisfied with the collection of samples, the soldier left the group of Bosmer, and the mother could barely hold in her tears as she blubbered words that Blake couldn't quite make out.
"Hush, hush," Capric said to her, quieting his voice and then speaking in a dialect that Blake didn't know, but somehow understood, "(You don't need to worry. You'll all be safe.)"
The woman seemed to trust him, calming her tears once again as he left for one of the tents. Capric then held out his hand holding all of the vials, and magic began to surround it, turning dark before he seemed to silently crush them, all of the vials and the blood within them disappearing entirely.
"Clear," he whispered, and another Bosmer woman with short antlers above her brow slipped out from under a table. "Four."
"Here you go," she said while handing over four vials of blood before crossing her arms. "You sure no one's onto this?"
"They only check for 'purity,'" he reassured her. "And you're a pretty pure specimen, Faliel. Your blood has passed seventy times thus far, and no one's suspected a thing."
"I'm just afraid they'll catch onto us at this rate,"
she told him, looking downcast as she said it. "We've saved many. We have to have, but all those other tents… Every unlucky soul with a mannish ancestor in the past ten generations that goes to one of them…"
"We can't think about them,"
Capric told her, sounding equally saddened by the reality. "We do what we can, for who we can."
Faliel smiled at that. "We do what we can, Spikes," she agreed.
Things changed again, this time to an arid land with dry brush interspersed by some thriving greenery, red mesas, and rocky formations. Dozens of Harpies were flying around, but three were winging down in front of her, one of them a small child with two adults on either side of her. Blake recognized one of them as Maarah, younger but unmistakable.
"What have you done?" the other Harpy woman asked.
"Sorry. I don't know-"
"We know of her father's father,"
Maarah interrupted him. "He was of Man, Nordic breed. Her father is gone from us, but we know what happens to those with their blood. You took her 'sample'. Why has she not disappeared like the others?"
Blake felt her face lose its smile before crouching down, the smile returning as he faced the Harpy chick.
"What was your name, little one?"
"Verty,"
the child chirped out in answer, flapping her wings a bit while walking towards him. The unknown Harpy tried to stop her, but Maarah stopped her kinswoman and let the chick approach the Mer. "Horns!"
"Antlers, actual- Oh!"
Verty had leaped up and apparently decided to make Capric's antlers her new perch. The adults gasped and moved to stop her, but Capric waved them off as he regained his balance and stood up. He looked up to see Vertina adjusting her footing.
"She's a child," he said, reaching up to gently pry her off his head and allow her to instead sit on his arm. "Children don't deserve the suffering adults like to cause so much. (And no one, especially not a child,)" he continued in a language that sounded halfway like birdsong that caught the Harpies' attention far more than his words from before, "(should be judged for the blood of their fathers)."
Again, the scene changed, and rain was pouring down as the sounds of battle were heard all around. Men and women screamed as they fought what looked like a horde of undead. Among the rotting army, however, were a number of large, slimy beings that looked like froggish mollusks with stubby arms and legs casting arrays of spells at the army of living Mer. Capric was running uphill, several silver, gold, and brown-skinned elves following him as they sliced through a group of zombies and skeletons to reach one of the beings Blake realized were the Sload.
It was a rotund example of its kind, and towered over even the tallest Altmer on the field. Capric leaped aside as it threw some dark magic in his direction, and another elf took the blow, screaming as part of her flesh dissolved, leaving a quarter of her body as bleached bone before her life was extinguished.
"Wards up!" he yelled over the din as he zeroed in on the enemy.
Capric swung his dual-sided halberd as he made a pass by the Sload, earning a gurgled grunt of pain before getting behind his opponent. A spell was cast by the half-Faunus, giving him a sort of magic-detection sight. The undead army was alight with sickly green, and many elves shone with a rainbow of colors, but the Sload itself was mostly purple, save for a network of blue spreading through it, which clustered near what might have been its right hip.
Capric aimed two fingers at the cluster, then a lightning spell leaped out of him toward it, causing the Sload to shriek in pain as the odd network lit up. A silver elf in blue and brown armor yelled out as he speared the Sload's side with a trident, twisting and yanking out the weapon in a shower of ichor. Several spells were sent flying at it, but most only seemed to do superficial damage.
"This one will kill you all painfully!" the Sload shouted as it attempted to fry a couple of elves with a spell that looked like electric fire. "Then you'll serve in his army!"
Capric leaped up and chopped down into the slugman's neck, eliciting another scream before he yanked it out and turned towards him. The half-elf leaped out of the way of some dark mist, holding out a magical ward to keep it from reaching him, then slamming his hand down and sending out a magical signature through the earth. The ground shifted slightly beneath the Sload, putting it off-balance for a moment just before ice crept out from the dirt and froze its pods in place.
"Code: White!" Capric called out, then the elves quickly positioned themselves around the Sload and let loose streams of white fire onto it, Capric included. The slugman screamed again, waving its arms as it gathered water above it before bringing it down to extinguish the flames. The water flowed away, but moments later, steam rose up, and then the white fire reappeared on its body.
"What is this?" it screamed as it flailed.
In its distraction, Capric charged forward and thrust his halberd's tip at the magical cluster. It pierced through, and the Sload screamed even higher. Lightning lanced up his weapon and into the enemy, and it spasmed violently.
"Thornfield!" Capric called out, and some of the elves began casting a spell on the ground next to the Sload. Spikes of rock and ice rose at the spot, and the Sload seemed to realize what was being planned, even through its pain. It began thrashing around, releasing some sort of spell that rotted the handful of zombies left and the arm of one Bosmer unlucky enough to get hit into sludge. Capric leaped back then sent a wave of wind at the Sload, filling it with shards of ice that cut into it and forced it to defend itself from the gusting assault. Then a whistle through the air was heard for a split second, just before a gray and brown blur smacked into the Sload's upper body, knocking it over and revealing the assaulter to be Maarah.
The Sload landed on the spikes, some cracking under its weight but others punching through. Capric then focused on the ice spikes and forced them to expand. The Sload gasped and choked, then the visible spikes exploded, indicating that the ones within the Sload did the same. It wiggled for a moment, then went still, its body barely holding itself together as ichor began to pour from beneath the corpse. A portion of the undead army collapsed with its death, including most of those guarding the entrance to the massive tower nearby.
"Let's move!" Capric ordered, and the elves and Harpy sped towards the structure. It was formed completely of coral, and illuminated with strange, magical sconces of the same material, a deep blue light the only color about them. Some zombies tried to halt their procession, but were felled with either weapons glowing with holy enchantments or magic.
Soon the group entered the tower only to be immediately brought to a stop, as they came face to face with a shieldwall composed of well-armored skeletons. They were preparing to fight through them when everyone felt tremors in the coral floor. Soon, a Sload possibly three times larger or more than the one they fought before stepped into view, its massive body taking up almost the entire hall they were in.
"How in Oblivion did that thing get in here?" one of the elves muttered.
"So you made it all this way?" the Sload asked as he came to a stop behind the undead. "Remarkable. Truly remarkable," he continued while looking over them all. "In that case, I will surrender."
The elves were caught off-guard by the statement, Capric included. They left their battle-ready stances and looked around at each other, as if not sure what to do.
"Nice try!" an Altmer yelled while holding his sword before him. "There's no sur-"
Capric socked the taller elf across the jaw, his Aura allowing him to strike with more strength than one might expect from an elf with his frame. The Altmer hit the ground and whimpered while cradling his broken jaw, and Capric looked back to the surrendering Sload.
"What of the rest?"
"I seem to be the one in charge,"
the Sload noted while stroking its 'chin'. "I'm already commanding them to fall back or give up. We have lost. Quite the feat, elven ones! Quite the feat." The Sload smiled before touching its hands together. "You'll be informing your superiors, of course?"
Capric looked around at the Sload and his squadron, noting the energy of each of them through his magical sight before looking back up at the Sload itself and focusing on him for a moment.
"Very well," he finally said after a moment. "Alineas, link to your master. Get Lord General Teniris."
"Are you sure?"
an Altmer woman asked as Capric turned toward her.
"He's telling the truth," Capric said before walking over to her and putting a hand on her shoulder. "Link."
"I… Yes sir,"
she nervously answered. A strange feeling flowed over Blake, like whispers of voices, but after a while, Capric lifted his hand from her and turned back to the Sload.
"He's agreed to hear your plea for surrender," the half-elf told him. "The remaining combatants are to leave the field. We're assuming they're teleporting to the top of the Tower?"
"Far out of range for even the best necromancer,"
the Sload responded. "Except maybe the Revenant, of course."
"Good."
Capric rubbed his chin as he rested his halberd's end on the floor next to his boot. "And what do we call you?"
"I suppose you may call me the Lord."
It took a while for Blake to sift through the memories Capric shared with her, and some of them she asked to go through again, making sure to keep her 'eyes' open for anything that might give something away, all just to be sure. In the end, she was certain that the memories were real, and even Lydia and Ruby vetted them a time or two, though Blake made sure to ask Capric not to show the younger girl the worst of his visions.
He didn't want to revisit them anyways.
"Look, I'm sorry," she began after a long moment of silent thinking. "I didn't...know you went through that. Maybe it's not my place to say anything, but… I've done things I regret too. I'm just afraid that there's a point of no return, and I don't know if you're there or not. I want to believe you're a good guy, but...I've seen what can be justified by past trauma."
If anything, Blake was more afraid than ever of Capric having that sort of scar somewhere within him. She heard the stories about those who suffered far, far more than she did on a personal level, but she never really saw it before. Certainly never to the extent Capric just revealed to her. Suddenly, him working against the human-led empire made far more sense.
It was a miracle that he was willing to work with humans at all. Let alone save any.
"I try not to hate," the half-Faunus said while running a hand back through his hair. "All I want to do is get home and help my people. I can't do much for the ones here, but maybe on Remnant… Well, there's a lot of work to do, but no Thalmor there to hold me down." He offered her a small smile and reached out a hand. "I want to make sure no one else ever has to see or suffer another Verdanté. We can work together for that much."
Blake looked to the offered hand and then back into Capric's red eyes. The anger was no longer there, but behind the front he was putting up, she could see sadness. Over a hundred years later, and this man still grieved for those he'd lost, yet he hadn't become a beast full of loathing and spite.
"Okay," she agreed while taking his hand. "I can put the rest aside for now. Let's work together to get home."
"And today, stop some illegal animal experimentation," he added as they separated. Part of Blake wanted to find some way to comfort the man, but she figured he had a much better hold on his grief than she could help with. Instead, she merely nodded.
"Oh yeah, magic spiders," Ruby said with a small shiver before looking over her shoulder at the dragonling perched there. "Ready to get back at them, Briiviing?"
The red dragonling chirped and flapped its wings, responding to the newly given name instantly.
"You named it?" Lydia asked as the reptile squeaked in a way that seemed to be confirmation.
"She has pretty, iridesken wings," Ruby explained.
"Iridescent," Lydia corrected her. "And that's not what I meant."
"Oh, it seems you have a new pet," Capric pointed out.
"It's not a dog, at least," Blake muttered, and Capric nodded in agreement.
"Yes, dogs are just the worst."
Blake smirked, feeling a little more connected to the man.
"Phew, that should be the last of them," Ruby said as they exited the ruins, the mage responsible for the enchanted arachnids hogtied and being carried out over Capric's shoulder.
"And any stragglers should be cleaned up by nature in time," Blake added, paging through the madman's journal. "Luckily, the effects don't carry over to the offspring."
"'Luckily,'" the captured Altmer, Kornalus, muttered bitterly. "I would have figured it out in time!"
"We'd prefer you never figure it out, ever," Ruby told the mer. "Also, this was all illegal."
"Only because those fools in the Imperial City are blind, willfully ignorant of the possibilities!"
The group ignored the possibly mad mage and walked back out into the open air to find Yang and Syndergoth sparring, the Bosmer butler throwing in tips as the blonde punched at his outstretched hands. "Stop using the standard attacks, use the unorthodox! Control my central line."
Weiss, Serana, and La'shaina were dispassionately watching, their attention quickly switching over to their reemerged fellows.
"Got the bad guy!" Ruby announced.
"I'm not bad!" he protested, but once again everyone ignored him.
"Well, that's good at least," Serana said while stretching her back. "Just gotta get past these mountain ranges, and then find a way to infiltrate my father's castle."
"And I suppose we'll cart this mer off to Solitude," Capric said as he took Kornalus over to his steed and set him across the horse's back. "Just let us know if we can be of any assistance. If nothing else, I could probably push Iirerande to help you."
"Thanks, but I think we've got things covered," Ruby told him.
"Be that as it may, we're always ready to help," Capric offered, his Harpy companions nodding in agreement, Vertina more excitedly than her partner. Then the two Harpies wound back around and landed on one of the trees before flapping down, Vertina poking at the captured elf.
"Hey, can you enchant me?" she innocently asked him.
"What?" the captured elf asked, bewildered as to what Vertina wanted.
"I wanna have blue and green feathers," she clarified, to which the elf could only stare blankly at her.
"Vertina, stop bothering the criminal," Capric calmly told her. "Also, you're not a boy."
"Huh?" Ruby muttered, looking at Capric, confused at the statement.
"Harpy men tend to be more colorful," he explained. "Females usually don't have blue and green feathers like males can. Or orange, yellow, or even pink. The pink on Verty's is dyed."
"But I want colors!" the Harpy decried as she walked over to them.
"Then we'll get some dyes. No asking criminals to cast experimental magic on you," he told her. "Especially not failures like him."
"Bwa… I am not a failure!" the mer protested vainly, but Capric merely chuckled.
"At least you're confident," Capric said before knocking him on the back of the head with his baton. "Now keep quiet! All right, we'll cart him back. I suppose you're going to head straight for the vampire castle. Is there something there?"
"Something," Ruby admitted. "We're...not entirely sure. Serana?" she deflected toward the vampire princess, figuring it was her information to share.
"We're hoping we can find something left behind by my mother," Serana explained. "She was opposed to my father and his delusions...in the end."
"Well, here's to hoping." Capric nodded and then mounted his steed. "I would offer my personal assistance, but there's a lot to prepare on my end. Some visiting dignitaries from Alinor, ruins to be investigated, dragon sightings… Speaking of that last one, there have been reports of a dragon near Northwatch Keep, practically right where you've said that castle is. Careful about that."
"We'll keep our eyes open," Ruby promised him.
"Good. Watch the skies," he said to them as he departed, his servants following along on their own horses, save the two fliers. Everyone else said their own parting words, with Yang being a little more enthusiastic in her waves.
"Well, you two won't believe the interesting secret that Syndergoth uncovered for our resident brawler," Weiss said as the six women began to reorient themselves to head to the Sea of Ghosts.
"Wait, what secret?" Blake asked, looking first towards Weiss then at Yang's giant smile.
"Turns out, these ain't just some tats," the blonde said while patting her left arm covered in gold and red markings. "We were talking about the spiders being enchanted, then he mentioned this old art of magical tattoos, compared 'em to my arm, and then we did some tests. See that path?"
Ruby, Blake, and Lydia looked over to see where a line of trees had been recently felled and shredded.
"That wasn't there before," Lydia noted.
"Yeah, check it out."
Yang grasped her left arm with her right hand and closed her eyes in focus. The air seemed to shimmer around her arm for a moment, then the unmarked skin between the interconnected symbols began to slowly glow blue. The three watched intently as the glow intensified, then her arm twitched back. Yang's eyes opened, visible magicka flowing from them as she grit her teeth and reared her fist back. She threw it forward like a punch with all her weight behind it, shouting with a sharply piercing tone as she did, then a pillar of energy with a spiraling coil about it shot forward from her fist. It hit some trees and ripped through them before shredding them as they fell into the energy beam.
Yang sighed while Ruby and Blake looked on with awe, the former far more excited about the newly unveiled ability.
"Was that a kiai?" Lydia asked in interest. "I only ever heard of those being used by the monk orders descended from those who learned the techniques from the ancient Akaviri."
"Not sure," Yang huffed out while rubbing her arm, the tattoos on it looking much duller than before. "Probably more to it than that, but it's got a little cooldown." She pointed to where the markings started at her neck, and the three women saw that it was slowly regaining its brighter hue, trickling along from the top. "Weiss thinks it's using my magicka to recharge. Synder says I can probably do more with it, but the only way to find out is to experiment and practice."
"It's also recharging more slowly this time, " the heiress pointed out. "Lots of unknowns. It was interesting, though, how much that butler knew about martial arts."
"Well, he did speak often as though he had been fighting by Capric's side for some time now," Lydia pointed out. "I would not be surprised if he was a warrior before deciding to settle into a more...domestic career path."
"Either way, I just found out I have a pretty badass new power," Yang said while looking at her arm, smirking confidently before flexing it. "Let's see how much the next vampire trying to take a bite out of me likes it."
After receiving some evening hospitality from a small tribe of Reachmen just outside of a ruin-turned-fort called Deepwood Redoubt, the group pressed on northward, mostly by putting everything and everyone except for Weiss and Serana into Gauldur's Refuge and having the two fly with the amulet in Weiss' possession. The two went low as they approached the castle, practically skidding against the water as they headed toward the side entrance.
"The castle looks so big from down here," Serana mused after they came to a stop under a flock of bonehawks. "I mean, it is big, but, well, even bigger."
"Indeed," Weiss agreed as she began focusing on the Gauldur Amulet. "I'll go get the others. Be back in a moment."
Weiss disappeared from the face of Nirn and reappeared in the center of the Refuge. Some experiments had managed to expand the place, including a new hallway with some empty rooms to one side and a direct path to the 'outdoor' portion on the other. While she had learned to manipulate the chaotic creatia to an extent, the only thing Weiss could reliably create at this point was hard stone, though she wasn't sure what type it was. Serana was only a little better in that she could create dirt as well as stone, and so the current plan was to eventually get furniture the 'old-fashioned' way and bring it into the Refuge to fill out the empty spaces.
"Hey Weiss-Cream," Yang greeted her after she entered. "Wow, the Vampire Lord looks good on you."
"Huh?" Weiss looked down at her arms to see that they were blue, white, and clawed. "Oh, I, uh, forgot to change back." She focused back on her human form like she had dozens of times before and shifted back.
"Never asked before, but why are some Vampire Lords different?" the werewolf questioned. "Like, some are ugly as sin, yours is kinda pretty, then some of them are weird, like that one that had leg-arms instead of wings."
"I honestly couldn't tell you," Weiss admitted. "I suppose that, with time, they change to better fit the wants and needs of the specific vampire."
"So you wanted to be prettier?" Yang asked with a smirk and Weiss scoffed.
"It's not pretty."
"Weiss is back!" she heard before being wrapped up in a supersonic hug.
"Ruby!" she squeaked out. "It's barely been an hour!"
"It's been an hour and twenty minutes!"
"I swear, sometimes you act like a puppy."
"Woof!" Ruby jokingly barked, to which Weiss flatly stared at her. Ruby merely giggled in response.
"I guess we're at the castle?" Blake asked as she came from 'outside'.
"Yes," Weiss answered while prying Ruby from herself, the younger girl wearing a smile as she did. "We're just outside of the side entrance. No sign of any lookouts, but it is mid-morning, so that's only to be expected. How are the horses and Toggle?"
"Doing fine. Might need to get them some feed. Pig's a bit restless, but we managed to feed him enough. Somehow."
"Good thing the porker likes spiders," Yang groaned.
"Waste not," Weiss agreed, less grossed out thanks to her time getting desensitized to the great boar's willingness to eat effectively anything even vaguely edible. "Well then, let's get ready to head out."
"Don't forget Lydia," Ruby reminded her.
"Right here, my thane," the housecarl said as she came from the hallway.
"Then let's go."
The five reappeared where Weiss had disappeared moments ago. As they regained their bearings from suddenly switching from an enclosed environment to a cold, seaside one, Yang yelped while blocking a spike of ice.
"Sorry, forgot the door guards!" Serana called over to them while engaging an armored skeleton in a sword fight. There were a few more about, including two archers, and one casting spells from one hand while running at them with a sword in the other.
"I got this!" Yang announced before leaping forward and punching the skeleton in the chest. It fell back with most of its ribs broken and crushed inwards, but immediately got back up on its feet, firing a cone of frost magic at the blonde.
"Gah! That's usually all it takes!" she complained while blocking the cold magic and running back at her opponent, punching it across the face then bringing around a left hook, bashing away almost all of its teeth and half its lower jaw, but still the animated bones persisted, trying to cut at Yang with its sword.
"These aren't your everyday necromancer's skeletons," Serana explained while trying to freeze her own opponent. "They've been reanimated by vampires with centuries of experience in the art."
Weiss joined her in pouring frost magics on the skeleton swordsman. Ruby joined them, her tongue poking out from the corner of her mouth as Frostbite flowed from her hands and onto Serana's opponent. The skeleton's movements slowed to a crawl as ice slowly built up around it until, finally, it stopped moving, entirely encased in ice. Ruby then turned around and aimed Crescent Rose at one of the archers before remembering that they were trying to be stealthy. With a mild grumble, she holstered the rifle and took out her crossbow, firing a few bolts at the undead, piercing its skull three times. Blake reached the other one and began cutting it apart piece by piece with Gambol Shroud and the Nightingale Blade until it was just a pile of unmoving bones.
"That's the last of them," she said as she sheathed the two swords into Gambol Union. The rest quickly caught up with her and found the door that led into the castle undercroft, most of Team RWBY excluding Weiss looking around in interest.
"What's with all the coffins?" Ruby asked.
"I...honestly have no idea," Weiss admitted with a shrug. "Aesthetics?"
A bonehawk landed on a railing near them, giving them all a look over. Weiss fished around in her back pocket and pulled out a piece of dried meat to feed it while the others looked ready to draw their weapons on the bird.
"What?" she asked while Serana unlocked the door and led the way inside. The bonehawk trilled after receiving its snack then took off again, the women moving on into the castle's underbelly. Down some stairs and past some large skeevers that scattered in their wake, they came across a section with a small bridge over an indoor canal.
"The old water cistern," Serana stated, grimacing in disgust as a foul memory sprang up from the depths of her mind. "On some days this place would smell just… Be glad you weren't here then."
"Phew! Be glad you guys can't pick up on it," Yang added in, wafting her hand in front of her face.
Suddenly, a woman with a shaved head, pointed ears, and ragged clothes came around a corner, several death hounds on her heels.
"Hah!" she cried out. "I've already turned your hounds against you! I'll have my revenge!"
Weiss glared, then focused a spell through her arms and up into her head, reaching out towards the hounds. They stopped their charge before it even started, and slowly turned towards the vampire elf.
"What are you waiting for?!" she shot at the undead animals. "Kill!"
Weiss stuck her arm out in a flourish. "Kill," she echoed.
A literal dogpile occurred, the woman screaming as over a half dozen dogs jumped her and began ripping at whatever part of her their jaws could reach. Her scream lasted barely more than a second, but it was shrill and sent shivers down more than a couple spines.
"Wow, Weiss," Yang groaned. "That was…brutal."
"It was quick," the heiress responded as she let go of directly controlling the death hounds. "And now we don't have to fight a pack of deadly animals."
"Kinda forgot that dogs can do that," Ruby murmured as they started heading forward. The hounds left the mangled corpse of the vampire alone, padding along and sniffing about, especially at the newcomers, with a particular focus on Serana and Weiss. Blake froze in place when a couple approached her, and then she leaped over them and clung onto Yang's back.
"Yeah, okay," the blonde sighed, lifting Blake above her head and holding her there.
"Well, found her setup," Serana said as they came across a coffin with some old pillows inside, surrounded by a battered chair, table, and a shelf with some miscellaneous items on it. Just past it was a lever that Serana pulled, the sound of something wooden moving reaching everyone's ears a moment later in the direction they'd come from. They quickly doubled back and found that where there once was a boarded-up wall, a drawbridge had been laid down, connecting to a stone bridge perpendicular to it.
"Take a left up here," the vampire directed them.
"What's to the riiiiii-" Ruby began to ask as she stepped through the opening, before having to duck under a waiting skeleton's sword swing from the right side. She burst into petals and went around and through the empty bones to reform behind the undead, before hitting it across the threshold and off the stone with a roundhouse kick. The skeleton landed on a patch of spikes, breaking parts of it and letting the group see the watery ground full of spikes below.
Wordlessly, they continued on, dodging caltrop wires and bone chimes as they came into a room with webs and the sound of some large things skittering about.
"Not again," Ruby complained.
"Hm, wait," Weiss called out, causing everyone to stop. "I've got this."
A moment later, the pattering of feet was heard behind them, and then the death hounds were running through, causing Blake to jump into Yang's arms once again. Spiders screeched as the pack tore into them, and most of the group felt relieved at not having to deal with the massive arachnids personally.
"I don't know what's worse," Blake whimpered.
"Uh, guys," Yang said, sniffing about them. "I smell...human blood and...bones up ahead."
The midden was so filled with bones that they covered the floor of a large room and had several piles that made the stomachs of all six women twist, either from the gross rot of it all or the idea that the Volkihar had killed that many people in recent years. They quickly went through it, found the other lever, and killed a spider the size of a truck with a few quick shots to the head. They had to pass through it one more time, then finally exited the undercroft and breathed a sigh of relief, the death hounds coming out with them and running about the open space.
"Oh no…" Serana muttered as she walked out into the courtyard, looking around at its disheveled state. "What happened to this place? Everything's been torn down. The whole place looks...well, dead." She jogged over to the dais to their left, the top of it crumbled where a door likely once was. "This used to lead into the castle's great hall. It looks like my father had it sealed up."
"So we don't have to worry about anyone stumbling upon us here, then," Weiss figured, looking it over, though her attention shifted to the joyless look Serana held as she looked over the courtyard again.
"I used to walk through here after evening meals," she reminisced longingly, heading the other way towards a patch of weeds and briars. "It was beautiful, once. This was my mother's garden. It…" She turned towards the party. "Do you know how beautiful something can be when it's tended by a master for hundreds of years? She would have hated to see it like this."
She sighed as she once again took in the sight of the neglected cloister, her gaze going past the giant dial in the middle before she looked back at it with interest. "Wait... Something's wrong with the moondial here. Some of the crests are missing and the dial is askew. I didn't even know the crests could be removed." She stroked her chin in thought while taking a closer look at it. "Maybe my mother's trying to tell us something?"
"What's so special about the moondial?" Ruby asked, beginning to circle it a few times.
"Well, as far as I'm aware it's the only one in existence," Serana answered. "The previous owners of the castle had a sundial in the courtyard, and obviously that didn't appeal to my mother. She persuaded an elven artisan to make some improvements. You can see the plates that show the phases of the moons, Masser and Secunda."
"But some are missing," Weiss concluded, looking at the structure in interest. "Going by the pattern...a half-moon, full moon, and...a crescent."
"Found one!" Ruby announced before running into the ruined garden and plucking up a mirror-like circle.
"Yeah, that's it," Serana confirmed. "Maybe if we find all the pieces…"
The women scattered, Blake deciding to search in the opposite direction of the death hounds, two of which were now playing tug-of-war with a bone they'd brought along. Yang quickly found the crescent on the large dais opposite of the one connected to the main castle, while Lydia caught sight of the half-moon while scouring the area near the pond, fishing it out of the water.
"Okay, so, full moon goes here," Ruby said while putting it on the empty spot between two with three-quarters.
"How does this thing even work?" Yang asked as she set her own piece down.
"I don't think it does," Lydia answered her. "At least, not in the way I suppose you're thinking."
As she set in the last missing crest, something beneath them shifted, making a scraping sound before the dial began to move, turning a quarter way around before stopping. Three-quarters of the stone floor within the moondial then lowered and turned around, revealing a staircase.
"Very clever, mother," Serana said as she looked down at the secret entrance. "Very clever."