As the leaves of the Emerald Forest fell onto the earth. The sound of Grimm screaming in agony could be heard through out trees. Yet, it had been greatly muffled by the sounds of clanking metal and gunshots. Which were the cause of the wretched beasts' despair. It was a Friday afternoon and the last class of the day. For Team RWBY, that happened to be Professor Port's class. They had been assigned the task of hunting down five different species of Grimm and weren't allowed to leave the woods until having the evidence of their kills. For the hunters and huntresses in training, it would've been a mere walk in the park. However, it seemed like that day the monsters were a lot less diverse. For some strange reason, there was little to no variety in species. Pretty much every beast they encountered was a beowolf. Making the search for new enemies extremely difficult. What should've taken about roughly on thirty, it took two hours.
The eager child dashed across the clearing in the trees with excitement filling her eyes. With about ten meters of distance between her and the target, she leaped into the air. Wielding her scythe, she let the force of her velocity swing the weapon back for her. But as she descended to the ground, her arms lunged the blade forward. Sending it deep into her prey's head and split the creature in half. As the demon's life slowly faded, the last thing it sensed was the girl cheering in joy.
"Beowolf, Boarbatusk, Death Stalker, Lancer, and now an Ursa. Five species found and slain." informed Weiss as she counted the names on her fingers.
Ruby jumped in the air with her arms pointing the sky. "Finally! This dumb assignment is over with!"
Pressing the small red button at the bottom of her scroll, Blake ended the recording that would be their evidence for completion and placed it in her pocket. Once she knew her device was safe, she gladly joined in on her friends celebration. The adventurous blonde soon followed as she relieved her tension by bending backwards until hearing the popping that was the release. After looking over the footage of all their kills, they decided it was time to head back.
Their feeling of victory had soon faded as the shocking realization came into mind. They had been so distracted by finding Grimm that they never once thought about how far they ventured into unknown territory. And considering the fact that Beacon Tower was barely visible, this meant bad news. This area of the woodland was very alien to the four girls. The teachers warned them in the beginning of the year that freshmen should try to stay relatively close to the school or at least be close enough that they could remember which direction they came from.
Blake began walking in the direction of the school and turned her head. "Come on, we'll be safe as long as we don't diverege from the path."
Nodding their heads in agreement, the rest of the team followed Blake. They already could tell from how small the tower appeared it would take more than an hour to make it back. To add on to that, the four girls equally were wiped out from the past two hours of non stop action. It was torture to even keep their upper bodies up straight. They embraced their grueling fate and moved onward. Hopefully they'd be able to get back prior to the sun setting.
At some point, Ruby stayed behind for a moment and turned her attention to the nature that was to the left of her. At first, all she saw was darkness. Because of the afternoon sun, the trees left shadows that hid whatever was hiding within. She couldn't put her finger on it just yet, but something in that blackness was keeping her still. Anchoring her there until she stepped towards it. The urge was reminisent of a child wanting to peek at their birthday presents early. Ruby just had to know what was waiting for her. "Hey Rubes, something wrong?" Yang asked turning her head.
In spite of hearing her sister's question, Ruby began walking right into the mysterious wilderness. As she did, the feeling that had came out of no where insisted for her to speed up. Even though she was exhausted from the day, the drive to discover this thing was used for energy. In a moment, her tiny legs were dashing into the unknown. In doing this, Yang's sisterly instincts kicked in and bolted to go grab Ruby before she did something bad. This made Weiss and Blake look over in confusion from all the commotion. Not wanting to be left behind, they joined in on the chasing.
"What are you two doing?!" shouted Weiss.
"Ruby just ran off in this direction for some reason! I don't know why!" Yang explained.
The whole team disappeared from the light's touch and zoomed across the eerie forest. None of the other three were infected by the disease of curiosity like their leader. For this reason, they couldn't keep up with Ruby. Though, she already would've out ran them without the sudden rush since she was the fastest one in the group. Anyhow, the high-tailing adventure ended when Ruby stopped in her tracks. That voice in her head told her she had gone far enough and her destination was in front of her. Adjusting to the darkness, she scanned the area for some divergent object. Amongst the brown trunks and the green ferns, something of the color gray stuck out. From the silhouette, Ruby concluded it to be some type of rock. Confused, she inched forward to get a better look. Slowly, its features were more clear.
It was in fact stone, yet it wasn't a simple boulder. It had been obviously man-made due to the grooves that went along its surface. The patterns were that of vines with flowers blossoming between tree stars. Here and there, small birds of unknown species would be sculpted into fluttering their wings as they perched on the creeping plants. As Ruby's eyes followed their direction, she was brought to the center of the object. It was a small circular entry way that descended into the ground and gave a menacing aura.
Around this time, the rest of the team caught up to their leader gasping for air. It took a moment for them to catch their breath. When Weiss felt like she could speak without drawn out pauses, she took hold of Ruby's shoulder and demanded she explained herself. "What made you think you could just run off without a word-"
The ice queen stopped to gaze upon the small structure before her. She released her leader from her grasp and looked deeply at the design of the walls. It was something out of a fantasy story. What with the ambience that the shadowy forest gave and how every was silent apart from their breaths.
"What is that thing?" Yang questioned walking up to the two.
"I-I don't know, I just found it here." Ruby explained, "When we were walking, I felt like going to it."
"Are you saying it told you to come find it? Like it lured you in here?" Weiss asked.
"Maybe, I just had this feeling that I shouldn't leave it." Ruby interpreted.
Blake walked passed them all without a word and placed her palm on the reliefs. She traced her hand along the surface until it got to the entrance. When it got to that point, she drew her arm back then turned to her friends. "Something's odd, this isn't that old." Blake informed, "These sculptures haven't been withered by age. They look like they've only been here for a few days."
"A few days? How would anyone even be able to build anything when there's Grimm lurking nearly everywhere?" Yang asked.
"Does it has something to do with what's ever inside?" Ruby brought up as she pointed into the abyss that was the cave.
"Perhaps, but's not a smart idea to be wandering in when we have no clue what its actually meant for. we'd be going into unknown place, and considering how fresh it looks maybe even the teachers don't know what it is." Blake mentioned.
"That's not that big of a deal! Were huntresses after all!" Ruby motivated.
"In training." said Weiss.
"Who haven't even been in school for a semester." added Blake.
"Actually guys, I'm with Ruby on this one. Don't you guys want to see what's down there? Were a bunch of teens who get to discover something that adults haven't yet. That's an achievement right there!" Yang declared as she made her way over to the entrance.
"Still, for all we know this could be some type of catacomb that someone built and in going in there we'll be disturbing the dead!" Weiss theorized.
"C'mon Weiss, that's just stretching things." Yang disagreed.
Getting tired of their idiocy, Weiss insisted "Why do you even care this much anyway? We need to turn in our footage to Port- and those two are already gone."
The sisters disappeared from sight and the sound of feet tapping on the earth echoed from inside the cave. Understanding there was no point in trying to get them out of there. She reluctantly followed them with her head hanging between her shoulders. Blake noticed everyone going in and descended the steps as well.
Knowing it would get dark, the girls pulled out there scrolls and turned on the flashlights. With the interior lighting up, they could see what hid underground. Climbing down, the amount of dust particles grew and so did their curiosity. Even though the structure up top had been made recently like Blake said. It seemed like the cave had been there for eons. The way it was constructed looked like something from the stone age. The steps were made from dried clay and were painted at the edge with a type of red paint that had caked over time. In a short period they were able to make it to the base of the stairs. Once they all got off the steps, they took notice of the floor. It was a strange little ground. Unlike the rest of the cave that was made of smooth clay it had been made from brown bricks. Though, that wasn't a big deal. As this entire thing was an oddity. So having a different material as the flooring barely did anything to spark any further investigation.
"Okay, you two got to see your special little adventure. Now may we PLEASE go back to school?" Weiss begged.
"We just got down here Weiss, be a bit adventurous why don't ya? Yang pleaded as she flashed her scroll's light around the area around her.
Rolling her eyes, Weiss followed them and furrowed her brow. Meanwhile, Blake went to her left following the wall until she met a corner. Along the wall, she lit up the wall facing the cave. Chiseled onto it was a repeating symbol that looked like a circle with an upside down triangle taking up a third of it. Then inside of that triangle, a side ways crescent sat. At a distance, it looked like a bald man with a beard smiling. She didn't know whether that was the intent or not, but it just seemed like it was. While trying to decipher the image's meaning, she accidentally walked into the left wall.
Getting embarrassed for her mistake, she got flustered as she backed up and turned away from it. However, while her scroll's light was rotating away. Blake got a glimpse of what appeared to be a painting on the wall. She quickly placed her light back on it and turned to her friends. "Guys, come look at this."
Immediately, they grouped up in a moment and turned their attention to where the glow was kept on. At first, it was hard to make sense of what they were looking at. The drawing represented a frustrated bearded man. A rather large man to be exact and he wore no article of clothing. It looked like a more detailed version of the face spread across the wall next to it. The man in the painting was punching what looked like a plate of food into the face of another character. Blake moved the light along to see who was being punched only to find it was a woman with long hair. Unlike the man, she wore clothes. Nothing too special, a simplistic outfit of a shirt and pants is all she had on.
"Jeez, I don't even know what to say about that." Ruby said as she walked up to it.
"Well, if you can't understand that, then I don't know what you'll think about this one." Weiss had her scroll pointing to another drawing that was next to the one they were looking at.
This next one had the same bearded man from before but this time he was kneeling with his head wresting on his wrist as figures above him with top hats on laughed at him. There were exactly three and all had distinct silhouettes. The first was a very obese man with messy blonde hair and predominant upper teeth. The second one was most likely the most average looking one by far. His hair was spiked up and looked like it belonged to a character from one of Ruby's favorite comics. He also had a short goatee that was ignored for his tribal tattoos that went along his shoulder and arm. Finally the third, who the girls first mistook as a toucan. It was a man who had a similar build to the first one except a little shorter. But his facial structure had to have been the most eccentric. His hair was nothing special, there were a few locks swaying up. But by far his most outrages feature was the nose. The whole thing was another person on its own. It was the size of the man's body and bent downward at the end. Which is why they thought he was originally a bird.
"This makes no sense, what do any of these paintings mean?" Yang asked as she put her face right up to the second one.
"I don't know, but there are sure a ton." Blake informed as she lit up the other side of the room. Showing the team that there more than ten images plastered on the walls.
They each showed different situations that were harder to explain than the last. With new characters being involved in each. Like a sleepy looking obese man with messy hair and poorly cared facial hair or a muscular bald man wearing a beanie with a tiny skull in the center. But one thing was consistent in all of them. The bald bearded man was in every one of them. He seemed to be the one that tied the stories together, even if they looked like they came out of the mind of Uncle Qrow when he was wasted beyond belief.
Being as perplexed as they were, it took about five minutes before they noticed the center piece of the cave. With the ever interesting murals, there was a statue that beat them in weirdness. Hiding away at the end of the cave, it waited for them to spot it. Despite there being no light to help see, Ruby was able to catch a glimpse of a glimmer out of the corner of her eye. That was when the urge crawled back into her mind. The very same that caused them to find the cave. She spun around excitedly and jogged over to the mysterious shiny object. Aiming her scroll, she viewed a most spectacular sight. Proportioned the same way he was in the drawings, a sculpture of the man with the beard sat on a stand. Because he was sculpted, his features became more detailed. All the way down to his thigh muscles.
"Guys, you might want to come see this!" Ruby chirped as she held back her excitement.
"Woah, this guy is cut!" Yang exclaimed.
"It's almost life like." Weiss added.
They paused their viewing of the glorious bod that was this man to look down at his lap. The man sat with his legs crossed and had his hands laying in them. It was there that they spotted the jewel. Dwelling within the man's palms was a round diamond colored light blue with a gloss so shiny it reflected the scrolls' light back at the team. Yet its reflection wasn't the most defining feature of it. The crystal gave off an ominous aura. Just by being in its presence, team RWBY were sure that this rock wasn't just some jewelry.
"Is that some type of dust?" questioned Ruby as she put her face close to the gem.
"Possibly, if it is then I've never seen such a type." Weiss replied.
"What's that supposed to mean." Yang asked.
Weiss turned to her and Blake to explain, "With my experience of viewing them first hand, there's really only two cuts that processed dust comes in. That being rectangular or briolette. Other than those, there isn't any other shape unless you count ones that came right from mines."
"Maybe this is a new type? Blake did mention that the entrance was new." Ruby mentioned.
"But then again this cave could still be very old. The entrance could just be refurnished." Blake reminded.
"It doesn't matter, you guys got to look at your little temple. Now lets get going, we've just wasted ten minutes of our time gawking at this weird memorial. Can we please make our way back now?" demanded Weiss.
"But what about the bearded man or any of the weird dudes on the wall?" Yang asked.
"We'll ask Port about it or look at the library for answers. Come, we have an assignment to turn in." the ice queen commanded.
Pouting, Yang followed the request and followed her team mate out of the temple. Blake shortly followed before turning back to see Ruby still staring at the statue. "Are you coming?"
Ruby turned her head, "Yeah, just a sec. I wanna take a photo of this."
Understanding, the Belladonna ascended the stairs with her friends and left her leader alone in the cave. A mistake was made in doing that. One very, very horrid mistake. Ruby hadn't always been the most formal of people. But she knew well enough to respect monuments. Yet, something about this gem prevented her from doing so. The reason being, she wanted to take it. Not out of greed or curiosity of any kind. Ruby just wanted to take it with her. This was when she had an epiphany. It all became clear at that point. The true cause of the girl's fascination with the cave to begin with was from this crystal. Through some type of psychic persuasion, this gem influenced her to come there. To witness it and take it.
On that day, even Ruby didn't know if she was acting on her own accord. All she knew was that she took that thing from the stone hold of the sculpture and hid it in her clothes. She kept it secret from her comrades out of fear of being told to put it back. Although, the events that would follow would be a much worse punishment than being shamed for stealing.