Chapter 22
/2: Phase 2 of Project ARES is on hold until storm passes. Estimated time: 2-3 Days.
With the storm blowing outside the library, Jaune made a pillar of Minecraft dirt cubes and a ladder to seal the hole in the roof to keep the rain out as lighting flashes through the dark skies and thunder being heard through miles. Kohta is still passed out on the floor after running like hell through the wind storm. Everyone else check out if there are any books in the library that aren't ruined. But Yuri is preparing meals for the night as she sets up a few cooking stations with Toshimi helping out. Team NDGO check out the first level.
"Man." Octavia says as she checks the shelves. "Is there anything that didn't get destroyed? Or something at least legible?"
"Hard to say." Gwen says as she checks out the books on the floor. "This place is a complete mess." She picked up one of the books to see if any of the pages are readable.
Dew popped her head above one of the bookshelves, "Hey, did anyone tell Pyrrha and Jaune about what we found at the gates?"
"They already figured it out." Nebula says as she puts away a stack of ruined books in order to clean the place up. "They found one of those footprints where the hole is."
"Well I hope we could find some information soon." Gwen says as she stands up. "Because this place gives me the creeps." She looked right behind her as if she feels an uneasy presence looking at her.
"Oh hey!" Dew says from behind the bookshelf.
Nebula asks, "Found something?"
Dew shows a book in her hand along with a deck of cards that are green on the back with golden borders and three golden arrows crossed. "I found some sort of guide about some card game. And a deck of cards!"
"Well that should be...useful to pass time?" Nebula looks at her teammates with a grin yet unsure eyes.
Octavia says, "We could use a break."
"I get first dibs against Dew!" Gwen proclaimed.
After Jaune blocks up the hole, Team JNPR check out the basement. Jaune has a torch out in order to illuminate the way yet still feels uneasy as he and his team head down the stairs.
"Am I the only one who is getting a strange feeling like we're being watched?" Jaune says while taking point.
"I have to agree." Ren is also feeling uneasy as he looks behind the group while being in the rear. "As a matter of fact, I've been sensing someone or something watching us ever since we arrived."
Pyrrha turn her head at Ren, "Yeah, I've been getting that too."
"Then why didn't you guys say anything?" Jaune asks, more nervous than ever.
Pyrrha shrugs, "We didn't want to freak people out."
"Does that mean the theory about us as lab rats are true?" Nora asks.
"Afraid so." Ren replies.
"Oh great." Jaune says. "Now I have to worry about taking my baths while being watched. But that isn't the feeling I-"
Jaune's sentence was interrupted when he heard something running. They sounded like wet bare-feet running down the halls. Everyone looked at the direction down the stairs as Pyrrha and Ren get their weapons ready. Nora starts to grin as she pulls out her.
Jaune gulps, "Yeah, that feeling. Like the place is haunted or something."
Nora aims her Mjolnir in its grenade launcher form, "Only one way to find out."
Ren grabbed Nora's shoulder. "Hold on! Firing a grenade in this place that is about to collapse on us is not a good idea."
Nora sighs as she lowers her weapon.
"What has gotten into her?" Jaune asks Ren.
"She's been bored lately and wants some action. Mainly just to smash things."
"Oh." Jaune then look at the stairs again, "Let's just see what's at the bottom."
The team continues to make their way down the stairs until they come across a door at the end. Jaune tries pulling the ring knob, but couldn't get it to open. Nora then bash it open with her hammer. BAM! The door flew off its hinges as it made its way to the other side of the room.
"Jeez, Nora!" Jaune says after getting startled. "Give us a warning first! You nearly took my head off!"
Nora tilts her head at Jaune and smiles, "Sorry, Jaune!"
"Damn."
Despite Jaune's little frustration, he enters in the large room where there are bookshelves filled with books that haven't been destroyed or ruin. Shelves that are eighteen feet high in a room that is twenty-one feet high that looks like it stretches between both the library and the museum.
"Whoa!" Jaune is impressed by the intact portion of the library. "I think we hit the jackpot!"
Pyrrha notices something on the floor, "Hold on."
There is a skeleton on the floor dressed in armor made of leather and chainmail with two swords on its back, a strange medallion in the shape of a hawk or griffin, and a book of some sort next to the left leg.
"What happened to him?" Nora asked.
"Maybe something in this room? Maybe?" Jaune says as he looks around the room. Everyone almost forgotten the footsteps they heard earlier.
Ren pulls out his weapons, "I'll keep an eye out."
Pyrrha checks the skeleton and describes what she founds. "Let's see. Well preserved for a skeleton. The armor is still intact so I don't see any puncture wounds or slashes that I can see. Very fine material he's wearing. Must've been expensive to make or buy." She checks the swords. "Jaune, more light please."
"Sure."
Jaune's torch help illuminate the dead body for Pyrrha's inspection. Nora then pulls out her own torch to help Ren.
"These are longswords. Two-handed weapons." She pulled out the first one. "This one looks like it is made of steel. Very good craftsmanship. Has many sharp points to it on the blade." She checks out the other sword. "Silver? Interesting. Wonder what it's used to fight against." Pyrrha then checks the skeleton's pockets. "Lets see what does he have. A bit more like grave-robbing, but desperate times."
"Yeah." Jaune agrees.
"Found 100 orens, 781 crowns, 10 Florens, 340 Septims. Possibly some form of currency here. One bottle of apple juice, some drink called 'Chateau Mont Valjean', 5 spoiled meat; some potions called golden oriole, enhanced black blood, enhanced cat, and 4 enhanced swallows. There are also some 'crafting components' as well." Pyrrha then turns her attention towards the book next to the dead man. She picked it up and reads, "A Witcher's Bestiary."
"What's a Witcher?" Jaune asks.
"Don't know. Probably what this person was."
Ren and Nora check-out some other parts of the library in order to search for what is making those running sounds. Ren is ready with his StormFlower while Nora holds a torch with her left hand while holding Mjolnir in its grenade launcher form with her right. They keep searching until they come across something that looks like an old medieval style furnace or something equivalent. There is some rustling noises coming from it that loosens some of the soot. Nora prepares to aim her weapon, but Ren stops her by extending his arm. He then checks the chimney of the furnace to see what is inside it. He pulled his head away as he looks towards his left. When he looks back at the furnace, he sees a pair of bright yellow eyes staring back at him. Ren got startled as he falls down with his weapon aimed at him with Nora prepare to shoot.
A loud cawing sound came from the furnace.
Ren puts his weapon away as he gets back-up. "Sorry about that. But you've frighten us."
Nora tries to get a better look by moving the torch closer to the furnace. Jaune and Pyrrha run up to them.
"We heard screaming!" Jaune says as he and Pyrrha caught-up.
"What happened?!"
Nora illuminated the furnace to reveal a parrot. The parrot try to sound like wet barefeet running down a hall when it tries to speak. Everyone sigh in relief when it was just a bird.
Nora started to giggle at Ren, "You got scared by a bird."
Ren shakes his head, "Hard to tell what to expect in this world."
Jaune notices a book under the bird in the ashen remains. He pulls out a leather bound book that is titled, 'Spell Forge Manual'.
"Interesting." Jaune says with a raised eyebrow. He opens it up and reads it.
This is a manual meant for mages that forge spell tomes. With this, a mage can now make spell tomes for novices all the way to master which are spells from the world known as, Nirn. In order to use the forge, place a sigil stone on the hand that has an embeded Daedric rune on its palm that is the symbol for Oblivion. Once done, place the proper ingredients in a box that can be used to make new spell tomes. Sometimes, you can make spell scrolls if you want to make a quick profit. Other times you can make a staff for yourself if desired.
If you want to use the forge, go through the Underground Library between the Third Library and the Historical Museum which it is located on the top floor of the Historical Museum.
"Sooooo, this strange library is connected to the museum?" Nora asks right before the parrot took flight.
"I believe so." Jaune says as he puts the book in his inventory. "But I think we should get the others first."
Ren looks at the shelves and wonders something. "Hmm." he went. "Do you guys think that those spell tomes the book mentioned might be stored here?"
The rest of Team JNPR look at the shelves and start to ask that themselves.
Pyrrha walks towards one of the shelf and pulls out a dirty brown book with a tree on it. It says, 'Alteration Spell Tome: Candlelight'. She opens the book and when she read it, it disappeared.
"What happened?" Nora asks.
Pyrrha states, "I don't know. I just read the book and then it disappeared. But..." Pyrrha raises her left hand which starts to show a bright light. She casts it which later caused a light hovering over her head.
"YOU CAN USE MAGIC NOW!" Jaune says with excitement as he drops his torch. "AWESOME!"
Ren looks awestruck at what Pyrrha just did, "Guess magic does exist."
"MY TURN!" Nora declared.
"Hold on!" Pyrrha says. "Let me check my stats." She looked at her implant to see some of the new stuff. Her eyes widen as she looked. "You guys need to see this."
Nora, Ren, and Jaune looked at their implants and saw something that is amazing. They see their new skill trees in the shape of some celestial nebulas in the shape of humanoid figures. The first is a blue mage wielding a staff that represents magical skills, a red warrior wielding an axe that represents fighting, armor, and smithing; and a green hooded assassin that represents stealth and speech.
"I love this." Jaune says as he likes the look of the skill tree.
"Why didn't we noticed this earlier?" Nora asked.
Ren smiles, "Because you were asleep."
"Oh. Then lets learn!"
Ren now looks at Nora awkwardly. He didn't expect Nora to be that interested in learning. She wasn't back at Beacon, but now is.
"Alright team!" Jaune announces to his teammates, "Let's load up our inventory as much as we can! Tomorrow, we're gonna go to the museum!"
Over at Blue Base, Doc is at a computer on Basebook 2.0 with Simmons in a chatroom.
Simmons: Are you sure about that?
Doc: Yeah, that's what I've got from my research.
Simmons: Damn. WFT
Doc: LOL
Tucker steps in the room, "Hey, Doc. What's going on?"
Doc turns from his chair, "Oh hey, Tucker. Just give me a moment." He turns back to the computer to log off.
Doc: Gotta go. See ya'.
Simmons: I'll be over.
After logging off, he looks back at Tucker, "Sorry, I was talking to Simmons via Basebook."
"Basebook again?" Tucker is slightly disappointed. "Seriously? Why can't we get some porn videos?"
"There were a few done by Sister on Basebook."
"Really?!" Tucker sounds excited.
"But the generals decided to delete them."
"Fuck." Tucker looks down in disappointment.
"Well anyway. I discovered that Pvt. Alex's immune system has been boosted. Not by modern medicine. But by our implants. I've been chatting with Simmons about my discovery."
"Yeah. So?" Tucker doesn't sound interested.
"What I'm saying is that the implants on our arms have given us immunity boosters against any germs on this planet. Pvt. Alex's implant just took a little longer to kick in since his immune system is a bit more primitive than ours. This is pretty advance alien medical technology! More advance than the ones on Chorus!"
"Uh-huh."
"But I've also discovered that- Hey! Are you listening!"
"Whatever." Tucker left. "I'm gonna find someone willing to have sex with me."
Doc got up and yelled down the hall, "DIDN'T YOU LEARNED YOUR LESSON FROM CHORUS ABOUT CHILD SUPPORT PAYMENTS!? MY NEXT PART IS ABOUT THAT!"
"CHILD SUPPORT DOESN'T EXIST HERE!" Tucker shouts back.
"Guess he does have a point."
Simmons then showed up, "Hey, Doc. What did I miss?"
"Just miss the ignorance of idiocy." Doc says to Simmons. He turns around to face him, "Speaking of, any word of Sarge?"
"YEEEE-HAAAA!" Sarge shouted from the driver seat of his warthog and the radio playing the warhog's theme. "Let's go again!" The troops pass by a very familiar rock as a sandstorm is about to roll in.
"Does anyone else feel like we're going nowhere?" Rick ask. "We've passed by that rock like a dozen times by now."
"Are you sure it's the same rock?" Theo asks Rick. "Because I can't see it on this side. All these sand dunes look the same to me."
"I've noticed." Pvt. John says from his shotgun seat. "I feel like we're going in circles yet we haven't made any turns with this steel horse."
"Hard to say from back here." Pvt. Alex is in the back seat. "Yet feels like we are because I keep on seeing the same hill."
"Enough chit-chat!" Sarge ordered as the sandstorm is coming from the south. "We're gonna declare war on aliens and savages! And a good thing too. I was getting bored shooting at Grif."
FLASHBACK
Grif just got out of his inflatable dome with Sarge standing on the top of it. Grif stretches his arms until Sarge shot him.
BANG!
"Ow!"
"Score one!"
Another time, Grif is in the mess hall as he looks around to make sure no one gets his last lemon pound cake MRE. He carefully opens it but Sarge managed to shoot Grif from the right side.
BANG!
"Oh come on!"
"Score ten!"
Sarge took the lemon pound cake MRE for himself and walks away.
Another time, Grif runs down the hall in order to use the bathroom. "Oh god. Oh god." he says while out of breath. But when he opened the door, a shotgun barrel aimed at his face and shot him.
BANG!
"FUCK YOU!"
"Officers get first dibs on the toilet." Sarge says right before flushing.
Grif is just walking down a hallway that one time right before he comes across not one, but five Sarges. He runs away while screaming, "HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING THIS!"
"ATTACK!" one of the Sarge shouts which all five chase Grif down the hall.
FLASHBACK END
"Did you just made that last one up?" Pvt. John asks in disbelief. "Because that one sounded like a tall tale if you ask me."
"Here we go again!" Sarge says with excitement as he goes over another dune. When the he drives the warthog over the dune, he goes, "YEEE-HAAAA!" again.
But then they pass the same familiar-looking rock again.
"I don't think we're getting anywhere!" Rick states.
Sarge counters, "That's because this thing needs to be faster! That would explain why we're not getting anywhere!"
"Bad news." Alexander says as he looks at what he sees. "Sandstorms here and it's gonna engulf us."
"We'll out run it!" Sarge says with excitement. "Mother nature can suck it! YEEEEEAAAAA!"
But the sandstorm engulfed them.
"FUCK!" everyone says.
Sarge grumps, "Time to set up camp. Did anyone bring any yurts or tents?"
Over at the vault, everyone is trying to keep their spirits up when down there. Ruby and Weiss are playing their own version of chess with bottlecaps as pawns and different bullets for other pieces over at the overseer's office. Yang is doing a workout in the gym by using a pommel horse with Neptune and Sage lifting weights. Blake is in the library reading a book with Sun sleeping on her lap. Miki is there as well while reading 'Lying, Congressional Style'. Yuki is sleeping in her bedroom with all the dogs on her bed. Saeko is polishing her katana. Oscar and Penny are checking on the emergency farm they have in the vault along with looking after the animals...and cleaning them up. But they're drawn closer to each other than every. Whitley is busy sulking in his own room while staring at the ceiling of the vault room while Willow is sleeping...and snoring. Everyone else are watching a movie in the atrium. Today's movie, Creature from the Black Lagoon. Up next, Star Wars: Episode IV (original theatrical version).
AN: Does anyone missed the original theatrical version of Star Wars: Episode IV? Because I do! It represents my childhood and why I loved Star Wars. Can we get it on Blu-Ray now?! Come on Disney!
"Any word on the others?" Weiss asks.
"Nope." Ruby responds as she places a pawn forward.
"I'm just a little worried about my sister."
"It'll be alright." Ruby re-ensures her teammate. "She is part of the Atlas' Special Forces."
"I supposed your right." Weiss feels a lot better, but something is bothering her. "But we're on a different planet where the impossible is possible. Aliens. Robots. Mutants. Zombies. Prehistoric monsters. Magic. For all we know, there might be ghosts that come out at night."
"Are you foreshadowing or just stalling?"
"I- Wait, what?"
"Make a move already." Ruby is getting impatient for Weiss' turn.
"Oh right." Weiss looks at the board and move a shotgun slug, that represents a bishop, forward.
Ruby then moves a fusion cell, that represents a knight, and took one of Weiss' pawns. "Checkmate."
Weiss looks at the board and is shocked. Weiss' 50 caliber, which is a king, is caught between two knights, a bishop, and a 5mm round that represents a queen. "How did that happen?!" she asked before looking up at Ruby. "Did you cheat?"
"Nope." Ruby just smiles.
"New game!" she says furiously and like a sore loser.
"You're on!" Ruby says with excitement and having her game face on.
AN: Hey guys. Sorry for a short chapter, but things have been hectic at work lately since Independence Day (4th of July for those who aren't from the United States) is coming up and things have to be done quickly. Now for the questions.
RvB Man: I'm no medical or alien techno expert, but that's the best explanation that I can come up with.
Bomberguy786: I forgotten about the "World of Remnant" videos until I read your review. And you're right. But there are still some...gaps to the RWBY lore that need to be filled. But how about this explanation on how Ruby knowing what a plane is. There are some Pre-War books from Fallout: New Vegas when Team SSSN took everything from the Nuka-World Red Rocket Gas Station. The books may not have titles, nor can be read in the games, but still good enough to read.
Victor John Foxfire: Sorry, but the people doing the experiments don't like leaving any survivors when an experiment has reached its point, been discovered, or goes wrong. But there are some sentient creatures that the egg-heads let live for further study. However, don't expect anything from Tamriel though. For the question: You'll have to wait and see. Wait & see.
Anyway, about the polls. You know, about what my next series is gonna be which I described in the last chapter? Only got one vote. One vote out of twenty visitors out of 277 viewers. Need more opinions on them from YOU GUYS. I would like to know what you guys like to check-out next. How often you get to decide on what story the writer get to write next.
Forgot to mention: No new chapter next week.