Dead By Roselight

Chapter 22: Following Clues

Yang and her group were once again walking through the foggy fields of The Entity's realm. However, unlike before, now they had a destination and a goal. Thanks to the blonde meeting Jonathan, everyone in the group knew that it was truly possible to escape from this world. They might have been looking for a way out before, but the lack of knowledge of it's existence was always something that had been dragging down their morale. But now with Ruby's message leading them towards a possible escape, the group was feeling a lot more hopeful than before.

The group's first objective was to find the realm of The Trapper, where Ruby had hidden her next message. The survivors just hoped that they wouldn't get caught by the killer first.

As the group of survivors was making their way through the fields, Yang's foot hit something metallic. Curious as to what this object was, she went to pick it up and found out it was a bear trap. The trap was old and covered in rust, so it was unlikely that it could work properly anymore.

While the brawler was looking over the trap, Victoria walked up to her.

"Looks like you found the first sign of our killer," the blue-haired woman said, getting Yang's attention. "As you have probably already guessed by now, The Trapper likes to use traps as a way of catching its victims. That rusty piece of junk is a sign that we are getting closer to its realm."

Yang simply gave a nod to her comrade before taking out Ruby's diary, hoping to find an entry on The Trapper. Her sister's advice could help her survive a possible encounter with the killer. It didn't take long for her to find the correct entry and to start reading it.

The Trapper is a difficult opponent to take on, unless you're very careful. As his name suggests, The Trapper hunts survivors through the use of traps that he seems to have an unlimited supply of in his realm. If you make one wrong step, your leg might get caught in a carefully hidden bear trap, which will also alert your position to the killer. Once that has happened, I see very little chance for you to make it out alive.

The way The Trapper hunts survivors is through placing bear traps all around the area, thus essentially making the place a mine field. With his traps set, The Trapper then proceeds to wander around in the search or it's next victim, hoping to either catch them or to drive them to a waiting bear trap in the grass. In order to survive, your best option is to stay hidden and to carefully look everywhere you go. You never know where a trap might have been set to catch a careless survivor.

The bear traps can be disarmed, if you have the skills needed for it, but I would strongly advice you not to do it. The Trapper has an excellent hearing and he will hear you disarming one of his traps immediately. Once he is aware of your location, it's only a matter of time before he's there, looking for you. Disarm traps only if it's absolutely necessary.

However, even though The Trapper is a clever and dangerous foe, he does have one flaw. His own traps may sometimes work against him. Not only can a quick and smart person lead The Trapper into stepping into one of his own traps, the traps themselves may tell you something useful. Since the killers try to prevent survivors from fixing the generators and escaping, an area with a lot of traps often means that something important is there. It might be dangerous and very risky, but if you see a high-concentration of bear traps somewhere, it would be a good idea to investigate that area.

Yang closed the diary and took a deep breath, letting the information she had just learned sink in. It seemed like she was going up against a rather difficult opponent. The blonde had always been a person of action that dives head first into danger and never one to go about anything all that carefully.

However, no matter what she would be facing, Yang was going to do it. It was all for the sake of finding her sister, after all.

"Get ready, everyone. We'll soon enter The Trapper's realm," Graham called out to the group. "Remember to watch your step."

Yang steeled her resolve and followed after the group to the place where they would hopefully find a clue about Ruby. It didn't take long for the fog to start getting thinner, thus allowing her to see what was around them.

The area had tress growing all around it. There were also several buildings here and there, along with piles of what seemed to be crates. At first, the brawler didn't know what the place was exactly, but upon a closer look she realized that this seemed to be a mine of some sorts. There were all sorts of mining equipment scattered all around the place, which included pickaxes, shovels and other such things.

"So, where are we going to go first?" Yang asked while looking around. "Ruby's message told us to look for a water tower. Do any of you know where it is?"

"We have been here a few times, so we know where it is," Victoria answered, before pointing at a direction. "It should be over there, not too far from here."

"Alright. Let's get going-"

"Yang, stop!" Eloy suddenly yelled and grabbed the back of the blonde's shirt, pulling her back.

"W-What is it, Eloy?" Yang asked, a bit taken aback by the donkey faunus' sudden act.

"You almost got yourself caught," Eloy explained and pointed at the ground right before the brawler's feet, where a bear trap had been set up. "Had you stepped into that one, it would have been real bad."

"Woah... Thanks, pal," Yang said and let out a small sigh of relief. "I'd hate to have my leg stuck in one of those."

"This is why The Trapper is a dangerous foe. You can never be careless even for a second or you might end up with a bear trap on your leg," Victoria said. "I've seen a few of our comrades get killed here because they weren't looking at where they were going."

Graham suddenly cleared his throat in order to get the group's attention. He still needed to assign everyone to their duties for the realm.

"Now that we are all aware of this place's dangers, I think we should have our jobs set up for us," the blonde man said. "Yang, you go with Eloy to find out the message Ruby left here. If we have any luck, it might lead us closer towards escaping this world. Bill and Lucy, you two go around and search for anything that's worth using. I'll go with Victoria and try to find the generator. I might not have the same skills as Howard or Phillips, but I should be able to manage it."

With everyone's duties set for them, the group split up to do what they were told. However, no one realized that there was a certain special person in the realm as well.

Around the time Yang's group had managed to escape from the realm of The Nurse, a certain heiress was in the process of escaping the realm she was trapped in. The generator had been fixed and all Weiss needed to do was to open the gate and get out. She was standing next to the switch that was used to open gate, when she heard someone walk up to her from behind. The white-haired girl looked behind her to see a young woman and a man walking towards her. The man was wounded, as he was bleeding from a cut to his side and had to lean against the woman in order to move.

However, the strangest thing about these two people was that the man had some strange device attached to his head. It looked like a mask that was made from a closed bear trap that went around the man's mouth.

"Please wait! Don't open the gate!" the woman pleaded as she continued to support the man. "If you open that gate, the mask on my husband will kill him! It's what the killer in this area does to her victims! Please wait until we have managed to free him, before you open the gate!"

"Is that so? That is very unfortunate indeed," Weiss said without even a hint of emotion in her voice, while staring at the couple with a cold gaze. "However, I'm afraid that I do not care."

Before the couple could do anything, the heiress pulled down the switch and powered up the gate, causing it to start to open. As soon as this happened, the strange mask on the man's head began to beep uncontrollably, which caused him to panic and begin to try and tear it off. However, his struggles were in vain, as the mask opened up, splitting apart the man's head and killing him instantly. The woman screamed in grief, as she watched her husband's lifeless body fall to the ground.

Before Weiss left, she gave one last look at the couple she had doomed and saw the woman crying over the man's body, while a person with a pig mask was making their way towards her.

Now that the white-haired girl had escaped from one realm, she began to make her way through the foggy fields of this world with no clear destination in mind. All she knew was that there had to be a way out and that she was going to find it, no matter what she had to sacrifice.

It didn't take long for Weiss to find the sign of her next destination in the form of a broken, rusty bear trap.

Author's notes: Sorry for the short chapter. The reason this became this length was due to the fact that I wanted it to end with the part on Weiss, but I couldn't really make the chapter otherwise longer and have that part feel natural with the flow of the story. However, I am going to begin working on the next chapter as soon as I can, so I can hopefully make up for the length of this chapter through that.

Some if not all of you have probably figured out a couple of things from this chapter. One is that Weiss and Yang are going to meet again soon, and the other one is that The Pig won't be having a bigger presence in this story. The problem I had with The Pig is that her special mechanics could have been interesting to work with, but also kind of frustrating to go through. Just thinking about the thought of having to try and explain the reverse bear traps and how they are removed sounds like a pain in the ass.

However, I felt that The Pig was perfect for showing just how cold and emotionless Weiss has become in this world. Not only did I not have to go into detail about explaining the mechanics of The Pig, but I could also show her just enough to give an idea of what she does. I hope it was enough for anyone who wanted to see her appear in this story.

Anyways, next chapter will have The Trapper actually appearing in the story. Hope you guys will check it out, when it comes out.

Until next time.

RWBY is owned by Rooster Teeth and Dead by Daylight belongs to Behaviour Interactive.