On the next floor, Ruby double checked how much time she had left on her candle. It was to the point she had to hold her hand as a platform, so it would probably only last a few more minutes. Roman noticed her looking at it.
"Hey Red, doesn't that burn?"
"It did with the first candle, but I can't feel it now." She noticed, wondering if it was just because she wasn't registering pain in the dream. Although, she thought, glancing over at her older companion, there's no way this is just a normal dream if the real Torchwick is consciously here too. "Hey Torchwick, how'd you end up here?"
"Cinder and the White Fang came up with the idea to experiment with Death Stalker venom." He answered, sounding annoyed. "And who gets volunteered against their will? ME, of course."
Didn't I get stung by a Death Stalker? Ruby wracked her brain, trying to clearly remember the events that put her here. I think so.
"Hello? Earth to Red?" Roman was waving a hand in front of her face. "Can we just hurry up and find a way out of here?"
"Okay, sheesh." She agreed, and pushed open the door of the small room they were in.
Outside was another foggy hallway that split into three different paths, and Ruby again chose at random, heading down the one to their right. Since Ruby had the candle, Roman had no choice but to follow where she went.
As they wandered down the hall, Ruby started hearing a faint scraping far off in the distance. Yang is in here somewhere. Hopefully she doesn't find us before we can move on. For the moment, the blonde was far enough away that they didn't need to worry about her, but they'd definitely need to stay quiet. If anything made any noise, Ruby was sure the enraged monster would come investigate.
Her candle chose just that moment to flicker out and die, plunging the hall into darkness.
"Oh, absolutely lovely. Now we get to wander around in the dark, too." Ruby raised an eyebrow at the grumbling man beside her.
"You should probably shut up before Yang hears you." She mentioned. "There were a couple of doors just ahead, how about we split up for a minute to search them? That way we can find anything useful and keep going before she finds her way over here."
Roman was probably about to protest, but Ruby didn't give him a chance to before she walked over to one of the doors and cautiously went inside without him. The older man gave a quiet sigh and went into the room on the opposite side of the one Ruby had vanished into.
Even in the darkness, Ruby could see a still figure in the corner, and eyed it warily. She could make out the basic outline, but she couldn't tell if it was Blake or Weiss, and she definitely did not want to run into another Weiss. Deciding it would be better to just try and keep an eye on it while searching for a candle, she inched over to a shelf near the door, reaching out and feeling around in the hopes of finding one.
Her hand coming up empty, she glanced down for a moment to check and make sure there really weren't any candles on the shelf. Seeing one, she grabbed and lit it quickly, light pouring into the small room as the flame came to life. Looking back up again, she found herself nearly touching noses with her pale, eyeless partner.
Giving a strained squeak, Ruby backed away from Weiss, staring at it and hoping it wouldn't move again. Of course, as soon as she blinked, it was standing closer again and reaching for her. That was enough to make the young girl dash out of the room and back into the hallway, firmly shutting the door behind her and briefly wondering if Weiss could open it.
"You okay there, Red? You look like you just saw a ghost." She looked up, recognizing Roman's face and relaxing slightly as she remembered she wasn't alone. "Ah, there was another monster in there, right?"
"Yeah. The one that moves when you don't look at it."
"Sounds creepy. We should leave before it comes out of there. Where do you think we should look next?" He asked, looking down the hall and at the other directions it branched off in here.
Noticing he had a candle lit as well, Ruby blew out the flame on her own. No sense in using them both at once and wasting them. For a moment, she wondered why Roman was being so agreeable, they were enemies after all. But before she could answer him or think about it longer, she noticed someone standing behind the ginger and froze.
"What is it?" Roman gave her a confused look, then slowly followed her stare over his shoulder to look at the panicked, slightly transparent Ren standing behind him. The older man immediately flinched at the unexpected visitor, sidestepping to stand beside Ruby instead.
Ruby stared at Ren, who stared straight back at her. Or through her, she couldn't really tell. He still looked extremely sad, dull eyes showing nothing but deep anguish, and just looking at him gave her the inexplicable urge to cry. After a few moments, though, she realized he had an urgent look on his face, as if he wanted them to do something, and quickly.
"Ren?" Ruby asked in a soft voice, trying to prompt an explanation for what he looked so jumpy about. Ren just blinked, and pointed down the hall in the direction they'd come before handing Ruby a note and vanishing into thin air like Jaune had.
Roman was silent for exactly two seconds before peering over the girl's shoulder at the note. "What's it say?"
"'She knows where you are.'"