Hellooooooo Readers! How is everyone this fine summers day? RWBY is property of Monty Oum and Rooster Teeth. Have a nice day! -LP
Ruby concentrated on the small flaming ball in her hands, it shook with power as she focused to manifest it in a solid form and as she did it slowly formed into a rapidly cooling ball of steel that she had managed to melt with a simple fire spell and then collect with a stone kiln and then mold it herself into its current form. The steel ball was just that for now, a steel ball that would later be used to make several daggers that Ruby had decided to make in lieu to Vampyric tradition of 'to survive ones first major battle shalt earn them a tooth of steel kissed by the god of war' Lengthy but it made some sense, it was a reward of sorts for surviving a great ordeal and since she was granted permission to grant daggers to her peers she decided that she would forge them herself instead of having the blacksmith in Chains Gate do it, which meant she would have to visit the woman who ran the forge and ask to be taught how to properly engrave the blades.
She let out a breath she had been holding the steel orb long enough for it to harden and now could be forged into blades. "Alright, now to the forge." She got up from her sitting position and began walking out of RWBY and JNPR's courtyard camp, which was situated by one of the fallen pillars that had yet to be righted.. "Hello Ruby where are you going at this time?" Ruby looked over to see Pyrrha wearing a warm jacket, just like most of the other students since winter was fast approaching. "Oh Hi Pyrrha! Just down to Chains Gate, I need to ask the smith some questions." Pyrrha looked closely at the steel orb. "Mind if I join you? Jaune is doing paperwork and Ren and Nora are off getting supplies." Ruby smiled and nodded. "Sure! Come on let's go." As they walked towards the entrance to Chains Gate Ruby decided to ask Pyrrha some questions. "So how are things with Jaune?"
Pyrrha seemed to thing for a moment about the Knight, how he had been constantly having her back and urging caution during the massive melee during the battle. He had taken the front line with some other team leaders and Pyrrha had followed him, during the push she realized that Jaune had been keeping the swarm of hunters in training from breaking ranks and running into a meatgrinder that was the Grimm horde.
After the battle itself had ended she and Jaune had, 'addressed' their current relationship and had promptly began dating, which from what she could hear had costed Yang and Professor Port a fair amount of Lien in some bet they had made. "Things between us are great at the moment, He decided to make the closest thing to a fancy dinner he could make with well, this mess occurring." Ruby smiled. "That's really sweet of him." They arrived at the entrance of Chains Gate that had been built above ground for easier access. The entryway had a constant flow of people walking in and out of the gateway and standing off to the left of the doorway was Grimoire and Althea in the middle of a rather, adamant conversation. Said conversation involved a lot of embracing and little whispers. Pyrrha looked over to Ruby. "Are they?" Ruby nodded. "Yes, they are and have been for awhile, apparently they haven't had the chance to see each other in the last 80 ish years and now Grimoire apparently 'Owes' Althea something." The two walked into the gateway and as they walked down the massive downslope which made a 90 degree turn to make something of a ramp going down and soon the two of them were in the highest reaches of Chains Gate looking down into the massive sprawling catacomb city which now had hundreds of new Vampyres living in the catacombs.
With Ruby leading they soon arrived at the forges which were still pumping out new weapons every day for the growing number of Vampyres in the city. "Hello? Miss Brigid? You here I have some questions." The sound of hammers persisted as the smiths continued, except for a tall woman who wore an apron over a tunic and breeches. "Hey there lil Rubel! How're you t'day?" Ruby smiled as she shook the woman's hand. "I came by to ask you how to engrave some knives in the traditional fashion, my friend Pyrrha wanted to come and watch." Brigid smiled widely. "Sure! Come on." The ashen haired woman lead them further into a much smaller forge that was also filled with stone tablets with runes scrawled into them and what each rune meant scratched in below it. There were several hundred of these slabs spread throughout the room and stacked in small cupboards. Ruby almost immediately launched into the room only to be held back by Brigid who had grabbed her by the nape of the neck. "Calm down there kid, you want to learn how to do this you have to learn it well." Brigid let go of Ruby allowing her to enter the room as she picked up several slabs, "So what runes do you want to engrave? You can only engrave a handful of Runes onto the blades and that's working with some of the weaker stuff." Brigid grabbed a few of the tablets with deft hands piling them by the forge in a neat little line. "You also need the right equipment, another runic blade will do but sometimes it pays to have the legitimate stuff." She gripped a small pick, a chisel and pulled a knife from beneath her apron.
"Now then first you want a blade." Brigid pulled out an unfinished knife, measuring 7 inches long and 3 inches across. Brigid placed the knife on one of the stone trays that sat in the furnace before looking back to the girls. "Secondly, while the blade is heating prepare which marking you want and then retrieve the ingredients." She picked up one of the tablets. "Snakes Bite, a simple poisson mark, requires the blood of the forger and a ground snake skin mixed with snake poison." Brigid pulled out a few jars from the closet in the room and then began mixing the snake poison and ground skin into a sort of paste before putting a small amount of it into a smaller jar that had a sort of glass air spray bottle look to it. She then walked over to the now glowing blade and picked up her own knife. "Now then the words you speak depend on who you're giving it to mainly so basically remember the format that I will say the spell in arlight?" Ruby nodded paying close attention as the elder Vampyre drew the blade across her palm allowing her blackened blood to drop onto the knife coating it instantly. "O Gods of the fire, Smiths of Old, I seek to create a blade for a soldier and friend, This blade is to protect him, grant him good hunts and to give his enemies a suffering like no other, I Brigid Von Helov craft this blade for Krieg Krieler the Baron of War for Chains Gate." The blade seemed to glow for a moment before the blood seemed to seep into it as Brigid then applied the poisonous paste. "And then you add a hilt, wait for it to dry and your done, any questions?"
The two girls shook their heads and Ruby took out the Iron orb holding it out. "How many daggers can this make?"
Brigid looked it over for a moment and smiled. "Six I think, maybe seven if you make them small knives." Ruby nodded as she went off to the forges to begin the process of forging the daggers as Pyrrha stayed in the room.
"How long have you been doing this?" Brigid smiled as she leaned against the counter.
"A hundred maybe two hundred years give or take. I was the smith in my village before it was destroyed and the Vampyres in the area found me." She smiled. "Those lads, ones a Lord now and the others serve him and they all work hard towards ensuring the safety of those who live under them." She looked over to Pyrrha her eyes seeming to give a smile. "And the rest of us just have to make sure that they don't go crazy." Pyrrha decided that she should probably get back to the others and smiled. "Well have a nice night Brigid."
Brigid smiled, "You have a nice night as well !"
Jaune stared at the map of Remnant with different colored and shaped pieces spread throughout the board, he could see a series of yellow pieces arrayed around Vacuo with several dark orange pieces clustered in the middle of the southern desert, Vale was a plethrough of colors with the White and Grey of Atlas's forces and Vampyres respectively, the light and dark Green of Vale and the Gold and Bronze of Minstrel. "Krieg? What am I looking at?" Krieg, the Baron of war smiled.
"This is a map of Remnant and it is showing the troop deployments as of right now." Jaune nodded as his eyes scanned the board again. The forces in Vale and Atlas were plentiful in regards to numbers but Vacuo and Minstrel looked as though they had retreated into the inner sanctum with only a few Vampyre Barons ranging through the outer lands. "The Barons, they have differently painted pieces?" Krieg nodded. "The Barons like to distinguish their own forces in the field from others, for example the new Barony of Mountain Glenn, you saw his forces right?" Jaune nodded, their shields were Diamond shaped instead of the rather irregular shaping of the Vale shields and they were armed more for city combat with close range weapons and formations that could be used to force out resistance in melee. "Yes I have, I also noticed how the forces from Atlas and Vacuo's Barons have differences as well." Krieg nodded.
"With all of these different forces running around using different equipment and the like we would be burdened with the bill, if it were not for the common rule of 'supply thyself for war' which was said by King Thorn who as you know formed our little immortal species, in a way." Jaune nodded, with all of these forces operating in individual zones close or far from civilization it was guaranteed that supplies would be a problem across the board so localizing the problem and granting the Barons liberty to use their environment to supply themselves really cut back on the lord's budget.
"So why did you want me here?" Krieg's small smile vanished. "You share a trait with your ancestors, specifically the ones we fought beside and against, you are very strategic, and you are improving in swordsmanship, thus the Barons have elected to request one team from Beacon whose leader shall head the operation of restoring order to the outskirts of Vale since the Barons of Patch and Mountain Glenn have reported shattered White Fang and Grimm forces running amok the outlying settlements. As such you have been chosen to lead a force of forty Valean Vampyres in securing the outlying settlements of Vale." Jaune was stunned, he had been chosen out of all of the leaders to head not just his own team but also group of Vampyres in fighting the forces of both darkness and fanaticism on the very border of Vales territory.
"So do you accept?" Jaune thought further, his team needed time to recover from the battle of Beacon and he would have to find out who he would be leading so that they could coordinate. "Will I have time to prepare before setting out?" Krieg nodded. "You have a few weeks to gather the needed supplies and to meet your forces." Jaune nodded. "I'll need to talk to my team, if that's alright?" Krieg nodded. "That's fine but I will need an answer for my fellow Barons, also Sun Wukong and his team have accepted their assignment in Mistral, and his forces are being gathered here so if you want to you can operate with them while they are going North to the coastal Baronies and their ports." Jaune nodded and exited the tent leaving the smell of burning candles and steel behind him as he walked back to his newly repaired dorm room. 'They decided to pick my team out of all others.' Jaune had read the tome Ruby had on the history of the Vampyres and how his family had been the biggest threat to them even over the kingdoms and the once great kingdom of Mantle which had fallen due to the Vampyres. The one battle that his family and the Vampyres fought side by side in until now had been the final battle of the great war against the Grimm which had forced them into a stalemate of sorts until now.
He walked into his dorm room to see Nora and Ren fixing their weapons on one of the desks while Pyrrha was trying on some new armor she and Jaune had been given the previous day by one of the Vampyre companies that were actively running around Vale and Beacon. He sat beside her and pulled out his set of armor, which was made up of a chainmail shirt, brigandine, half helm, gauntlets, greaves and sabatons all steel and the brigandines cloth components in his colors of Yellow and White with the Arc crest on the left breast. Pyrrha's armor simply 'filled out' the rest of her armor by adding armor that went up to her neck while the rest of the extensions covered her midriff with iron plates sewn into thick cloth that brought her armor together quite nicely. She also now had some armor on her shoulders from any slashing blows.
"Hey guys." Jaune greeted as he took his seat next to Pyrrha as she modified her new pieces of armor so that they would fit with the rest better. "Hello Jaune, what did Krieg want?" Jaune sighed as he placed Crocea Mors onto his desk while opening one of the drawers so that he could get his whetstone. "He told me that the Vampyric Barons want us to head an operation of sorts where we will be securing the outskirts of Vale, fighting bandits, wiping out grimm forces, and driving out any White Fang forces we find." Pyrrha thought for a moment as the rasp of Jaune sharpening Crocea Mors with the blade resting across his lap. "It sounds more like we will be fighting other people, not grimm." Jaune groaned. "I know, but then again this may be necessary with the fact that the White Fang has Vampyres of their own." Pyrrha nodded, it made sense especially if an entire group of Vampyres decided to commit genocide while strengthening themselves. "I see, but why us?" Jaune shrugged. "Apparently the Barons went through all of the teams and decided that the one with what Krieg called 'A very strategic mind' which he told me I apparently have from my ancestors who also fought against and with the Vampyres."
Pyrrha remembered that during the clearing of Beacon they had been at the head of one of the Vampyric forces and during that time Jaune had managed to act as a temporary head to the cut off group that had wandered from the main swarm. "I see, there's also the event during the clearing when we were with those Vampyres from ChainsGate." Jaune nodded. "Maybe they suggested us?" He shrugged. "Either way Krieg wants an answer and I want to help in any way I can so, you guys want to go?" Nora was the first to respond seemingly launching herself from her seat next to Ren to stand right next to Jaune. "Dowegettogocamping?Istherepancakes?CanIrideursas?" Jaune chuckled at her enthusiasm before turning to Ren who nodded sagely. Jaune finally turned to Pyrrha and she smiled kindly at him. "I believe we have decided to go." He smiled. "Alright, we're going to need to collect some supplies for the trip and I have to go to Krieg to receive the orders proper and figure out who we are going to be working with." And with that the team began to plan with the information they had.
Hey guys, summer's going well and I'm going off to a camp for a bit! I have also recently gotten a laptop for that so I can possibly keep updating so long story short, LIFE IS GOOD! And i hope that your summers are going just as well! Have a good time till the next time!
-LP
