6 days had passed since I had first been lured into this cave. 6 days since I found out that the demonic skin spider creatures were somehow allies, despite the fact their prior owner/caretaker/enslaver was clearly not cut of the same cloth as myself. It'd taken a day to get my bearings, to ascertain the layout of the cave system and plot it out in a rather childish manner using a very old and very much dried out sharpie pen. He'd been forced to resort to mapping out a complex subterranean cave system on the back of a map of Remnant that had been left in the pack.
At least the map was more efficient now.
The caves consisted of an extremely vast network, several kilometres of tunnels with various turn off points, all with clearly obvious designations.
The tunnel leading north went to the surface, or at least he had assumed it was north. In all likelihood it could have been any direction, but it gave a mooring point for him to base direction off of. To the south lay the tunnels leading to the mines, they went the deepest, going several kilometres down with dozens of split-off points that led into large quarry-like structures that consisted of a large pit that narrowed as it deepened, with the walls spiralling narrower and narrower acting as a sort of ramp to access the bottom, where various types of Dust and other useful minerals such as lead and steel. There were dozens of these quarry-like rooms dotting the corridor as it went deeper and deeper into the earth's core, until eventually I found the end. The corridor abruptly stopped, leading into one last side passage that veered off to the left side. And there, at the deepest point of the cave system, laid an incredibly vast series of ore veins deep within their own darkened pit. The mineral was distinct, something that he had not seen within any other section of the caves darkened underbelly caverns so far. A distinct glowing golden tint made it clear that this was money made manifest.
If I could collect it in its raw form that'd be a veritable shitload of wealth there and then, however if I could purify it myself, I'd be richer than half of Atlas.
One problem. Actually, there are several problems.
For one, I am a child. It would be extremely suspicious if a child tried to turn in hundreds of kilograms of gold every weekend to his local prospector, if such a thing even existed in the first place.
For two, I'm not exactly used to working the mines, this isn't Great War times and Father never exactly planned for the economy nor the living situation to get so bad we'd go back a whole technological age, or at least not quick enough for his children to get dragged into soot infested caves to work their pre-pubescent hands off, get dust lung and die.
Luckily, I had funny-looking skin-spiders to take care of that whole manual labour thing, and from what I can tell they don't have any sort of biological breathing system. I'd just have to figure out the whole selling part later.
It was unnerving and went against everything that every biology book had ever taught him.
It was also an incredibly effective template for fabricating a small mining force.
As potentially morally bankrupt as it was to put these seemingly low intelligence freakish creatures to work, it was better for the emotional security of the neighbouring villages and townships that they not witness these things creeping around the tree canopy and spying on them at night like some sort of predator.
These things were intimidating to look at, sure. But they seemed to be thicker than pig shit when it came to self-autonomy.
I then finally, after being certain I had mapped out all of the main corridors and rooms that split off from the central chamber where all the important shit had gone down the day prior, returned to the central chamber, and promptly collapsed in a heap on the floor, desperate for rest.
I do not know how long I slept.
I did not care how long I slept.
I felt good, I felt awake and alert and ready to move.
I hadn't felt that way in a very long time, even when I was in the house. I'd always been seen as the sickly one, my lack of energy was the real culprit behind the whole issue, not that anyone ever bothered to ask what was bothering me, or get one of the several available doctors within our village to attend to me and find the damned problem.
When I awoke, I scrambled up as quickly as I could, but not because of any fear or potential danger.
I knew exactly what to do. I had to find one of the mining villages attached to the war effort, the related faction didn't matter, neither of them conscripted the youth so I'd be able to do what I had to do. Now all I had to do was identify the nearest mining village.
I don't suppose the spiders have any advice on nearby villages?
Guess I'll just pick a direction and walk.
—-
I just decided to walk in a straight line, straight out of the cave, past the big dead grey and sad-looking tree that the odd creature that blabbered useless riddles at me and seemingly put fancy words in my head, and forward unto the unknown.
Knowing my luck, I'd run into that King Taijitu again and get my head split like a bloody watermelon.
That blasted wound still hadn't healed, and the wooden mask was still formed into my head like a damned leech, the blood staining the darkened wood like a child lazily squirting ketchup onto its meal.
Even if the mask was removable, the way my face had warped around it like a bunch of cancerous pustules had slowly clawed their way over the mask, and attempted to incorporate it into my face.
That certainly wouldn't look good regardless
But that didn't matter.
I had to find a town, a village, any sort of society. I had to get something to cover my face, a balaclava or something, and then finally I'd be able to begin step one of this small plan of mine.
I had to get some kind of face covering regardless of whether or not this plan goes anywhere, that was the only way to make any sort of progress, I'd prefer to not be stuck in this damned cave. Even worse, I only had a couple of days until starvation symptoms began to set in, and a few days more before death to come in. Even if I managed to find food, water would be just as big of an issue, I mean…
My train of thought was halted, as I noticed an unfamiliar itch on my face, and an odd, almost wetness covering my airway, disrupting my breathing in an unfamiliar way.
I reached a hand up to my face, rapidly padding at my face with not a trace of hesitation.
Fabric, cotton if I was to guess, covering my mouth.
I moved my hand upwards, to my nose. More fabric. Further up, towards the eyes.
My eyes were uncovered, as the fabric gave way to a large eye-hole spanning from each side of my head. Far more importantly, the notable bump of the wooden mask upon my face that I'd begrudgingly gotten used to by this point, was no longer present.
This couldn't be right.
I began running forward, scrambling desperately as my vision darted around like an ant trapped in a plastic water bottle, searching for something I could use to see myself in the reflection.
A lake, a puddle, anything really. Anything to verify that I wasn't just going mad in these woods, something that I already suspected at this point.
It'd be preferable to visually verify regardless of my potential madness.
—-
The sprint didn't stop for a lot longer than I'd hoped, I'd managed to keep my pace for maybe an hour or so? I couldn't be sure beyond the sun hadn't moved to any major degree in the sky and night had never come, so it was at least the same day I'd started running. I'd just been running and running and running. The only thing that had happened at any point whatsoever during this sprint turned into the world's fastest hiking trip, and with all the additional weight of a 50-something pound rifle and 20-something pounds of gear in my pack it was even more unpleasant than it would sound under normal circumstances.
Apart from one thing.
My head did something to me again, an urge that clawed into existence in the rear-most crevice of my mind, and slowly slithered its way up, within and outwith my brain, corrupting my train of thought until it affected my actions.
I suddenly veered left, without any real explanation or prior thought. I was mid-stride through some bramble and bushes when all of a sudden I'd veered left with a janky movement, less swinging with my momentum and more stopping entirely in my movement, turning rapidly on the spot, and then somehow gaining all of my momentum back and pushing forward exactly as I had been before.
It was jarring, as if I'd received a full-body punch.
But it mattered not, I had to keep moving before either something found me and tried to maul me to death again, or I got so lost that I wind up walking in circles over and over and over again.
To be fair, I may already be doing that, but I'd have no way of knowing, would I?
I did not know where this seemingly random change in direction would lead me, likely to get lost and ever more likely to find myself unable to find that cave ever again.
I was oddly annoyed about that, and that thought alone was more disturbing than anything else I'd experienced so far since I'd left the family house.
Thoughts froze, as the woodland and bramble cleared unto something that I'd been craving to see for days now.
A cobblestone path.
A path meant civilisation, be it past or present.
That meant that on at least one end of this path, a settlement would sit there, with walls hopefully still standing.
The end of my homeless in the woods arc is just around the bend, I can feel it in my bones!
Now comes the homeless in the village arc.
—-
Wooden walls standing around 20 feet high or so cascade around a village, it was impossible to tell how large or small the settlement was, but I had to assume that the village was small due to the amount of woods immediately surrounding a village. Typically larger villages and towns will cull the forest in a radius around their village to give more visibility to their archers or gunners, if they had any.
So its most likely this settlement is on the smaller end, or perhaps they have no ranged capabilities?
I was unsure which was worse.
Regardless of that, civilisation was more than welcome.
The front gate was made of a crude-looking iron. It was lumpy, bent and asymmetrical, either due to shoddy workmanship or because they had replaced the gate a dozen times over. And just in front of that front gate, were two guardsmen in casual clothing, with some bits of pieces of leather armour, both armed with spears, gleaming in what little sun could split through the now heavily overcast skies above.
Light, cheap armour of different patterns with no obvious change in role? Almost definitely a volunteer force.
That damn-near guaranteed a village, and an even smaller one at that.
I approached the guards slowly, hoping to whatever gods that still remained above would bless my potentially terrible disguise and grant me passage through these shitty looking gates and into basic civilisation.
"'Ello, traveler! Nice to see another face, although yours being covered doesn't exactly imply friendliness ya know. Nor does that bloomin' big cannon you're carrying around!" The guard exclaimed with a poorly practised smile on his face.
His accent was vaguely familiar, north Valean if I remembered correctly.
North Valeans had strong, thick accents that were distractingly full of slurs and speech impediments, unlike the far cleaner and more noble-sounding West Valean accents I had grown up around.
The transition from west to north happened somewhere around 30 kilometres northwest of Orleans, going by the closest village I'd be in a little village of not much note, a village so unimportant I'd forgotten the damned name.
Before I could think of a response to hide the problem with my face, the itch in my mind returned as my mouth abruptly opened without my own consent.
"Ah, sorry mate. Got banged up pretty bad by some Grimm on the way here, A've hurt me face pretty bad, don't suppose you've got a doctor or a pharmacy in there?" I said, with a North Valean accent.
A perfect North Valean accent.
An accent I don't have, have never practised, and haven't heard in several years.
Every bloody time I try to get answers to a question related to the itch, it's led to dozens of more questions.
So, I elected to ignore the itch this time, and hope that my voice was good enough to grant passage to the village.
"Ah brothers that isn't good son, normally A'd still try and check yer face but ah think yer bleedin through that mask. Head on through, the good docs third house on the left." The guard responded, thankfully falling for my bullshit accent.
A third guard walks out from behind the wall, dressed just as loosely as the others, and listlessly tugs on presumably a lever on the other side of the wall, causing the gate to make a loud grinding noise as it wrenches upwards slowly.
I'd heard about biases in people like this before, giving preferential treatment to those with the same, or at least similar accents to their own, thinking they are one of their own or some other such trollop.
Just before I walked through the precipice of the gate, A thought popped into my head of high importance.
"'Excuse me mate, what's the name of this village?" I asked
"This here's Acier, son. We're the strongest bastards this side of Vale!" The guardsman exclaimed with clear hurt in his eyes.
Oh yeah, something happened here. The war efforts probably drained the damned village of what little manpower it did have, that'll explain the state of the walls.
Entering the town, it was more akin to a hamlet than a village, with every single major building scattered eclectically in two rows running parallel, facing each other creating a main road of sorts where all travellers and locals would pass through for business. The rest of the village was made up of various smaller and obviously cheaper shacks, where the main road buildings were built from old-fashioned brick and mortar and used crude-looking glass for their windows, likely a rare commodity for towns like this, so far from the central supply lines for international trade,
add the war onto that and the resource shortages only got worse. The shacks that presumably housed the inhabitants of the village tucked seemingly randomly in the background of the village were all made of wood, not the boiswood that my father built with, but some sort of far inferior generic lumber.
And the windows, if you could call them that, lacked any sort of glass at all, instead they had poorly constructed wooden shutters, likely hastily constructed after whatever was last there broke down.
This village was clearly in some sort of poverty, although the level of poverty wasn't too clear.
It was bad, that was all I needed to see.
I could only hope to whatever watches us above the clouds that this village would just so happen to have mining equipment of some kind.
—-
I'd tried 6 stores now and not a single iota of even a pickaxe in sight.
At first, I was looking for a dedicated mining place but that didn't bear any fruit whatsoever, then I started taking a look at the stores that were selling appliances, survival equipment, weaponry, armour, clothing, and after that, practically any store.
I wound up staring down the entrance to the local bar, simply labelled "Moe's."
The place was, for lack of a better term, seedy looking. It was a place for the few remaining workers in this village to forget the woes of a day's work. Oum knows how long these recipients had been going to this one singular bar.
I'd never been in a bar before, hell i didn't even know what the fuck a bar looked like inside, I'd seen bars on TV and stuff, but there was a pretty decent chance that was all a load of bollocks cooked up for movie shoots, with not an angstrom of reality encased within.
Fuck, what was I even doing here?
What was I doing at all?
When the fuck did my life veer off like this, what in the ever-loving fuck could have caused even a single one of these events to happen, let alone all of this shit, all at once.
I'm still in the first steps of this journey, and I'm already tired.
So tired of this place. Of what I'm doing. Of where I'm going, if that's even a definable place.
I've been tired for a long time.
I was tired long before all of this, hell this has been oddly refreshing in some ways.
As grim of a thought as it was, I had to keep going. I only have one shot at this, I can't afford to scorn the one chance my Father had given me.
With all the confidence of a bull moose, I marched into that goddamned bar.
As the shoddy wooden door swung open with a squeaky hitch, I knew immediately I was going to accidentally get the attention of the entire bar, akin to one of those 'western' movies my mother had lying around the house.
I expected the worst, and feel the compulsion to curl into myself and hide in some dark corner, however I mustered whatever balls I had left and faced the music.
Only to discover that there was no music, no noise of bustle, anything.
Complete silence, apart from a light squeaking emanating from the bar. There stood a man wearing what I could only generously describe as a wearable potato sack, repetitively running a cloth over a glass in his hand. That man's eyes darted towards me, and confusion seemed to slap him upside the face for a moment, before his cool settled in.
He was old, most likely in his 60s, although given his likely preference for alcohol given his profession, he may just look older than he is by quite a considerable magnitude.
"The bar's not open yet, son. The hell are you doin' here anyway, yer a bit young for this kinda place, eh?" The man spoke out with his unfamiliar accent, this one even stronger than the rest of the people he'd talked to in the village so far.
I walked to the bar, trying desperately to hide the fear in myself, before reaching the bar's counter, and placing my hands down gently on the bartop.
While I should have stayed on the topic of mining equipment, it was always good to gather more information.
"Why's the bar not open yet?"
"Cuz what few customers are left haven't finished work yet." The man replied, looking down at his glass and continuing to scrub away, seemingly uncaring of my presence in his apparently closed bar.
"What do they work as?" I asked.
The poorly dressed man let out a confused "Huh?" as if the question was somehow even more unexpected than a masked child showing up in his bar in the middle of the day.
Finally, the man mustered a proper response. "Lumberjacks mostly, you'll see them on the fringes of the village usually, where the guards can see them in case some bloody Grimm shows up lookin for a midday meal, but those old boys can handle a couple of 'em on their own, mind you. There's also a couple of traders who return here every couple of days or so. They used to work with our miners before the caves all ran dry. They used to make deals of discounts for equipment we couldn't get on our own all the way out here, usually with the villages closer to Vale proper. Nowadays, they try to get us food in exchange for lumber… They've been far less successful on that front, but it's about the only resource we have left by this fuckin point."
Suddenly, something clicked in my head.
I couldn't be all that far from the cave I'd come from, where I had left those little cave creatures to mull about and… do whatever they usually do in their downtime.
Perhaps that was their old mine? They believed it to be tapped of all their wealth and just left all of their shit there? Expensive equipment and everything, but cut all of the power lines?
Something didn't add up here.
"I noticed the village doesn't have many people in it, less people than the houses suggest, was there an attack recently or something?" I asked, in hindsight that should have been worded a bit less callously.
"Nonsense, we Acien's don't go down that easy!" The man explained, an odd haze covering his eyes for a moment before he seemingly returned to reality, and continued his answer with a much lower tone. "Most of our working force were security contractors, they'd do bodyguard work, convoy protection, Grimm clearing missions when hunters weren't available, they were a tough sort of people."
The man let out a sigh that screamed of exhaustion, and then continued.
"With the civil war, almost all of our experienced workers got drafted, forcibly so. They'd drag their fuckin family into the street and threaten to kill them if they didn't join. We had no choice, son. As for the younger ones, they all left for Vale last year, we used the last of our money to get the younger ones away from the civil war, as many as we could anyways."
The man put the glass in his hand down with a loud thump, damn near breaking the glass with enough force to kill a Grimm youngling.
"Fuckin Achse bastards." The man growled out like a chainsaw, venom pouring from his words.
I decided I had to get back on topic, and subsequently this man away from the current topic of forcible coercion.
"You said you used to have mining operations here, is any of that equipment still around? I need whatever this village has, I haven't got money but I'll lend as much of a hand as I can."
The man looked into my eyes, and I could literally feel something within my being click into place as the man's gaze bore into me like a diamond-tipped drill.
The man paused for a few more seconds, holding his gaze, before he finally responded.
"...You've not got anyone left out here, have you son?"
That question was difficult to process. Was I alone out here? My father had told me he'd meet me in Boethia, but I don't even know where that is, nor where this Acier place is on a map, I could be on the Vacuan fucking border for all I know.
My father was the only family I had left at this point, and he's not gonna be able to pull my sorry ass out of this one.
"No, my family apparently wanted me dead. My father got me out of there, but we got separated on the way here, and I have no idea how far away home even is anymore, or if I even have one. My father could be anywhere, and I don't know where Acier even is on a map, I could be dozens of miles out of his range."
"Where are you from, son?" the man asked.
"Orleans."
The man visibly winced.
"We were planning to meet up in Boethia, but we got separated in a Grimm attack, I got banged up by a King Taijutu and ran, don't know how far I went."
The man dropped his rag, seemingly frozen while he thought something through in his head.
I knew I wasn't going to like his response.
"Take a seat before I tell you this, son."
Oh, that definitely wasn't a good sign at all.
"Listen son. You're in Acier, we're on the southern fringes of Valean territory, if you west another 20 miles or so, you'll end up crossing into the Vacuo deserts."
Oh.
"Boethia is one of the ring towns, the ones that immediately surround Vale proper. Now, Boethia is the northernmost ring town for Vale. Orleans is further northwest of that, just a short hike from the western coast."
Oh no.
"I have no idea how you did it son, but you've somehow managed to get all the way across Vale."
It took every ounce of my being to avoid either breaking down entirely into a pathetic bleating pool of tears, and/or experiencing yet another mind numbing panic attack.
That itching feeling in the back of my head briefly returned, and suddenly I was calm again.
It was a nice trick, and it wasn't a problem so long as I continued to blatantly ignore it, just like the bubonic plague, or cancer.
"I understand sir, I'll stand by that work suggestion from earlier."
"I don't understand son, what's with the mining equipment? Surely a roof over your head, some food and drink, that'd all be more useful wouldn't it?" The old man asked once again, just as confused as the first time I'd brought up the mining equipment.
"Well sir, call it a hunch, but something is telling me I need it. Besides, my father did train me to hunt a few times, I've killed a good few Grimm, I know how to camp in the rough. I'll make it out there sir, but I can't make my own mining equipment. The clothing for it is pretty good for protection against Grimm attacks too, for the claws at least."
The man sighed deeply, before nodding.
"Alright, as stupid of a plan as this is, I'll go through with it. You seem far older than you look, so I'll trust your experience… Well, that and that bloody oversized rifle of yours." He says, flicking his gaze up and down the rifle with an odd hunger in his eyes.
"How's about this? When the lumberjack boys get here tomorrow, I'll ask if they need a hand with their work, and if they'd give you their old mining equipment in exchange. It's all rotting away in some storage shed anyway, not like anyone's using it. If that doesn't work, I suppose the traders might get some good use out of a reasonably trained convey protection detail free of charge, and the guard is notably lacking in marksmen these days… I'll find something for you son, just sit put for a few hours."
I don't move from my seat, trying to cling onto that calm that rinsed over me a few moments prior.
—-
After a few hours, the customers had come shuffling in, clearly tired beyond words and barely even registering my presence.
They all came into the dimly lit bar-room, a room so clearly marred by age, disrepair and incomprehensible sadness with peeling wallpaper and exposed floorboards, ordered one of the two drinks that was available, Whiskey or some kind of lager, neither of which I familiar with.
My father drank absinthe, the batshit crazy man that is. He always said that the liquorice taste reminded him of his time in Menagerie.
Father would never truly shut up about how much he loved Menagerie, it makes me wonder sometimes about the place.
The barman, whom I still had not gotten the name of, had spent the next couple hours gathering information from his customers, collecting information, querying their thoughts on the matter, etc.
About an hour in, he finally made some headway.
The previously mentioned traders just so happened to be in town today, and the barman had been talking to presumably one of the traders going off of their notably nicer apparel when compared to the other clientele of the bar. They had this big goofy looking hat on, which I can only describe as a wizards hat, which they seemingly had refused to take off when they entered the bar. The hat seemed to also be oversized, as I couldn't make out their eyes on their face. Their faint green robes clothed almost every inch of skin from what I could tell, apart from their hand, which was adorned with several gold and silver rings adoring obnoxiously large gemstones, multiple on each aged finger.
Strange appearances to have in a place like Acier, where the money had so clearly left and everything else had gone to shit long ago. If they weren't well known in villages like this, this kind of attire would get them stabbed, or mugged. Likely both.
Eventually, the barman gestured to me after a reasonably long discussion that I couldn't quite make out over the light rabble of the bar, as the sound had been exponentially increasing as the drink count kept climbing.
The wizard turned their head towards me, and slowly nodded. Either that or they were looking me up and down.
I could have sworn that their tongue flickered out of their mouth for a moment, odd. Was I hallucinating? To be fair, I haven't exactly been maintaining a healthy diet recently.
Wait a moment, how the fuck was I not feeling this at all? I hadn't eaten or drank anything in days, it could have been weeks by now and I'm not suffering from any symptoms of starvation, not even any signs of hydration? Yet another thing I can ignore for now, bigger fish to fry.
By the time I'd stopped thinking about this and turned back into reality, the wizard had sauntered their way up to me and extended their other, even more bejewelled hand towards me.
"Hello there, I'm Ficelle." The man, Ficelle, greeted.
With a voice completely alien to any Valean accent I'd ever heard, they greeted me with a strange tone, one I struggled to recognise.
"Russell has been rambling about your troubles for a while now, and I must admit I am very curious." Ficelle warbled out in that strange accent.
I could make out their features slightly better, the man was clearly quite old, with very heavily wrinkled skin, an overly pale complexion and notably fake teeth, having had them replaced with golden replacement look-a-likes. Yet another odd sign of extreme wealth when compared to his surroundings, it was so strange to see this whole village seemingly not care about this wealth disparity. Presumably, this merchant had done a lot for Acier, and had become well known? Even still, this level of wealth disparity came off as an obvious slap in the face to all of these tired, grizzled workers.
"What is your name, child?" Ficelle asked again.
I looked around, suddenly colossally paranoid. I hadn't told anyone my name out here, and that itch had returned, practically screaming at me that giving my real name to this person, or any person of similar disposition to Ficella, would be a colossal failure.
At that moment I recalled a book my father had read a long time ago, one he'd told me about idly while we were constructing a new wing of the Arc family house.
"Call me Ishmael."
—-
Gunfire. The smell of spent gunpowder and superheated brass. Oh, how I loved the uncanny deep squeal of the point defence turrets spooling to a rate of rotation per second so staggering that the human eye couldn't possibly interpret it beyond a blur as they prepared to fire. The cacophonous screech of multiple 20-barrel guns spraying untold amounts of low velocity scrap rounds (in my defence, dad can't afford anything better with how many rounds we need) at whatever had entered their range.
Honestly, those scrap rounds were barely worth the miniscule value they sold for, sure they were cheaper than dust rounds and sure, pretty much any two-bit child like me could make them with time, but they were useless at turning the Grimm into gooblits and other red stuff, compared to dust rounds.
Dad kept saying they weren't meant for use against Grimm, but who were they meant to be used against if not the Grimm?
Dad wouldn't tell, so I'd probably never know. That's only, like, the billionth thing he won't tell me.
I was starting to worry about our turrets though. A couple of them had a real low bullet count, like, not enough to last the week, but dad kept swearing that it was fine, that there was nothing wrong.
I'm not that stupid, dad. I know something is wrong.
Our turrets are low on bullets, the guns keep jamming and fixing a jam remotely is about as easy and fun as getting Atlesian-grade dust outside of Mantle, let alone Atlas itself. Two of our turrets went down last night, they ran out of ammo which isn't surprising at all because dad keeps telling porkies about it.
Like, he knows we die if those guns break, right? So what gives?
Eh, I'll figgle diggle it out later, I got turrets to fix.
This turret was one of the two that had broken; they were on the outermost perimeter, both in the northern end of the array, which was worrying. If there was more Grimm coming from the north it might be worth getting more turrets up there or something.
Anyway, this damned turret ran out of ammo, but some of the barrels had been jamming, and I had to get to the problem and fix it before sundown, or other turrets might wind up in the same situation, or worse.
Crawling across the floor as quickly as I could, with my legs limply dragging along the floor as my arms pulled me the whole way towards the turret in the centre of the room, wrench in hand and screwdriver in the other.
Upon close inspection, the blackened steel of the turrets barrel complex had one clear issue that was the cause of the jamming problem. There was a giant claw mark that had gone deep enough to puncture three of the barrels, and there's no telling of how much that was interfering with the rounds as they passed through the barrel. It was bad, no denying that, but given the whole weapon system hadn't internally detonated it couldn't have been too bad, so likely there wasn't any metal jutting inside any of the barrels.
Gas prematurely escaping causing a lower velocity any rounds that come tumbling out of these bum barrels, heavy round tumbling (which in the case of these trash tier rounds was actually a bonus because these things were already gonna struggle hitting the broad side of a barn at point blank, let alone penetrating said barn), these were the expected issues for this sort of problem.
But jamming? That didn't fit the M.O. here.
Perhaps the rotating mechanism?
I dumped my wrench on the ground, and grabbed the barrels, slowly turning them as I lowered my head down to the turret to listen in on all that mechanical goodness.
Click, click, click, click, ca-thunk!
Hmm…
Ca-thunk! Ca-thunk! Ca-thunk!
Oh, that wasn't very nice.
There was something jamming the rotating mechanism, either that or the rotor itself was broken, which would be a bigger issue, and I'd need to go find a spare motor for it, and I don't think I have any left anymore.
Well, I guess Yang's motorbike engine might work, if a bit oversized.
She'd be really, really mad about it though.
Speaking of Yang, it hadn't been hard to notice she wasn't showing up as much as usual the last few weeks either, usually she shows up once a week or so to drop off supplies, say hello, and then leave again.
The last few weeks, not a single sign of her.
Dad kept saying it was fine, Yang was on a longer-term job in Vale, nothing to worry about according to him.
Nothing to worry about, my overly skinny behind. Food was getting low, Fuel and bullets too.
Getting them here was her job, Dad won't do it, and I sure can't with the not working legs.
No wonder the turrets were running out of bullets. And parts. And food, and medicine, and just about everything else, really.
Anyway, back on topic.
Slowly unscrewing each and every screw and bolt from the external housing, a cold and thin steel covering for all the internal mechanisms that could barely be counted as armour against anything really, it was about as thin as an aluminium can and just about as weak as well. But, it was all that was on hand for repairs, and it was better protected than not, even if it does cause some overheating issues with the motors sometimes.
The final screw came loose, and the metal covering dropped half a metre down to the ground, landing with a crinkling noise and the whole exterior chassis, or rather the cheap cover for what was supposed to be an exterior chassis, crumpled on the floor and malformed into an entirely new shape.
I could bang that back into the right shape, I suppose.
Taking a look at the now exposed motor, the problem because clear.
There was Creep goo all over it, that awful slime the Creep Grimm let off must've gotten into the mechanisms when the turret took that hit on the barrel. Presumably, the hit was made by a Creep if there was creep gunk in the turrets.
Those weren't supposed to be native to Patch, though.
Not good, better tell Dad about that one.
A small red light started rapidly flickering on a nearby machine, I cast my eyes up and away from the busted machine and towards the whole lotta electrical stuff along the walls of the room.
The sensor array was going off, a light array of little lights that changed colour when different problems hit.
I looked down, towards the bottom of the many rows and columns of lights.
Bottom left corner, flashing red light.
Bad sign, another turret was damaged, this time from the south.
No way of knowing what had caused this one, but none of the other turrets had been knocked offline yet, so it's probably fine, right?
Yet another thing for me to fix in this place, eventually little old me isn't gonna be enough to handle all of this if Yang doesn't bother to show up for much longer.
We could accept help from the town or something, but noooooo, they were all a few screws short of a… of a… of a thing that holds screws!
According to Dad they were all weird, they all thought it was dad's fault that mama left, that it was dad's fault that Uncle Qrow left, that we were scaring the townsfolk, and all sorts of other crazy whacko stuff that didn't make any sense.
I know my Dad, he isn't bad like that.
I wish mama was here, she'd know what to do.
She'd kick all of the Grimm's collective behinds so they'd stop hounding us so much, then the town people for being so mean to us, then Uncle Qrow for leaving, and Yang too… And then she could fix Dad, and maybe then he'd let me leave the house again…
I miss you, mama.
—-
Another discombobulated chunk of forest gateau soars into my mouth as fast as I possibly could, oh Oum above! The sweet delight of condensed milk and mistralian sugar creates a unique tingling sensation on my tongue that not a single thing could ever top! Those Mistralians make for surprisingly good patisseries, despite the crime rate… apparently a rising crime rate with multiple massive generational crime families clawing at each other like rabid dogs over which parts of Mistral are theirs like the rampaging collection of homunculus creatures they are, and enough corruption to completely cripple the economy and push every ounce of Atlesian business out of it.
Apparently, crime makes for great desserts.
If only this glorious gateau was being enjoyed under better circumstances.
I'm sat in the personal quarters of General Fucking Ironwood, currently midway through annihilating a gateau the cooks had given me on the way out of that dreadful event full of enough pigs to make for a gods-damned pork farm.
He'd decided seemingly on nothing more than whim that I needed to be out of that event, and while I'm incredibly thankful he did, I would have much preferred that he take me LITERALLY FUCKING ANYWHERE THAT WASN'T HIS PERSONAL SHIT FUCKING QUARTERS ON HIS FUCKING WARSHIP!
The General sat across from me, surrounded by the most boring and utilitarian room that I've ever seen in my entire life with almost nothing of any personal note beyond the steel grey floors, walls, roof, annoying buzzing fluorescent tube lights currently boring down on me, and the single half-emptied bottle of… some kind of Valean wine currently opened and wasting away on a dresser in the corner of the room, with no glasses in sight, most likely meaning that General Ironwood had been drinking straight from the bottle.
The General cleared his throat, grabbing my attention.
His steel expression softens just a fraction before he opens his mouth to speak.
"Winter mentioned that you had been… stressed recently, however she never mentioned it was this bad."
Why did he sound… sad?
Another bite of gateau was plopped into my mouth, and swallowed with a rushed gulp, barely taking the time to savour the flavours. I didn't know what he meant about me being stressed, I'm perfectly fine, I mean it was just an event, a dime a dozen 'cordial' meeting setup by my father so he can brag about his latest business deals with people already at the event and whom had already attended the last 7 events in a row at least, all directed at the the other people in attendance whom had also been at every other event prior to this, but had also organised so many business deals, mergers and hostile takeovers of competitor organisations to make up multiple years of Atlesian GDP alone. What was stressful about being around those stuck pigs, sweating fat pious animals masquerading in suits like a bunch of…
Another bite of gateau.
"How much cake have you been eating lately, Weiss?"
Another bite of gateau.
I can't look him in the eye. Out of the corner of my eye I can see his expression drop slightly further into a barely concealed frown, his recently yet shoddily shaved facial hair barely acting as a distraction for the blatant frown marring his face.
"Look, Winter asked me to check in on you, see if you were handling yourself alright. Clearly, you aren't. I can help you, if you let me."
…What the fuck?
Who the fuck did he think he was talking to? I wasn't some child that was pathetically crying in a heap on the floor, blithering about how difficult basic shit like getting dressed in the morning and feeding myself was impossible and too hard and I couldn't do it and other such bitching.
I refuse to be belittled like this, treated like the same scum-fuck bastards my father had tried to mold me into.
"Help yourself Ironwood, I'm not doing this."
The General sighs deeply, and then suddenly his expression… changes all of a sudden.
He goes from a full frown, clearly disappointed and upset over this whole situation way more than he needed to be over nothing of any import, relating to just another generic member of the Atlesian "Noble-born Youths" if such a term was ever remotely accurate, to a blank face, with a gaze like steel.
I guess the name Ironwood is more fitting than I thought.
"Get up, I'll at least let Winter see you before you leave." Ironwood grunted out, as if speaking those words caused him actual agony to utter.
Another bite of gateau. Another bite of gateau. Another bite of gateau. Another bite of gateau.
Fuck it, a handful of gateau.
Ironwood looked disappointed again as I haphazardly slapped the viscera off of my hand by slapping it on the side of my overly frilly ballroom dress.
Oum fucking damn it all, I can't do anything right, can I?
—-
My son.
My own son, disappearing into the woods with my last protege's weapon and equipment, forced to walk some of the most treacherous regions of the Valean frontier with barely any idea of how to get by, how to survive against the Grimm, or worse, out there.
All because of my failures.
I wasn't here enough.
Would it have mattered? Likely not.
That issue remained regardless of whether a difference was made or not, my son would at least be happier.
My son. My beloved son.
Yet another child, broken irreparably by that witch.
I should have known this wouldn't be different to the other children.
I should have known that she knows how to hide her actions after so many other children birthed from her wretched womb.
But still, I never thought it would get this far.
A murder plot. Against my own son, from my own wife. Accompanied by my eldest daughters.
Words cannot describe my anger, my sorrow.
But it does not matter. No matter the regrets, no matter how much damage my mistakes in the past had created through this accursed family, or how much I tried to help it despite my constant absences.
None of it mattered.
I had a son to find.
To Be Continued…