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Chapter 117

The growls and screeches of the Grimm scaling the walls echoed between the two towering walls of the chasm. The veritable tidal wave of black crept upward as Summer and Jaune turned on their heels and sprinted back.

"The door!" Summer shouted. "Close the door!"

Smashing dust crystals aside, Jaune planted his hand on the stone slab and willed it to close. He had no idea if `will` was what was required, but stone slabs began to groan and shift, cracking more of the dust crystals that had grown across it. The gargantuan slab creaked into place all too patiently, ignorant of the Grimm closing in on them.

"Come on. Come on. Come on." Jaune tried to pull it along. It didn't go any faster.

On the other side of the door, the first waves of black figures scaled the dust-covered walls on either side of their platform. They tumbled off and downward, trying to land on the platform to get to them. Most fell back into the pool below, but some struck the stone ledge and dragged themselves to their feet. The first lunged at them, only for the stone door to slam shut in its face. The sound of the impact on the other side was muffled.

Jaune staggered back, afraid of accidentally opening it again if he got close. His legs shook and he landed on his rear, sat among sharp dust crystals with Summer on her knees beside him.

"That was too many!" she said between gasps of air. "I've never seen so many Grimm in one place before."

He had. In Atlas. But then even that hadn't been with just two people to stand against them. That wave hadn't even made a dent on the pools below, either. Why was there a pool here? Could it even be called a pool if it was that big? It was practically a lake of darkness.

Those were supposed to be in the Grimmlands. Ozpin always said – gah. Why was he taking anything Ozpin said seriously? If this were sealed, he must have thought it done with. It wasn't hard to see why Salem and Ozpin had sealed it in the first place back when the Ashari civilisation was still a thing. If something like this opened up in the ground near them, it would be a never-ending source of Grimm.

"Did the dust make the Grimm?" Summer asked. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"Is it?" he asked honestly.

"What do you think?"

"Maybe dust grows near them. Or maybe the fact this place is so impossible for humans to access means the dust was never harvested. I'm trying to keep my options open. If dust really does create Grimm, that's not a reason for Salem to be right. If dust spawns Grimm, we need to side with the SDC and mine every bit of dust on the planet."

Summer's laughter was just a little hysterical. "Y-Yeah. I guess so. The door is holding…"

"It was made by the Ashari to hold this in for however long it's been." Jaune pushed himself up and offered a hand to Summer, hauling her to her feet as well. "If it's worked this long, I guess it'll keep working."

The Grimm had gone oddly silent on the other side. Was the door blocking off noise or had they melted back into the darkness below? They couldn't go back and check either way. Even if they could, he doubted Summer would let it happen.

We've not really discovered anything, he thought. That there were Grimm and a fresh source of darkness here was obviously a big deal, but it didn't answer any of the questions Salem posed. It couldn't be that this was a trick to open it and grant her access to more material either, because she made this body and gave it the sigil. Opening this was well within her power and she'd chosen not to.

There was dust in the main cavern they'd retreated to. Great big crystals and formations that grew across the floor, walls and ceiling. Moving over to one, he slid his head along the side of it and peered into its depths. The crystals weren't as reflective or diamond or other precious gems. They were much more transparent, kind of like coloured glass. Holding his hand up on the other side he could just make out his digits, and there didn't seem to be anything in between him and his hand. No Grimm foetus or pocket of darkness or anything else that would suggest it was oozing the stuff of nightmares.

Then again, this was nothing compared to the amount of dust in the chasm. What if it required a certain quantity or long periods of time to collect? The dust had probably always existed when the chasm opened up in the Ashari Kingdom, so the darkness could have always been there.

"Can we leave?" Summer asked anxiously. She'd slid over toward the tunnel leading out. "I don't want to stay here any longer."

"Oh. Right." He pulled away from the crystals and picked his way toward her. "I guess there's no point staying if we can't explore beyond the door. I'm not sure this proof Salem had is enough, though. There's obviously something going on here, but we didn't exactly get the time to see it."

"I'd rather not. Let's just close both the doors and forget this place ever existed."

Crack

Jaune and Summer both flinched. The creaking, cracking sound came not from the door behind them but a row of large crystals in the centre of the room. Spiderweb fractures expanded along them, creaking and splintering across the whole room from one side to the other. The only reason they could be breaking without one of them touching them was…

The floor caved in just as Summer reached the tunnel but before he could. Rock crumbled and the crystalline formations that had been building across it shattered like fine glass without the support, scattering down like multicoloured rain.

He cried out as he fell, arms flailing and body twisting to try and get his eyes looking down for a proper landing. It came before he was ready and long before he'd had a chance to catch his breath. The impact blew the air out his lungs and he bounced across rubble, crunching and smashing shards of dust under his weight. Jaune came to a stop when he rolled into a rock that had fallen in such a way as to form a barrier. He curled around it, hands gripping on as he struggled to breathe.

"G-Gah. B-Bloody hell…"

"Jaune!" Summer called. "Are you okay?"

"Y-Yeah!" His attempt to shout back was so weak he echoed it a second time. "I'm alive! It…" He looked up, catching sight of the light still glinting off the dust above. It only looked to be a ten metre drop. "It's not as big as it looks."

"I'm coming down."

"No. No! Stay up there and get out-"

Boots crunched down beside him; Summer landing much more gracefully than he had. "I'm not leaving you behind. Are you okay? Did you take an injury?"

He didn't think so. Rather than answer, he rolled onto his front and felt over his back. His hands brushed off hundreds of little shards of dust, but the thick military overcoat must have prevented any from piercing skin, and he'd thrown his aura up the first chance he got. Brushing more off, he pushed his hands down and himself to his feet.

"Don't think anything is broken. It was more a surprise than anything."

"The dust must have weakened the rock as it formed over and pierced through it," Summer said, looking up toward where they'd once been. "I bet the dust was all that was holding it up, then the sudden vibrations from beyond the door combined with our weight must have stressed it."

"Maybe. If the dust really did grow beyond the door and came through, the chamber might have been a lot more stable in Salem's day." He looked back toward what would be below the sealed door. There wasn't another door in their new cavern, only solid rock wall with dust prickled across it.

Summer saw his gaze. "I don't think the Grimm can break through. They'd have dug around the door centuries ago if it were that easy."

Good point. The Ashari must have done something to the whole area to make that impossible. Perhaps the dust was a part of that instead of the cause of the Grimm. Checking his weapons, he righted Crocea Mors on his hip and look upward. "Think we can climb back up?"

"The only thing to climb is crystals and they've already proven fragile." As one, their eyes dropped to a new opening ahead – an underground cave system dotted with the same crystals that appeared to be below the one they'd been in. "I guess our best bet is this. It has to lead out, right?"

"No ladder connecting this and the chamber above, so I'd say so. Why would the Ashari make it if it wasn't for a purpose?"

Summer smiled hopefully and hopped off the fallen rubble. "That's good enough for me. Let's go."

The torchlight from their scrolls was still blindingly bright when reflecting off the crystalline walls so they had to dim it to not be blinded. Thankfully, that made the light pulse and flash down the tunnels far beyond the natural reach of their torches, meaning the whole area was illuminated and not just the immediate path.

It was hard to be sure with the floor, walls and ceiling turned to dust, but the tunnel did feel rather round. That could have been nature – it was often too easy to assume things were manmade when they had even the slightest uniformity – but he was willing to bet this was tunnelled out all the same. It was just a little too conveniently placed below the other tunnels, though the fact the elevation was leading them down wasn't promising.

Neither cared to speak. Or they were lost in their own thoughts. Summer's might have been or Ruby and Yang, but his was firmly on the pools behind and how this might have happened. According to the murals in the first cairn, the Grimm poured from cracks in Remnant's crust. He'd honestly thought that just a symbolic thing. Born from the ground kind of mysticism or a reference to an underworld. It clearly wasn't. There very much had been cracks, and those cracks birthed what Oobleck certainly assumed were the first recorded sights of Grimm.

Certainly the first the Ashari ever found or they wouldn't have expressed it as such a crisis. The question was, was it really the first ever? The idea of the Grimm being some subterranean race didn't work when they were quite literally born of that foul substance. Salem could design and make them in the Grimmlands from what he knew, but that was obviously a trick picked up after the Ashari Kingdom, or the Grimm here wouldn't have been an issue.

Why did the Grimm first come for the Ashari, then? Salem is suggesting our mining is making it worse now, but I doubt the Ashari were mining dust all the way back then. They wouldn't have had the technology.

Bad luck?

It was possible. The chasms could have opened up due to seismic activity unrelated to anything the Ashari did. Salem clearly didn't think so and she probably knew more about it than him, but at the same time she was still of an ancient era. She could be wrong. Big scar opens up in the ground and there's `blood` at the bottom spurting out Grimm like it's going out of fashion. Easy to say the planet is alive and bleeding if you saw that and didn't know better.

And yet, Salem knew better. She knew about the Brother Gods because she'd come from the time before the Ashari, and she and Ozpin formed the Ashari out of the remnants of those civilisations from the time of the Gods.

Magic, she said. Dust is crystallised magic. Is that possible…?

If so, they were walking down a cavern suffused with it. Magic that was doing what it was meant to – being born into plants and animals, dying and coming back. A cycle that was meant to be self-sustaining but wasn't because the God of Darkness had left, turning off the tap as he went. The SDC weren't even the real problem. They would make it faster, if Salem was telling the truth, but since it was no longer birthing anew, even if the SDC didn't exist, it would all fade away sooner or later.

Presumably, they'd already thought to ask Jinn if more could be made, given they had centuries for this. She must have said it was something only the Gods could do. In which case, what were the pools of darkness? Magic in a liquid form? Did the dust crystallise from that and spread over Remnant? Small pockets of liquid that had, over the years, dried up and formed into crystal?

If so, then areas where there was no dust, or it had been mined dry really shouldn't have many Grimm in them. And the ocean should be teeming with Grimm since mining underwater deposits couldn't be easy. It wasn't, however. There were some Grimm out there, but shipping was mostly still a fairly safe option for freight. No more or less Grimm in the sea than on land.

"Can you imagine how bad this must have been for the Ashari?" Summer said suddenly. "Tens of thousands of Grimm pouring out and they need to build over the top of it. Dig tunnels under constant attack. Seal it off."

"It must have taken a lot. Lives, manpower and building material. Maybe Salem and Ozma led the charge."

"Weird to think they once worked together, isn't it?" she asked. "I mean, obviously what happened to the first Kingdoms when the Gods were around was bad, but the Ashari Kingdom sounded like a utopia. Or it was meant to be. Do you think it was…?"

"It might well have been." He flashed the torch ahead and kept moving. "Everyone would have felt betrayed by the Gods, so in a weird way that might have had everyone feeling they were on the same page. Then Ozma and Salem take control and, by all accounts, rule with the betterment of the people in mind. There wouldn't have been anyone left to make war with."

"And Grimm didn't exist until the calamity. It must have been so peaceful."

He really could imagine it. Strange as it was to think of a world ruled by those two, if it were in a time before Salem went crazy and Ozpin became a manipulative bastard, then it would have been a paradise. Maybe life had been better before, with the Gods, but people tended to like having the power to determine their own path, so maybe everyone had been optimistic of a life without them watching over everything.

And the magic, too. Salem had said everyone used it – because they were used to using it. Because it had always been there, and the God of Darkness had always allowed people to draw on it without question.

Which was a bit strange coming from a self-proclaimed God of Darkness. One who, if Qrow's telling of Ozpin's story was correct, had only existed out of a desire to destroy what the God of Light made. Maybe it had been some long-winded plan on giving humans the power to destroy themselves, but honestly, humanity didn't need magic to get that done. They were experts at it with sticks and stones.

The cavern opened out and shifted down and to the right. The larger opening was only temporary – like an antechamber before a tunnel. The tunnel, to his surprise, had steps in it again, confirming the manmade theory but also suggesting it might be older than the segments of the first tunnel that didn't have a staircase.

"Are we doing this backwards?" Summer asked. "I don't like the fact we're going down."

"It was the only way. We couldn't have brought climbing supplies and rope through those narrow passes with the dust anyway. If there isn't a way out, we'll track back and try to climb the dust crystals."

Their footsteps echoed down, light flashing ahead as it reflected off the walls. The dust had begun to creep over the steps as well as the walls, but it was thinner – the stone compacted and thus the dust not being as readily able to push through it. Nature took the course of least resistance after all. The thin sheets of dust covering the steps cracked under their feet.

"We'd have been attacked by now if the Grimm could get through," Summer said. He had a feeling she was just saying it to make herself feel better, and it worked.

"Yeah. The Ashari knew what they were doing. I guess we think of these like maintenance tunnels. We're safe as long as we don't leave the doors open."

"I like the sound of that."

/-/

They had to have been travelling for an hour – which at their decent pace was a big tell of just how deep underground they were. The dust continued to grow in intensity but didn't stick out to block the way like it had before. Instead, it grew thicker on the walls, crustier and sharper until the only sign of rock behind was the fact the dust was there in the first place. They'd moved into single file with him ahead and Summer behind a while back, but the tunnel finally came to an end, an open chamber and – to no small frustration – another sealed door.

"Oh come on!" Summer kicked the top of a dust crystal across the chamber. It sprinkled into pieces on hitting the back wall. "This is the bottom, isn't it? There's no way this is leading us out after how far down we've come."

"It must lead straight to the pools of darkness."

Maybe Ozma and Salem had held the Grimm back here with their trusted and elevated soldiers – the ones granted strength by the Relics – while the rest had worked to construct more safely up top. If they could channel the Grimm into the tunnels, a relatively small number of people could defend for a long time.

He stayed away from the door. He had a feeling Summer would knock him out if he went near, and he wouldn't even blame her. That thing opening would be the worst thing ever. Fortunately, it seemed to be as solid and eternal as the others, and as unyielding as Vault in Atlas.

"I'm taking a break," Summer decided. She removed her white cloak and set it down as a cushion to plop down on. Her canteen came out and she unscrewed it, taking a drink and then fishing a snack out her pocket.

Jaune followed suit with a protein bar, but made his own way around the larger chamber, curious in the walls that seemed much more ornate than those before. For one, they were square, suggesting the Ashari had decided to build a room here and not just an open cave. There might be good reasons for that again, better defences or barricades to set up and thin the Grimm. Or the pools of darkness could have even seeped this way from further on.

As he was running his hand across the dust on the furthest wall from the door, the sigil on his hand glowed. Pale green light flickered away under his fingertips, spreading out over the wall and glowing through the dust, casting dizzying green light over the chamber.

"Can you not keep touching stuff!?" Summer yelled. "You're worse than Qrow!"

"I didn't do anything."

"Your left hand is literally a key that unlocks ancient stuff. Stop touching things with it!"

Okay. Fair complaint. A little late now, he thought as he stepped away from the wall. His eyes flickered to the door, but it didn't show any sign of opening, and that probably saved their lives. Instead, the light faded inward toward a certain point on the wall and then disappeared.

Jaune peered through the dust and said, "I think it's a door."

"For the love of everything, don't open it!"

"No. Not one of those doors. A normal one."

He ushered her over and Summer peered through the crystals. It was made of stone, but it was small – about six feet tall and three wide. Small enough that he and anyone particularly tall would need to stoop to fit through. There wasn't a modern door handle, but a metal bar stood vertically.

"Might be a way out."

"Then I'll be the one to try it." Summer waved him back and started to chip away at the dust crystals. "At least that way you're not going to set off some magical self-destruct system and kill us both. Honestly, what is it with men and not being able to resist touching stuff?"

Chipping and cracking away at the dust, Summer shattered the bigger pieces and let them fall. Once the largest were done, it was just a case of knocking the smaller ones out the way, like cleaning broken glass around the edge of a shattered window. She pushed the debris on the floor away and stepped back. The door looked old. Not just old in the sense of architecture, but old that it obviously wasn't preserved by magic and was about to fall down.

"Should I…?" she asked.

"Go ahead. I'll wait."

Summer glared back and huffed, then moved in and reached out to push it with her weapon. The door was stiff and wouldn't budge, forcing her to risk it and step closer to push a foot on it. Stone grated. Not as loud or ominous as the giant slabs, but clearly from the stone on the bottom of the door scraping against the floor. It grated inwards on some ancient hinge system that really didn't sound all too healthy. It was either stone itself, or metal so rusted that no amount of oil would bring it back to life.

Light from their torches and the dust crystals shone inward and out. It beamed out into the chasm itself. Jaune tensed, ready to drag Summer out before he realised the light was reflecting off something.

"It's a window…? Did – Did ancient civilisations have windows…?"

Jaune stepped in once it was clear there was no danger. Where the giant door outside clearly led to the pools of darkness, this room that had been chiselled out to the side of the chamber appeared to be a viewing port. The room was small and empty – any furniture having long since degraded – but the window itself was still secure, a thin pane some two feet tall and ten wide, stretched out for a panoramic view of the chasm.

"I guess they must have," he answered her previous question. "I'm assuming it's magically enhanced too, because no way does this last otherwise."

"Don't touch it!"

"I won't. I won't." If he accidentally deactivated it, they'd be in trouble. This time, he stayed far away, peering through from a good ten feet away. "Is it just me or is it weirdly calm in there?"

"The Grimm have all gone. Melted back into the pools." Summer felt safer to press her hands up against the window and peer down. "The water – or whatever it is – looks peaceful too. The doors must also seal off negativity. The Grimm aren't even aware we're here anymore. Can you imagine what the Kingdoms could do with something like this?"

"It would change everything. Walls around Vale, or even just every house on Remnant. People would still be at risk outside, but towns and villages would be safe. But if Ozpin knows about this, why wouldn't he use it on everyone? It benefits him just as much as us."

"Maybe he can't," Summer said. "Or he knows it won't last."

"What do you-?" It hit him. "Magic. If magic is running out like she says, Ozpin would know Remnant can't use this. Because even if it would protect people in the short term, the planet would run out and everyone would die." He swore angrily. "Is this Salem's proof?"

"It might be. She said she knew we wouldn't believe anything she said, so maybe she knows we'll believe it if she proves both her and Ozpin agree with it." Summer's hand slid down the glass pane. "I can't imagine any other excuse Ozpin would have for not using this magic otherwise. Even if you go full paranoia and say it's because conflict makes huntsmen stronger, you'd at least use it to defend key assets."

"The only reason you wouldn't is if you knew it wouldn't work," he said.

Ozpin had the power. He claimed to have lost most of it on making the maidens, but he had the power once upon a time. He also kept magic secret from all but those who had to know. The weakness in the maiden's power too, how it would pass to a new person on death. He'd always thought that a stupid decision, especially the random element and arbitrary gender requirement, but maybe it wasn't. Maybe it was an engineered weakness to ensure the power didn't go out of control or start a new calamity.

He'd expected Salem's proof to be some stupid Grimm or beating heart underground – and ironically enough, they'd seen and dismissed that. It wasn't, though. Her proof that magic was running out had nothing to do with the vast dust reserves and the pools of darkness here, but with Ozpin's actions, or lack of actions, and what they meant.

"I see something out there," Summer said.

"What?"

"There's… is that a boat…?"

Jaune couldn't see from his angle. Summer was on tip toes against the glass and looking down, so it had to be moored right by the big door and just out of sight of him. Regardless, his reluctance couldn't be put into words.

"Who would row on that!?" Summer gave it a good shot anyway. "You'd have to be insane!"

"Is it moored?"

"Yep. There's a rotten rope attached to a post and a hook on the front – like something you'd hang a lantern from. I think I see poles inside. They're not oars, though. It's more like what you'd push down to propel yourself along."

If it were moored then that meant whoever first used it had survived long enough to dock it after use, which suggested it was possible to travel over the pools. It was also possible to put your head into a printing press, yet he'd never consider it.

"That cannot be our only way out."

"It's not," she said. "There's climbing the crystals back the way we came – which we know for a fact can't support our weight."

"We could dig out."

"With what? Our bare hands. We don't exactly have months' worth of supplies down here."

"Raven," he tried. "We can take a portal out."

Summer released a happy breath. "Okay, that works! Go. Go. Call her."

His scroll was still alive despite all the falling. Huntsmen scrolls were made to last, and huntsmen pouches had been designed to protect them with enough cushioning and armour to be hit by a Beowolf and still be in one piece when you opened it up. There wasn't even a single crack on the screen.

There also wasn't a single bit of signal. "It's dead. You?"

"Nope." Summer looked queasy as she lowered her own. "I guess we're too far underground."

"We could go back up and try."

"The first tunnel was already half an hour straight down. The CCT barely gives signal out here anyway. I don't think it's going to get any better if we go back up. I have no idea how bad it might be with the doors sealed as well. If it cuts off negativity and Grimm, what will it do to signal?"

Jaune looked out into the chasm again. Even if it was looking like the only way out, he still wracked his brain for literally any other option. Raven might open a portal to him if he didn't get in touch with her soon enough. Qrow might raise the alarm to her if he and Summer just hunkered down here. Their supplies might last for four or five days if they rationed.

Of course, considering the poor way he and Raven parted the last time, she might also leave him to his own devices or assume the lack of contact was because he was angry with her. It wasn't like they were joined at the hip.

I'm also not in any danger, so she might not sense that. He eyed the window again, aware that the argument of her sensing danger and opening a portal would only be more likely if he was on the other side. Rowing a boat through pure Grimm stuff would definitely count as dangerous.

"I don't like this."

Summer looked affronted. "You think I do…?"

"Maybe there's a reason the boat worked for the Ashari. They had magic and knew how to make stuff be ignored by the Grimm. They might have been able to do it to themselves, and when we go out on that thing, we die instantly."

"Or," she said, "The boat is also magic."

"Or it's not," he repeated. "And we get sucked under."

"The Grimm didn't actually appear until we knocked that thing down and disturbed them. We were up there for a while and the pools were peaceful."

A point to Summer. It had actually been safe up on the first plateau. Between gazing at the dust, noticing the Grimm with the heartbeat and finding a way to knock it down, they'd been up there for over five minutes. Conversely, it only took the pools about thirty seconds to spawn enough Grimm to send them scurrying back through. If they'd been sensed the first time, they wouldn't have had time to notice the Grimm stretched between the dust walls.

"We also have the door if we need it," she said. "You open it but stay at the door. I test the boat. If the pools move, we run back in and seal the door. If it doesn't…" Summer cringed. "If it doesn't, I think we have to take the boat."

"Fuck." He cupped his face. "I really wish I invited Raven on this trip and not you."

"Yeah," Summer said glumly. "Me too."

It's a romantic gondola ride in the tunnel of love.

Next Chapter: 8th August

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