Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Deep within a ruined, castle-like structure…..inside one of the many jail cells in the structure was a figure. Slumped over in a corner of the barely illuminated space was a still breathing body…..it shifted every so often, the only visible sign of life so far. 

A soft groan could be heard, an arm raising up slowly to bend enough for a hand to caress the figure’s face. A few seconds more of groaning resulted in gentle huffing. 

Dark blue eyes opened enough that the light source from the broken spot in the roof of the cell didn’t burn yet still be able to look around. The sense of caution was quickly forgotten as the huffing turned to heaving along with dark blue eyes widening to fully take in the environment..or lack thereof. 

The figure sat up more, arms flailing around him to touch almost every inch of clothed flesh in an effort to confirm they were alive. 

“Wha-what…where….” a male’s voice came out in a rough manner before going into a coughing fit. A very pale yellow (almost white) glow covered him for a few seconds before the coughing subsided. “Aura’s…still there…” the act of talking seemed to no longer hurt. Hands and eyes moved around again. Collared black shirt still under the white chest plate trimmed with gold, shoulders pads intact with a similar color scheme, and bracers that also followed the same colors and materials. Under the bracers were two orange sleeves that extended to the elbow area. Covering his hands were brown gloves with armored parts here and there. A brown belt was fastened over a red sash and some black fabric that would be similar to a tailcoat design, below the literal belt were dark blue jeans while brown boots protected the feet. 

In another rush of movement, the male got up after registering the feeling of some object digging into his side. Now standing up and looking down where he once sat, he can see the white and gold sheathe with two golden parts near the middle of it and the….broken sword laying nearby. The male closed his eyes as his face turned into a grimace, his fair skin turned paler for a few seconds as his breathing patterns slowed a bit. 

With his eyes still closed, he slowly crouched down and felt around the stone floor to pick up his sheathe with his left hand and clumsily used his right hand to put what’s left of the sword in the sheathe. His eyes opened once more as the erratic breathing calmed, hands moving to attach the sheathe on the left side of his belt and pants. 

“Penny…….” the male whispered as his eyes became teary. They would continue to be teary if his eyes didn’t widen again while truly starting to freak out in the cell. Flashes of memories sailed through his mind. Panic. Fear. Horror. Failure. Mur-no, not…not that. He wasn’t her …..he’ll never be like her as long as he can help it.

“Ruby….,are you here?...Weiss?.....Blake?.....Yang?” he called out as he looked up, down, and around every inch of the room he was in. Hands went up to grab onto his blonde, spiky hair as his breathing quickened once more. His body dropped…only to land on his knees as he curled into himself more. Sounds of choked whimpers could be heard as tears dropped every so often onto the stone floor beneath him. 

After what felt like hours….. hands stopped gripping his head as he wiped the tears away. His face formed a look of calm that hid rage, confusion, fear, and whatever else he didn’t need right now. 

“....come on Jaune..” he breathed out quietly, picking himself up from where he kneeled. Just as he calmed himself enough, he quickly turned and backed up purely on instinct as something was dropped down to the middle of the room. A corpse, or at least he hoped it wasn’t alive before it fell down. Jaune tilted his head up to the opening in the roof. While expecting some sort of reason for the corpse that dropped in, he was left more confused when nothing else dropped from the opening. 

He nudged the corpse with a foot and barely heard the sound of some metallic object that was coming from it. With another deep breath…his foot moved the corpse enough to reveal a key on the floor. A turn of his head let him see the rusted door of his cell. Past that door, he saw a hallway with torches on the wall that led somewhere and a few humanoid figures stumbling or resting that had a similar look to the corpse that was dropped into his cell. 

With another deep breath Jaune grabbed the key from the floor, only to be confused as the key became more and more transparent and disappeared from his grip. “....what?…” he quietly asked himself, his body moving anyway to go near the door of the cell. The first thought that came was to try to break through the door…which was tossed aside when he felt an odd connection with the cell door. Trusting his feeling, he tapped more into that feeling and became more perplexed than he already was as the door eventually swung open with an expected worn and rusted sound. 

Jaune was at least glad that none of the…walking corpses… noticed the noise from the door opening. With a few gentle steps, he started walking down the eerie hallway that further gave the image he was stuck in a castle of sorts. Other cells were passed by that didn’t look different from the cell he woke up in. His feet stopped as loud thuds could be heard from his right. His head looked towards the source of the noise, the right side of the hallway somehow a bunch of metal bars that weren’t noticed before. His view through the metal bars revealed a massive….thing that walked around in a dark area of some kind that he was glad didn’t seem to have way inside from where he was. It was a monstrous figure more terrifying than anything he’s seen or heard of so far. The dark, gray skin…the beefy legs connected to a torso of some abnormal proportions of a being that size with wings of some kind..a face that he truly thought only an insane person would love…and a large weapon in its grasps. 

“....what….” Jaune mumbled, not believing his eyes. Yet, his body and aura were affected enough to make him feel sick just by looking at this…thing. The giant beast didn’t notice him yet…at least…it didn’t look like it has. 

Jaune backed away with gentle steps before continuing down the hallway, the ever present sounds of the beast could still be heard as he moved farther away. His mind temporarily focused on something other than the huge monster for now as the hallway ended at the start of a huge stairway. His eyes roaming every so often while not ever dropping his sense of alertness. If that giant…thing…isn’t an illusion..if all of this was real….then what else is waiting for him? 

His worry increased as the stairs led him to another hallway….it wasn’t as long as the previous one and there was a doorway at the end of it. His arms moved to mount his sheathe onto his left bracer, the sheathe extending outwards to form a shield. The front of the shield had the design of two golden arcs with another design on the lower part of the shield. The sword…was better left for now in the shield. Punching may not be his thing, but the most he can do for now are shield bashes and punches until he finds a better substitute weapon. 

Slow steps took him down the new hallway. He could not relax his uneasiness yet, or maybe at all, until finally knowing where he was or how he ended up wherever ‘where’ was. His worry started to lessen when the doorway led to a room of a very odd design. Jaune paused when realizing he stepped into some liquid. His…boots didn’t seem to be affected by them that much…strange. His attention on the water was switched over to the corpse-like person kneeling in the water. 

Jaune hefted his shield closer to his chest, waiting for the person in the water to lunge at him………any moment now…….

After a few minutes of him staring at the super-malnourished person…he took a few strides through the water to get to the next doorway. A glance back at the person in the water let him know it still hasn’t moved. Jaune turned his shield into its sheathe form and put it once more on the left side of his belt. His head turned forward again and looked upward as a ladder was the only thing he found in the next room. It must be some sort of sign he’s been going the right way. 

A few seconds climbing up the ladder proved him right as the lighting became brighter and brighter. His hands eventually reached up and grabbed onto stone as instead of another level of the stone structure, Jaune pulled himself up onto what he hoped was the ground floor. The doorway to his immediate right helped answer his thoughts as he stepped out into a courtyard of sorts. The thoughts that his current location was within a castle of some kind returned as everywhere he looked reinforced said thoughts. But, the odd sight of a pile of dust and bones with a sword buried into it was off putting to say the least. 

Walking further into the courtyard and closer to the sword embedded into a pile of dust and bones, Jaune reached for the sword but paused as the sword was lit aflame and the pile of dust and bones it was stabbed into also had a few flames coming out from it now. The glassy look of the sword and the flames that came from it brought back a brief wave of bad memories. Memories he shoved aside so he can at least have some focus on his situation. 

A shake of his head helped calm his mood, it let Jaune take steps away from the….sword campfire..and go towards the cathedral-like building with big wooden doors that has obviously seen better days.

A tiny sense of incoming danger made him equip his sheathe onto his left arm again as it turned into its shield form. His right arm extended forward to open the large doors only to feel himself be pushed back. Jaune huffed quietly as he pumped aura into his right leg as he moved a step or so away while his leg went up and kicked through the large doors to create his own opening big enough to let him through. 

His shield arm went up as he took a few careful steps through the opening he made. It certainly looked like the building had some importance when it wasn’t in ruins. A few pillars…a hallway to the left with a left open gate…and the almost-worrying amount of large pots. Jaune relaxed his stance and made his way to the opening to the left side of where he was. 

Right as he got close enough to see where it would lead to…everything in him screamed to turn around. Jaune’s feet barely moved fast enough for him to turn back to see the rest of the building. A large shadow appearing was his only warning before something hit the floor hard enough for a burst of wind and dust to actually launch him backwards through the opening he was heading into. 

Quickly sitting up, Jaune watched through the now closed door that the thing that dropped down was basically the beast he saw earlier when he was just out of his jail cell. But on closer inspection….there was a few differences….was there two? Was there more than them? 

Jaune’s curiosity was cut off as the beast seemed to try breaking through the gate with its heavy weapon, something that resembled a club-like object. His scramble to get away by backing up as fast as he can led to eventually not finding any ground for his right hand to land on since there was a staircase behind him. His mouth quickly let out a curse as he toppled backwards. Each step of the stairs hurt less thanks to his aura….but the journey down the stairs and onto solid floor caused his aura to flash with each impact. 

With a tired groan…Jaune picked himself up….his body landed somehow perfectly enough that he was already facing a doorway that led to another weird sword campfire. “Come on…Jaune…..” he grunted as he moved over to the campfire and lifted his right arm close enough for it to ‘activate’. He didn’t really know what they were for, but he’s played enough games to know a checkpoint system when he runs into one. 

After seeing a small flicker of the campfire suddenly gaining embers, he slumped against one of the walls. His right hand moving around to pat at his body. His mind randomly remembered that he did have his scroll on him when he was falling. Another pat or so around his backside he felt what he was hoping he still had. He awkwardly used his left arm and hand to get his scroll from out his back pocket. His hands fiddled to get it open and typed in the password to unlock it. His face turned to a hopeful one as it seemed fine. He tapped on random apps to make sure they work but sighed as he realized he didn’t have any internet. The scroll was eventually closed and put away into a back pocket.

Another sigh left Jaune’s mouth as he got off the wall he was resting on and walked towards the opposite side of the room that had another open doorway that screamed ‘go here’. His eyes had to close briefly because of the sunlight then quickly raised his shield up as an arrow bounced off it. His eyes took in the narrow hallway with other cells with broken or missing doors as all the way at the end was another one of the walking corpses holding a bow. 

He let another arrow bounce off his shield as his own personal signal to start dashing towards the archer. Thankfully, it started to pause before running away from Jaune. His legs were briefly boosted with aura as he jumped forward..his left arm angled backwards in order to throw it forward and fling his shield off his arm and towards the walking corpse. To his shock, it hit squarely in the back of the humanoid creature hard enough that it fell over and stopped moving. His shield later fell right beside the now literal corpse. Jaune slowly straightened his posture as his mind became scrambled. He…..he killed something….on accident….but still…..his actions once again…..led to someone’s death. One of his gloved hands came up and slapped his face to the left side..the pain immediately bringing him back to reality. 

“...it tried to kill me..” Jaune weakly said, trying to reason with himself. The Grimm were mindless....but this….this was just some husk of a human being. He could have reasoned with it, but now he has one more tally on his personal list of regrets and failures. With another shudder, he stepped past the corpse and grabbed his shield off the ground as what’s left of his sword was still sheathed into it. His eyes widened when seeing another sword a few feet away from his…..accident. With what little joy he gained from the discovery, he walked over and picked up the plain metal sword from the ground. It was no Crocea….but even he didn’t believe he could hide behind Mors forever. He would use the greatsword function, but that would switch his offense problem with a defense one. Mors should still have its upgrade functions too, but this…..new world….clearly didn’t have any chance in helping him restock on dust. 

Now armed with a proper sword to join his shield, Jaune moved through the narrow hallway and seemed to step back into the castle building. This time a staircase going upwards greeted him. Things were seemingly starting to go Jaune’s way as he ascended upwards. When eventually a few steps away from the new area, he paused as he noticed the way out at the end of another hallway was blocked by some mist that replaced whatever door would be there.

Jaune’s curiosity peaked heavily. Zombie-looking people….giant beasts….the new sword he held in his right hand…..and now this blocked off path…it reminded him of a video game world. But why were those thoughts coming up now? So what if he was in some digital, fantasy world……he did not want to test if he could respawn or not.

Another quick shake of his head let Jaune focus back on to the weird mist that blocked wherever he was trying to go. His feet took him closer as his mind mulled over what such a thing could be behind the mist. The arm holding his new sword moved so he can poke the mist with the tip of the sword. To his ever growing confusion….the mist eventually disappeared to reveal another area of the castle structure. He walked right through where the mist once was and stopped in front of a broken gate door. His eyes easily found the slumped over person on the other side. While Jaune admits to being a big fan of the style that knights have……the guy in there definitely beats him. 

Sudden realization struck as Jaune quickly grabbed the broken gate door and tossed it aside. He left his new sword outside while jumping into the room the knight was resting in. Jaune’s boots barely landed on the ground as the actual knight turned his head to him. 

“...Oh, you…You’re no Hollow….eh?” the knight asked him, brief confusion came through but Jaune squashed the feeling. 

“No….and you won’t be one either..” Jaune replied as he stepped closer only to pause as the knight raised up a weak hand. 

“...I’m done for….I’m afraid-” “NO” Jaune cut in as he registered what the knight tried to say, Jaune quickly put a hand on the knight’s left shoulder that was covered in a large, metal shoulder pad and let his semblance come through. A very pale yellow energy covered his right shoulder and went all the way down to his right hand and tried to attach onto the knight. ‘Tried’ being the keyword as Jaune’s face showed his inner thoughts of being surprised that his semblance wasn’t working. Jaune’s right hand limply fell off the knight’s shoulder as his right arm loosely came close to his side. 

“...I’ll die soon, then lose my sanity……I wish to ask something of you…You and I….we’re both Undead…Hear me out, will you?” the knight spoke, Jaune was still in shellshock but nodded anyway. He was still caught off guard that his semblance didn’t work. 

“Regrettably…I have failed in my mission,” when hearing the sentence, Jaune felt more of a connection to the dying knight, “...but perhaps you can keep the torch lit,” Jaune’s brain rebooted as he lifted his head up a bit to really pay attention to what the knight was saying, “...there is an old saying in my family…‘Thou who art Undead, art chosen. In thine exodus from the Undead Asylum, maketh pilgrimage to the land of Ancient Lords, when thou ringeth the Bell of Awakening, the fate of the Undead thou shalt know,’...well…now you know…and I can die with hope in my heart…one more thing….take this..” Jaune raised his right hand as some golden, glowing jar was put in his grasp, “...an Estus Flask…and this….now I must bid farewell..I would hate to harm you after death…so, go now….and thank you…” Jaune barely caught the key the knight threw at him before witnessing the knight slump back against the rubble and exhaled his last breath. Jaune wanted to say something but quickly stopped as the body started to evaporate into white smoke and sparkles.

When the knight’s body was fully turned into dust and atoms, Jaune fell onto his backside as tears streamed down his face. Throat-retching screams echoed from his mouth as he started hitting everything in the little area he found the knight in. His voice quickly became hoarse as the tears stopped coming out. Jaune’s right hand still gripped the golden ‘Estus Flask’ while the key the knight gave him already seemed to disappear into his body like the last key. 

“Why….” Jaune’s voice weakly croaked out, “...why did another person…..have to die..” he finished, another tally etching into his soul next to the tally of the zombie-like person he accidentally killed. “Why….is it always me…that fails…” he continued, “...why?…why?!...why?!?! .... WHHHHHHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY!!?!??!?!!” he eventually screamed as the sound bounced off stone wall after stone wall. 

Half an hour or so later, Jaune picked himself up. He lazily got himself out of the tiny room and sat right near where he left his new, iron sword. “Undead Asylum…ring the bell…know my fate….” Jaune said to himself before starting to repeat it, “....Undead Asylum…ring the bell…know my fate….Undead Asylum…ring the bell…know my fate….Undead Asylum…ring the bell…know my fate….Undead Asylum…ring the bell…know my fate….”

Jaune stood up fully with renewed energy and focus. His right hand gripping onto the iron sword’s handle to pick it up with him. “Undead Asylum…ring the bell…know my fate….” he repeated for the last time. Crocea Mors on his left bracer, new sword in his right hand, and an ignited, roaring flame of determination in his dark blue eyes. His eyes looking through the iron-barred balcony-ish area he stood near and gazed at the building he knew the giant beast with an ever bigger club weapon was still in. He failed to be there for Pyrrha, he almost failed in keeping Weiss alive, failed at keeping Penny alive…and now failed in saving the knight’s life…….but this new mission….he can’t….he won’t fail this time. While Jaune’s spirit was stoked with the embers of a new purpose, he failed to notice his aura briefly cover him and now…..just a tad bit darker than it’s usual color. As if….his soul itself was becoming darker.

Chapter Text

With a new mission, Jaune closed his eyes and took a deep breath. His eyes quickly opened, he turned around when remembering he was given an ‘Estus Flask’ by that knight. He glanced where he sat but it wasn’t there. Some footsteps took him near the broken wall again, he checked inside the room where the actual knight used to be. It wasn’t there either. It…didn’t make sense, he had it in his right hand…where would it be-

He paused when he felt a new weight on the right side of his waist, he looked down and saw the top of the weird, glowing jars that are now, somehow, hanging on his belt. With a soft shrug he backed away from the hole in the wall and moved towards the balcony-like area of the castle level he was on. It didn’t make a lot of sense of why there were bars, but he’s at least glad he can’t accidentally fall over or be pushed off this second floor. 

An odd sense from within made him move on, he walked to the right side and found stairs that led up and down somewhere as well as a brick wall that would have lead to where he found the actual knight, upon remembering he didn’t even ask the knight for his name…Jaune paused to slap himself with his shield arm. 

Taking the down stairs should lead him back to the first campfire thing he found. That leaves going upstairs then- 

Jaune’s left foot was barely raised to go up the stone stairs before he instantly felt the need to move to the left, hard enough to trip on his own feet. Jaune landed on his ass while watching a boulder or some other large rock roll past where he once was and smashed through the brick wall. Two thoughts popped up in Jaune’s head, ‘Who keeps a boulder in an abandoned castle?’ As well as, ‘Would that be how I’d get into that dying knight’s area without moving the broken gate-door?’

After a short moment of rest, Jaune picked himself off the floor. He took a second to make sure he didn’t break or drop anything when dodging the boulder. He should find a proper sheathe for his temporary sword, but that is a small problem he’ll put off for later. With a deep inhale and exhale, he headed up the stairs again. He ascended one step at a time, Crocea Mors held in front of him and was ready to just drop down to the side where the stairs went down. To his joy and horror, it wasn’t another trap waiting for him but one of the dead-looking people who had a sword this time.

His instincts were torn in two, his shield moving to block each swing this being took at him but his hand holding the sword stayed by his side. He should kill this person, right? They were attacking him, he could die, he didn’t want to find out if this world could ‘revive’ him with the campfire things, and who knew what else waited for him in this world. 

Jaune’s thoughts were stopped as he eventually moved himself in a way that the next attack from the walking corpse made them bounce off backwards again but now off the third floor and fell all the way down to the ground floor. He heard a sickening crunch along with the impact, made him walk a bit closer to the edge and looked down to where the stairs going down would lead. 

The person he accidentally….killed…. one more tally ....did seem to not move after landing down there. Jaune shrugged to himself and made his way back down the stairs all the way to where the corpse landed. Jaune poked it with a foot as he noticed a gated-door that actually did lead back to the campfire thing that’s in the courtyard area. He used another aura-infused kick to knock the door off its hinges. 

“...wait…why would I go back here?” Jaune asked himself. The giant thing that landed in the church-like building is most likely there still. There was also the possibility that the upstairs route would just take him back to the building anyway but on a different level. He shook his head and made his way back upstairs to where he thought he should be going next. 

After going back up to what he assumed was the 2nd floor, another aura-infused kick let him through a gated-door and into what seemed like another corridor of the castle. Instead of just another glum, gray interior it was at least brighter due to the lack of corner walls and a roof. Though, he barely had time to appreciate the small change in scenery as another corpse thing wandered from somewhere to the left. He let the walking corpse get closer to him before simply tripping them with his left foot and moving past to see where they walked in from. 

As soon as he turned the corner his shield arm moved in front of him as an arrow bounced off it. His gaze over his shield let him see the being with a bow that was currently readying to shoot another arrow, but his ears caught some sound behind him. If it was the other corpse thing he tripped earlier….then he’d be trapped between them. Jaune took a quick glance back to see that it was the other corpse that he tripped. He moved his head to look forward once more to see that the zombie with the bow was still periodically shooting arrows at Crocea Mors. 

With a deep breath, Jaune stayed where he was and waited until the zombie person behind him got close enough. The hair on the back of his neck raised as he heard the faintest sound of an arm raising up behind him. Jaune crouched down and dove forward to let the next arrow fly over him and hit the person behind him. 

“....what…” Jaune asked himself as he watched the walking corpse with a bow keep shooting arrows over him even though he knew the other corpse behind him should be dead by now. He let out a soft sigh as he stayed laying low and decided to slowly crawl over to the bow user. When he crawled far enough, Jaune tilted his head up and to the left to see a new doorway that was blocked by some white mist again that filled up the space where a door would be. He ignored the new door for now and just continued crawling to the archer zombie. One wide slash later and the archer zombie can no longer bother him if it was also forced to crawl around. Jaune got himself off the ground and looked around. He could enter the fog, but there was also a doorway that’s free to enter to the right of the foggy door. 

So far, everything he has experienced in this world felt too linear. And if there’s anything he learned from video games, exploring can either lead to a great reward or turn out to be a huge waste of time. Jaune’s eyes kept looking left and right between the fog door and the not-blocked doorway, his feet shuffling every so often to dodge the crawling undead he made. One of the choices would force him to continue on with the ‘game’, while the other should lead him to a ‘bonus item’. 

This new world would be a lot easier to deal with if he had at least one other person with him. That line of thinking was cut off as the floor- no…the whole castle structure around him started to shake. Jaune found his balance again before walking into the fog door. He cursed at himself for thinking this world was going to wait for him to act, video game world or not…any action of his will have an effect and anything he doesn’t do will still have an effect. 

Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. That’s the last thought Jaune freely had before pausing. After walking into the fog door, he found himself on some stone ledge area. A few yards below him was the giant monster with a club that didn’t seem to notice him yet. There weren’t many options he could take that didn’t end up with him jumping off this ledge. What Jaune didn’t notice was the giant beast winding up for an attack as it then slammed the mace-like weapon right onto the ledge he was on. The last thing Jaune knew was him eventually hitting the ground and could only watch as the beast swung down the weapon right onto him. 

The next few seconds were filled with Jaune opening his eyes and screaming. He paused when realizing he’s back in the courtyard area and was now near the campfire thing. The sword in his right hand was stabbed into the ground while his hands felt around himself to make sure nothing was missing. Nothing phased through his touch, he could still breath, see himself, and he could still hear the ambient sounds around him in the courtyard area. 

Jaune took a quick break, sitting himself on the ground and had Crocea Mors’ shield form turned back into a sheathe to put on his lap. His arms moved so he could rest his elbows on his legs while he let his head fall into his hands. 

He died. He felt pain from being brought down from the ledge and then barely felt the impact from the giant mace-thing that monster had. He died and was now back at this campfire he activated a while ago. Jaune’s head turned to look at the gated-door he opened that led back to this courtyard area. It was still open to his surprise. He died almost instantly before even trying to fight the beast, came back to this campfire thing, and is now still ‘alive’ enough to sit down by the campfire and think. This world confused Jaune enough already but now everything he came across was becoming too weird for him to handle right now. 

Jaune looked back down into his hands as he calmed himself down. The efforts were wasted when lifting his head up almost instantly as he realized his aura did almost nothing to protect him from the monster’s weapon. Maybe his aura was instantly down to nothing or close to that after the ledge was broken, or maybe the giant mace just did a lot more damage than any attack he’s been hit by before. Jaune lifted his left hand up to let some aura cover it and let it flow all the way down to his elbow. His near-white, pale yellow aura seemed a bit darker to him, but he just chalked it up to his mind playing tricks on him as he stopped the flow. 

He could try using his semblance on himself, but it took a lot of concentration when using it on other people. He didn’t know if there was time or the focus to try to use his own semblance on himself. He looked up at the sky to notice that the sun hadn't really changed its position. His eyes moved to focus again on the cathedral-like part of this castle environment. The giant doors still had the hole he made a while ago to get through, which allowed him to watch the beast wander around inside like it didn’t just ‘kill’ him. 

While Jaune should be more focused on his own ‘death’, he’s at least glad it wasn’t a one-life ‘game’. “....or maybe this is just my afterlife,” an out loud thought that quickly affected Jaune. Was this whole ‘world’ just his spiritual end? Did he already die after falling from the pathways they had Ambrosius made? Was that giant monster’s attack his actual death? Was that knight who passed on the task onto him just….himself in some messed up way? 

These thoughts and more continued to bounce around in Jaune’s head. While it seemed like hours passed, the day didn’t at all change to even the afternoon. 

Jaune’s self-reflection seemed to end as he slowly stood up from where he sat on the ground. Crocea Mors was held in his hands as he fiddled a bit with it to transform it into its greatsword form. He gave it a few test swings while moving his left hand to pick up the iron sword he’s been using as a substitute. Now wielding two swords, Jaune took a few deep breaths. 

This world is confusing, that he knew. He came back from death once so he should continue to ‘respawn’. This giant monster and anything else in this world aren’t anywhere close to the real monster he and his friends are trying to fight against in their world. Whatever Jaune faced would be more difficult than a Grimm, but they’ll never be impossible. 

Jaune closed his eyes as he took less deep breaths. Coming to Beacon with fake papers? That would be impossible. Surviving initiation? That would be even more impossible. Becoming his own team’s leader? Ridiculous if you asked him a year or so ago. Witnessing a literal android girl get ripped apart by his own partner. The destruction of an academy he thought he had time to enjoy. The journey he and the rest of his friends went on to find those responsible. Thinking he could avenge Pyrrha on his own. Getting to Atlas in one of the most illegal ways possible. Becoming an actual Huntsman. Even betraying the ‘ruler’ of Atlas in an effort to do everything they thought was right since Ironwood was going too far. 

Everything Jaune has done since deciding to become a Huntsman would be thought of as impossible. He should have been kicked out on day one. But he wasn’t. Ozpin gave him a chance, Ruby gave him a chance, Pyrrha gave him a chance, and all his eventual friends and those he considered a second family gave him a chance too. They had hope in him so he should have hope in them. He should have hope in himself. 

Jaune’s eyes opened as he made his way to the cathedral-like building. “Game or no game….afterlife or no afterlife…..” he started to say as he stepped up to the giant doors he kicked a hole through, “....I have come too far and went through so much…I went so far as to run away from the very family that I wanted to make proud…I’ve failed the people I wanted to protect…” he paused when the giant beast let out a roar after he stepped into the building fully while his two swords were still gripped in his hands, “....I’m not the fastest, I’m not the most skilled, I’m not the smartest, and I’m definitely not the type of hero I wanted to be….” he continued on while settling into a stance. His left foot forward, his right leg moved back, his upper body leaned in as his hands lightly twirled his swords around, Crocea Mors’ greatsword form in his right hand while the plain, iron sword was in his left hand. 

“I am a Huntsman, whatever mission I’m on will be completed….whatever enemy is in my way will regret it….and I am not letting something like you get the best of me…” Jaune said as his aura flickered around him, “.....I will finish that knight’s mission….I will survive this world…..and I will get back to my world….to my friends! ” he finished as he moved to run at the giant beast. 

Jaune watched the thing raised up its arms to prepare a slam attack. Instead of going away from it, he ran towards where he predicted it would slam onto. Jaune turned his run into a slide barely in time as the burst of wind that kicked up from the beast’s attack helped him slide faster. Like any other inhuman thing he’s fought, going for the legs is the safest thing to bet on attacking. With aura actively flowing through his body as best he could, he landed a few slashes with the regular sword then let Crocea Mors turn them into bigger wounds. 

He had to back up a lot more than he wanted to as the beast let out another roar and moved its arms. He was thankful that he trusted his instincts and just waited for the thing to miss before rushing it again. He aimed for the closest leg, continuing to land shallow slashes with the iron sword and let Crocea Mors deal real damage. This time he had to stop and stay close to the leg as the beast did another slam attack. After one or two more times of chopping at whatever leg he was closest too, he was forced to get back again as it stumbled around. 

He ran around as it started to wail its mace-like weapon around in random patterns. He took an opportunity between attacks to slide under again to land one slash at one of the monster’s feet. His determination to attack the legs was rewarded as another roar was heard. Instead of it attacking more, Jaune had enough time to stand back up and look as the beast fell onto the floor on its stomach. A grunt came through his throat as he ran again, going around to its head that laid on the ground. With some burst of bravery he threw the sword in his left hand hard enough to stay in the monster’s face. Jaune gripped Crocea Mors’ handle with both hands as he leapt forward and hammered a flat side of his greatsword’s blade onto the iron sword’s handle end to let it shoot through the head. 

Jaune was about to raise his arms to slash at the head before pausing when the monster’s body started to glow. He heard and saw it let out a weak roar before starting to fade away in a show of sparkles and light. Jaune let his right hand hold Crocea Mors as his left arm went up to block his eyes from the light show. 

When it stopped being so bright, he slowly lowered his left arm and saw no trace of what he just fought. The active aura flashing around his body slowly ended as he glanced around in case something else happened. Instead of any treasure chest or other reward he hoped to see, there was just a key laying in the middle of where the thing was. Considering there was a set of big doors right in front of him, that should be where he goes next. Jaune took the time to turn Crocea Mors back into its sheath and sword form to hang it on his hip again while picking up his temporary sword with his right hand. He walked over to the key and kneeled to get a closer look at it.

It didn’t seem to have any special properties to it when reaching a hand out to hold it. Jaune watched the key fade away and hoped it was just spiritually a part of him like the other key. His next few steps took him closer to the metal doors the monster was blocking. He didn’t attempt to kick this door down and decided to raise his free hand toward the metal doors. Like the campfires, he felt a connection to the large doors and focused on the feeling. He wasn’t as surprised when they opened, but the area that was revealed wasn’t something to expect. Jaune’s thought of more castle-like areas was replaced with wonder and confusion at the upwards hill that seemed to have ruins all around it. He calmed himself with a breath and started walking towards the hill. 

While he knew there was no other way, Jaune let another tally add up to his ‘kill’ count. He walked away from the castle-structure with slow steps. He had a feeling he could deal with whatever he missed in this ‘area’ later. With his thoughts going to what he should do now, he didn’t notice his aura shimmering again on his body….while it still wouldn’t be noticeable..his aura was another shade darker.

Chapter Text

Jaune’s boots took him higher and higher on the hill as he glanced around. He knew he should go back to deal with the other giant beast that’s under the building. However, that’d just be time he would waste. The time of day didn’t seem to move so far but who knows how much has passed since he woke up in that cell area all the way to where he is now. He won’t stay idle either, inheriting someone else’s mission is beyond a norm to him at this point. If anything it made him wonder if this is why his parents were so against his idea of becoming a Huntsman. Maybe his parents also had to deal with Ozpin’s schemes. Maybe that’s why he was even allowed to be a student in the first place, maybe that's why Ruby and a few others would still be invited to Beacon no matter how ‘illegal’ it is.

“Wonder how the others are doing….” Jaune whispered to himself, his feet stopped just short of the hill’s end or as it was now seen: a cliff. He kept his gaze on the mountains and far ranges from where he stood. He didn’t just mean team RWBY, but everyone else that didn’t fall into the void. Winter, Qrow, and a few other adults being there to help protect his team, Oscar, and Emerald didn’t calm his worries. He couldn’t help but think what Nora and Ren could be thinking or doing since he didn’t make it through a portal. Maybe it was better he was the only one in this world, maybe this world is his forced atonement for everything he’s done so far. 

His time for personal reflection was cut off with the sudden sight of a bird that reminded him of Nevermores but it had no bone armor. Jaune tried to prepare to fight it only to be picked up by the huge bird and its talons. He knew he was getting farther away from the cliff. His left hand went up to cover his mouth while his right hand tightly gripped the non-Crocea Mors sword he’s grown used to. Jaune’s eyes shut tightly in order to avoid hitting a poor animal or person with his vomit. He’s never been so grateful that anyone on team RWBY wasn’t here with him to witness this. Now if Cinder or Neo were in this world, maybe he’d have somewhere to aim.

During this wild ride, his body could still feel every twist and turn the bird creature had him endure. As he was forced to handle the worst rollercoaster ride ever, Jaune had to open his eyes when the huge crow started cawing while feeling the wind change as it lowered its flight angle. His body was barely prepared as he was let go from the bird’s talons and had to brace his legs when feeling solid ground once more. His aura traveled quickly around his body while his left hand dropped from its place over his mouth. Quick breaths were taken as he looked around to see where the crow dropped him at. 

It just seemed like more ruins or leftovers of a battle. The broken stone walls and typical depressing atmosphere were starting to be less of a surprise for him. The sight of dead trees didn’t help either. His gaze went towards the right to see some ‘stairhill’ formation. It went upwards and had rock slabs that were probably there so people could avoid falling off. Not that it would do much…no seriously, there were no railings to stop people from just….falling off that part of the mountain. In video game terms, this area would be a ‘hub’...hopefully at least. But before going on any path, he needed a brief break. Thankfully, there seemed to be a campfire and an actual person in the area who’s sitting on some rubble. Jaune tapped his hand on the campfire’s sword and walked toward the person. The sound of the campfire being lit aflame was all he needed to know he could now ‘respawn’ in this area. 

The person he walked up to seemed like another knight but Jaune couldn’t see a helmet around. His closer presence resulted in gaining the non-helmet knight’s attention. A tired expression greeted Jaune, an expression he was more than used to seeing during his time at Atlas. Not just on his friends or the other Hunters in Atlas/Mantle, but the kind of expression he’d seen on Qrow, General Ironwood, and whatever you’d call Ozpin taking over Oscar’s body. The face of a very tired soul. Jaune’s personal scoreboard of meeting adults he could trust wasn’t that great, but hopefully his luck can start being good. 

Jaune was about to speak first but was quickly beaten to it. “Well, what do we have here…you must be a new arrival,” Jaune’s form relaxed as he knew this would be a long one, “...let me guess, Fate of the Undead right? Well, you’re not the first,” at this point, Jaune’s attention was snatched. What did this guy mean? “But there’s no salvation here…you’d have done better to rot in the Undead Asylum….but too late now,” ‘Undead Asylum’, that sounds like the area he woke up in, “Well, since you’re here…let me help you out. There are actually….two bells of Awakening,” that’s certainly news to Jaune, “One’s up above in the Undead Church, the other is far, far below…in the ruins at the base of Blighttown,” Jaune sighed to himself at the thought of these places that he’ll have to go through, “Ring them both…and something happens, brilliant…right? Not much to go on, but I have a feeling that won’t stop you…so, off you go….it is why you came, isn’t it? To this accursed land of the Undead? Hah hah hah hah…” 

Instead of trying to ask more questions, Jaune walked away and went back to the campfire. He would ask more questions if that guy wasn’t so…off putting. His task was to now find two bells and…’something happens’? Not the greatest set of instructions but it’s a lot more manageable than ‘Step 1: Stop Salem from getting all the relics, Step 2: (blank), and Step 3: World saved’. For how much of his world is actually filled with fairy tales, Jaune didn’t have the slightest clue on what exactly they could do to see a happy ending. Salem has 2 of the relics, him and team RWBY are probably not in the same reality anymore, and he’s pretty sure all their friends, the other Hunters, and all the evacuated civilians are just as worried as they are about what’s next in the war against Salem. 

“....but what’s next…” Jaune asked quietly, staring off at the scenery that he’ll never get to. He made sure to do a slow 360 turn. His eyes caught the fact that some giant walls, archways, and other castle-like structures were somewhat nearby to this area he’s in. The hill stairs with no railing might lead him to be closer to the castle-like structures. Maybe this ‘Undead Asylum’ was behind its own bars in the form of giant walls? Maybe this entire ‘new world’ is just a very hidden civilization? Is this world even connected to Remnant? Is this world even real? Is he in this world by himself? Where would team RWBY be? Would that multi-color girl be here too? Weren’t there people who Cinder killed that could have fallen too? 

Hundreds of other questions filled Jaune’s head before they were instantly stopped. A quick movement of his left arm took Crocea Mors off his hip and onto his forearm as it became its full shield form. Standing passively won’t grant him answers, a lesson he learned since the beginning of Beacon. As dry as this world seems to look like, there has to be some sort of library or other sources of information. What beast would even attack a library anyway? 

“...ring the bells….find more about this world..find a way to get back home” he hummed to himself, redesigning his list of goals. A brief deep breath was taken before moving on to explore the moldy ruins that the non-helmet knight was sitting in front of. Stepping through one archway led him to two more archways. Some further steps took him towards the left archway that was revealed to be leftovers of a church or something. The ground had a few inches of water, the roof- 

Jaune paused when seeing the giant crow that dropped him off now perched on a wall of what’s left of the second floor. It didn’t seem to mind him….yet. He started to back away from the church-like ruins and didn’t let the giant crow leave his sight until he was now facing the two differing archways again. This time, Jaune went to the other doorway and was glad that the choice led to a human instead of an enemy. His brief sense of peace was taken away when the guy with a build similar to Professor Port came close to him and spoke up. 

“Hello there, I believe we are not acquainted?” the man, where Jaune was glad he couldn’t hear a ‘Port’ accent or tone, asked. The more Jaune looked at the man, the more he thought the man was some weird fusion of him, Professor Port, and Cardin. The thoughts made Jaune shake his head for a brief moment, a reaction that the bulky man seemed to take for an answer. “I am Petrus of Thorolund...have you business with us?” the man continued, “If not…I’d prefer to keep a distance, if possible….but it is not meant in ill-will. Here, take this. As a token of peace…no, go ahead, it’s for you.” 

The end of the ‘conversation’ visibly confused Jaune, first the odd knight that seemed to be hopeless and now there’s this guy telling him to screw off in a dated way of speaking. And now he held some weird copper coin in his left hand- nevermind it disappeared slowly from his sight like the keys. A sigh escaped his mouth as he left the area, going back to the entrance of the church-like ruins. He looked to the right to make sure the no-helmet knight was still sitting nearby. 

Instead of just seeing the knight still there, he now had an angle of what looked like a stone staircase going downwards. Curiosity pulled him along, his steps going past the no-helmet knight and slowly went down the stone staircase. Crocea Mors’ shield form positioned in front of him but kept his temporary sword pointed to the ground. It wouldn’t do him any good for him to wave his weapon around all crazy. No one seemed to have aura besides him, which hasn’t really proved to do any good so far. That monster he faced in the cathedral would have killed him again if he didn’t decide to rush the fight. Right…...he’s died once so far, which meant he could die more in the future. The shift in thinking distracted Jaune enough to almost miss a step, forcing him to go back to a more focused mind.

When reaching the lower area, Jaune took in the view of…..well….more grass, dirt, and remains of stone walls. His shield arm relaxed back to his side while keeping his iron sword pointed down. The ruined environment now reminded him of when he, Ruby, Ren, and Nora traveled together. The few times they came across a broken house, destroyed town, or lost items didn’t calm their fears of how everything in their lives started to become worse since the ‘Fall of Beacon’. He remembered that Ren and Nora were very vocal about creating some sort of graveyard or memorial for the ones that didn’t survive or escape in time. Ruby never disagreed, but Jaune did at times…when he was still obsessed with the ‘mission’ of avenging Pyrrha. 

A quick pain flared through his head. He would have raised a hand to his temple if he didn’t notice that what bumped him was the iron sword’s hilt to his own forehead. “...focus…” Jaune whispered, taking another deep breath while lowering his sword arm. His body was right, he can get back to his depressive episodes later. He can’t waste precious time like this. 

He eventually went back up the stairs to try that upper path area. The chances of the ‘upper levels’ being longer to take care of were high. Even if the stairs leading down are important for something, he rather stay above land where sunlight is around and not darkness. His left hand absently touched the sword campfire while passing by. What those campfires do would be another side-mission for Jaune to deal with later. 

“Is…is this world…really part of a game?” Jaune asked himself once more. The fear he had for where team RWBY is would lessen if death wasn't a permanent issue. Though...even if this world was some sort of game, his wariness of falling off this hill incline and into the mist far down below didn’t want him to test any ‘respawn’ abilities as of right now. The brief travel upwards, thankfully, didn’t result in some boulder or trap appearing at the top. Still, the view of skeletal beings, another hill incline, and a better view of the castle-like structures didn’t ease his worries. When two or so of the skeletons finally noticed him, Jaune was already approaching with Crocea Mors’ shield form held in front of him and his iron sword at the ready. Human-looking enemies bothered him to no end. Enemies like skeletons and giant beasts, however, weren’t worth his pity and empathy. And as long as he kept running into things he can’t feel bad for….maybe….just maybe…..he can tough it out and survive.

Chapter Text

Block. Slash. Block. Block the follow-up attack. Slash. Any worry Jaune had about some skeletons were lowered after needing only a hit to deal with them. A skeleton that dropped down from the next hill incline was next to get ‘one-tapped’ like its friends…..if it hadn’t apparently killed itself with the drop. He blinked a few times as he watched the skeleton stick the landing, only to fall over and scatter into bone pieces.  

“Always count on fall damage….” Jaune whispered, helping himself calm down with his theory of this world being like a video game. He gave the ‘undead’ enemies a few more seconds of attention in case they got back up somehow. Staring down at some bones and waiting for them to move would have looked crazy to anyone watching him, even he started to feel like an idiot while waiting for the skeletons to reform. His patience ran out after another minute. His footsteps moved to the next hill incline. Unlike the first incline, Jaune paused near the top of the incline as brief explosions kept popping up. 

The explosive seemed to be thrown every two to three seconds, how much it would hurt couldn’t be noted since Jaune didn’t want to risk it, and he had a feeling there wasn’t only an explosive thrower at this upper area. He could deflect it. He could take his chance at running past or dodging the explosive. He could also just not deal with this and go back to the campfire area. That last option was for cowards and the first option could be more risky no matter how cool it’d be to smack the explosive back at the thrower. Tanking the explosions with his aura was another option. Though, that giant monster in the ‘Undead Asylum’ killed him in two moves or so before he got his payback. 

“Wait…” Jaune stayed where he was on the hill incline, not minding the constant explosion after explosion that was waiting for him to get close to. He’s supposed to have a lot of aura, he knows he has a large enough capacity of aura if he survived that mech the Cordovin woman controlled. Well ‘survived’ is a bit much, he and Nora weren’t that injured besides a bit of soreness. Sure, he was actively using his aura and semblance…but he swore he surrounded himself in aura when falling after it destroyed the ledge thing. Was that monster just that strong that his aura didn’t matter? Beating -*killing*- it was just as easy as him getting killed. Maybe his aura was used up after the fall from the ledge? Was his aura…..weakened? Was he weaker, like as if he’s ‘level 1’? Is this ‘other world’ stronger than his world? He can deal with regular-sized enemies easily though, so what did that mean for other ‘bosses’? 

More questions and doubt sent his mind spiraling. Similar to video game logic, he could deal with regular enemies but still struggle with bosses. He could ‘one shot’ anything related to his size but anyone or anything on a larger scale could ‘one shot’ him as well. Was he…back to the square one he was at while at Beacon? Aura can do a lot of things, but it wasn’t exactly a miracle worker. His semblance helped make being a tank easier. Was that the problem? Is tanking something he should literally avoid from now on and just switch to dodging? Did he become so reliant on aura and his semblance that he thought he couldn’t be killed so easily? Was this…..how Pyrrha felt with her semblance? His expectations of danger were…admittedly lowered since he became an ‘aura charger’. Was this world supposed to be his personal lesson then? Is he supposed to depend less on his aura and semblance and now work on his actual skills? He knew Yang went through a similar thing. He wasn’t blind to the fact that she hasn’t been as gung-ho or dependent on her semblance for a long while now. 

The sound of the repeated explosions brought him out of his thoughts. “Questions for later..” Jaune promised to himself, even if the words were becoming a habit. The almost-white color of his aura covered him from head to toe. His mind combined two ideas: he’ll rush through the explosives and dodge as best he could. 

Crocea Mors was collapsed into its shield form and placed back on the left side of his waist as he took a few steps closer to the top of the hill incline. He stopped just short of the explosive range that another skeleton was throwing, a small black object that could only be a bomb of sorts. A brief look upwards caught the sight of a stone stairs connected to a….hallway? That’d be the only kind of structure for a rectangular section of stone. The castle-like structures and arches don’t give him much to work with in regards to where he’s going, surely it isn’t back to ‘Undead Asylum’...right? Anyway, behind the bomb skeleton was one of its kind at the top of the stairs. 

The moment between the next bomb readied to be thrown by the skeleton and the current explosion evaporating, Jaune had his chance. The idea of returning the next bomb to its sender was replaced with his action of diving under the bomb and recovering by rolling. His hand with the iron sword swung from the right first. The slash dealt with the explosive throwing skeleton and still had momentum for him to knick a skeleton that was hidden from his sight. The continued swing made the once hidden skeleton get knocked onto its back. Another risk was taken with a small jump onto the downed skeleton and sinking his sword straight through the skull. 

His still-present aura around his body proved to be a good idea, his body flinching at something scraping against the back of his armor. A little twist of his body and an extended leg kicked away the skeleton that was once at the top of the stone stairs. His hands moved to hold the sword upright once more and into a descending slice. The skeleton’s ruined shield didn’t hold a match for Jaune’s overhead attack. Nothing split in half afterwards, but the skeleton became a pile of bones like its friends. 

Jaune stood up fully and relaxed his posture. A few inhales and exhales of air were the only sounds to be heard for one or two minutes. All the aura that covered him since the fight began started to recede back into his body. The iron sword went back to being held by his right armored-hand, his left armored-hand going up to sweep his hair back. Relying on Crocea Mors’ shield less than usual was odd to him, but it wasn’t a bad experience either. He was also relieved he didn’t dodge or roll off the area and into the misty depths below. The noticeable weight on the right side of his waist reminded him that he had the glowing jar the dying knight gave him. The use to him was a mystery still…..so why not try them now?

After stabbing his iron sword into the ground, his right hand grabbed at the glowing ja- flask. None of them were solid, surprisingly. He had to really mimic grabbing at it to finally pull up an ‘estus flask’. Turning it over and around didn’t reveal anything special. It was just a small container of sorts, the design wasn’t anything he’s seen before. 

“.......bottoms up?” Jaune shrugged to himself as he lifted the ‘estus flask’ to his mouth while tilting his head back in a drinking motion. The effects were instant, the little bit of tiredness he felt was washed away...a warm feeling followed that was better than any hot chocolate or hug he ever got in his life. What felt like hours of enjoying the essence from the flask was actually just a few seconds of him standing and taking a sip. His right hand eventually lowered the flask away from him. Jaune took another look at it, nothing looked that different other than a little bit of the top of the flask was not as ‘glowy’ as the rest of it. 

Even if tempted to take another sip, he pretended to place it back on the right side of his waist and didn’t move yet until feeling the weight of the small jar on his waist once more. A quick check on his gear finished with him getting his temporary sword out of the ground it was stabbed into. The question of getting the sword its own sheathe came back to Jaune. It wasn’t a hassle so far in just carrying it in his right hand. He also didn’t want to believe he’d be stuck using a basic sword for the whole time in this world. Finding another temporary sword that was a similar size to Crocea Mors would be better for him. 

“.....is this world a fairy tale?” Jaune questioned randomly, his legs taking him closer to the stone stairs after all that resting. It would make no sense for him to end up in some fairy tale, but this world was basically built on not making sense. Giant monsters, the undead, knights….what else could he run into? The stone stairs were thankfully normal. His head slowly leaning into the entrance of the rectangular, stone hallway. He looked to the right and saw just more of a brick hallway while to the left of him was…..a giant rat. 

The giant rat’s backside was turned to him as it was busy eating something if the noises were any hint. While the Medieval Era-like setting of this world was growing on him, why did a lot of spaces have to be so dark-oh…oh right. Jaune paused and took a second or two to let his aura cover his entire body. The glow emitting from him was enough to light up a few more feet of this…he’s just going to call it a sewer for simplicity. He stepped into the sewer and was glad the dirty substance inside didn’t affect his boots. 

“Ew…ew….ew..” Jaune repeated quietly as he traveled down the sewer. He sometimes glanced over his shoulder in case the giant rat tried to sneak up on him. After the 7th or 8th time of checking behind him, the added glow from his aura made it easier to find a doorway on the left side of the sewer hallway. He didn’t know why a sewer would need a doorway but his eagerness to get away from the giant rat and dirty water argued against the logic. 

“...this doesn't lead anywhe-nevermind,” his disappointed reaction of being in another part of the sewer was replaced when finding a flight of stairs nearby. Crocea Mors’ shield form came back onto his left arm and braced in front of him, not fully trusting how peaceful things have been so far. He stopped himself right in front of the stairs while lightly poking his iron sword down at the area in front of the front step. No hard-to-see string was cut since nothing triggered, a quick glance around didn’t see any openings for a sword or explosive to come out, and a glance upward let him know that the stairs led to an outside area. 

His shield never dropped from its position in front of him as he went up one step at a time. The aura around his body went back into him as he didn’t see a need for a light source anymore. However, the giant rat he didn’t have to fight or kill was another bad sign of what to expect in this world. Normal bugs and critters were easy for him, but anything bigger than a house cat that can crawl on walls or have stingers would be an immediate runaway-on-sight for him. He hoped that the increase in size for typically small creatures wasn’t a normal thing for the actual habitants of this world. 

He didn’t know what he could even do if- “Not..today…” Jaune huffed as Crocea Mors pushed back a skeleton that tried a jumping attack after he reached the top of the stairs. He stepped forward and let his aura take the next glancing hit from its rusty sword while thrusting his iron sword straight through the chest. His sword hand moving to raise up the skeleton’s corpse stuck on his sword to take a hit from a skeleton he didn’t notice. The undead warrior stepped back when he tried going in for a downward swing, only for Jaune to skip forward as a follow up and add another skeleton stuck on his sword. 

A small glance over his shoulder didn’t result in any more skeletons coming for him. His sword hand swiped to the side to get the skeletons off the iron blade, the sounds and sight of the bones sliding off the sword and onto the stone ground made him shiver. Fighting the undead behind a screen was one thing, but actually seeing what’s inside you try to kill you is a very different experience. 

“Calm down…not like there’s a giant monster made of skeletons or zombies….” Jaune said to himself as he looked at what the two skeletons were trying to block him from. One of his eyebrows rose as he became confused. Four stair steps led to one of the smallest bridges he had ever seen that connected to an area where another doorway filled with fog was. He wasn’t one for architectural design but there’s about three or four other ways that someone could have used this stair-bridge thing more effectively. 

A few steps closer to the stair-bridge let him see yet another skeleton waiting for him across the short bridge. A skeleton that was already throwing bombs at him but the range stopped right at where the bridge was. Jaune switched Crocea Mors into its sheath mode, equipping it onto his left hip while now double gripping the iron sword. The pale-yellow color of his aura surrounded him right as he jumped towards the next bomb that was thrown. The impact and explosion from the bomb hurt a lot less than he expected. The arc of his sword swing that came out from the smoke missed the bomber skeleton since it decided to….jump backwards and off the building. 

“......WHAT!?!” Jaune let out, his feet digging into the ground to stop him just short of the building’s edge. He moved to look down at where the skeleton went and it didn't reveal anything about the skeleton’s whereabouts. Jaune took his left hand off the iron sword and slapped himself with it, his feet moving him away from the edge and towards the fog door. 

“...it’s a fantasy world, Jaune….a video game world even…” he tried to reason. He focused his mind on moving on from that event as fast as possible. He didn’t care that he went right through the fog with no caution since it turned out to be just an abandoned house. After what he just witnessed, Jaune liked the calmer atmosphere…besides the dirty look of the place. In front of where he entered was the stairs already, which were taken immediately. Nobody could blame him for his increased need of getting this ‘adventure’ over with. The second floor didn’t look like much either but another doorway to his right had more stairs for him. 

A soft sigh left his mouth as he accepted how tedious this world has started to become. Crocea Mors was back on his left arm and held ahead of him. Jaune was still miffed about the skeleton killing itself by accident as he went up the stairs. He stopped right at the top of the stairs when some shadow started getting bigger right around the area of where he stood. A look to the left and right didn’t reveal anything…so he looked up.

“WHAT THE FUC-” was barely heard as the thing that was creating the shadow landed right in front of him and caused enough air to push him back, sending him taking the stairs back down again with his whole body. The figure that made the shadow turned out to be an actual, honest-to-Oum bronze or red dragon that didn’t even glance at him before it flew off again. 

Jaune was back inside the abandoned house’s second floor and laid on his back after being blown away by the dragon's landing, his eyes wide and his breathing frantic. “What did I get…..dragged into?” were his last words before fainting. 

Chapter Text

“-alsklk!” Jaune choked out while sitting up. If anyone asked him in the past, he would say he wouldn’t even flinch at the sight of an actual fire-breathing beast. Clearly, his shattered expectations and the surprise of being barely a few feet away from being dragon food made him rethink several things. Sure there was a dragon at the Fall of Beacon, but he’d bet all of his Lien that the dragon he just saw would win nine out of ten times. The giant Grimm that almost attacked Argus and the giant whale that Salem had when invading Atlas are arguably more terrifying as well, but again, he was almost close enough to be stepped on by that actual dragon. 

He patted at himself to make sure nothing was missing or gone while he was knocked out. The small field of aura he had around his body was gone, hopefully because he was unconscious and not because he was out of it. A few glints of metal made his head turn back to see Crocea Mors and the iron sword a few feet away from him. He wasn’t sure what led to them ending up there, yet he was glad nobody attempted to take them. If anything that worried him more, if there were more ‘alive’ people in this world….they would have come across him by now. He remembered that one knight who seemed empty of hope said something strange. ‘Fate of the Undead’....that was most likely it. That dying knight from the asylum probably wasn’t the first who had to pass on their mission to someone else, which was an idea that didn’t sit well with Jaune.

The white knight slowly picked himself off the floor and breathed deeply for a while. Thoughts of being able to complete that dead knight’s mission became doubtful. Giant monsters? Manageable to some degree. The undead? He was only accepting of them as long as he doesn’t fully accept this world as real and just some messed up game. The dragon? He may be trying to replicate a knight, but he was no slayer of dragons. Going to this ‘Undead Church’ and ‘Blighttown’ didn’t sound like easy places to get to or survive either. Jaune closed his eyes while still taking slow breaths. He felt like he was back to how he acted after Beacon fell. Lost, anger, confusion and other emotions overloading his brain. 

This world was constantly switching on being difficult or easy to mentally handle. The ‘respawn’ campfires were nice even though they could be a sign of how hard this world was. Being near one was certainly a nice experience. Time didn’t seem to move…so what’s the point of rushing? At the same time, he knew that taking ‘breaks’ like this would just be a waste. Who knows how many other people are suffering right now? What if another person is like him and accidentally found themselves in this world? How many other people are out there and more confused or afraid than he is at this moment? 

“I…am a Huntsman…” Jaune softly started to say, “A protector….a savior…a defender….I…I can’t…I can’t let this world get to me.” He took a few steps towards the stairs that went out of the house and to the connected area where he encountered the red dragon. Nothing looked different, thankfully, other than the mossy stone path ahead of him. There were leftover marks or broken off pieces of the path’s parapets (side walls of a bridge) from when the red dragon landed on it. The taller structures way past the area he was in no longer blocked the sun enough. The rays from the sun forced him to create his own shade by holding up his shield arm above his head. The always-daytime thing was beginning to become less of a good idea. 

That was another set of thoughts that Jaune didn’t like to think about. What exactly had or was given enough power to just….infinitely make the entire world daytime? It couldn’t be anything mortal, right? He’s seen and heard of a lot of magical things in a, to him, short length of time, but nothing Salem or Ozpin/Ozma-related was on a scale like forever making it daytime. The Brother Gods would be powerful enough to do something like this, yet…that means there’s something on a god-level scale of danger in this world. 

The worrying thoughts were, thankfully, stopped for a while as he finally made it across the mossy stone path. He was also thankful for already having his shield arm up as he barely had to move it to let an arrow ricochet off it. Blocking him was what seemed to be wooden barriers of some kind, keyword ‘was’ since two skeletons broke through those barriers with their damaged swords. As a show of how quickly he’s gotten used to these patterns, Jaune stepped one foot back and held his iron sword straight out to let a skeleton impale itself. He didn’t even have to move again as the other skeleton warrior repeated what the other one did and got itself impaled too. 

His skeleton kebab made it easier for him to block the arrows with something other than his shield. As wrong as all of this probably was, Jaune felt like he was in one of those scenes in movies or games where a mountain of a character just walks through attacks. His sword arm lowered itself to let the skeleton bodies slide off the blade while he rested his back against the wooden door near the stairs. The change in view let him notice there was a connected area to his left that led to two more skeleton warriors, who had spears and better looking shields. Around their area were a lot of stacked, wooden crates. He would move closer to check the area from better angles if the archer above him could stop shooting arrows. 

He could keep the archer alive for now, go check out that connected area, and then come back for the archer. There was also a thought that the connected path didn’t lead to anything major, which means the archer’s area that he’s already close to would be the ‘proper’ path to continue with. Unlike the ‘Undead Asylum’, he could easily return to this area anyway to check for any secret paths. Actually, knowing how weird this world seems and how games can be, there probably was a way to get back to the Undead Asylum….a complicated, hidden way if video games taught him anything. 

“....move on…or check out the other area…move on…or check the other area…” Jaune repeated, his head turning from the connected area to the stairs near him. He looked between the two choices for a few more minutes, internally debating on what to do. There didn’t seem to be another ‘boss’ nearby and he wouldn’t have to be that far from the ‘correct’ path anyway. He tilted his head up to check on the archer skeleton. It was still shooting arrows but it could be heard stupidly shooting it either right at the ground or at the short wall. He lowered his gaze back at the area guarded by two skeletons while mentally counting the time between the sounds of the archer skeleton shooting an arrow. 

Thunk , one, two, three, four, thunk . It was four or five seconds between the arrow shots. Considering it’s been shooting arrows since Jaune arrived, he couldn’t count on the archer running out of arrows. Legs bent a bit, upper body leaning forward, and his mind planning over and over what exactly he can do to maximize his chances in not getting hit. Sprinting right to the skeleton spear wielders should be enough, but he could still be in range of the archer’s arrows. That just means he needed to deal with the two undead spear people either fast enough to not worry about getting sniped or somehow get the archer to help him instead of its friends. 

“..sprint…fast takedowns….sprint..fast takedowns..” Jaune said as a sort of mantra. His right leg moved behind him as he prepared to enact the plan. He moved his shield arm to place Crocea Mors on his back, in case the archer somehow got a lucky hit or two on him. His hands were now both gripped on the iron sword’s handle. As soon as another thunk was heard, he pushed off with his right leg hard to get him any amount of a head start while on the ‘sprint’ part of the plan. By the time he heard another thunk it was when he was already starting to cross the small bridge-like path across to the skeleton spear wielders. 

The little staircase leading up to the two spear skeletons were ignored with a short hop. His focus narrowed onto the spear skeletons, or at least he switched his focus to rolling between the skeletons. The sound of metal hitting the ground behind him was his signal to stand back up. His dual-grip overhead slash on the skeleton on the left just so happened to hit at the same time as the spear skeleton to his right stumbled forward. The tip of an arrow poked out of its chest while he swung to the right to finish off the last spear skeleton. Like usual, he didn’t exactly cut through the skeleton as it fell over and became a pile of bones. His body moved to hold his iron sword at a decent enough angle to let an arrow bounce off it. During the time of the archer skeleton reloading an arrow, Jaune was rolling over to the wooden boxes. 

He stayed in a crouching pose after getting close enough, poking his head out to watch the occasional arrow being shot at him. He shifted his position every time a box was destroyed by an arrow. As painful as arrows seemed, he wouldn’t have thought they had the kind of power to reduce wooden boxes to pieces. Any more thoughts he had were saved for later as the last box he could hide behind was destroyed. Jaune’s answer was to simply roll into the opening the boxes were once over before the archer could shoot at him again. 

The newly opened area rewarded him with landing knees first on some stone stair steps. A soft grunt was the only thing he let out. Screaming in scenarios where the undead and other monsters roam around never ends with good things. A glance around let him know it was just another abandoned building, the lack of guardrails on most of these stairways could become a major problem…but that was future Jaune’s issue not his. His sense of taking a quick detour wasn’t for nothing as there was a doorway right in front of where the stairs actually started. Once correcting himself to sit on the stair steps, he leaned his upper body over to see that another doorway was a few ways to the right. The other doorway didn’t have much to offer other than leading to another hall. 

Jaune gave himself a moment to breathe when nothing came out to attack him. Resting the iron sword on his lap as Crocea Mors stayed on his back. Even the sounds of the archer’s arrows have stopped, probably only due to him being out of sight. This moment of rest wasn’t really for a break, it was to let him go over a few things. The things he’s run into so far can be tricked into attacking each other or causing their own demise. Like any other game, the types of skeletons and…undead would just be the ‘easy’ enemies. Some things about the harder enemies would stay the same, like an opening in their attacks or guard. The number of enemies would be a problem too. He can handle a small group of three or four only because these undead warriors were nothing to him. Physically at least, his emotions and mentality still weren’t fully agreeing to treat this world more like a game. 

He couldn’t blame his feelings, all the humanoid beings he’s come across were definitely suffering more than he was right now. Kil- unaliving them was only easy the more he focused on his own survival instead of their feelings and the continued belief that this world wasn’t as real as Remnant. Even the giant beasts in the asylum place and the dragon that almost squashed him could be going through worse than him. There was no telling on what he could or should actually do in this world. Ruby would have made some crazy plan that worked out in the end, speeding around and dealing with problems faster than he could process them. Weiss would be a monster in this place, summoning each and every thing she…killed…nevermind. As broken as Weiss’ summoning ability would be and how much faster Ruby can finish missions, he didn’t believe any of his friends or other hunters he knew could deal with this world. Sure the older ones, like Qrow, could handle all this death and suffering better than them but he knew they had limits…so why was he here? Every time he feels like he can do anything, something happens to push him back down.

“...what..am I here for?” Jaune asked himself with a sigh. Assumedly in another world, inheriting someone’s mission, and now dealing with things he wished stayed as stuff found in fictional stories. Being passive like he was right now wouldn’t do anything, he knew that. Going around like a fool who thinks this world gave no consequences for his actions also wasn’t a good plan. Doing nothing was just as bad as doing a negative action himself. He couldn’t stop whatever caused all this pain and suffering, yet he can at least put in the effort to lessen all of it. Protecting as many people as he could was more of a priority than trying to be some savior. It’s the least he could do, using everything he learned and was taught to put even just a little bit of the world back together. He can’t stay dead anyway, if this world needed an immortal-like protector…..he’ll do as much as he can.  

After a slap of his hands onto his face, he stood up from the stair steps with his right hand holding the iron sword. If anything or anyone tried attacking him then they’ll be treated as the threats they want to be. He can’t waste his time trying to save or protect people that don’t want to be helped. He didn’t even know if his time in this world was permanent or was on a time limit. A short drop from the staircase let him land onto the rickety floorboards. When some shelves or whatever broke to his right, he simply held his sword arm straight to let another skeleton or undead end its own life. He pulled his sword away after hearing a last breath as he went over to the doorway to the left of him. 

Peeking his head out revealed the area to just be a balcony area that overlooked the abandoned…village, sure…he could call it a village. A look to the right let him see a….a person…if he could call them that. It looked like another undead person but they wore dark clothing and sat behind a carpet with random objects on top of it, next to the undead person were a few boxes and crates that had other items on top of them. He wasn’t expecting much from an extra path, but he also didn’t think he would find a ‘shopkeeper’ in this type of world. At least, he thought they were that kind of person. He hadn’t played many games where a zombie or whatever was the one selling him things. ‘First chances for anything’ seems to be a motto in this world. 

Jaune took a few steps onto the balcony area but stayed a good distance from the shopkeeper. The assumed friendly, undead person tilted its head up as their eyes locked onto him. “Well, now,” said a voice that he didn’t ever imagine to hear from a zombie…not that he thought it was weird or anything- he’ll just go back to listening, “...you seem to have your wits about you, hmm? Then you…are a welcome customer! I trade..for souls, everything’s for sale! Nehehehehehe!” the undead merchant finished. Everything about what was said confused him. Having his wits? Were other people here before? Was this person actually asking for souls to just buy like a water bottle or jar? 

He stopped his assessment of the merchant when seeing the items that were slowly laid out on the carpet or around it. Some bag of powder, knives, a bomb-like object, some…medallion he guessed, an orange crystal that was most likely not at all his world’s dust, a key, two small wooden boxes, a bunch of weapons, small bunches of arrows, and even chain armor. If the merchant was carrying stuff like this, why in the world was this person just sitting in an area like this? 

Jaune opened his mouth to ask something before the merchant cut him off, “Things are getting treacherous….in these parts. A horrible goat demon has moved in below,” a what now? “And up above, there’s that humongous drake, and a bull demon, too,” what? “If you stick around this place…..it might end up being your grave! Nehehehehehehe!” 

At the end of that one-sided conversation, Jaune froze after hearing what the merchant wanted to say. Creatures of the night were barely beginning to be tolerable, now he was being told that actual demons are just…around?!? Where were the protectors in this world? Knights? Kings and queens? Maybe even mages or wizards if the people in this world could access magic? His ever-growing list of questions was stopped when a glint of metal on top of the boxes beside the merchant caught his eyes. He didn’t know how he missed it, it was a lengthy…katana? Yeah, katana….he's pretty sure he remembers Ruby and Blake having a conversation or two about them, something about love and ninjas. Though, he also remembered the glares that Yang gave Blake who just always ignored them.

Anyway, big katana, longer than Crocea Mors’ greatsword mode. His attention to the weapon seemed to have not gone unnoticed by the merchant. Jaune was too busy glancing at his iron sword and back at the katana to notice the merchant’s growing ire. He barely opened his mouth before being interrupted again. 

“I’m not here to chit-chat….we talk business or we talk nothing at all,” The merchant added. Jaune could be called a lot of things, but an idiot he could be called no longer. He let out a soft breath before turning away from the merchant. His back was barely turned to the merchant as his ears picked up a few noises and more words from the seller. “.....you’ve gone mad…have you?” was his only warning. Jaune’s eyes widened while doing a short hop back into the abandoned building. His left arm worked to equip Crocea Mors’ shield form back onto his left arm as the merchant now stood at the doorway while wielding the long katana. 

He didn’t know what to make of this situation, what did he do to provoke the merchant? Was it because he didn’t say a response in time after the seller’s dialogue? Whatever it was, it led to Jaune holding Crocea Mors’ shield form in front of him while the katana wielder stepped towards him. Was this world’s universe starting to take random shots at him now? Did he actually have to ‘interact’ with the people in this world to not be deemed a hostile person? 

Another sigh left Jaune’s lips as his eyes narrowed. His right leg moving behind him while putting as much of himself as he could behind his shield. He made his new goals clear, if something wanted to fight him….he’d fight back. Maybe this is what he needed, some actual challenge instead of random, undead enemies. He didn’t know how strong this merchant was, but they couldn’t be that much of a fight, right? ....right?

Chapter Text

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Any expectation Jaune had of how hard a fight with an undead merchant would be was…not met, to say the least. The defensive stance he took proved to be a harder challenge for the undead merchant than he ever assumed. Their large katana was widely swung with only one hand, it didn’t hit anything besides Crocea Mors’ shield and occasionally the floor. The merchant wasn’t fast with their attacks either; the time between attacks would be shorter if they weren’t ‘stunned’ for a few seconds after hitting his shield. 

The huntsman in knight-like armor huffed quietly as he kept his shield up. The brief moment of excitement was replaced with an exponentially increasing amount of boredom. The reason why the undead merchant was now attacking him didn’t make a lot of sense either. If it was because he stared at the cool katana then no wonder this merchant didn’t see much business. Jaune would have gone out of his way to warn people too if this was the type of attitude that merchants had in this world. Another barely plausible explanation would be because he didn’t buy anything. That was just another reason for him to warn people to not even approach this merchant!

The plain, iron sword that he’s grown used to was raised upwards to stop the merchant’s katana between them. All of the merchant’s strength in trying to push through couldn’t budge the effort that Jaune had with his one arm. The difference in strength would be confusing if he didn’t remember that 1. He was still alive, 2. He had aura, and 3. That long katana probably didn’t see a lot of action or use. If anything….that helped calm down his expectations for this world; that not everything could kill him as long as he was ready. Aura doesn’t really seem to be a reliable factor though, depending on how strong some of the monsters were or how ‘damaged’ he was before the fights. The flask thing was great to have but who knew if it affected his aura level. 

A small push of his sword coming closer to him reminded Jaune there was a crazed, zombie guy trying his hardest to hit him with a katana. The stairs he took down to this area were nearby and there was that hallway that he didn’t explore yet somewhere to his right. He didn’t want to kill this….person. As annoyed as he was, his heart and soul was telling him to find a peaceful way out of this situation. The best option would be breaking away and running back upstairs so he could then run as far as he can to where he was most likely supposed to go. The nearby hallway could lead to a trap that brought in more ‘enemies’ for all he knows. That brought him back to the idea of just sprinting back upstairs and towards the ‘main game path’. 

“...NOW!” Jaune yelled, mostly for himself, as he used enough force to push back the merchant. He turned towards the stairs and started skipping a step or two after briefly checking to make sure he didn’t somehow kill the guy with that push. The groan or whatever noise he heard behind him was the only sign he needed to know the undead dude was still alive. His primary focus was putting as much distance between him and the merchant as possible. Once coming back up to the top of the building and close to the narrow bridge extension he took to this area, he realized what he forgot about: the archer skeleton he left alone. The same archer skeleton that was already shooting arrows at him.

His sprint couldn’t be that slow for the arrows to now barely miss him. How was this skeleton suddenly way more accurate when he outran its arrows before? A short glance over his shoulder revealed that the merchant didn’t follow him up the stairs. Where they went could be thought of later, now he could focus on the archer. His head turned forward while Crocea Mors’ shield form was positioned in front of him fast enough for an arrow to bounce off it. The door under the archer skeleton was ignored so he could take the mossy stairs to the left of it. Jaune paused on the stairs for a few seconds then started to skip steps. The brief rest wasn’t a mistake on his part, the shooting pattern of the archer could have led to him being hit right as he reached the top. Besides, That rest let him see a short bridge or whatever of wooden planks he saw to the left of the top of the stairs. 

The quick plan he made, however, was miscalculated after he registered a few seconds of pain from his right arm. Jaune tried to roll away after being hit but found himself unable to for about two seconds. He felt frozen or stunned…for whatever reason. The feeling of being able to move again was thankfully back in time for him to use Crocea Mors' shield to block another arrow. He could feel a sense of…anger…was growing within him after realizing he let a mistake like that happen, it reminded him of when he got mad whenever he messed up in a video game. 

Why? He couldn’t answer that, not when he was busy strafing around yet another arrow so he could close in on the archer skeleton and shove the iron sword through its skull. Once the skeleton did the regular pattern of turning into a pile of bones, Jaune relaxed his body and took in a few breaths. Crocea Mors was still raised in case any more surprises happened. A glance to his right let him see the untouched campfire and where he assumed the ‘game’ continued. More castle-like structures greeted him in the form of pointy roof tops, another bridge, and more stone buildings with one of them having an opening connected to said bridge. A further rooftop had some skeletons standing around on wooden…extension platforms? There was a better way to describe it, but he was more focused on just how much more...enemies..he’d have to fight through. 

“....save that for later..” Jaune nodded to himself while going to the short wooden bridge for the next campfire thing. Crocea Mors was placed on his left hip and turned back into its sheath form. The iron sword had to deal with being carelessly tossed to the ground as Jaune stretched. A look around the area was just stone walls, some barrels, some stairs that looked more ruined the higher they go, and a lad-...why was there a ladder? He stopped his stretches and fully turned towards where he could clearly see ladder rungs. “...ladders exist?” he questioned out loud. Out of everything he’s seen so far, ladders were the last things he would expect to see in a world like this. The existence of ladders wasn’t so bad on paper; that ladder could just be a ‘shortcut’ to somewhere. But….where did he have to go to ‘unlock’ the shortcut? And were there more ladders? Did they always lead back to places he’s already been or were some of them ‘extra’ paths too? 

As he questioned the ladder’s existence, he turned back to the campfire and tapped it with his right hand. “One thing at a time, Jaune. One thing at a time,” he reminded himself. A soft sigh left his lips. He sat down near the lit campfire with a sword stabbed into it. His eyes widened slightly when feeling the same calming sensation he felt when drinking the estus flask. It was like he could also hear a soft, harmonizing choir before the feeling went away a few seconds later. The negative emotions that started growing inside him since this journey got worse and worse were lowered to basically nothing. His head slowly turned and tilted up to look at the undropped ladder…fixed ladder? It was something like that, definitely similar to what you’d see on apartment buildings. The fact that it was stuck up there still and wasn’t dropped down to where he was didn’t sit right with him. It also brought up two more questions. Should he try going up the stairs and manually get the ladder down on his own? Or should he just get on his way with that bridge path that led to those skeletons he saw on a wooden platform?

Chapter Text

“Ladder….no ladder….ladder…no ladder…” Jaune repeated to himself. After all that walking and fighting, sitting by the campfire was probably going to be the best thing he could do to relax. He lowered his head as his neck started to hurt from looking upwards that long. He turned towards where he came from and saw…..the archer skeleton…that he…already unalived before he went to this campfire. “....what?” he wondered quietly, his face scrunched up in confusion. Jaune slowly rose up from where he sat and went towards the entrance of the large room he found the campfire in. The archer skeleton didn’t ever turn or look towards him. A tentative lean to the left revealed that the other skeletons he dealt with were alive again too. He glanced back at the campfire he rested at. 

The ‘respawn’ mechanic of the campfires was weird enough, now he has to deal with the downside of anything he…killed…coming back to life when he uses one of the campfires. The limits of the campfire brought up more questions. Does anything come back? Are things reseted to where they were before he did anything? Was that giant monster he faced in the asylum back too? Was that dying knight also back? Another random idea pushed through the others; what was the point in dealing with all the ‘regular’ enemies then? Is running past them all the new plan? The only trouble he could get into would be small spaces or there being too many enemies to get through. 

The numerous areas he’s gone through so far seemed like a decent mix of small and wide spacing. Actually, he’d have to wait to properly have a stance about this world’s landscapes. The little patterns he learned from video games is that worlds like this one won’t stay with such ‘small’ areas for long. The medieval-like look of the environment could lead to or become…well….anything. Jaune’s imagination overflowed with newer ideas. From more ruins, to dungeons, to even places below the sea…. if sea exploration was accomplished here anyway. 

The wave of new questions and ideas didn’t stop Jaune from going back to the campfire to pick up the iron sword he carelessly threw to the floor. He looked the sword over and tried to find any cracks or weathering. The blade looked rough with its scratched up look, but everything in this world looked rough. Looking for a replacement sword, again, could be in his best interest after all. He cursed softly about not being like an actual game character where he had some invisible space to just store any weapon or object he’d need for later-

“...I..do have the ability..though..” Jaune realized, thinking back to when that giant monster’s key was ‘absorbed’ by one of his hands. That should mean he has some sort of invisible space of ‘inventory’, right? He looked down at his iron sword and concentrated. He didn’t close his eyes but did try to clear his mind. He started to think about making the iron sword ‘vanish’ in some way. “Inventory! Send away! Conceal!” he started to say while extending his sword arm straight. If he couldn’t ‘magically’ store his weapon away then maybe there was some vocal trigger he could accidentally use. He called out some more words before sighing and lowered his sword arm. 

His eyes soon closed as plans were imagined on what to do next. He could rush through the rest of this area and hope there was another campfire. But, the ladder above him could mean that wherever he needs to go would lead back to where he was right now anyway. This area was close to that other bonfire he activated way earlier, which meant he would very likely have to come back to this area no matter what. The merchant that attacked him was also the only person he’s met so far that was willing to stay in such a place filled with enemies. Exploring was looking like a big factor for this world. Jaune imagined that a handful of ‘secrets’ so far were already missed, there were probably even less opportunities to find those hidden places or items again if he tried going back to look around. 

He mentally kicked himself to get back on track and thought about other paths. Charging through more enemies and getting to somewhere else seemed more like a Yang, Blake or Nora idea while at least checking where the ladder leads to would be more up Ren, Ruby, and Weiss’ alley. Going back to where he’s been was another option. For all he knew, weapons better than his iron sword were just a room away from him. The existence of giant monsters and dragons had to mean there were some mystical weapons beyond his imagination that were wielded by people that were leagues scarier than Salem herself. Maybe even weapons or tools that’d fully counter her. 

“...focus..” Jaune mentally kicked himself again as he visualized his options. Checking where the ladder leads to would be the quickest thing to get done, but that was only if the area above him wasn’t anything important or time consuming. Following the ‘main’ path would lead him to more enemy types or at least another boss. The main path had a decent chance of also leading him to a new weapon. Staying with the plain sword would only hinder him if weapons in this world actually had some sort of ‘quality’ function. The sword could be close to being useless without him knowing it.

“Ladder….find a better weapon….ladder…find a better weapon…” he repeated while opening his eyes. “....find a better weapon,” was what he finally stopped at. He first reached down for the iron sword then pulled up Crocea Mors’ shield form in front of him as he started to run towards the bridge to the left of the campfire area. The revived, archer skeleton to his right didn’t glance his way once…maybe things wer-

Jaune had to stop himself right in front of where the thin bridge began as the skeletons standing on a roof’s extended, wood platform to the very far left proved to be ranged enemies. They were throwing bombs that had a decent explosion range, even when only hitting the left side of the bridge. The bridge connected to a building with an axe skeleton waiting for him anyway. The little surprises he encountered so far helped him guess that there were going to be a few more enemies than that one skeleton. “I’ve been through worst…” he said to himself as his aura surrounded his body. Crocea Mors was positioned better in front of him as his right foot slid a few inches behind him. He made himself wait for the three roof skeletons to throw another volley of bombs then hoofed it across the thin bridge. 

Nearing the end of the bridge inspired him to take a small jump towards the room the skeleton warrior was waiting in. Landing back on the ground turned into a roll as he dodged under an axe swing, it turns out that he was right; there was more than one skeleton waiting for him. His iron blade stabbed through the other axe skeleton’s ribcage and still pushed through so he can skewer into the first axe skeleton. The brief sign of movement and sounds of footsteps to his left forced him to lift Crocea Mors up to block an attack from yet another, hidden enemy. He let go of the iron sword and grabbed one of the axes the skeletons dropped. His left arm easily pushed the last skeleton away. The first axe he grabbed was thrown right at the skeleton…and missed entirely. “...damn it, Jaune..” he cursed to himself. The other axe was soon grabbed but stayed in his right hand this time. 

He let the skeleton approach him again and had it run into its death via a wide axe swing. The basic death style of turning into a pile of bones was starting to annoy Jaune of how….boring fights like these were starting to become. He didn’t want to be steamrolled like a ‘level 1 newbie’ but he didn’t want to only remember this world for its variety of skeletons. A glance to where that third skeleton came from led to seeing an open door. A quick grunt left his mouth while he stood up. The aura around his body slowly receded back into him. He also then noticed that the sounds of explosions stopped, somehow that just worried him more that the skeleton bombers were about to get him right as he left through that open door. 

Jaune glanced down at his right hand and at the battle axe he forgot he was holding. He moved his right arm a few times to test its weight and feeling. It certainly wasn’t a sword, but he hoped it would do more damage than the iron sword with how much cleaner it looks. A brief look to the right of the area only let him see some door made out of iron bars. Once more, he had a feeling that the door to his right was some extra path that he could use for later. A soft hum started to be heard from his mouth as he turned back to the already open door to go through it. Crocea Mors was in front of him if something did try to attack him right as he stepped through. 

Instead of any enemies, more stone architecture greeted him. Near him was another doorway but further ahead was a staircase going upwards. Considering that staircases have yet (keyword: yet) to lead him anywhere terrible, he took his chances on just moving on with the ‘game’. He took the time to take each step one by one rather than skipping a step or two. A small look around the continued environment of a very old and abandoned medieval-era village area made him realize it didn’t disturb him as much compared to when he woke up in that jail cell. If the world wasn’t so…dead…he could have seen this experience more like a vacation instead of a messed up adventure. Or at least, he thought it was more messed up than what he and his friends were going through. 

The new thought of his friends going through trouble without him around brought back a sense of anger and fear in him. Even if time did work in this universe, he hoped it was a lot slower here than in his world. He didn’t want to imagine actually getting back to his world only for him to see that 10+ years had passed. He also didn’t want to think about the reverse happening where he’s the one that aged while everyone else is only a day or so older. 

Anymore ideas of how time worked in the world was put on hold when he reached the top of the stairs. He stepped onto another wide area of rotted stone to see a group of skeletons waiting by a building’s door. He didn’t think the door was important, especially when two of the skeletons started approaching him while the last skeleton reared one of its arms back. Crocea Mors was turned back into its sheath form then placed onto his left hip. The battle axe he threw away the iron sword for was gripped with both of his hands now as his aura came back around his body. 

“10 seconds…let’s see if I can deal with you guys in 10 seconds…” Jaune called out as he readied himself. His legs were spread a decent length apart as his hands held the battle axe in front of him. This world could throw its worst and then some at him, all he needed to remember was that he couldn’t permanently die, for now, and had people waiting for his return. “Maybe this world was just what I needed,” he quietly said to himself before jumping towards the two approaching skeletons while raising the battle axe up and near his left shoulder.

Chapter Text

The way Jaune was used to fighting worked on Remnant since he had friends who were better at going on the offense than him. He was always more of a defend-then-react sort of person, the manifestation of his semblance didn’t help his need being more reserved during fights either. He was supposed to be the ‘medic’ or ‘booster’ when things were getting out of hand. His defense became harder to get through in spars after all he’s been through, but his offensive abilities were still impressive after all the upgrades. He could handle Grimm just fine; other people were another thing entirely. The undead enemies were losing their horror factor as he started to think of them as no longer being the people they used to be. It wasn’t a flawless idea but it helped him..and that’s all that mattered. 

1

The undead to Jaune’s left got close to him first with their short jump forward and its right arm raising its own battle axe in the air. The warrior skeleton to his right was following up with a charge towards him. The skeleton that stayed at the back was ready to throw something too.

2

Jaune’s right arm swung the axe to knock the warrior skeleton away from him. His left hand let go, it moved up and to his left to grab the axe skeleton’s weapon by the handle as a way of stopping it in mid-air then made it stand back on the ground in front of him.  

3

The grip he had on the left skeleton’s axe was used to pull the undead a few inches to the right to block whatever the skeleton in the back was starting to throw. The brief gust of smoke and flames that appeared after the impact was a fast sign the third skeleton was throwing bombs. 

4

He let the bomber skeleton throw bombs at its friend he was holding until it died and fell out of his left hand. The skeleton warrior came back again only for it to become his new undead shield. It fell apart after one bomb hit….Jaune was almost surprised before remembering how weak these skeletons were. 

5

The bomber skeleton was ready to toss another bomb until an axe blade crashed into its chest. Its bomb fell to the ground and was shortly followed up by the skeleton’s body crumbling down. The stranded Huntsman’s right arm was stretched out in front of him after taking the risk of throwing the battle axe. 

Jaune used his right arm to wipe at his forehead while taking the time to look around. “5 seconds, nice job Jaune…nice job,” he complimented himself. His current search was for the battle axe he was getting used to. Even though he just threw it, the axe was nowhere to be seen where it should be. He shrugged and picked up a battle axe that another skeleton was once holding. He looked it over for a few seconds in case there was a difference on this axe compared to the one he threw. There was no real change between the two other than more visible scratches all over this axe. A brief thought of wondering if blacksmiths existed in this world made him roll his eyes at himself. The existence of armor and knights had to be a big hint that at least some blacksmiths were around. The real question was if any blacksmith was around to help him when he needed it. The amount of actual people he spoke to was four…..or three technically speaking since that merchant was a walking corpse. As he considered the usual patterns in games as well as some basic deduction, Jaune expected to eventually come across one or two blacksmiths. The next problem would be finding where they would be.  

A turn to his left focused his attention at a stone tower with a doorway and some descending stairs to the right of it. The doorway should lead somewhere, unless the stairs were blocked by something. The view from the top of a tower could give him some answers, or at least hints, to his geological questions. He knew he didn’t use that word right but was too busy going to the doorway and checking inside of the tower. The few seconds of looking inside only revealed it was just a spiral staircase; there wasn’t anything under the staircase either. Jaune shrugged to himself before taking one step at a time up the tower. His hands held his replacement battle axe and kept it in front of him. Crocea Mors was still in its shield form and on his left hip. The chances of enemies being in places where he wouldn’t expect them were increasing with each encounter of things that wanted to attack him. At this point he’d believe in stuff like fake chests that were actually monsters or even evil trees.

The last few steps and bits of the stone walls were illuminated as he approached the top of the tower. The opening to the top of the tower didn’t reveal much, yet Jaune heard the softest sounds of shuffling above him. There was clearly something or someone standing right above him. Typically, he would have to fully go up to the top of the tower and deal with whatever was up there. Instead, he went up a few more steps and stopped just as he saw what the shuffling noise came from. It was another one of those skeletons, this time it was equipped with a crossbow. An actual wooden crossbow and not a metal one like he was used to seeing. 

Jaune’s solution to the problem was by going up a few more steps and extending his right arm when the shuffling noises were as close as they could be. He hoped that he swung the axe at the right time to deal with the skeleton. The results came in the form of a few bones rolling down onto the staircase and slowly rolling down more steps. Creepiness aside, thankfully it was another skeleton and not a living person. He didn’t know what would be worse: a person dying just from one hit from him or a person who just walked through his attacks. He still waited on the stairs in case a second enemy was waiting for him. Seconds passed as all he heard were the sounds of the archer skeleton’s bones still rolling down the stairs. 

The last steps left were taken as Jaune glanced around the top of the tower. His arms relaxed and went back to his sides as there was nothing around at the top besides a lone crossbow. His gaze looked around and upwards then widened in surprise as a small castle-like building could be seen in the distance. A castle with the dragon that almost squashed him perched on the front of it. The bridge leading up to the castle was carefully looked at from end to end. The middle pillar that was holding up the middle of the bridge had to be where the campfire he last rested at was. That meant the unused ladder was a shortcut for when he goes up there and that he…has….to go…to the dragon perched on the castle.

Jaune sighed deeply and long when realizing the future course of events he’d have to go through. He turned away from the inevitable and looked down to get a better view of what was between him and the dragon. There were the stairs right by the tower that went down to some skeleton warriors. Past those guys was a staircase that went to his right then turned to the left and led to another tower of sorts. A tower that had to be where he’ll find a way to the huge bridge behind him that’s near the perched dragon. Said dragon was still perched after he took a glance back at the castle-like building. He also took a look to the right to see that the skeletons that once threw bombs at him as he crossed a skinny bridge did have a ladder that led up to their wooden platform. Since they didn’t seem to care anymore about attacking him, he focused back on the skeletons blocking his way to the next tower. The front of the tower was blocked by a skeleton…..who hid behind a barrel at the top of the stairs. The confusion of what a barrel is doing there was replaced with the realization that it was a trap waiting for whoever gets close. 

Dealing with all the undead people was starting to become a chore to him. Which is why a short plan started to be drawn out in Jaune’s mind. The crossbow was still near him on the floor and had an arrow loaded. From his experience so far in this world and with video games, there was some level of alertness that everyone has. There was a good chance he could use the crossbow to shoot at the wall of the stairs in front of the tower to alert the skeleton warriors to go there. Once that part is done, either the skeleton at the top of the stairs is ‘triggered’ to kick the barrel down onto its friends or he could at least use those skeletons to block the barrel if the trap only happens when he gets there. Most of this plan depends on how bad his aim is and if the enemies’ hearing is something he was allowed to trick to his advantage. 

Jaune dropped the battle axe to the floor while moving to pick up the crossbow gently. He’s been around guns and other things that shoot but has never done anything but look at them. The things he’s learned of how they work from Ren, Ruby, and Yang were barely applicable to something as old as what he was holding currently. One hand was holding the bottom with a finger near the trigger while his right hand held the underside of the crossbow to aim around where he wanted to shoot. His sight was focused on the stairs while trying to decide where exactly he should shoot. Shooting too high might alert the skeleton with the barrel instead and cause it to kick the barrel down when no skeletons are on the stairs. Shooting too low would make the skeleton warriors go up only some of the stairs and not exactly where he wanted them to be. That meant he had to hit somewhere in the middle of the stairs. 

His breath slowed and calmed as he began to focus. This world’s wind never went above a calm breeze yet, which eased some worry about the wind messing up his aim. Jaune’s right eye was closed as he kept his left eye as open as possible with very few blinks in between. The few things he knew of crossbows is that they were as accurate as the shooter…which wasn’t that great of a fact for him as this was going to be his first time doing anything like it. He took another breath and waited for his aim to steady again. He let a few seconds pass before hitting the trigger. To his surprise, not a lot of recoil happened. That surprise was quickly replaced by his shock at the group of warrior skeletons moving from their area near the tower he was on to the other tower he was trying to get to. The second the last warrior skeleton turned left on the stairs, the skeleton at the top all of a sudden lit the barrel on fire and rolled it down the stairs. 

The addition of flames appearing on the barrel was extreme but the following explosion was not what he was expecting to occur. When the smoke and dust settled, there were a bunch of bones left on the stairs while the skeleton at the top of the stairs didn’t seem bothered at all of what it just did. Jaune shrugged at the result. The chances of the plan working weren’t great, but he at least saved a few seconds of fighting. With that done he placed the crossbow back on the floor and retrieved the battle axe. He took another survey of everything he could see from the top of the tower before making his way down. The trip down was brief as he let himself skip two or three steps at a time before making his way out of the tower and down the first stairs he needed to use. A short look around of the area revealed a chest that rested just too far from he was, which was probably an area connected to somewhere he passed already. Before the small area with a chest was an opening and stone stair railings that led somewhere else. An area that he proceeded to not check for now as he went up the stairs that turned to the left and into the tower. 

The last skeleton in his way was taken care of by simply shield bashing them off the bridge with the help of missing chucks of the stairs’ left side. When finally getting into where those skeletons were trying their best to block him from, Jaune was a bit disappointed that it was just a large room. It was a bit darker of course, but nothing looked like it was worth all that effort to get in. To his left was a staircase that curved upwards and a few feet in front of him was a wooden door that was most likely locked. He gave himself a moment of rest to think about his new options. Going up is most likely where he needed to go while going through that wooden door was something he can come back to later. Going upstairs also meant dealing with a dragon sooner rather than later. 

The moment of silence and rest was ruined as Jaune stepped towards the wooden door and broke most of it into pieces with an aura-infused kick. While going upstairs is the simplest route, whatever was downstairs had to be worth the effort of putting a door before it. This was not at all his way of avoiding a fight with an actual dragon. Crocea Mors was back on his left hip as he slowly went down the staircase that mirrored the one he was supposed to use. Going down said steps of stairs revealed…..absolutely nothing. The increase in darkness wasn’t that much of an issue as there was only a circular floor waiting for him and more downward stairs. He sighed to himself before going deeper down the tower. To his surprise, there was yet another circular floor with nothing around and just another set of stairs that went down again. With a louder sigh, he went down to the next steps of stairs. 

A few steps down the, hopefully, last set of stairs, there was certainly something he wasn’t expecting to see. There was a door down here….and in front of the door was a wall of a person. It looked like someone took chunky, stone pieces and glued them onto a person for their armor. Blocking its left side of its body was a huge shield that looked like it was made from the same material as the armor. Just looking at them made him feel exhausted. The thing leaning on the wall near them didn’t seem nice either, it looked like a…tooth….a huge tooth that didn’t belong to be used by most things or people that Jaune ran into so far in this world. The tooth was bigger than both of them, but not as big as the regret he was having in coming down the stairs just because his curiosity got the better of him again. The chances of the tooth once belonging to a dragon or something was decently high, which meant this person was definitively on a tier similar or above to Hunters on Remnant. Jaune then imagined who would even try to hunt monsters or dragons for fun or sport, besides crazy people. 

The heavily-armored person’s helmet slowly turned and tilted up to where he stayed on the stairs. Jaune felt his body tense. Not just tense though, he froze up as sweat started to form on his head. This person didn’t act like people or enemies he’s met before. This one….they were suited for intimidation and it…was…. working . His eyes forced to keep themselves open. That knight could teleport for all he knew. Jaune tested his theory with a painfully slow retreat back up one stair step. The walking wall didn’t at all move after he did that. Though, their head did keep itself tilted up to look at him. He didn’t know what was worse, the constant monitoring or the lack of attempt to chase after him. Could the knight throw the tooth? Were there more knights waiting for him when he goes back up the stairs? Did he even have a chance in doing any damage to that knight?  

Going upstairs gets him away from this potentially impossible fight. Testing how he would do against an actual warrior could end up with him dying….again. A death that’d make him ‘restart’ back at the campfire with the untouched ladder. Going all the way up instead of where he was currently was starting to really look promising. But, something…..a very small feeling….was starting to betray him. Games liked to hide stuff behind moments like these. What if a weapon that makes his battle axe look like a toothpick was right behind the door the knight was blocking. A weapon that their giant tooth couldn’t even compare to. The internal war with his thoughts eventually made Jaune roll off the stairs and onto the same floor as the heavy knight. Crocea Mors was lifted off his hip and turned into its shield form on his left arm. The battle axe in his right hand was gripped tight to try and prevent any chance of it being taken out of his hands. He held off from surrounding himself with aura since he’d need to save that for any surprises. 

Jaune crouched and leaned forward a bit as the heavy knight slowly grabbed the massive tooth with one hand and moved it to rest on top of its shoulder. The walking rock gave a deep grunt before their stone shield was positioned in front of them by the use of their arm. Jaune started to circle to the right as the knight circled to his left. The fear Jaune expected to have when actually fighting someone like this was replaced with eagerness and adrenaline. If he already had the ability to beat a giant monster with a massive club, then this fortress of a person with a dragon tooth weapon shouldn’t be worth the caution. Jaune and the stone knight stopped circling each other as they seemed to stop right where they started. Jaune was in the middle of the room as the knight stood in front of the wooden door. Both of them waited for who was going to attack first. 

Chapter Text

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Jaune stared at the heavy knight as their helmet looked his way for what felt like hours. His heart was a drum during the silent stare down. The knight across from him moved like the collective weight of the armor and weapons were nothing to them. An actual dragon was one thing, but a person somehow being able to move decently fast under all that weight was another thing. So far, aura didn’t seem to be a thing for the people in this world. Magic was another possibility, or at least it would be if there was an obvious sign of magic being used. That would mean the knight was moving and carrying all that weight with 100% of their own strength…and that was worrying.

A plan he thought of in seconds was taking the annoying route and try to stay out of their attack range as much as possible, maybe even use the nearby stairs to his advantage. Either that or pray he could dodge and roll out of harm’s way enough until the knight was ki- defeated. As weird as it was that he was getting used to ending people’s lives, there was a bigger question of if he has even truly killed anything so far in this world. If all the zombies and other basic ‘enemies’ came back after he rested at a campfire, did that mean that the giant demon in the prison place was also back? 

His ever increasing questions of how this world works were saved for another time as Jaune had to roll to his right to avoid the impact of a giant tooth that slammed down where he was just standing. He kicked off the floor to put some more distance between him and the heavy knight as Crocea Mors was held in front of him. The armored person somehow left no real damage on the floor before starting to make their way to where he now was. He kept his eyes open for any advantage he could find before having to roll away again from another downward swing. 

Unlike last time, he kept himself crouched down as he realized something quickly. There was a long time between the knight slamming the giant tooth down and lifting it upward again to then move towards him. The timing between the knight recovering with its weapon and being able to move again would be long enough for him to land at least one attack. Jaune proceeded to do exactly that, he stayed still for a while to let the armored knight get close to him and as the giant tooth was about to smack downwards he would roll away. Each dodge roll let him get at least a glancing slash at the heavy knight’s legs or waist. 

The slow-paced plan Jaune made was torn apart after he had to double roll away as the walking fortress broke the pattern with a wide swing of the giant tooth. He turned his head back to glance at the knight only to grunt as the huge shield they had was smashed into him. His attempt at pushing against the shield was reversed into being sent across the room. Crocea Mors’ shield met the floor first, sliding a few feet before he used it to help him flip around and regain his balance. He tried to calm himself with a quick breath before needing to roll to the left. The giant tooth brushed against the back of his pants and slammed down behind him. Jaune’s aura glowed down his right arm then to his hand as he swung the battle axe towards the hip area, this time it dug into the heavy knight’s armor and left a big cut before he pulled his axe away so he could roll away three full times. Instead of getting up, he kicked his left foot out when the knight stomped towards him. He was lucky to kick the knight’s leg as they were raising a foot up. The action made the knight stumble for a second as Jaune slid a few feet away after said kick. 

The brief feeling of victory was taken away by the need to crouch down and had to make himself as small as possible right as the dragon tooth weapon was thrown towards him. His aura flowed out in time as the small end of the tooth scraped his left arm. A soft grunt and a slight squint of his eyes was the only reaction he showed until his arms extended out to quickly catch both fists from the heavy knight. The battle axe he was using was dropped for the exchange of fists. His aura and Crocea Mors' shield form was helping him shrug off the pain in not only hitting against the thick, plated armor but also in taking return punches from the knight. Time spent watching Yang spar and taking a few lessons about hand-to-hand combat flashed through his mind as he ducked under a left hook and tried to mimic a decent punching motion when he focused more aura to cover his right arm. Jaune grunted as his fingers and knuckles met the plated-armored side of the knight but still continued pumping enough aura to send the heavy knight backwards and into the wall behind them. 

His eyes stayed open and focused to watch the heavy knight’s body slide down the wall and slump onto the floor. Crocea Mors was turned into its sheath form and placed on his left hip when the fight looked like it was over. As usual, or at least as usual as it is after coming to this new world, he didn’t feel as winded as he should have been. “Sloppy, but still a win..” Jaune said to himself as he leaned against the nearest wall. For a solo fight, he felt impressed with how it turned out. He kept his calm, switched plans during the fight when necessary, and didn’t celebrate early. He looked down at himself and let aura form on his hands to gauge how much he wasted in that fight. It still looked darker than he remembered and flickered more compared to usually being a stable flow. He wasn’t that knowledgeable when it came to aura, but the flickering was a large sign that he should take a break from fights for a while. After that quick check-up, he stopped channeling aura to his hands and looked around the circular room. He shook his hands around to lose the numb feeling they had. It was no surprise that hitting a solid steel or iron wall in the shape of a person was going to result in sore knuckles.

The first thing he did was make sure he was truly fine. He patted at himself to see if anything was torn or ripped after everything that happened. When he found that nothing on him was ripped or torn, he slowly made his way to the battle axe he dropped. Before picking it up with his right hand, he turned his head to look at the huge, carved-stone shield that was on the ground nearby. The knight had to have let it go during the transition from a duel between knights to a drunken bar fight. Another glance at the slumped over knight was met with nothing. No surprise attack, no second or third enemy popping out of the walls or ground, and no surprise boss that would pop out of the armored figure’s chest. Jaune made a soft hum sound as he reached for the huge shield and tried to lift it up. While expecting the shield to be the heaviest thing he would ever carry, he was caught off guard by its lighter-than-expected weight. There was a noticeable weight, at least to him, but it was possible for him to walk around the room a few times with only his left arm holding up the shield. He left the shield leaning against a wall when he was done playing around with it.

Jaune looked around again to see where the huge tooth went. In his look for the tooth he realized that the door the knight was blocking was open now. Or at least it was mostly open due to the corner parts of the door being left as a clear sign something crashed through the door. His eyes fully took in that outside the door was….darkness. Not actual darkness…but it looked like it was nighttime out there. He could see a few trees, a normal, grass landscape, and maybe a few stones here and there. There was a staircase right after the doorway but he was more surprised that nighttime actually existed in this world. A few more footsteps to get close to the doorway and leaning through it led to much more questions than he thought he would have. It was not simply some forested area, it was a whole different side of the world to Jaune. Somehow, someway, he knew that the area he could go back up to was still lit up with sunlight. The change in atmosphere was as horrifying as it was confusing. 

The shift wasn’t a big one. It was as if someone completely lifted up the ground from underneath him and flipped it over. There was no way that he and the heavy knight fought for that long to prove time could change in this world. He didn’t dare try to step out into the nighttime area and slowly stepped away from the broken door. As much as he would like to find the huge tooth, it was probably somewhere out there and that meant he would be in very new territory. The kind of territory that was screaming to him that he should come back later where he will be more used to this world and the way it works. For now, Jaune picked up the chunk-of-stone shield and his battle axe to test if the shield could be a viable addition to his arsenal. 

After a minute or two of practice swings and blocking, Jaune knew he looked stupid when using the stone shield while trying to extend his other arm far enough to swing the axe in front of him. A longer or bigger weapon was surely needed to solve this problem. It would explain why the knight used a monster nail or tooth for a weapon while having this kind of shield. Technically, Crocea Mors’ greatsword form would work. He’d also feel less terrible for leaving the knight with nothing so the least he could was leave the battle axe for them…right? Even though he has...killed....'people' so far, there was something different about ending the life of that knight. At least, he thinks there's a living person under all those pounds of armor.  They didn't seem like a skeleton or zombie that had a one track mind when they adapted to how he fought as the battle went on. This is of course all assuming that the heavy knight was still alive and didn't die of blood loss or something along those lines.

He would have continued debating with himself if a large thud sound wasn’t heard from above him followed up by the tower-like building shaking for a few seconds. The battle axe in his right hand was quickly forgotten as Crocea Mors’ greatsword form now occupied his right hand. The deceptively light weight of the stone shield was something he was grateful for as he sped up three flights of stairs and found himself now standing in front of another fog-covered doorway. The next flight of stairs, which had to be the last one, was destroyed and probably wasn’t important anyway when the next fight he’ll have to go through was behind the fog door. With a soft exhale he pushed through the foggy doorway with the stone shield slanted in front of him. The ‘top’ of the shield was pointed to his upper left while the ‘bottom’ was tilted to the bottom right. His right arm was lifted and bent so Crocea Mors could already be pointed ahead of him. 

His sight was distracted by the sunlight, the sunlight that he knew was still around even if that other area below the tower-like building had some sort of ‘night mode’, for a few seconds before they adjusted in time to take in the view of a towering goat monster-thing with a hammer-like weapon that stood in the middle of a stone bridge. Said stone bridge led to another…bastion? He knew there was an actual word for the tower things at the end of castle walls but he had other things to worry about. A glance around revealed some ladder to his right that most likely connected to the roof of the tower he just exited. His attention was focused back on the goat monster as it roared upwards to the sky before looking back down at him and starting to charge towards him. 

The stone shield held up by his left hand was moved more in front of him as his aura flowed out and covered as much of his body and weapons as possible. The state of his aura proved to not be that great as it still flickered occasionally. His heartbeat increased with each of the monster’s steps towards him, but he stood his ground. Crocea Mors was held at his side and pointed downwards with the realization that dodging or blocking was his best option for the current situation. His head tilted up as the goat demon was raising up its hammer-like weapon. An almost missed twang sound was heard which made Jaune look up more to see that two skeleton archers were on the top of the ‘bastion’ behind him and shot two arrows down at him. The shield he sto- borrowed from the heavy knight was lifted up above his head as his near-white aura was called on to surround his body. He was left with no choice but to attempt blocking all of the attacks aimed for him as the shadows beneath him grew because of the goat demon’s hammer closing in on him.

Chapter Text

‘If I had a lien for every time I tried to block an attack from some giant thing, I’d have two lien…which is crazy that it happened twice!’ Jaune mentally complained, his left arm held up the new shield he sto- ‘obtained’ while struggling to hold back the bone-like hammer wielded by the towering goat beast. Crocea Mors’ greatsword form jabbed at whatever part of the beast’s body was closest. He should have at least cut a hand or wrist at this point, but the monster didn’t give any reaction besides deep growls that were felt all the way down to his toes. Fighting something this big of a beast on the bridge-like platform was the last thing he wanted. The heavily-armored knight he fought a few minutes ago didn’t prepare him at all for this kind of fight. The set expectation was another knight, or even the dragon that he had a close encounter with a while ago. 

A better look at the boss didn’t help at all. Its demon-ish face where it looked like all bone or stone with no actual skin, yellow, glowing balls where the eyes would be, curving horns coming out from the sides of its head like a goat, the immediate brown fur all over its gorilla-like body, the three-fingered, gray hands, and then the gray legs and feet that reminded him of a chicken. Whatever features it had going on its back profile weren’t cared about right now. It certainly was a creature that wouldn’t fit in his world but had to be strangely the norm in this world. Hopefully, Salem didn’t have any new ideas waiting to be unleashed. 

Jaune heaved a tired breath as his legs wobbled. His shield arm didn’t feel much better when starting to shake from either the pain of blocking the monster’s blow or the effort of blocking for so long. The only paths he had were either climbing the ladder to his right or trying to use the whole bridge to his advantage. His whole body was soon encased in aura as he wanted to use his semblance again. He wouldn’t activate it for long, he only needed to buy more time to look at the ladder. The opposing weight of the goat demon became more manageable to push against after boosting himself. The ladder seemed to be in the narrow area in between the short set of stairs and the stone barricade along the bridge. Going up to wherever it led to could be a good idea. The chance to finally do what he should have done against the monster in the Undead Asylum was also calling to him. 

“Do or die,” Jaune whispered, turning his head back to face the newest monster in the way of his passed-down mission. Stepping one foot forward shifted the struggle to his side instantly as the goat demon let out a strange noise, as if it didn’t expect a person to actually move underneath the current pressure. The huge, stone shield he’s been making use of was tilted at an angle to let the goat’s hammer weapon slide off towards the ground. The cloud of dust the attack kicked up was ignored as much as possible to keep his attention on whatever the monster could do next. His aura receded back into his body after the hard part was over. 

The beast raised its weapon made of bones again, preparing to swing in another slanted arc.. A quick movement of his feet towards the left was enough to dodge the attack that smashed down where he once was. His little maneuver got him close enough to land two glancing slices on the beast’s right leg. The roar it let out and its following huge leap backwards made Jaune pause. The two attacks he luckily landed shouldn’t have caused such a reaction- 

Any confusion he had was shoved aside as he threw himself to the left side to evade the goat demon’s charging attack. It rushed past him with another roar leaving its mouth. The time taken to recover and turn around was just in time as the monster stopped its charge and also turned back to him. The appropriated stone shield was hoisted up before he could properly take in the bizarre event that happened as the boss moved to attack him. Two thunk sounds were heard as he glanced down to see what they were. The answer was two arrows that he saw literally go through the monster’s chest area. His distracted state caused his semblance to stop and his aura to retreat into him. The arrows didn’t physically hit the horned beast at all….what was that about? 

His curiosity could have led to another death if he didn’t bring the stone shield up at a slanted angle. The arm-numbing sense that came from the boss’ attacks felt a bit more bearable, that meant either the boss was tiring or his arm was that numb already. “Think of a new plan, Jaune…..think of something,” he breathed out as two softer impacts were felt from his shield. The worry he had with this fight grew when noticing how small of a window he had to get even one hit in. The goat monster’s slow but huge attacks mixed with the archer skeletons’ quick assisting shots was already unfair, it was even more unfair that the arrows could pass through the huge monster. That meant the boss could do whatever it wanted Jaune changed his plan to slowly back up every so often. The new shield of his was proving to be sturdier than expected, but how much longer could he fight like a wall?

“The backup is starting to get annoying,” he added, skidding back a few more feet when letting another attack and shots of arrows collided against his shield. In any better scenario, all he would worry about is how fast Ren or Blake could find their way around the goat demon so they could deal with the skeletons supporting it. Ruby, Yang, and Nora would be the ones actually doing damage while he stayed as the meat shield. Weiss could do any part she wanted due to how versatile she had become. But no, there was no help and he should start remembering how unlikely it was for anyone else to also end up wherever he was. He would have been woken up by them in the prison area a while ago, or at least what felt like a while ago. 

He was brought out of his lonesome thoughts after being pushed back even more feet across the bridge and letting yet another wide swing scrape against the shield. He was far enough from where he started to finally see that the ladder he was once next to led to an upper area where two bow-wielding skeletons were standing. The area was, unsurprisingly, as damaged as the other castle-like structures. The new problem came with the realization of what it meant to try to climb the ladder.

“If I climb that ladder, I can deal with those two skeletons. Yet, I would be risking a lot since I can’t keep the shield and Crocea in my hands while climbing up as fast as I could. If the beast catches up, I’m as good as dead. What are the chances that this thing just jumps up onto the upper area or something anyway?” Jaune debated, “This would be a lot easier if it was just this giant thing fighting me….staying close to fight it with just my sword sounds better than having to deal with this-” he cut himself off. The mental struggle he was having in coming up with a plan was calmed after realizing what he had to do. A brief groan was let out as he prepared for the first part of his new plan. Instead of waiting for a long windup, Jaune sprinted around the right side of the demon boss. His shield was kept in front of him so he didn’t need to worry much about still being in the archer skeletons’ view. 

The thudding sounds behind him meant the goat demon wasted no time in turning around to chase him. It wasn’t what he wanted, but it wasn’t hard to plan for that result either. The run back to the small set of stairs he was once on was the easiest yet most important part for the plan. Besides needing to block a few more arrows, he guessed that it was the safest distance to be no longer in range of the archer skeletons. “Just to be safe..” Jaune whispered as he hopped onto the middle of the stairs. He threw away the large shield somewhere to his left to dual wield Crocea Mors’ greatsword form. As much as he liked being the defensive guy, he’d be wasting a lot of time playing like a turtle. His aura surrounded his arms and covered Crocea Mors when the demon beast was a step away. 

When the attack it chose was a leaping one, Jaune softly grinned as he twirled to the right. The puff of air that kicked up from the impact barely interrupted his stomp forward. Crocea Mors was thrusted up into the nearest part he could hit, his grin turned into a grimace as he barely impaled Crocea into the arm of the goat demon. Its arms moving to lift its weapon up from the ground proved to be strong enough to not mind Jaune’s added weight. He should have let go, but he was thankful that attempting to pull down resulted in his sword slowly slicing down the boss’ arm. His feet landing on the beast’s knee was used for a brief opportunity to yank downward as hard as possible. The response to now having half of an arm hanging off was given in the form of the goat monster using its other arm to backhand him hard enough to make the blonde warrior land back first onto the small set of stairs.

The groan Jaune let out was only for a second, forcing his body to roll to the left and right repeatedly when the boss leaped forward with a fist aimed downward. His aura was called back into his body after landing. The plan he hoped would work turned into trying to survive an impromptu game of Whack-A-Jaune. His trusty sword was dropped somewhere around after he landed on his back, the large shield he brought with him to this fight was still where he threw it. Another set of rolls to the left was rewarded with bumping into said shield. He scrambled to pick up the shield and himself off the stairs. As the horned beast lifted its good arm to smash down onto him, Jaune hurled the stone shield in the general area of its head. The second the shield left his hands, he gunned for Crocea Mors which was somehow perfectly laid down on one of the stair steps to the right. The roar he heard as he went across the stair steps was a sign that the shield did hit and was hopefully the face like he wanted.

Instead of diving for the sword like he imagined doing, he chose to simply lean down quickly to pick Crocea Mors back up. He made sure he tightly gripped the handle then pivoted to prepare to swing his sword. His head and body turned just as the goat monster leaned its head down to roar at him in a louder volume. Jaune’s ears were ringing but his arms swung around to slash right across the boss’ face. No real indent or damage was seen, but the motion of its good arm moving up to grasp at its face and it backing away was a good sign. A quick breath was taken prior to a short hop forward. His family’s sword was reversed to dig deep into the beast’s chest. Instead of calling on his aura, Jaune trusted his own strength to push and wiggle Crocea as much as he could for whatever damage he could do in this moment. The still-attached arm of the boss was lifted off its face and descended down towards him as what he hoped was a last resort.

Said last resort wouldn’t touch Jaune at all, the arm and the rest of its body ceased moving a few seconds before the punch could reach him. After recognizing what was about to happen, he yanked Crocea out of the boss’ chest and moved higher up the stairs. The lack of blood on the sword and from the wound he left was stored in an extra space in the piling amount of questions he had for this world. He brought an arm up in time to block the intense, bright light and sparkles that surrounded the monster’s fading corpse. His focus on the corpse switched to the arm he held up when aura surrounded it for a moment. Unlike whenever else it happened, he finally witnessed the color of his aura darkening another shade. It wasn’t a gleaming white like it should have. It was still a bright white but now the edges of it were more of a silver or gray color. 

“That …is not a good sign,” he plainly observed when his aura went back into his body. The chances of semblances evolving was low enough already and there was no major event he’s gone through to trigger something like that. When and where it started to change was easy to deduce since it should be tied to when he woke up in that asylum, but the ‘why’ part of the question was his main concern. As worried as he should be, there hasn’t been any real issue so far. “This can’t be that much of a problem, right?” he asked himself. 

Aura flowed around his hand and arm to do another check on the change. There, thankfully, wasn’t any difference he could feel when using his semblance either. He looked over his arm for a few more seconds then let his semblance stop and let his arm back down to his side. “Just add it to the list and worry about it later, Jaune. There’s other things to get answers for, like finding out more about ‘here’,” was his excuse of not wanting to care about his aura going through a change. His other hand lifted up Crocea Mors, a quick push and twist changed it back into its sheath and sword form. A brief thought about finding a blacksmith in this world was trashed with the reluctance of letting anyone see the state of Crocea Mors and asking him about it. A hand moved up to scratch the bridge of his nose while his next steps got him closer to where the large, stone shield was left lying. One of his feet stepped on the closest part of the shield, his other hand reaching out to catch the shield after kicking it up. His scratching hand lowered to let him gaze down at the stone shield. 

The fingers keeping the shield standing up drummed periodically while he thought about what to do next. The doorway on the other side of the path was open and was the obvious choice. The other option he considered was the door he had a hand in breaking that led to an area of the world where it was somehow nighttime. “The sooner I find a library or actual person to talk to, the better…” Jaune sighed as another objective was made for him to do. With a swift turn, the stone shield was on his left arm while he made his way to the right side of the bridge to look over what he could run into. Down below his current position was a wider and longer bridge that led to a structure that looked like an actual castle. The red dragon that almost crushed him from what felt like hours ago was still perched on the area right above the only opening he could see from where he was. The bridge itself seemed normal besides the few skeletons that were walking up and down. There were other skeletons at the farther end of the bridge that were standing in the front opening like guards. He couldn’t miss the corpses that were also scattered around the bridge, they were too far away for him to properly see if they were burnt corpses or something else. The middle area of the bridge caught his attention since they were taller and thicker barriers than the rest of the stone bridge barriers. 

He would have wondered more about them if he didn’t mentally smack himself for not recognizing it sooner. When taking in the position of those higher walls and where he’s been so far, that middle area had to be connected to the campfire he last rested at where the ladder had yet to be dropped down. Of course, that meant he had to risk making his way halfway across the bridge with killer skeletons as well as a whole dragon that could fly down from its perch to attack him. He briefly looked up and down the bridge once more then moved to the left side of the bridge. Staring straight from where he stood only revealed the sight of some mountains and two sets of clouds. There were the clouds higher in the sky that didn’t hide the sun and its rays that he could somehow physically see stretch down below the other set clouds that were at a lower altitude. The lower set of clouds didn’t look anything special, they were as white and gray as the clouds higher in the air. The thought of whatever was below them would interest him if he didn’t notice that some amount of distance below him was a circular, stone area with two sets of stairs separated by a smaller circle of stone. The stairs led to some balcony-like area where he saw some armored figure standing and looking out towards the view he just got done looking at. 

“....hopefully they aren’t an enemy,” Jaune wondered with a positive tone, taking a few steps away from the left bridge barrier and stared towards the other side of the bridge. He started to take some deep breaths while rolling his neck around. He exhaled another breath and got ready to sprint across the bridge. His left arm angled the stone shield to lessen the chances of it slowing him down. Even though he only saw two skeletons on the roof above him, he’d rather try running away from the arrows than be surprised by a group of skeletons waiting for him to climb up the nearby ladder. With no real countdown he waited on his side of the bridge as he crouched down. A small breeze was his signal before he was already halfway across the bridge. His ears caught the sounds of arrows being shot towards him. His shield arm moved behind him in time to feel and hear two thunk sounds. 

He shifted the shield arm to his side again and passed through the doorway he was aiming for. He glanced back to see nothing follow after him once he reached the other end. With a shrug he turned forward and glanced around. There wasn’t much to the new area other than some barrels to his left, some boxes further down the hall, and some stairs to the right that went downwards. He walked closer towards the stairs and saw they led to another set of stairs that went lower in the opposite direction. “Guess it’s going to be that kind of thing….lots of ups and downs,” Jaune sighed and made his way down the stairs. He held the stone shield ahead of him in case of any trap or enemy that could pop out. Turning to take the next set of stairs let him already see an open doorway waiting for him that should lead right to the huge bridge with the red dragon waiting at the end of it. He relaxed his shield arm and decided to skip steps down to the doorway since nothing happened so far on the stairs. 

Once reaching the ground, he looked straight towards another doorway with a wooden door that was some feet across from him. He made a note of the door before peeking his head out and looked around. As expected, to the left of him was the rest of the bridge with a dragon at the end while to his right was the area he saw another armored person standing around. He leaned out more to analyze the walking patterns of the skeletons on the bridge. Luckily, there wasn’t much for him to worry about as they never got close enough to notice him. He kept his eyes on them as he slowly walked out onto the bridge and stepped backwards. 

He went backwards for 3 or so seconds then turned back around. The small circular area he stepped into was only so he could skip the stairs vault over the small wall. The following fall wasn’t that far but he moved his left arm to use the stone shield as a sled down the last few stair steps. The stone shield slid further than expected but he stopped right behind the knight he wanted to meet. He left the stone shield on the floor and gracefully (stumbled) got off the shield to walk up to the knight. His right hand was placed on Crocea Mors’ hilt in case the knight became another enemy. Another question he needed an answer for was why were people around his height. Even the skeletons and zombies he fought or ignored were around his height. Actually, the question was waved off when remembering the other things he’s fought. He’d be lucky to face even some human-sized ‘bosses’ instead of more big monsters. The next step he took towards them seemed to get their attention as their head turned towards him. Jaune paused and kept his eyes peeled for any untoward movement. 

“Ah! Hello! You don’t look Hollow, far from it!” an aged but jovial man’s tone spoke from under the helmet, “I am Solaire…..of Astora, an adherent of the Lord of Sunlight.” The word ‘sunlight’ brought his attention down to Solaire’s chest armor that did have a cartoonish-looking design of the sun on it. The sun ray parts were red, the middle was a yellow-orange circle with a face drawn in the center in black. The face was oddly realistic with its eyes, eyebrows, nose, and lips. There could have been a chin too but he focused back on Solaire when he proved he wasn’t done talking. “Now that I am Undead, I have come to this great land, the birthplace of Lord Gwyn, to seek my very own sun!” Solaire went on, “Do you find that strange? Well, you should! No need to hide your reaction. I get that look all the time! Hah hah hah!” At that point, Jaune didn’t try to apologize after hearing about this ‘Lord Gwyn’ fellow. He was about to ask who he was before the sun knight continued. “Oh, ah-hah! So, I didn’t scare you? I have a proposition, if you have a moment,” Solaire said before pausing. Jaune blinked in confusion before nodding as a response. When nothing happened, he nodded again with a harder tilt. 

As a few more seconds passed, he sighed quickly then let out a quick ‘yes’. Solaire’s head moved an inch before he heard the knight speak up, “The way I see it, our fates appear to be intertwined,” Jaune focused again after hearing that, “In a land brimming with Hollows, could that really be mere chance?” Hearing the word ‘hollows’ so often since coming to this world began to unease him more than the word already did. At first he thought the word was just their term for the undead or other monsters, but there was something more important he wasn’t understanding for why the word was used. “So, what do you say? Why not help one another on this lonely journey?” Solaire asked, then paused again. Jaune rolled his eyes before giving another vocal affirmative. “This please me greatly! Well then, take this,” the sun knight replied while raising their right hand towards him. He looked down to see that the knight was handing him a small, silver crystal with a dark yellow cloth wrapped around the top of it. 

His left arm bent and reached over to take the crystal from Solaire’s hands. He glanced down at it before needing to focus on the sun knight’s words once more. “We are amidst strange beings, in a strange land,” those words were going to be one of the only things Jaune could understand and agree with, “The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out,” the blonde Huntsman’s eyes widened, “The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure. There’s no telling how much longer your world and mine will remain in contact. But, use this, to summon one another as spirits, cross the gaps between the worlds, and engage in jolly co-operation! Of course, we are not the only ones engaged in this. But, I am a warrior of the sun! Spot my summon signature easily by its brilliant aura. If you miss it, you must be blind!” Solaire eagerly said and soon stopped talking. 

At the end of the dialogue dump, Jaune stepped back a few feet. Solaire already turned his head back to gaze towards the sun. His eyes still wide in shock as some of his worries came true. ‘The flow of time itself is convoluted…’ was Solaire’s way of confirming his fears….he was not on Remnant anymore. This wasn’t a game world, it was something far worse. Yet, the other thing the knight said about both of them not being the only ones in this situation birthed more questions. The obvious message of those words had to be the other alive-ish people he’s met so far and maybe have yet to meet, but what if this is the explanation he needed for where anyone else was?

“Fabric wavers…worlds being in contact…what is all of this,” Jaune whispered as his free hand moved to grab at his hair. His left hand tightly gripped the white crystal he was gifted. He was just getting used to being some savior and now he was told straight up that time was messed up and people are phasing in and out of reality. He walked backwards and let himself trip on the stone shield to land on the stairs. He didn't mind the brief pain his back took while he gazed upwards to the passing clouds. They did nothing to calm his renewed fear of how strange of a situation he got himself into. “...if other people are really experiencing this…journey….does that mean team RWBY is also in this world…but not?” Jaune asked out loud. He didn’t care if Solaire heard it since the following silence demonstrated that the knight was just another ‘NPC’. “If I’m here, then the others that fell should be going through all of this as well, right?” he pondered. He didn’t know how many people actually fell, but it wasn’t hard to assume how badly things went in that mess of an evacuation. The thought that…Penny’s….body was also brought into some version of this world nauseated him. A small part of him was thankful that her body didn’t go to the same version he was in, there would be no way for him to try and explore the Undead Asylum if her body was there. The thought of someone else’s time in this world starting off by seeing Penny’s…corpse…sickened him enough that he had to sit up and breathe deeply to stop any vomit from spewing out of his mouth.

He forced his thoughts to move on, to focus back on the possibility that team RWBY and whoever else could technically be in the same world as him but not. He didn’t dare to think his team, Oscar, Emerald, and Winter could possibly be going through what he and others were going through. They made it through the portals and seemed to have not been able to go back to help against Cinder. He didn’t know what events were a better reality: he could be stuck in this world all on his own, him and other people that fell were now all trapped in some world that was like a fictional story but couldn’t help each other, or worse….their entire plan failed and everyone who went through the portals were now in this land of horrors. 

The doubts and panic were creeping in again, he started to wonder why he has never felt hungry or sleepy at all yet since being in this world. He felt pain and some form of tiredness, but not those two. His usual answer of all this being a ‘game world’ was replaced with the idea that the broken state of time and reality was messing with his body’s needs. He also couldn’t at all remember needing to use the bathroom in his journey so far. His aura's color slowly changing had to be an effect from the messed up world. Since no one else seemed to have aura, maybe his aura was being changed or maybe even removed to make him ‘fit in’ with everyone else. He tightly curled into himself as his mind continued to spiral further and further down the rabbit hole he’s fallen into. The main question that repeated in his mind was the only question that’s been with him since the start: what was he supposed to do?

Chapter Text

Jaune Arc was no stranger to struggles. He struggled at getting to use the bathroom first since it was always one of his sisters beating him to it. He struggled in understanding why his parents wouldn’t support his dream to become a Huntsman while they tried putting him onto different careers. He struggled in keeping his secret plan to go to Beacon to himself. He struggled to prove his worth as a Huntsman-in-training. They may not be the most extreme of challenges, but everyone’s path in life is different. Even as….idiotic as he normally was, he still had a backup plan to live life as a simple farmer if the Hunter life wasn’t achievable. 

Being a Huntsman was born out of his want and need to be like all the other great people in his family’s history. The reasons started to change when realizing how stupid he was when taking a good look in the mirror after getting the…self-absorbedness beaten out of him. Now being a Huntsman, to him, was about being a protector…a wall…the shield between people and evil. And said ‘evil’ seems to be an ever-growing list. Before, it was just about the Grimm. Currently, there’s a few people on that ‘evil’ list that he personally put above the Grimm. But now, he can’t protect any person from said evil….not when there’s one dimension or possibly even multiple between him and his home world. 

“What is…any of this?” the faux-knight whispered to the air above him as he finally picked himself up from laying uncomfortably on the stone stairs. His arms and hands pushed his upper body into a better sitting position. The sun kn- Solaire didn’t seem to have moved and kept gazing out to the sunny atmosphere. Jaune lazily looked down at the white crystal the knight gave him earlier. He tossed it between his hands while letting himself mull over the current situation. “Not just some other land, another world entirely…..monsters, knights, and no visible signs of aura existing…the chance of magic existing? Decent. Chances of fighting more fantastical creatures? High. Drive to keep going? Not great…..” he listed off. Even though he wanted to at least finish the mission that dying knight passed on to him, he couldn't ignore his own problem. He didn't belong 'here' and something was happening to his aura. There wasn't anything wrong with it, yet. Waiting to see what would happen as his aura continued to become 'tainted' wasn't a good idea either. Exploring wherever he could was his best chance anyway to find clues or hints of what was happening to him or how to get back. 

“....‘Undead Church’ and ‘Blighttown’…” he recalled, “They each have a bell, but it’s been a while of walking and fighting with no sight of them. I could have passed the church by accident…..that one guy said Blighttown was ‘far, far below’ too.” He stopped tossing the crystal around and pocketed it. “But what does that do, actually? Lots of things happened that…that I can’t get over. I died…I died .” he finished. For a long time, he imagined the afterlife as some giant playground where people continued having a great life. Or at least for the ones who didn’t do anything bad in their lives. After Ozm- Ozpin finally shared more information for what they’re going up against…everyone seemed to focus on Salem more than the other details that worried him. People’s souls don’t seem to be as protected as he once thought. Salem wanted the Dark Brother to bring Ozpin back, yet the Light Brother dismissed Ozpin back to wherever souls go repeatedly. And the Light Brother soon let Ozpin come back in some way, anyway. They even cursed Salem to be immortal after she waged war against them. Oh, can’t forget that they caused Remnant to become Remnant when they left the planet and SHATTERED THE MOON DURING THEIR EXIT.

For as powerful as the Brother Gods seem to be, they should have known what was happening on Remnant after all this time. They couldn’t have just stopped looking over the planet. If they haven’t, then what happened? The relics were made by them and that includes their rules. Jinn could only answer 3 questions every hundred years or whatever, and Ambrosius’s power tied in creating only one thing or idea that needed specifics. Team RWBY actually somehow cheated that system when….when giving Penny…a human body. They also managed to create interconnecting portals to get civilians out of Mantle and to Vacuo. With how long the relics must have existed, the Brother Gods should have some connection to them whenever they were used. 

“Would they have known?” Jaune sighed, thoughts now trying to pin the blame of his situation on the Brother Gods. He wouldn’t blame it on Ambrosius since the warning was given to not ever fall and the Brother Gods deserve at least half of the blame for letting Ambrosius have that side effect of some inter-dimensional void. Sure, team RWBY could have made a way better plan for how to use Ambrosius’ power…but the plan largely failed due to their lack of preparation for if she and/or Neopolitan snuck in. His hands curled tightly while they rested on his knees. Thousands of thoughts flooded his mind now. Salem was a big reason for how things in his and friends’ lives turned out. Yet, Salem’s reasons for doing such things are either to spite Ozpin or the Brother Gods…or both! To be honest, what was Ozpin thinking? 

From what team RWBY shared with him, Ren, and Nora after they couldn’t legally get to Atlas, Ozpin was lucky enough to be, technically, brought back to life while Salem was still…sane-ish. They had a family! A family! But no, Ozpin was too focused on being the ‘savior’ sent by the Light Brother and endangered everyone’s lives in trying to get away from Salem. So what if Salem wanted them to be the new divine beings for the world? With how badly things went after the Brother Gods, they couldn’t have done any worse! If anything that reminded him of one small detail…..why did the Light Brother….bother stopping the Dark Brother? “He stopped the Dark Brother to ‘keep the balance’, but..they made both Salem and Ozpin immortal, anyway…” he breathed out, “...Salem got her wish…Ozp- Ozma was…..what was he? He was a hero of sorts when he rescued Salem…can’t believe that fairy tale was about her.” His hands moved to rub at his face. 

“Ozma got Salem out of the tower…fell in love…he died early….Salem did things to try and get Ozma back but the Light Brother denied it…she went to the Dark Brother…the one who must have not gotten a lot of attention…and finally got Ozma back, “ Jaune recounted while his hands rubbed at his forehead, “But, the Light Brother stepped in and…things happened…Ozma’s soul returned in another body so he could ‘stop’ Salem…and blah, blah, blah. What was the problem in the Dark Brother bringing back Ozma? Salem didn’t wish for immortality or for Ozma to have it…she just wanted her husband back…..she wanted her partner back…” he finished. 

“...would that…have been me?” came out as a whisper, “I….if I still wanted revenge on Cinder…if I still couldn’t…move on from….Pyrrha’s murder…..would I have done the same thing as Salem after learning about the relics or Brother Gods?” He didn’t speak when knowing the answer. He would, he would have done whatever he needed to bring Pyrrha back…..not…not just for the feelings in him that were still complicated to think about…but because she deserved better. She deserved a better anything. A better life…a better death…a better partner. There was no denying that she would have been the best Huntress of their generation or even in all of Hunter history. But no, she was in the way…of Salem’s plan. She was just another body added to the pile that Salem and her group have been stacking for hundreds of years. Was this what his parents were trying to protect him from? Not..not the ‘stuck in another world’ thing, but rather the amount of loss a person goes through when living the life he thought was glorious. 

“Dad didn’t talk much about his team or partner…” he whispered while starting to think about his family. While he loved team RWBY, his team and everyone else he’s met, there was still the pain in not seeing or talking to the rest of his family for so long. “....did something happen? Was Ozpin involved with it? Ruby and Yang’s whole family was involved with Ozpin’s plans, too. Did….was my dad’s team….their family’s own JNPR?” A roar from behind him pulled him back to reality and made him look back to see the huge, red dragon fly off its perch on the castle-like building. It then soared forward and above him and Solaire before disappearing high into the clouds. 

Hands moved to slap at his face before he stood up from the stone stairs. “Problems for later…” he promised to himself. He gazed down and around his body to make sure nothing was out of place. Crocea Mors strapped to his hip, the new crystal that Solaire gave him was still in his hand- nevermind it disappeared into his ‘inventory’, and he was still not hungry or sleepy. He carefully picked up the huge, stone shield off the ground and let his left arm carry the full weight of it. “Focus on the now, Jaune….can’t worry about Remnant and your friends if you can’t even get back to them.” he chastised quietly, “....got to find a library or something. Maybe ring the two bells….it’s what that knight wanted to do…” he listed off. He didn’t understand what kind of magic or nonsense was involved in his situation, but this world should have some hint of an answer written in a random page or book. If not, then hopefully there was a person sane enough to get answers from. 

He shook his head around for a few seconds. He gave Solaire another glance before turning and going up the stone stairs. “See ya, Solaire…” he said without looking back. If Solaire could visit Remnant, maybe he and Professor Port would get along. He stepped up onto the main bridge area. The red dragon flew off but there were still skeletons walking on the bridge. “Opened gate…..there should be something connecting the bridge to that one campfire…might find the church farther along wherever the gate leads, hopefully…and I’m stalling…” Jaune checked off before starting to walk down the bridge. 

Unlike all the great fight scenes he’s watched happen on bridges in movies, he was severely disappointed when using a few shoves with the huge, stone shield to either push skeleton warriors off the bridge or they died from the impact. Once reaching the middle-ish section of the bridge, he raised an eyebrow when realizing what the larger walls on the middle section were for. To the right of him were some stairs that led down somewhere, but the left side didn't have anything special. He glanced down the rest of the bridge. There were only a few skeleton warriors left to handle. “Five minute break,” he breathed out. He jogged over to the stairs and left the stone shield laying across where he entered in an attempt to block whoever or whatever could follow. A dumb idea in reality….good thing there were a lot of dumber things than the idea. 

There weren't a lot of stair steps to go down as he now found himself in a squared, stone room. In front of him was a doorway that led to what looked like the under part of the bridge while to the left was another doorway that should lead to some area he’s been to before. The doorway to go under the bridge must have been some setup to find a way past the red dragon if it chose to land onto the bridge….and if he somehow got past said red dragon in the first place. It’s not like people can just block fire in this world, right? Who just holds their shield up and prays for the best- nevermind. He looked back at the makeshift barrier he made with the stone shield. He may be somewhat protected from anything coming from the bridge, however, what about the things that could come through the doorway in front of him? He also didn’t want to find out what else could happen when touching a campfire. If they can bring back enemies he already beat, what else reappears or probably disappears? 

He kept looking between the doorway and the stone shield while trying to decide what risk was worth it. After some thought, the shield was left blocking off the stairs behind him. If he was right then the shield should still be there, if he was wrong….there were other shields to ste- borrow, hopefully something not as huge or heavy as that one. He stepped quickly to the doorway to the left to prove his theory. He barely went through the doorway before seeing a familiar ruined set of stairs and the unused, metal ladder. He leaned down to unlock the ladder and let it down until it reached the campfire area. With a brief twist, he made his way down the ladder quickly. He hopped off it when thinking he was near enough and landed in a crouch. His eyes caught the campfire he’s been to already. Another glance let him see a short bridge made of wooden planks and familiar parts of a medieval-like area. He didn’t have to walk too far to the campfire and slapped a hand onto the sword buried in it. There was a brief pause when touching the hilt. As if his mind and the world around him completely shut off and then turned back on prior to him letting go of the hilt.

He shuddered from the weird feeling the campfire gave him. “Come on, betting on the shield…” he reminded himself as he moved to climb up the ladder. Either way, he now had a shortcut to the other campfire fire area with living people nearby…and the huge crow. He got back up onto where he thought his ‘quest’ should continue and made his way to the stairs. He looked up to check on the stone shie- it wasn’t there. A hand went up to scratch at the back of the blonde swordsman’s head as two words left his mouth, “....well…..damn.”

Chapter Text

The dimensionally-displaced swordsman stood still for a few moments at a loss. Thoughts swarmed in his mind to come up with an explanation how the large shield he sto- found was now gone. “It…was either taken by somebody or disappeared after I went to that campfire,” Jaune sighed. Both options weren’t something he liked. The first one meant that anything on his person was never safe. The second one seemed more manageable to handle since he just needed to never drop what he had on him or be far away from it…..which sounded less difficult in his head. The thought of both ideas being true wasn’t helping his current feelings either. 

“Great…just great,” he huffed as his hand stopped scratching the back of his head, “...stupid, other world nonsense.” He lowered the arm back to his side and went towards the doorway that would lead back to a campfire he’s already been to. His brain buzzed with a nagging sense of missing something important , “Right, the ‘horrible goat demon’ somewhere below the area.” He glanced from that doorway to another one with the path that went under the bridge. As much as he didn’t want a ‘goat demon’ roaming around somewhere, he had a bit of trust that the demon was at least sealed away from other things. Yet, there was that red dragon who was free to fly around. “It didn’t attack me, actually. Was it…was it not an actual enemy?” Jaune wondered. After what felt like an hour or two of running into danger after danger, the chance of ‘optional’ enemies lightened some of the weight that accumulated all this time. 

“The two bells first, see what happens after, think of a better plan then,” he listed. The selfish part in him that wanted to check for more extra areas had to be buried. Crocea Mors was pulled from his side and kept in its shield form. He stepped towards the underside of the bridge. He paused to lean through the doorway and checked the sides for any ‘hidden enemy’ waiting for him, a habit he hated doing in actual video games. The greatest example of said annoyance would be ‘corner campers’ in shooter games or the types of people who only targeted others at low health points. He could have gone on a lengthy rant about players who grouped up unnecessarily on lonesome players. It’s why he started to enjoy the singleplayer-type of games where he usually didn’t have to worry about lag or unfair matchups. 

He paused his reminiscence of virtual worlds, shaking his head to focus again. One slow step after another led him farther from the doorway. His eyes slowly and carefully looked around. His mind was clear while listening for even the slightest change in how the wind blew. He stepped near the stone…pillar? Whatever the parts of a bridge were that held it up from underneath. He made his way to the left side of the area and looked down. The view below wasn’t anything he hadn't seen before. A head swivel to the right from where he stood and he saw a skeleton standing by a few meters away. Its decent looking shield was already held up but wouldn’t move. It was blocking the way to a stone archway on a wall that was dark inside as a sign of how there was something within it. Said doorway was undoubtedly where he had to go. The signs of where to ‘progress’ were barely appreciated when compared to the weird and horrible events he has been experiencing.  

Cautious steps got him closer and closer to the skeleton waiting at the end. There was no point in rushing at the enemy while at a disadvantage. He glanced to the side to see no enemy waiting for once. He moved forward then stopped himself at another connecting-under-part-thing of the bridge. There was a soft tink sound he heard when he stopped moving. He looked further down to see that the skeleton didn’t move even as he got closer. The sound definitely didn’t come from his left as there was only air and the plummet to death/fog. That would leave the source of the sound somewhere to his right. The softest of breaths was exhaled before moving forward enough to turn fully to the right. His shield and focus didn’t waver as a short sword slashing down towards him. The extended weapon missed him entirely with a simple step to the left. He moved closer into the skeleton’s guard to take advantage of it. The skeleton’s still extended arm got pulled by Jaune’s right hand. He stomped his right foot hard to have more force in his push against the skeleton. Instead of it falling on its back, the skeleton warrior was sent way farther than he thought and off the bridge part. 

“Sorry!” was his reply while watching the skeleton’s descent into nothingness. He stepped towards the edge of the side the skeleton fell off of. Jaune continued looking down and was ready to hear any sound. After waiting there for ten seconds, he stepped away from the edge and let out a breath, “Endless void, why not?” Big monsters, the undead, dragons, and now the newest source of potential ways he could temporarily die…for now. “Priorities, Jaune, priorities,” he had to remind himself. He had to save all his bafflement for whatever else he could run into. He trudged over to the other edge of the bridge underside to look at the guarding skeleton that continued to wait. There could be a legion of enemies waiting in that oddly placed stone doorway by the skelet- “Is that a giant rat?” Jaune asked out loud. He took a few steps back to see there was some glowy-eyed, furry creature waiting in the area he was getting closer to. 

“Another one of them,” he recalled seeing the back of one in the sewer tunnel that he hasn't been to in what felt like hours ago, “....there’s gonna be an even bigger one, calling it now,” he muttered while approaching the skeleton. His response to its quick leaping attack was a shield bash off the bridge ledge thing and off into the abyss. He turned his body so his back was to the bridge. He sidestepped to the other side, all while not looking down once. The wall his right shoulder bumped into was his sign that he was halfway done. Blue eyes closed during the short moment of him turning around so he could face the wall. Crocea Mors was held up by his left arm and faced towards opening. He had no trust in the world to not have some awful trick happen where he could be pushed off the ledge by another enemy. 

Jaune stopped himself just short of the doorway when wearing some thing walk along the inside of the opening. He moved a foot or two away from the doorway right as a big rat walked out of the doorway….only to step off the ledge and fell down into the abyss. A slow blink was had while he stared hard at the doorway the big rat came out of. “That…that wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?” He whispered. While it was true that no game was ever free from the occasional bug or glitch, there was no believable way that a big rat dropping itself into the void was something that should normally happen. He took a moment to regain his composure. The chances of bugs and glitches weren’t possibilities he wanted to deal with. Difficult puzzles and bosses were doable, but events that were not even programmed to happen was another mark against his situation. He couldn’t bear the thought of being ‘softlocked’ or whatever the word was for not being able to go further in a game. But, the existence of bugs and glitches didn’t need to be labelled a total problem. 

The yellow-haired Huntsman moved closer to the stone doorway to peek at what laid ahead of him. There was another big rat waiting at the back left corner of the dark area. There was also an odd amount of light shooting down on some areas of the corner. “Thank you, obvious sign,” came out in another whisper. Jaune moved himself further to be in the center of the doorway. The exhale of a breath and the soft sounds of rat paws on stone were the only noises for a few seconds. His superior speed let him meet the big rat in the middle of the dark stone area. He let the rat harm itself by jumping at his shield and stunning itself for a while. His upper body leaned down in an instant to let another big rat fly past him with its failed tackle. The sound of metal parts shifting was the only warning the two rats had before the greatsword form of Crocea Mors struck down. Jaune closed his eyes when expecting blood and guts to pop out from the impact. He opened his left eye then his right one when no blood or guts exploded out and heard the rats' last cries prior to giving up on life. Crocea Mors was slowly lifted off the rats, which led to his surprise of not seeing the rats actually cut in half. 

“Video game logic, this world is running on video game logic,” was his admission of how Remnant was no longer as weird or awful as whatever the inhabitants label this world. The otherworldly swordsman leaned back up before heading towards the illuminated part of the area. It took no time to notice a ladder heading up to another doorway. “Onwards and upwards,” Jaune said with Crocea Mors placed back on his waist in its sheath form. He hopped upwards to skip some rungs on the ladder and ascended as quickly as he could. When reaching the top of the ladder, he kept his head up to look around. There was a way outside in front of him, but he also couldn’t ignore the doorway on the left. “....that is a trap,” he said as he fully climbed up the ladder and put his feet back on solid ground. He passed by the doorway on the left to peek outside. 

Besides mossy, stone walls, there was the iron gate door of a castle to his left and a few stone stairs in the opposite direction. A glance back at the castle gate thing, he really needed to find a library or at least a dictionary, resulted in seeing a handful of familiar things on the other side of it. He carefully stepped out and looked around again. He stopped moving when seeing a lone skeleton warrior at the top of the stairs. Even though he noticed it, it didn’t move at all as he jumped back inside the doorway to hide. Crocea Mors was pulled into his hands in its regular shield form. “Plan, think of a plan,” Jaune whispered. The presence of one enemy meant there was more right behind them 90% of the time. Scratch that, in this world it was 1000% certain. He went through a few ideas. Storming in with his aura around him was a decent one. Trying to sneak around wouldn’t work if there were more enemies waiting for him. In spite of it all, one idea was looking more and more tempting to try. 

“Run and live, an idea I can get behind,” was said as aura surged around him, slowly forming an outline around his body and Crocea Mors. His aura was still darkened at the edges, something he also needed a library for. As for his own ‘life’, it didn’t seem to matter if he beat one enemy or all of them if they could back after he rested at a campfire. The lack of any invisible barriers, so far, could also be a hint of how free he was to charge past anything he doesn’t want or have to deal with. He mentally counted down from three before dashing out and towards the stone stairs. The skeleton waiting at the top of them started to move after he stepped into its attention range. His response was a wide swipe of his left arm to bash the skeleton warrior away and towards a wall. Sounds of soft thuds hitting the stone floor was his hint that the skeleton turned into a pile of bones after the shield bash. The tunnel-like entrance it was protecting led to a much bigger area with the glaring issue of a giant, metal boar. There were two skeleton warriors at each side. Those three stood in the middle of more stone stairs that led to another castle gate entrance. The area behind it wasn’t visible from where he stood, but it had to be where he’ll go next. Above them were two more on a stone walkway or whatever it was known as. Another walkway behind those skeletons was a few feet higher and likely meant he’d have to go through some odd pathways to get up there. He couldn’t ignore the two roaring flames near the enemies, one of them was near the metal boar while the other flame was closer to him yet bigger. Oddly enough, the sources for said fires appeared to be a pile of clothes and weapons- oh…… oh .

Jaune turned away, a hand raised up to cover his mouth. The aura around him went back into him after the loss of concentration. His eyes firmly shut during the mental process of trying to forget what he saw. While the things he’s seen from Nora or Yang’s scroll and after the Fall of Beacon weren’t pretty, he hasn’t ever seen anything similar to the disgusting action of…whatever those monsters did. He removed the hand over his mouth to instead rub his forehead, “Come on, get it together. If I’m seeing this kind of thing right now…who knows what else is out there. It’ll be worse when I see screwed up stuff during a fight and freeze up,” he reasoned to himself. The idea wasn’t just for this world, anyway. Remnant had just as many horrifying experiences already done with or in the waiting. Salem was definitely in the process of making new Grimm after what happened at Atlas. He couldn’t afford to lock up if she started throwing spider Grimm that could produce lava webs . Thankfully, his nausea subsided after a minute. He turned back around to face the troubling area ready for him.

He took slow strides out of the tunnel and looked to the left and then to the right. His aura came out and Crocea Mors held in front of him as a response to a hidden skeleton thrusting a long weapon aimed at his chest. His shield shifted at an angle to identify that it was a plain spear being used. His right hand reached over his left arm to grab and pull the spear towards him. The force from his own pull proved more effective than he thought while ripping said spear from the skeleton’s hand. The old Jaune would have stumbled and fell afterwards, good thing this was the upgraded and properly trained Jaune. He spun around with the spear. His right hand twirled it around to hold it properly. His other arm shoved Crocea Mors against the skeleton’s larger heater shield to forcibly make it stand in place. His right arm jabbed the spear at the skeleton’s head once. He didn’t react much as the spearhead phased through the skeleton nor when the skeleton toppled over into a pile of bones. He went back to a relaxed posture once nothing else tried to attack him. On the same side that the skeleton came out from, there were some columns and another set of stone stairs that could lead to the skeletons that were standing on the walkway….or lead him somewhere totally unneeded or unrelated. 

“Fifty-fifty chance,” he told himself in the process of walking towards the new set of stairs. He positioned Crocea Mors in front of him with the spear resting on top of it at the ready to poke something’s eye out, or whatever eye holes were called if they didn’t have eyes. 

Nearing the top of the second set of stairs was his moment to poke only his head out to look around. The only thing connected to the upper area was the stone walkway. He counted a spear and shield skeleton leaning on a wall ahead of him as the two skeletons on the walkway had crossbows…which he swore were swords beforehand. Using the years of carnival games in him, he raised the sto- borrowed spear upwards and tossed it at the skeleton spearman. The moment of the spear penetrating the spearman’s skull seemed to have alerted the archer skeletons. Jaune already stepped onto the new area with Crocea Mors easily blocking the arrows shot his way. His other arm ripped the thrown spear out of the skull, only to rear it back and throw it once more. He was aiming to strike at both of them, but knocking one of them off the walkway was better than nothing. 

Jaune huffed at the failed attempt. He fully leaned away from a loosened arrow before rearing his other arm back and letting Crocea Mors’ shield form fly off his arm. The ‘thunk’ sound of the shield impacting the last archer skeleton’s head and ricocheting back towards him caused a small grin to form on his face. His left hand was still raised up to catch the upper right part of the shield during the time of the skeleton falling over. “Video game logic,” he added. One of the many things he’s learned during his time training in Atlas’ academy is how to use his shield in unthinkable ways. By ‘unthinkable’, it was purely moves and actions he saw in comics and movies that he dreamed of doing. A major reason for not trying any of his practiced moves in real situations was due to how many of them he failed at recreating. Yet, it seems like the video game-like world he was in allowed at least one idea to work. 

“Thank you, Captain Vale,” Jaune whispered a thanks for the source of that particular move prior to him moving onto the stone walkway. He looked around from his new vantage point. At the end of it was nothing but a large end-to-end wall and…burnt corpse. He fought back down a new wave of nausea as he quickly looked anywhere else. To his right was the large castle gate, behind it was a wide set of stairs that led to somewhere. To his left and below him were the skeleton warriors and the metal-covered boar that he left alone for a while. Right below him was…a set of stairs that were cut into the main stair steps and went downwards instead of up. “I’ve been through worse,” he said with a shrug before jumping off the walkway and onto the descending stairs. He focused more aura at the lower half of his body in time to not feel much pain spread to his legs and feet. He rolled forward as soon as he touched a stair step to be out of the range of the metal boar and remaining skeletons. 

He stood up fully and looked straight down the tunnel he was now in. At the end was a familiar sight of an undead person. Behind them, in front of actually, was a spacious area and more stair steps. He took one step forward…..something he quickly regretted when the zombie dashed forward and up the stairs which caused a horde of more zombies with swords and knives to start blocking up the tunnel. The horde was noticeably getting large enough to get closer and closer to where Jaune was standing. “....hallway fight scene, of course...how did I not see this coming?” he breathed out while he prepared himself. One foot moved forward, one leg moved behind him, his upper body leaned forward. His hands moving and tightly gripping the handle of Crocea Mors’ greatsword form. “I knew I should have kept the spear,” he grumbled when the first set of the undead leaped towards him.

Chapter Text

When it comes to bad outcomes, Jaune had a personal list for what he didn’t want to happen to him. Besides what he planned to do to her in what felt like months ago, Yang being a human wrecking ball, like when team RWBY went against an Atlesian mech, was high up on that list. Trying to calm Nora or Ruby down from a sugar rush was also up there. Interrupting or disturbing Weiss or Blake during an argument was a nightmare. Messing with any of Ren’s little potted plants was another one he remembered while he twirled and spun in the moshpit of decayed flesh and poor weapons. Instead of running Crocea Mors through them all like a brutal shish kabob, the alternative he used was to push and shove his way to the other end of the tunnel hall. He added a hallway full of zombies to the list of stuff he would never want to experience…well again.

“Excuse me, just gonna slip through here, watch the hair!” were some things that he said as he moved. To him, it felt like a scene from a spy movie where the spy had to dodge laser beam traps with weird movements. Replace the spy with a baby deer on wobbly legs and laser beams with pointy objects or grabby limbs to get his current situation of awkwardly making his way to where the one undead person ran off to. Whoever got close to hitting him was met with a quick leg kick to knock them and the other undead nearby onto the floor to give him more space. As fast as using Crocea Mors to slice his way through would be, A. ki- unaliving things just because it was ‘convenient’ wasn’t a method he wanted to get used to and B. relying more on his brain and not his weapon was a practice he hoped could help him get through any future challenges waiting for him. 

“And…have a safe trip!” he grinned over his left shoulder at the hallway of undead after seeing them all either writhing on the floor or unable to walk over each other. He turned his head forward to take in the…very depressing room. The walls were just as ruined, cracked, and ugly as the other walls he’s seen. The wooden beams all around the area were an odd design choice since one bad hit would make the whole place come down. There were torches all around the area as a lighting option, or perhaps the only lighting option considering the time period the world seemed to be in. The few tables he could see were a plain, wooden kind that definitely saw better days and reminded him of lunch tables. The dark-colored stairs in front of him led to an upper floor of sorts, no doubt just as sad looking as the world was themed as. To the right of the upper area was an undead already wearing for him by some barrels while to the left was more wooden lunch tables and probably another undead. Crocea Mors was shifted back into its shield form as he ascended up the stairs slowly. 

The undead to his right didn’t wait to jump towards him. Crocea Mors was lifted to hold them up like a plate of fish, Jaune’s other hand came up to help fling their body up and to the left of him. He ascended up the rest of the stairs in time to see the body landed on two more undeads that were waiting. Far past them he could see a metal ladder to the right of some lower area where another undead was rigidly standing, there were even some stair steps that led to said lower area. “.....it can’t be that important,” he whispered while he made his way to the ladder. He jumped onto it and ascended high enough to peer over the top of the ladder to see where it led to. 

His hopes for what could be waiting for him were met with a balcony area and two more soulless husks standing idly. A look to his left side let him see more wooden beams. He noticed there was…a corpse..,of some kind hanging over one of them. Jaune stared at the body for a while in confusion as to how and when a body would be put in that position. He ignored the corpse for now to focus back on the two hollows, a term he remembered was actually important in the world. ‘There is no way a library doesn’t exist,’ he thought, ‘...it can’t be that hidden or even locked away, right?’ 

He pulled himself to properly stand on the balcony area, the two hollows rushing at him the moment he was done doing so. Jaune let them bash against his shield for a few seconds until roughly shoving both of them off the area and sending them down to where he came from. The hollows were in the way to not just be annoying, but were also protecting….another ladder. The resident Hunter lightly hummed at the sight while jogging over to the newest ladder to ascend it. “Who….designed these…stupid buildings…” he huffed while making it to the top of another level of the area. He couldn’t accept the idea that people used to waste time climbing up and down ladders just to have lunch together or to hangout. What awaited him at the top was…more stone walls, wooden beams, wooden tables, and barrels. 

Jaune’s blank face could have gone toe-to-toe with one of those Atlas guards with the large, fuzzy hats that guarded important places. He carefully walked forward and turned Crocea Mors into its greatsword form. “If this is a hidden boss, this sucks….if this is a hidden boss, this sucks…” he repeated during his search for anything else in the area. He looked up at the ceiling in case there was a repeat of enemies dropping through the ceiling. He didn’t drop his gaze until finally blinking before looking around again. He made it to the middle of the floor before finding a doorway to his right. There was a short set of stairs that led to the unwelcomed sight of a fog-covered doorway.  

“This….this can’t be a boss. If I’m right, then it should just lead-” he said as he made his way towards the fog door. He stepped through it with full confidence as he was now….standing on a stone walkway. Said stone walkway which was higher than the one below it, that walkway was the one he dropped down from a few minutes ago that led to where he was now. From where he stood there was just a lot of wall to his left, an archway ahead of him, and to the right was a view of a forest that surrounded the pla- are- kingdom or whatever the land was called. “How did I miss all of that?” he wondered, “...does this all actually connect back to that night area- wait no, that wouldn’t work. Maybe it’s a…no that doesn’t work either. But, how can night and day just…exist? At the same time? Is it not actually daytime?” 

He carefully crossed the walkway as he questioned the few bits of the world he felt free to question. He paused his curiosity when reaching the doorway at the end. He leaned his head through look both ways. The way to the right led to…a walkway of some type where there was still some barrier between itself and falling to a world of pain. He couldn’t remember the exact name of what he would call it, but ‘wall-walk’ was the best title he could give it. On top of the barrier were cylindrical columns that were spread out evenly across it. The other way had more stairs waiting for him. He fully went through the doorway and went towards the non-boring route, “Stairs and ladders, looks like cardio is the real threat in this world…” Jaune lightly joked, only to freeze in place when turning the corner. Down the path of the ‘wall-walk’ was some thing’s back facing him. Instead of just another undead, it had a red cape along with most pieces of armor similar to a knight. There was also the obvious sword and shield it was wielding. He couldn’t see much of what was beyond it since it was blocking up yet another doorway. 

Jaune kept himself still as he mulled over what to do. He could charge wildly at the suit of armor in the hopes that he was strong enough to end them with one attack. He could be more cautious with this new ‘type’ of enemy by sneaking up on them first to see if they were truly an enemy before going for the kill. A quick, almost unnoticeable shiver surged in his body. It was one thing to hack and slash at things from behind a screen, but physically ending all the ‘enemies’ were more spiritually draining than he ever imagined. 

“Get it together, man. Me…or them…me…or them,” he chanted to himself. He began to move towards the armored figure at a snail’s pace. He transformed Crocea Mors into a greatsword as quietly as he could. The sounds from his weapon had to have alerted the knight as it turned around and started to approach him with its own shield held up. Its helmet’s visor was raised up to let its sunken and zombie-like face show. Jaune couldn’t help but flinch at the sight of its face. His disgust was shoved aside, right as he used the enlarged blade of Crocea Mors to bat aside the undead knight’s downward slash to hit the wall. The weird physics of the world showed up again when the zombie knight’s body stepped back a few feet after hitting the wall, like it was shoved backwards after he forced it to miss. The opportunity to get a free hit in was taken in the form of Crocea Mors arcing forward to slice down from the knight’s right shoulder to its left hip. His sword passed through its body and chest armor like they weren’t there, the only quirk of the world that wasn’t hard to get used to. Crocea Mors was raised and prepared for another slash prior to Jaune witnessing the undead knight freezing in place. He didn’t have to wait long for it to slump over and collapse on the floor like a metal sack of potatoes. 

 The blonde warrior gently tapped at their back, or at least what he hoped was the back, with a boot-covered foot to make sure it was down for good. He stopped disturbing the corpse and stepped around them to check the doorway they were protecting. The view outside caught his attention first, though it looked like one of those lookout post parts of a castle tower. In the middle of the lookout post was a shield with a lot more detail on it compared to the ones he’s seen by now. The area far past it was another angle at the large forest that encompassed the castle area. “That looks suspicious, incredibly suspicious. Who….who would just leave a shield laying around?” Jaune asked aloud as he walked towards said suspicious shield. He stopped right in the doorway to take in the normal-looking shield. “What were these called again…..kite shields? No, that doesn’t look right. It…it looks like Crocea Mors but just more…angular? Longer?” he said in an attempt to classify the mysterious shield. It had a blue and red quartered pattern, blue then red at the top then red then blue at the bottom, with some crest or icon on the middle of it. He got closer to the shield and poked down at it with Crocea Mors. He paused his poking to flip it over with the tip of his greatsword. It didn’t transform into a metal crab or whatever he thought would happen, it just revealed the other side of itself and looked normal

“.......free shield,” Jaune picked up the decorated shield to equip it on his left arm. He did a few practice blocks and swings to get a feel of it. He ended the mock training with a triple slash combo before relaxing his stance. “Not bad, lighter than expected….but not bad,” he said to no one while checking over the shield again to see if he missed any detail. After finding nothing worth any concern, he let it stay on his left arm. To the left of the area he was on, way to the left, he could see more castle structure and another wall-walk thing with a skeleton warrior’s back greeting his sight. 

“If this way led here, then- oh….the left way would be the ‘official’ way,” he realized. He turned around to correct his pathing. He moved through the doorway and stepped around the undead knight again. He turned the corner and looked straight to see the stair steps that he should have taken first. But, the new shield he acquired was looking more like a win than a waste of time. He stepped towards the stairs while raising up said new shield above him for any unwanted surprise attacks…..or random bird droppings. He’d never forget the one time a bird dropped on him during one of his crossguard missions…..the laughter…the sorry gazes from the children's moms...he could still hear and see them when he had the ability to sleep. He shook his head to rid of the bad memories while reaching the top of the stairs, well at least what seemed like the top prior to glancing at the few stair steps to his right. He skipped the small flight of stairs with a hop and instantly looked down a descending hall of stairs with a skeleton warrior waiting for him, probably the skeleton that he saw the back of earlier. He looked to his left to be rewarded with a skeleton warrior standing in front of a few barrels. Further left he could see a church-like building over the stone barrier with the double doors already pushed open. He didn’t have to wonder anymore of where he was being led to next. 

He looked back and skipped forward to pin the skeleton warrior’s shield in place with his to give Crocea Mors enough time to stab through the skeleton’s head. The sword went far enough to break the barrels behind it. He yanked his greatsword back to let the double corpse collapse into a pile of bones. Instead of going down the new set of stairs, Jaune vaulted over the stone barrier and landed onto a narrow stone pathway a few feet below. He hissed at the slight pain that jolted along his legs. He focused a bit of aura around his legs during his glance around the new area. Right in front of him was a wide set of stone steps leading to the open church. At the bottom slope was another skeleton with a sword and shield and a large lever, which was undoubtedly supposed to open the castle gate that separated the church area from the other area that had the huge, metal boar….the same one he left alive. 

“....I don’t HAVE to open the gate….but if I…die…again, then it would be smarter to open the shortcut,” he argued with himself. He couldn’t permanently die if he failed or messed up somewhere along the way. The only difficulty would be dealing with whatever came back to life when he returned to a campfire after dying. He wasn’t yet fully accepting of being able to die, ‘be killed’ seemed more appropriate, no matter how ‘great’ it was to come back with the use of a campfire. Besides the ‘aura turning darker’ problem, the unknown issues of constantly dying and being revived was beginning to be a new problem to stress over. “Just don’t die, easy!” Jaune sarcastically advised, “Wait, where’s the next campfire thing I’ll get to use,” he looked around after adding that. There was no memory of a new campfire to light up besides the one at the end of the huge stone bridge which was also behind a castle gate. The one he’s been relying on was the same one in the middle column of the bridge. He stopped looking around to accept the fact that he needs to open the castle gate near him to make a lot of things easier. 

“Opening the gate it is…” he drawled before moving to the wide stone steps. The skeleton thing at the bottom of the steps wasn’t turning to face him as he descended lower and lower. He jumped over the last few steps to stab Crocea Mors literally through the skeleton’s back. The jump forward had enough momentum from it for the backstab to lead into Jaune bumping the skeleton forward into the castle gate. It fell apart as usual, another thing he was getting used to, but some of the bones went through a few of the gate holes. He recollected himself to stand back up fully. A quick breath was taken prior to him going over to pull the large lever down with his shield arm. He heard the sounds of chains and other materials while watching the castle gate actually move upward. “Guess I can’t predict everything,” Jaune quietly said with a shrug. He thought he would see some more video game logic where the castle gate would disappear in a blink after the lever was pulled. 

He turned around and skipped as many stair steps as possible to avoid the metal boar and some of the leftover skeletons' line of sight. He despised moments in a game where it was possible to bring in regular enemies to a boss area. Of course, he hated the people that caused said moments more than that. He brought himself back to the present as he stepped up to the front of the church structure. Through the opened doorways he spotted two more undead knights- “What…do they feed people here?!?” Jaune loudly asked as he couldn't believe that not only was there a larger, heavily-armored knight further in the church but their equipment also matched how deadly they looked. It roughly looked like they were holding a mace-type of weapon and a tower shield as big as they were. They weren’t as heavy looking as the one that was blocking the door to an area where it was night time, but they looked just as dangerous. “....what is my luck in running into bad people with maces?” he added on. He didn’t want to include that odd blonde knight he met in the ruins with the giant crow, but he wasn’t exactly a kind guy. He was also very much including Cardin in the list, the start of said list. Moving past his luck in adversaries, the larger knight inside the church could be the boss of the area that needed to be handled to move on. 

“Now the question is: how much harder will this be than the last two?” he wondered while stepping into the church’s hall entrance with the heater shield held before him. The first undead knight noticed him quickly, it didn’t wait to run towards him with its own shield at the ready. Jaune stomped his right foot down and waited. His aura formed around him at the exact moment he and the undead knight clashed shields. Crocea Mors blocked the knight’s sword swing to lock both it and Jaune in a stalemate. A stalemate that couldn’t be more one-sided when the non-resident swordsman started to push the zombie knight back one foot at a time. 

The low grunts and growls coming from the knight made Jaune grin a bit, as if they were confused about how they were being pushed back. As Jaune finally got into the church, he hopped back from his current enemy to make them stumble forward. Crocea Mors’ extended out to let the undead knight kill itself via impalement. He pulled his trusty greatsword back while swatting the corpse aside with his new shield to slide down the nearby wall. He vaulted over that undead knight to rush at the other one that stood behind it. An action that was instantly regretted when forced to play limbo under a sword swipe that came around the doorframe from the left side. He caught himself from fully falling with his left hand, yet his aura cover went back into him after he lost focus. That momentum was somehow used to push him to the right as the undead knight he was focused on took the chance to swing down at where he used to be. Jaune rolled away and stood back up as soon as he could. The checkered shield in his left hand protected him from two crossing slashes. The undead knight and the new third one had some kind of unintended teamwork moment. 

His aura shimmered around him again. His left arm swung outward to push back the knights as his right arm arced as a follow up. The larger blade of Crocea Mors’ greatsword form sliced through their necks without any real impact or show for it, besides the two knights freezing in place then toppling backwards. Jaune made his way to the middle aisle of the church to stare at the larger, heavy knight. Their back was facing him ever since he was outside of the church. He took a small step forward and saw no movement. He continued inching towards the heavy knight. Past the heavy knight was an altar of sorts in front of a statue. As disturbed as he was by the corpse laying on the altar in front of the statue, he was momentarily distracted by the curvy things around it that held up a few candles. He shook his head to remind himself of what’s more important at the moment than a cool decorative piece. 

The lock-on range was finally met as its helmet-covered head focused on him. Jaune lifted his shield arm up as a basic starting move. For all he knew, the tall knight in front of him could spit flames or shoot out lightning. They continued to stay in place like a rock. Something about the tall knight needing him to move even closer was bothering him. He stepped forward a few more feet and looked around for what the knight could be waiting fo- right there. A few above him he could see the underside of a figure standing in some open upper area, as if there was a second floor. There wasn’t much to look up at, thankfully, as the under part of the dark/navy blue robes was all black….like if developers didn’t think anyone would be looking under the enemies such as this one so they didn’t bother making a design for it. He looked around again for any clue- there it was. To the far left side there was an ascending set of stairs and two doorways near it. The two doorways had a square-shaped platform with the middle of them having an elevated piece. The protruding piece in the middle of the two platforms threw Jaune off. He recognized how similar they look to when games had a button that needed to be stepped on, but a reason for buttons on those platforms eluded him. To the far right side was sunlight pouring in from a huge doorway that led to some lower area. The area connected to that lower area looked like normal remains of a building, but he shouldn’t be too fast to dismiss the idea of something useful being hidden there if he searched in it properly.

Jaune turned away from the sides to, again, narrow his attention on the tall, heavy knight. He shuddered when thinking about the kind of force it wielded, it won’t be on the same tier as the huge, demon-looking sack of fat with wings from the Undead Asylum but he wouldn’t downplay its strength. “You got a helper, huh? An unfair fight if you ask me…” he joked. He wasn’t surprised that he didn’t get a response back. It would be a lot more disturbing anyway if anything in the world actually talked back to him, like the games with the adaptive AI or whatever they were called. He stayed where he was to come up with new plans after knowing that he could be dealing with a frontline fighter and back-up mage combo, an annoying pairing that he hated more than unblockable area-of-effect moves. “I could coax you to follow me, right? You’re not one of those ‘respawn back here if taken far away’ kind of enemy, are you?” he asked basically no one as he stepped closer. The final steps he needed as the tall, heavy knight started to approach him. It didn’t even raise either of its arms after he got its attention. It was more like a bear coming up to smack him than a knight with huge weapons. Jaune’s aura shimmered more around his left arm when bringing it up to block the tall knight’s mace, its arm swinging down faster than he expected as the impact made a thunderous sound. His arm shook from the blow but did not waver. He continued to hide behind his shield, stepping back as much as he could before the next attack. His eyes remained as opened as possible to take in any noticeable patterns to exploit. 

“1, 2, break, 1, 2, 3…1, 2, break, 1, 2, 3,” he began to memorize. As soon as another break in the sequence came, Jaune switched to boosting his arm more to let Crocea Mors thrust and stab at the tall knight’s right shoulder and neck area. He pressed forward to land an additional, not-as-hard hit at its left side after it flinched from the blow to its neck. He waited behind his borrowed, for real this time, shield for another round of attacks to wait out for it to take a pause. The pause in attacks must have changed when he had to handle about thirty seconds of continuous strikes. “Come on, come on….mess up…mess up!” Jaune tried to channel his inner fortune telling abilities (none whatsoever). After what felt like half an hour, a gap in between attacks happened long enough for him to stab through the knight’s armored chest. He pulled back to cover behind his shield once more. He was midway of pulling up the shield before seeing the knight fall backwards, dissipating in a cloud of sparkles and lights.

The brother of 7 sisters awkwardly stood there as he stared down at the area the knight used to lay on. “Was….that even a boss?” he asked himself, his aura receding into him. It wasn’t an easy fight, yet a fight that also wasn’t as terrifying or hard as a giant flying demon or a bull demon. He knew not all boss fights had to be huge monsters but that fight felt too…simple. Jaune’s left hand came up to lightly scratch his head, “Well, cool…I guess? That’s another boss down, maybe.” He kept his guard up during his walk towards the two doorways with the odd wood platforms. It may not be where he should go next, blame it on his trained curiosity for secrets in games. He kept himself hidden from the enemy on the second floor as much as possible. When nearing the doorways, one of them was blocked with a steel gate and the other one was open for business. He stepped onto the wooden platform but didn’t step on the middle, button-like thing. He turned to face the area he was leaving in case of any enemy following him onto the platform, the aura outline around his dissipating as he felt inside it. A few glances around led to seeing clues that answered what use the two platforms had. “So these are elevators, or…well whatever is similar to an elevator for a medieval-themed world,” he commented as his left foot was moved to step down on the wooden plate in the middle. 

The metal gate that was left open slid across to keep him inside like normal elevator doors…or is it just a door? Great, now he felt like the word ‘door’ was not natural after thinking too much about it. He felt the plate move down to match the height of the other plates on the platform, soon stepping off it when the contraption slowly lowered. He checked on the four chain links connected to the wooden platform in disappointment when they didn’t move at all as he descended. As he stared at solid stone walls for a good amount of time, he wondered how advanced the world really was. He was expecting stairs but not ladders and an elevator system. When remembering that dragons and giant monsters were roaming around, the idea of wanting to go to higher and lower places in a manner of ways wasn’t as farfetched. 

When the dated elevator came to a stop, he was confused as to why he was still staring at just a stone wall. The little draft he felt behind him gave him the idea to just turn around. After doing said action he was greeted with stone archways and the remains of a stone structure. “Wait, I’ve been here before. This is the…hub place…yeah, if I go through here,” he instructed himself while stepping off the platform and onto solid ground. He didn’t send the platform back up in case he needed it again. He went under one archway as he could see the wall in front of him had holes made to look like windows. He turned to the left and was met with two staircases, one going up and one going down. The one going up was ignored since Jaune was busy making sure that he wasn’t mistaking the area for the ‘central’ area he thought he was back in. He calmly made his way down the descending set of stairs, passing by more window-shaped holes that were larger than the previous set he saw. After going down into the usual look of a ruined, stone room he made his way to the next set of descending stairs to his right. He barely went down some steps before seeing the hefty-looking knight who didn’t have the greatest of first impressions. Petra…that wasn’t it…Perr- nope, definitely not, Petrus. Ah, Petrus! That was probably the name. His eyes immediately noticed the very similar shield that knight had with his borrowed one. Jaune lifted up the shield on his left arm to compare them right then and there. To no one’s surprise, it was actually the exact same shield that they now shared. 

“....I’m replacing this thing as soon as I get the option to,” he swore to himself. He meant no offense to Petrus of whatever, but clearly there was something wrong with the shield if the other guy had not moved at all since Jaune last saw him, not even an inch! No one could blame him for starting to think the depressed guy near the ‘main’ campfire wasn’t the only coward in the area. He made his way down the stone steps and passed by the ‘heavy’ knight with no real greeting, not in a rude manner really but because he wouldn’t get a reply back. Going past a huge archway, down some steps, walking over grass-covered stone, went through another archway to go down a few steps, another area of grass-covered stone to yet another doorway, and took the last bits of grass-covered stair steps to the campfire area that he knew was the ‘main’ one. He glanced over to his right to see the depressed guy still sitting on some grass-covered stones. 

He made his way over with a small grin on his face, “Funny, I thought you’d be gone by now with the ‘tutorial’ done with and stu-” he started to say before the man spoke up.

“You again?” he heard him say, “There’s nothing to speak about, really. Oh…actually, something strange did happen. That crow…” the pause was long enough to let Jaune glance behind and upwards to see that the giant grow was truly no longer perched on top of the ruins, “..flew off with somebody in its clutches,” 

“WHAT!?” Jaune cut in, only to be ignored.

“...I think it was a man curled up in a ball, stranger things happened, right?” the man continued, “No…maybe not,” 

The official Hunter was still disgusted by the fact that he was too late to save another person…this time from being birdnap- wait. “Hold on, hold on….wait just a minute….someone….as in…another HUMAN was…scooped up by the bird?” he asked the guy down on his luck, fully knowing he wouldn’t get another response. At least, that’s what Jaune wasn’t expecting and was surprised as the man spoke up once more. 

“Oh, have you seen that terribly morose lass?” ‘Lass’? That word confused him until remembering it meant ‘lady’- wait…if the bird scooped up a girl then- “...The Fire Keeper,”

“The who now?” Jaune tried to ask, “...I mean, the whom now or whatever?” 

“She’s stuck keeping that bonfire lit.” the sad man pointed over to the campf- bonfire in the middle of the circular area. Jaune glanced over at it in recognition of the now officially named ‘bonfire’ and knew it was an important word for future events. “Sad, really. She’s mute…and bound to this forsaken place. They probably…cut her tongue out…back in her village, so that she’d never…say any god’s name in vain.” His jaw couldn’t drop any lower as the man continued ‘lore dumping’. “How do these…. martyrs …keep chugging along? I’d peter out in an instant. Hah…hah hah hah…” the man fell silent after that. 

An intense wave of disgust swirled in him once registering that the cool, calming respawn points in the world were powered by a girl who should be getting medical help instead of being checked over by a doctor or medic…or a wizard if magic exists (still a 60/40 chance). One thing that bothered him more was how the guy talked about the girl. As if she was close enough to the area that the man couldn’t have gone too far to look at or visit. Or maybe the person who was snatched up by the giant bird told the guy about it? The fact that the girl was mute should have ticked him off to think it was that ice-cream woman who was working with her , but that idea doesn’t add up with the other details.

“...I should check anyway, that is one problem I should not wait for to get worse,” he looked around as he said that to look around for a place that would be most probable to find a little girl at…for very appropriate reasons. There was the area that he was too scared to check since the huge crow was perched over the entrance to it, he could have simply missed the girl when he went through the rundown town filled with those zombies, or it was an area he hasn’t even been to yet. His gaze absently went towards the set of stairs that went to the area below the ‘main’ camp- bonfire. He knew he didn’t check the other side of it after seeing how vast the distance was from the Undead Asylum to here. “It’d be nice to completely check around anyway, hopefully…” he softly said. 

He gave the depressed knight a wave with his left hand prior to heading downstairs. He kept his gaze on the wall to his left as there was no reason to check the right si- he froze in his steps. The stone wall on the left side had to have some damage done to it as parts of the wall were removed as he walked further and a hole was dug in it so a young girl could be trapped in it and behind metal bars like a prison cell. She was dressed in what looked like furred-clothing, as if it was the winter season. Jaune dropped to his knees when he got closer to the hole. “Hey, hey!” Jaune called out to the young girl, he used Crocea Mors in an attempt to cut through the prison bars. The video game logic of the world won in the end as not even his greatsword’s metal could get a chip off a bar. The girl gave no sign of acknowledgment that she heard him. He looked her over and saw the blood on the bottom, dress-like part of her outfit. “Are you bleeding? Where else are you hurt?” he asked further questions until clamming up as he realized that he forgot the girl had her….tongue taken from her. He fell and knelt in front of the steel bars. His face contorted to a grimace. 

“How…how can people do this? What…what is it about people..and their stupid, arrogant minds…that make them do something like this. I’m always…late…aren’t I? Too late to train, too late to be of use, too late to see reason, too late to see what’s in front of me, too late to do what I need to do, and still too late to save anybody,” he whispered, tears building up as Crocea Mors and the decorated shield fell to the ground. His hands gripping the surprisingly real-feeling grass beneath him, “You shouldn’t be…locked inside some mountain behind bars. You’re a….a child…this world is screwed up, sure….but why….how could someone let a child end up like this,” he continued on. “I…I don’t know if I can…but I’ll try…Arc’s Promise…I’ll try to…fix- heal you…heal you and get you out of there….get you somewhere else. To a..a paradise or something….not just you….but also that sad guy and the ‘heavy’ knight…whoever else I run into. Since the world is so messed up…I..there has to be a way to put just a little bit of it back together.” he went on with tears dripping down his face and onto the grass below him. His head tilted lower. He wouldn’t see the girl’s head lift up just a smidge to look at him. “I’m…I’m sorry you experienced all of that pain….I can’t…undo any of that…but please,” he lifted his head up, any reaction to the girl now looking at him wasn’t visible, “...continue living…don’t….I don’t know how you could die, but don’t….okay? I’m…I’m a Huntsman, if anybody could find a solution to this…it’s me. You..won’t be left like this. I won’t let you get used to this cell, you hear me? If I let some girl be trapped by some assholes and not try to get her out….how could I try to be someone who wants to do what’s right?” he ended at that, wiping at his face before picking himself and his equipment off the ground. 

“I’ll be back, I swear,” he softly added then left to go back up the stairs. Jaune didn’t care how and he didn’t care when he’d be able to free the girl. He just had a feeling that the solutions to the latest problem weren’t something he could find in where he currently was in the ‘game’. “Ring the bells…know my fate…ring the bells…know my fate…” he drawled as a chant. He made his way back to the faux elevator system and stepped on the middle pressure point to activate it. A steely gaze out at the view in front of him, “...I don’t know what or who put me in this place, but I won’t play by their rules,” he breathed out right as the elevator system stopped and brought him back inside the church-like building. He turned around with the same gaze, “And that’s an Arc’s Promise.”

Chapter Text

One otherworldly blonde stood on the elevator platform that got him back up to the church-like building with the weird altar. His breath calmed and his mind became clear again to reassess…well, everything. “...bonfires. Bonfires are…connected to someone called a ‘Fire Keeper’. Or are all of them connected to that one girl?” he listed off his current questions that stemmed from meeting the latest person in the world, “Would it be a different Fire Keeper if I go to another part of the game? What…what happens if,” he trailed off. The only conclusion to that idea was either all the bonfires stopped working or there would be some way around that issue in order to keep people from ‘softlocking’ themselves from the rest of the game. 

“Ring the bells…know my fate…find a library…help the girl,” he recited as a checklist. As much as he wanted to help the girl get fixed up as fast as possible, he could kill a few birds if he found a library. The amount of answers he gained wouldn’t be what he was looking for, yet it was a big gamble for any kind of answers in the first place. “Wait…but who got scooped up by the giant bird?” he asked aloud while stepping out of the elevator slowly. He glanced up to the oddly dressed….he didn’t even know how to properly describe the person-thing he’s looking at. 

They definitely had blue robes with gold or dark yellow additions all over it. The bottom half had circle-ish designs on the sides while the middle had horizontal lines as the top part had…a lot going on. The chest area had medal-looking pins on it that were connected by a lot of strings or smaller metal pieces. The shoulders had a simpler design of a v-shaped line with a dot in the middle of each v shape as they went up to their neck. Said neck was covered by a blue collar with gold trimmings of the same v-shape lines with a dot in the middle of the v’s. The head was oddly covered by a thin column of a blue helmet thing that had a hat-like top. He still couldn’t see their feet, thankfully, but their hands had light brown or yellow leather gloves. Its right hand was holding a candlesti- a trident, it was definitely a trident and not a candlestick. 

“You're is going to be annoying, won’t you?” He complained quietly as he made his way to the set of stairs near the left of the elevator platform that were behind a few cylindrical columns. Jaune’s new shield was positioned over his upper body, at least the most amount he could cover, during his sideway shuffle up the stair steps. The robed trident-holder didn’t react at all as he did so, it just stared ahead and clutched its trident. Jaune soon found himself out of the robed figure’s sights as he stepped in front of another set of stairs with an undead knight waiting at the top of them. His practice and instincts were called forth in a show of an easy parry of the undead’s leaping attack before Crocea Mors’ greatsword form stabbed through its head. Its body froze up and limply fell to his left with the usual ragdoll physics. 

“Clean…could be better, but clean,” he complimented himself. He repositioned the decorated shield in front of him during the last of stairs before arriving on the second-ish floor. The huge window in front of him with a view was ignored so he could turn to the left and continue making his way through. He went down a hallway-like area with window-shaped holes. His eyes and ears being made to focus for any sign or notice of an enemy or even the actual boss of the building. He soon made it to the end of the hall with no surprise waiting for him, to his right was where the hall continued. Through one of the window holes he saw the ledge area where the robed figure used to be. Used to be- “Where…..what?” Jaune said with a raised brow of confusion, wondering how the robed figure disappeared or just moved away in between the time of him on the stairs to now in the hallway section of the church-like building. He let the worry pass for now to take in the new area. 

Way down the hallway was a large room that didn’t seem like much. There was a doorway all the way across from him that led to a short set of stairs. Through more window holes he could see more of the usual, undead people who had tattered clothes and less threatening weapons. His steps paused after starting to hear odd chanting sounds. He looked at one of the window holes but just saw some of the ‘hollow’ people standing aro- why was a light blue aura outlining them and did their eyes get more red? “Ah…shi-” Jaune groaned as the other end of where he was became blocked by a small group of hollows that appeared to have been boosted or upgraded by whatever was chanting. The small group had way more energy in them compared to what he’s faced before as they were not only faster but were like a herd trampling over each other.

He stepped back and to the side instead of charging forward. He stayed by the corner he just passed by seconds before as the groans and yelps of the undead neared. He kept his eyes on the floor as it would be easier to see a foot or hand crossing over compared to waiting on a head- Crocea Mors extended out and sliced down to end the un-lives of three or four unlucky hollows, the rest of the group sped their way to the same fate while Jaune played the most disgusting game of ‘Veggie Shinobi’. One slash down, a follow-up slash upwards. Over and over, his right arm started to feel stiff until there were no more hollows gunning to their deaths…for now. He moved his upper body around the corner. His shield hand went around first for any surprise attacks. After receiving none, he let the rest of his body move over to stare straight at the blue-robed being waiting at the end of the hallway. They looked to be as tall as that knight who was on the church building’s first floor and in front of the altar thing.

“So magic…does exist here,” Jaune mumbled, his body getting into a battle-ready stance. The mystic energy of his soul stitching around him. His hands double-gripping Crocea Mors’ handle to deal the most amount of hurt in each swing. His left leg sliding forward, his right foot prepared to boost him forward. “You’re a….buffer type of enemy, huh?” he called out when in the stance, “Seems like you should have learned something mo-” he tried to add in before seeing a blue orb start to form in front of their chest. He switched to one-handing Crocea Mors to pull up the free shield on his left arm. There was maybe a second or two to spare as he blocked an ice-blue dart of magic. He winced both in surprise and at the pai- “Wait, that goes through BLOCKING?!!?!?” he cried out, choosing to jump to the left to avoid the follow-up blast of blue magic. He shook his left arm around, the attack being able to go through even his aura challenged his next ideas of attacking. He bounded forward to the right side. The action didn’t disturb the robed person at all when they were already lowering their trident to a horizontal position to try and charge at him. 

Crocea Mors was twirled around to be reversed grip. Instead of attacking back, the non-resident warrior stabbed his greatsword in a correct enough position to be caught in between two of the trident’s points. Jaune stepped a bit to the left and angled more to the right, his temporary shield held up with both hands during his charge into the blue-robed enemy. The charge ended with smashing the back of the wizard-like foe against a wall with the shield assisting in pinning them there. He hopped back to force them to stumble forward after trying to push against him. He slid the new shield off his arm and into his left hand, reaching back to send it forward as a huge disc. He spun with the motion not only in time with the shield ricocheting off their head, there the follow-up factor of his left fist and the bottom edge of the shield flowing through the robed person’s helmet. 

He quickly pulled his left arm back. There was no time given to watch the magic enemy’s corpse flop to the floor as he checked where he left Crocea Mors. He couldn’t find the trident he blocked with his trusty sword, but luckily the sword itself didn’t magically disappear too. His right hand held the handle tight to still it after kicking the blade part free from the floor. He twirled his family’s infamous sword around to have it upright so he could be set for whatever or whoever’s next. “Giant monsters, huge demons, dragons, big people….they can’t possibly get bigger after that, right?” he wondered. It was a question that would affect how he could go about dealing with the rest of the ‘game’. The bigger the enemies got over time meant they were definitely preparing people to face unimaginable beasts with the worst of the worst attacks or abilities. Like a dragon being able to turn invisible. “....wait…have I passed by an invisible dragon already?” he murmured. 

As he pondered about the possibility of unseen threats, he made his way across the hallway to step into the second floor area the previous enemies tried so…hard…to protect….oh. Jaune fully stopped after stepping into the new area piece, letting himself bonk the right side of his head with Crocea Mors’ hilt. “ ‘One’s up above in the Undead Church’,” he quoted when suddenly reminded of what the depressed knight advised him in what felt like days ago. “It’s a church….full of undead enemies. Stupid Jaune…stupid,” he continued lightly hitting himself with his sword’s hilt for his lack of awareness. After a few more hits he shook his head clear of, hopefully, more dumb moments. He immediately went to the adjacent doorway to go up the small set of stairs he saw before ending all the un-lives on the second floor. He bonked himself one more time for the lack of respect for the dead as he stepped onto a raised, wooden square with railings all around it. The other side of the square led to a ladder, but he couldn’t ignore the obvious other side of the area that had barrels on the right side near the wall of where he stood and…had a corpse folded over the ledge of the right window hole. 

He shook his head again with a little ‘blrbl’ sound coming from his mouth. Crocea Mors was turned back to its sheathe form before Jaune scaled up the ladder at two or three rungs at a time. While it wasn’t a tall ladder…it led him to a smaller area that only had another ladder to offer. He sighed heavily and slouched for a few seconds until moving over to climb the second ladder. “Ups and downs, Jaune…ups and downs,” he quietly reassured himself. He pulled himself up to a much smaller area of stone walls and ground, “Great…just-” he interrupted his complaints as he merely turned his head to the left enough to see a doorway covered in fog. A few feet in front of the doorway was some kind of writing scribbled in a material that let the dark ‘letters’ have a yellow glowing effect to outline them. 

Jaune hummed with a raised brow while turning fully towards the obvious sign of a boss area. “From what Solar…Solaire! Solaire said that these can allow ‘jolly cooperation’...” he muttered before crouching near the glowing, outlined writing. He placed his right hand on it for barely two seconds before feeling a pull on his aura. His right hand was pulled back after the sensation faded. He glanced down at said appendage before a fig- “Solaire?!” Jaune yelled out when seeing the boisterous knight slowly appeared from the summon sign and did a ‘Y’ shape with his arms. “....why are you all glowy?” he continued asking when realizing that Solaire was also a lot more bright and orangeish-tinted than when last seen. He tried to poke Solaire with a finger, instead reeling back as the warrior of the sun pulled out a round shield with the same sun-like design as on Solaire’s chest piece and a thin sword from…..somewhere. “Warn me next time, man,” was his huffed reply during his own short preparation for what waited behind the fogged-up doorway. Crocea Mors’ greatsword form was pulled out again to rest in his right hand. He glanced down at his blade for a few seconds then looked over at Solaire’s.

“.......he’ll be fine,” Jaune reassured himself at the same time as he started to step through the foggy doorway. His probably-mass-produced shield was held at the front and was centered as possible. The view of a wide, hip rooftop (blame his 1st older sister and her wife for teaching him about house structures) registered in his eyes first before taking in the four peaks that were definitely holding window spots. The rooftop area led to a rectangular building with a cylindrical top part that also had a foggy doorway. All around the rooftop were a few stone sta- gargoyles, he meant gargoyles. They didn’t seem that much bigger than him, though the ones on top of the rectangular building’s edges were a lot bigger and looked a lot more…alive…than the smal- 

His observations were cut off as one of the huge gargoyles on top of the building in front of him slowly came to life. The stones covering its body cracked and fell apart during its stretches. He could somehow hear each and every bone as the giant gargoyle acted like it was a dad waking up from a nap. It didn’t hesitate to fly off the rectangular building and in a little circle around the rooftop. It then descended low enough to land on the rooftop right before Jaune and Solaire. The closer look at the gargoyle let him see the light brown, flesh-like skin that was sometimes covered by its use of stone-like armor and parts. Its whole tail was much more metal than the rest of its body, it even ended with a dual-axe blade. In its front…paws? Legs? In its front…grip…was a smaller dual-axe with a spear tip on the top of it. Their left arm had a circular, stone shield that looked too small for its size. Its upper body lurched back prior to its loud, growl-like roar….yet it weirdly sounded like a sick parrot. 

His random thought would have gotten him killed if it weren’t for the glowing form of Solaire stepping in front of him to nonchalantly block the sweeping slash of the huge gargoyle’s dual-axe spear. Jaune had to grab one of Solaire’s shoulders with his left hand to help stabilize himself against the gust of wind that kicked up after the impact. “Solaire…you’re an Oumsend,” he breathed out. A shimmer of bright whitish-yellow covered his left hand before the rest of his aura outlined him. He let go of Solaire’s shoulder and started to run around the side. He ducked underneath the pole of the giant weapon. The striking bobbing motions of the gargoyle’s head made his body form the best C’s and Z’s he could, like it was trying to peck at him. Once getting a break between attacks, Crocea Mors arced upwards. The slice connected with the throat area then traveled further to land a bit of another blow at the chest. 

The response that followed was a startling headbutt sending Jaune forward a few feet. His arms and legs spread out in an attempt to recover. Crocea Mors stabbed through one part of the rooftop, Jaune was mid-twist of getting himself back on the platform to catch Solaire, the absolute unit, raising his right hand up to create an actual bolt of lightning in his grasp. One person’s jaw dropped with an audible gasp, and it wasn’t the person sending a thunder bolt right at the gargoyle’s chest to stagger it hard. It wasn’t just a little wobble of shock but more of a chaotic spasm of limbs and metal, pointy ends. Jaune leapt back into the fray to protect Solaire from two different ends. He narrowly pushed the axe-spear back with Crocea Mors while the dual-axe tail beat against the face of the free shield he picked up. 

The favor he paid back sent him back to the ‘IOU’ list once the kind-sounding knight made another electric bolt to stab the gargoyle in the left side of its face. Even Jaune had to look away with a wince during the follow-up crackle of lightning exploding. He shoved the two axe-points away, grabbing Solaire by the shoulder to push them both low enough to dodge a hurricane of feathers and death. Trying to hold down the man that Solaire was proved to be hard for even Jaune with a lot of aura boosting his upper body. He shoved Solaire away just before jumping back to steer clear of an axe-head slamming down between him and Solaire. He could thank game physics forever when nothing of the rooftop cracked or split from the attack. 

His thanks were backhanded instantly as another loud, disturbing warble rang out. “You…have got to be ki-” Jaune was cut off by another one of the large gargoyle landing on the rooftop. His mood went back to hope on account of yet another one of Solaire’s thunderbolts hitting both gargoyles at once. The one they’ve been fighting slumped down, its horrid voice screeching weakly. It struggled to stand, it hardly got both of its front limbs under itself until it flopped back down and ragdolled off the rooftop. 

Jaune was joining Solaire’s fight with the new gargoyle at the same time the first one keeled over. Crocea Mors was turned back into a shield to make it easier for him to defend any attack from reaching Solaire. The pecking and screeching combo it tried to do was intercepted by two shields keeping its mouth wide open. Any and all aura around him thickened more and more after Solaire threw what was hopefully the final thunder bolt down the second gargoyle’s throat. He ripped his hands off the gargoyle’s mouth to get him and Solaire as far from the-

A loud kakrrrk was the only warning to the sudden burst of electricity shooting out of the sparking gargoyle’s body. The forced feeding seemed to have been enough to cause the surprise boss  to slump over and ragdoll off the other side of the rooftop. Jaune’s head craned up to spot if any other gargoyle statue wanted to come to life. The twinkling sounds he heard behind him made him look away but only caught the end of Solaire’s summon spirit disappearing in a show of sparkles, “You’re the best, Solaire!” he praised as the sunny knight fully went back to…wherever summons go. Jaune’s aura stayed around him to pulse a bit, making him look at his arms and other parts to see the gray edges of his aura darken more, “....just great…” 

Crocea Mors was placed back on Jaune’s waist so he could freely start coughing, his hands on his knees to catch himself. “In…out. In…out,” he did his breathing exercises, his heart beating in his ears after what nearly turned into a ‘team wipe’. There was no way to really counter the gargoyles if they started to do something like spout fire or twirl around like a tornado at the same time from different angles. “I…man, I need to get better..a lot better,” he wheezed out while still catching his breath. His hands started patting at his waist before his right hand pulled up the glowing flask that was basically magic. He tilted his head back to sip at it and felt his head and aura get rejuvenated. He stopped after a few seconds to put the flask on his waist once more. 

He glanced over at the rectangular building’s only visible opening. He let out the biggest sigh of relief when seeing no fog blocking the doorway. Not that it revealed much as it looked very dark inside the building. He stood up straight to start trudging towards it, one awkwardly placed stair step at a time. The free shield he got lightly held up in case of any more things trying to stop him from, most likely, one of the bells he was tasked to activate.  “Come on, Jaune. It’s right there, right there” he repeated while he got inside. He made his way to the doorway yet held himself back. “Don’t risk it, don’t be stupid,” he said to slow himself down. He peeked his head through the doorway to be met with the view of a ladder. “As long as it isn’t another big thing,” he whispered. He let himself in and only focused on climbing the ladder. It would suck big time if he let something dumb like fall damage stop him now. 

The structure of the building was shoved so far from Jaune’s concern as he got to the top of the ladder. He searched for a second ladder when getting the sight of a doorway to his left with a clear view of a ladder going upwards. He jogged his way towards it, freezing in the doorway as he gazed upon the open sky and nothing else below the ledge thing he stepped on. His eyes shut quickly. His body turning slowly to the left for his right arm to reach out for the second ladder, “Don’t look down, don’t look down, whatever you do, for Oum’s sake just don’t-” he recited during his rough climb up the second ladder while blind. He had to right himself against the ladder when feeling his left hand grasp at nothing eventually right as he lifted up his right leg in habit. “The top, finally….” he breathed out as he fully got to the top and opened his eyes. While the large bell in front of him gave him the feeling of success and victory, the view behind it with sunrays peeking here and there through the rolling clouds was a very top tier scenery that he was glad to experience. His hands patted at his waist and pants wildly, trying to find his scroll. His left hand whipped it up after finding it. He took a few pictures of the view from different angles prior to putting it away to focus again. Jaune moved forward to the large lever that was obviously connected to the giant bell right above hi- he looked upwards at the underside of the bell. “...who would want to hear a loud bell…from point blank range?” he questioned before looking back down at the lever, “Rubybewithme,” he hastily prayed. 

He yanked the lever towards him to let the gears do their work, his hands raced up to cover his ears right before the bell above him began to toll about eight times. The bell slowly stopped rocking around. Jaune let his ears free right after. He walked close a railing to gaze at the descending sun rays that looked like they increased in their amount. “They would have loved this….” he quietly spoke out to the wind. He stopped talking and basked in the physical and spiritual feeling of at last getting some progress done in the world.

Chapter Text

One blonde warrior enjoyed the grand view for some time. He ended his enjoyment by getting away from the railing and started to think of what to do next. “This bell is done. Then there’s this ‘Blighttown’ to get to for the other bell,” was the start of a plan, “But where…would a Blighttown even be? ‘Far, far below’ isn’t exactly a good hint with anything to go off of besides…going down.” Jaune huffed as he figured out what to do. “More traveling….yay,” he blandly said as he went over to the ladder he used. He made sure to focus on getting down rather than what could happen if he somehow fell off the little wooden platform. He rushed his way back into the tower to continue the dread of a long way back. He got to the ladder within the building. He paused to look all the way down to where the ladder started. “....I could totally survive that…maybe,” he told himself. He internally debated whether to test the idea or not for a few seconds prior to sticking with going down the long ladder, “Nope, no point in risking it.” 

He hopped off the ladder when he was close enough to the floor. He turned a bit, only to pause when seeing a…person…by the building entrance. They were dressed in mostly black and held their arms out like they were about to hug someone, hopefully not him. Their helmet was like someone used some bronze or copper to turn it into an old pilot’s helmet. The black capelet went from their neck to right about the middle of their chest. Underneath it was a long-sleeved top in the same black material, as well as the gloves. Their dark pants were almost fully covered by a long…skirt? It was definitely part of the outfit, it looked like it was connected to the top. It was one of those long skirts that went around the legs but had a huge empty space at the front. On the sides were two sheathes that had two sword handles sticking out of them. The person wore full black boots to complete the outfit. He would have called it a weird design if he hadn’t realized how odd the fashion scene was in Remnant when compared to the more…‘grounded’ designs of the clothes and armor in this world, even the weapons! On Jaune’s second thought, he remembered the heavy knight who used a literal huge tooth like a club…but that would technically fit a ‘simple’ design. 

He must have walked closer absently as he found himself just a few feet from the person now when they started talking. “Greetings,” the now identified man said with the inside of the tower causing him to echo. It was a somewhat aged voice too, “I am…Oswald of Carim, the pardoner. Thou art a friend,” that sentence was a bit too forward, “For thee, a warm welcome. Cometh thou to confess? Or to accuse? For indeed, all sin is my domain,” the pardoner finished. Jaune’s current thought was about how would someone confess or accuse in the tower they were in. He wasn’t very religious back on Remnant, yet there were at least private booths for doing both of those things in churches. There weren’t many churches, now that he thought about it. Something about how the councils of each kingdom slowly tore down said churches for ‘more room’. He was pulled from his thoughts when Oswald spoke again. “Thou art welcome anytime. It is only human to commit a sin…heh heh heh heh,” the pardoner added. 

With that said, Jaune nodded at Oswald as he moved past him to continue the long backtrack. He made his way down the set of stairs connected to the rooftop area, the same area which would have given him the worst kind of trouble so far if Solaire wasn’t able to help him. “Maybe I could…help him find this ‘sun’ of his,” he wondered how to pay the sun-themed knight back for the assistance. His head turned to each of the other statues on the rooftop. “Don’t come to life, don’t come to life, don’t come to life,” he repeated until reaching the roof doorway. He continued looking around for a while before he headed inside. He glanced down at the closest ladder to see if he could find another way down. Jaune moved himself to sit on the edge of the thin area and looked down at the next bit of platform under him. 

A brief inhale and exhale happened right as Jaune pushed himself off and landed feet first onto the lower platform. He expected to feel even some kind of impact force, but was slightly surprised to just feel only the new platform below him and nothing else. His head tilted up at where he dropped from and at the floor beneath him. “There’s definitely fall damage,” he softly guessed. He looked down at the next lower floor to get to, “....yeah, no. Just gonna use the safe way.” Like a coward, he shuffled over to the longer ladder to slowly make his way down. There was no way he would make himself take that much of a risk on a possibility of death. 

He hopped a bit more earlier off the ladder, instead of bracing for anything he turned the drop into a quick roll. The roll flowed into Jaune kneeling on the ground to briefly glance around. There was a small room he could see to his right that he hadn’t been to yet. With a shrug he rose up to his full height and got close to the railing. He looked over it to see just a few barrels, some wooden chairs, and…a body hung over a windowsill, the front of their body was in and the lower half was facing the outside world. “That…is certainly a way to go out,” he weakly joked. He turned away and went back to..backtracking. He went down a small set of stairs, crossed through a doorway, and found himself back in the ‘main’ area of the Undead Church’s second floor. The doorway all the way to the right stole his attention, even though the hallway to his left was what he actually used to get up to this area. “Couldn’t hurt,” he reasoned to himself before walking towards a potentially new part of the building. He stopped near the doorway. His upper body leaning to the right as a way to scout for a lurking enemy. There was only a lengthy hallway and a set of stairs going upwards to be seen. 

“That looks like a trap,” he stated. Crocea Mors’ was entirely pulled from his side and transformed into its greatsword version. His new shield held in front of him as he liked being on the defensive more than the offensive. Being strong enough to handle most enemies, for now, wasn’t enough to make him full of himself…for now. His aura wasn’t called on yet as a means of keeping some abilities a surprise. A slow approach got him to the middleish area of the hallway before he began increasing his pace. His dominant got close to the first stair step until his upward gaze saw the undead knight at the top of the stairs start charging down towards him. 

“Of course it’s a-” he tried to get in, the sound of his borrowed shield meeting with the other knight’s rapier-like sword cutting him off. The clanging sound continued while Jaune kept his distance and had his attention focused. He tried to notice any pattern the undead knights had. “1..1, 2….1, 2…1, 2, 3…” he counted off. The new shield of his wasn’t Crocea Mors, but it was proving itself enough. Another quick combo bounced off his shield. The wait in between that combo and whatever was next was enough for Crocea Mors to be lifted and swung forward. A diagonal slice from the top right to the lower left, literally through the armor and whatever was underneath it. His shield arm pushed the flopping ragdoll aside so he could ascend up the stairs 2-3 steps at a time. He neared the top and saw…another long hallway. A long, dark hallway with nothing else but the few objects and items seen before. “Oooooookay…creepy hallway,” he said. He traveled through the hallway with a high amount of wariness. He noticed the hallway curving to the left, said curve also let him see a bit of a light source behind a blockade of some kind. His aura was summoned to outline around him to give him his own light source. 

The thing blocking him from the room with the lighting were just some wooden boards. One wide swing from Crocea Mors revealed…a lit up stone room and a set of stairs going from the right to the upper left. His aura flowed back into him. He glanced up to see…another set of stairs that went towards the upper right and to some area. A quick breath was taken prior to Jaune trudging up the stairs. He got a few steps higher on the second stair set when seeing someone behind a set of jail bars. They were sitting down on the floor with one leg being used to rest an arm on while the other leg was laid down and bent inward. They wore an armor set that was very bright, like a gold or light bronze material. Some of the helmet’s design reminded Jaune of a chess piece as the top of the bright helmet had rectangular attachments on it. He finished getting to the top and approached the armored person in the cell. The step to place him right in front of the cell got the person’s attention. 

“Oh? Still a human, are you?” the mature, deep voice revealed the armored person to be a guy, “Then I am in luck…could you help me? As you can see, I am stuck without recourse,” the man added. Jaune’s first thought was about how he would free this ‘golden’ knight from the cell. His second thought was how stupid he became if he actually thought about freeing someone that was left in a cell area that was boarded shut. 

“....this guy…is definitely bad, right?” he asked himself. He may not know why this person was locked in a secluded cell within a church of all places, but he shouldn’t doubt there was a good reason for the golden knight ending up in such a place. “Wait…I woke up in a cell,” he remembered, though that had to be due to video game logic…hopefully. He debated on his choices: letting this golden knight free or keeping him in the cell. There was some doubt creeping about the cell even being able to keep the knight locked in anymore now that he found it. He knew of some mechanics of a similar style that basically made it the player’s fault for some event occurring. The encounter was giving him the same kind of feeling of accidentally messing up in some unexplainable way. The main worry now was if he had the right to test whatever the world was setting up. For all he knew, this golden guy could be a part of some bad ending for the world

“...screw it. Being on the ‘good side’ could help me..” Jaune sighed. He reached out to the part of the jail bars where there was a small square part with a keyhole in it. He lightly pulled on it, the attempt turning into a failure as the cell door refused to budge. He pushed a bit too much forward on accident…something that resulted in finding out the jail door was a ‘push’ one instead of a ‘pull’ one. He stepped back and raised up his weapons in case of any violent outcomes. 

“....thank you, yes, sincerely. I am Knight Lautrec…of Carim,” Lautrec thanked. The added title made Jaune hope that the pardoner guy in the bell tower could help find out more about this ‘Lautrec’. “I truly appreciate this, and I guarantee a reward…only later,” the golden knight finished. With that talk done, he turned and moved away from the golden knight. He wanted as much distance from the knight as possible for now. He didn’t think he could ask…Oswald? Yeah, that had to be the name. There would be no reason to go to Oswald since he just met Lautrec. That golden knight would probably have to show up somewhere else for the world to count it as progression or whatever it was called. 

He got back down to the dark hallway and continued to mull over what he got himself into. Huge beasts and monsters were just starting to be normal to him, but now there was the new, sort of issue of whatever this ‘Lautrec’ was bringing to the table. A ‘reward’ was going to be given to him, apparently. The type and form of the reward was another point to be wary of. He could have mistakenly freed an optional boss for all he knew.

He blinked in a bit of shock when already finding himself back at the main second floor area. He moved a bit to the side to look down from the huge opening that gave him a view of the weird altar and some of the church area he’s seen before. He looked down at the floor right below the open area. Aura surrounded his legs as he hopped off the second floor. His body shifted into a crouch after his feet met the first floor’s ground. Clouds of dust kicked up due to the landing. Jaune fully stood and used his shield arm to wave away the dust, coughing a bit during it. He glanced around and behind him for any enemy that could have appeared in the time he’s been gone. When finding none, he shrugged before moving towards the right side. He wanted to check up on the…the girl below the main bonfire, but felt like he should get a lot of the exploration in this area done first. 

The large archway ahead of him led to descending stair steps and an outdoor area. The outdoor area was connected to a bridge-like structure, which was also leading to a ruined building. He stepped close to the start of the stair steps but chose to peek around. On the left side of the outside area was a skeleton warrior. The right side had two skeleton warriors. As easy as they were to fight, there was surely a way to minimize the time spent fighting all of these ‘standard’ enemies. The blonde Hunter took a moment to breathe. His mind focused, his hands tightened on both the handle of his sword and his decorated shield, and his legs moved into a position that was ready to spring him forward. A mental countdown was had. The soft sounds of a light breeze was barely heard as he rushed forward. His borrowed shield acting as a ram of sorts for anything that would dare get in his way. He flew down the stair steps and didn’t take long to run down the stone bridge-like structure. A few meters worth of steps were made before he spun around with his shield still held up. He saw the three skeleton warriors slowly waddle their way onto the bridge before pausing. They all stared at him until they slowly turned around and walked back to where they started. 

“...attention range…could be useful,” he noted while he turned back to the rest of the bridge. He stepped close to the end of the bridge structure. Before him was a descending set of steps and the inside of the ruined building. There wasn’t much to care about besides some railings and the hint of more stairs on the left side. Jaune turned Crocea Mors back into its sheathe form to put it at his side. He took his time stepping down into the ruined building. There really was nothing that looked worth exploring or looking at besides the obvious set of stairs to his left. He took another glance around prior to exploring beneath the ruins. The set of steps only lead to…a wall and a path that went left. A light hum formed in his mouth as he went deeper. A glance over the railings let him see a doorway and a new, unlit bonfire waiting for him. Near the new bonfire was some railings and another set of stairs. 

“New checkpoint, this can’t be good…” he complained. As useful as it should be to have a bonfire at this point, it also likely meant that there were some dangers close by that’d make the new bonfire a blessing to have. He ignored his worries for now as he tapped on the bonfire sword’s handle. He saw and heard the bonfire lit aflame, the ever welcoming sign of some minor progress. Through the nearby doorway he could see a stretched out connection to a gated off entrance and a- “Is that…a huge onion?” he asked out loud. Jaune moved himself closer to the doorway to get as much of a view as he could of some person idly sitting near the gated entrance with some light-grey or white armor. The glaring part about the armor was the huge helmet that heavily resembled an onion. “Now that’s style,” he joked while turning away. He could meet the onion knight after seeing what else is there to see. 

 He made a few steps down the, hopefully, last set of stairs when his ears were instantly met with the sounds of metal pounding metal. His eyes took in the view of a man with long, white or grey hair surrounded by weapons, shields, etc. while he was standing right behind the anvil they were using. A few feet in front of the blacksmith was a doorway. The last set of stairs were the last…but also had like 4 parts of it until he finally was on the same floor as the blacksmith guy. The guy’s head moved up to look at him as he stopped working on whatever he was smashing on. “Well, you must be a new arrival. I’m Andre, of Astora. If you require smithing, then speak to me,” was the brief introduction Jaune was given as Andre went back to working on a…sword of some kind. The otherworldly warrior blinked at the fast introduction, but saw it as a gift compared to all the other lengthy pieces of dialogue he’s heard so far. 

He gave Andre his space by deciding to check what the doorway led to. A few steps of stairs down earned him the view of a large room and a…“What…in Oum’s name…is that!!?!??!?” Jaune shouted as near the end of the large room was a large, grey body with no head, some protrusions from its back that almost connected into a ring, and wielded a large, metal staff with a horseshoe-shaped thing on the top of it. Instead of standing up, it seemed like it was crawling around with the use of one of its hands. What he didn’t expect was for it to raise its staff and have it start sparking with electricity. Its protrusions from its back were also generating electricity. Crocea Mors was pulled out into its greatsword form as he positioned his body into a ready stance, “You have got…to be kidding me…”

Chapter Text

Comparing this newest enemy to anything else in his world would clock it at a ‘WTF’ level. Call Salem anything you want, but you would never say she made a bad looking Grimm. Scary and disturbing, sure…but never an actual mess like the newest contender trying to kill him. Well, there were the…apathy’s? Apathies? Whatever the literal soul-sucking Grimm were named. Not only was it creepy looking with how it dragged itself around, it had electric-based abilities. The body type and behavior had to have been someone’s nightmare that they brought to the table. Comparing the enemy to the rest of the enemies in this drained-of-hope world…it was maybe a 4 or 5. Jaune was keeping the number low for now. There was no real point in judging beings in a different world at the moment when he was just digging deeper. It was also a wonder if more of this…moving-statue thing had more versions of it or not. 

“Why…does Andre…just…keep…this thing…around?” the lone Hunter asked between breaths, risking his curiosity in the middle of dodging and rolling under as many attacks as he could. A few times he jumped over a few sweeping motions, totally for testing purposes and not for fun. He had most of its pattern down but was still bothered by why an enemy like this one would be so close to Andre and a bonfire. Andre was evidently a blacksmith…and a smith got their materials from somewhere. He’d bet good whatever currency this world used…if there even was a currency anymore…on the idea that Andre was keeping this headless monster around to use as a metal farm. Not an actual farm, but a video-gamey way of being able to endlessly get a type of resource. 

Jaune did one more hop over an attack prior to running back to where the blacksmith was. A quick look back eased the worry his thoughts created of the metal monster somehow being able to chase him up the stair steps. He took a breath of victory while he kneeled near where the blacksmith was working. “Well, hello again. You…seem to be doing all right, need anything forged?” the brick house of a man asked without looking up from his current work. Jaune gave the man a shake of his head before getting himself back up. 

“Maybe later, Andre. Guess I could check on that onion guy…” he spoke, giving the blacksmith a wave. He slowly made his way back up to his newest bonfire. He glanced at it right as an offhand idea popped up. “There’s been…a lot of these little campfires so far,” he started off, “...it…wouldn’t be that weird to later on have a faster way to get from one to another.” It was a far off idea scraped together from his longing sense of one quality in a game that he believed to be a simple staple: fast travel. It was pure torture whenever a long game or map expected someone to just be alright with having to hoof it for a long amount of time in real life. Those moments were never not doable, it was just annoying after a while. Going around by foot or horseback was only acceptable for maybe the first 5-6 hours of a game. 

“Was that… the idea for…all of this?” he mumbled while glancing around. From the layout of the places he walked through to the types of enemies he has come across, ‘annoying’ and ‘difficult’ were the words he knew were starting to be actual descriptions for the world as he got further. He was no stranger to ‘rage-quit’ games…but that didn’t ever mean he willingly sought out those kinds of entertainment. There was a big reason why Uno and a few other games were no longer allowed to be played at…home. “Right,” he quietly sighed, “Just…just another reason to get all this done faster,” he trudged towards the open doorway instead of up again. 

The armored figure with a helmet heavily resembling an onion was still there sitting at the end of a short, stone platform while in front of closed castle gates. It was…odd that there was three separate gates for one structure, but he wasn’t going to argue. Jaune took his time crossing the lengthy bridge to the sealed off area. His guard was partially up, having some faith in the trees that surrounded him to not have any hidden threat waiting to jump out. The possibility of the bridge breaking underneath him all of a sudden….was a new thought to worry about. He couldn’t immediately think of a time that occurred in a game, but the idea was always possible. He could….even be stabbed by this onion knight. 

“Should I even…talk to this person? The last guy was kind of…weird…” Jaune started to say as he got to the end of the bridge and went up the short set of stairs. Just thinking about the gold knight caused a brief shudder to roll down his spine. He never liked assuming things about people, but the current ratio of nice people and…well…not nice people wasn’t great. Most of the people so far were alright or a little tolerable. Solaire and the girl behind bars were obviously on a higher tier than…Petrus? Yeah, that has to be that one dude’s name. The depressed guy at the main bonfire was alright, that man wasn’t boring or rude and was very helpful with all the info he’s told so far. The dude in the bell tower was alright for now, too. The purpose of that dude isn’t really known yet, but he would take whatever that guy’s selling or whatever while Petrus has just been…useless.

“........come on, luck,.” he added after weighing his thoughts. He stepped towards the onion knight with a relaxed stance. The lack of a weapon and shield on the knight gave him some hope that this wasn’t going to be a violent meeting. The tightening of his own grip meant that he was also not trying to risk it anymore. Any untoward moment was going to be met with equal force…or unequal depending on how strong the onion proved to be. 

As he got closer, the onion knight’s head raised up a little and turned to him. “Mmm…hrmmmm…” was all he heard. Jaune blinked a few times at the questionable sounds the knight let out before actual words came. “Mm! Oh-hoh! Forgive me…I was absorbed in thought,” oh, well now the blonde Hunter felt bad, “I…am Siegmeyer of Catarina. Quite honestly, I have run flat against a wall.” One couldn’t blame the onion knight for feeling like that, since the gates were…gated closed. “Or, a gate, I should say,” Jaune snorted softly, “The thing just won’t budge. No matter how long I wait…and, oh, have I waited! So, here I sit, in quite a pickle. Weighing my options, so to speak! Hah hah hah hah!”

The turn of Siegmeyer’s head to gaze back down at his lap was the sign his dialogue ended. Jaune hummed quietly while going over the onion knight’s words. There wasn’t much for him to think about as Siegmeyer said he just needed the gates open to be not as mopey, hopefully at least. The questions of what was behind the sealed gates and why it was so important for Siegmeyer were his main concern. A bit similar to Solaire, he didn’t know exactly how or why to help this knight out. Siegmeyer may be nice as now, yet there was no way to believe or trust the onion knight for the long term. “Wish you luck, I guess…” he gave with a shrug, turning around to use the bridge again. 

A lot of the knights he’s met so far have their own goals to focus on. Although, not any of them were interested in ringing two bells like the knight who died. Was…was there something he wasn’t getting? Who was Jaune kidding, there were going to be more crazy things to run into and uncover as he went deeper and deeper. If the world was sending giant monsters, dragons, and the undead at him this early on…what kinds of things were waiting to be introduced? A giant crocodile? Trolls? Poisonous snakes? Centaurs? Werewolves? The things being saved for later had to be either amazing or life-scarring horrifying. 

Those were always the best kinds of games, the ones that left memorable dents you could easily remember. Either the memories were happy and great or they brought a huge and severe amount of faux-PTSD and fear from remembering. One such bad memory of a video game had to be a huge boss made of…poop. Jaune never liked explaining how a little squirrel fighting a giant mountain of shit caused a younger him to fear toilets in case sentient poops popped out of them. It never happened, of course…but he’d never forget the things he did when he was too scared to even walk by a bathroom door. 

Jaune shook his head to clear his mind of the past. He looked around to find himself back at the ruined building that was above Andre’s area. With a short shrug he moved himself to get back to the Undead Church to use the elevator. There could be more to explore in this area that he wouldn’t mind checking out, however there was the second bell he couldn’t forget about. As much as he wanted to help out Siegmeyer and Solaire (why were the cooler knights named with an S?), the dead knight and the depressed knight told him that ringing the bells would provide clues for what he was actually supposed to do in this world. The sooner he knew his main adjective meant he could have some more details to assist in judging how much extra time he had for ‘side quests’. 

His absent-minded steps got him ahead enough on the bridge path back to the church before he fully got back to himself. He stopped his march right before he stepped into the area with tw- three skeleton enemies. “One side was definitely a range type, but which one was it?” Jaune tried to remember which side he’d needed to deal with first so the other side would be easier to handle. He only had the memory of him running past the skeleton warriors and onto this bridge path. “That…doesn’t help,” he added while internally dissing himself for not trying to check their equipment. A soft shimmer sound could be heard when his body was lightly covered with his aura. “Be risky, not stupid,” he whispered, Croce Mors and his borrowed shield raised up in their usual positions. Jaune took as little steps as he could until he triggered their awareness spaces. 

He was just a step off the bridge structure as two skeletons to his left and one skeleton to his right turned to him. While they were all a jump or two away from him, the skeleton to his right was lifting up a crossbow as the other two had a sword and shield. He didn’t waste a second when dashing right at the archer skeleton and checked it with a shield bash. Crocea Mors was angled for a downward stab aimed at the upper half of it. His temporary shield shifted more to the right as one of the other skeletons ran over with a wide swing. 

Jaune took the wide swing, he twisted with the impact to go for his own attack. Crocea Mors’ blade would have cleanly sliced through the necks of the skeleton warriors if there was any true body collision. The blonde swordsman fully stood and relaxed as all three skeletons were left as piles of bones around him. He stepped over the bones to get closer to the Undead Church, the light layer of aura on him going back into his body. The absence of the larger knight appeased bits of his worry of returning to the area. A look to his upper left increased his joy when not seeing the blue-robed thing with a trident on the second level. He moved his sight to the medieval elevator system in the midst of weighing his options. 

The first option was to use the elevator system to go back to the central bonfire area and check around once more for a different path he didn’t take yet. The second option was to go the long way back to double check on anything he accidentally passed by. He wouldn’t mind seeing if anything changed at the main bonfire area, like if someone else was there or if he could get some information from the depressed knight. Checking on Petrus was…not something he wanted to do, but it wouldn’t hu- nevermind it would. It would hurt if he did a lot of stuff so far just for that guy to say something about keeping away from him. On top of whatever the S knights were focused on, Petrus being another person who didn’t move at all move like the depressed knight rubbed him the wrong way. The depressed knight seemed down enough on his luck, but Petrus hasn’t given a hint or anything close to one to explain why he’s just standing in some ruins. He was never a good judge of character, but Jaune would bet a good amount of this world’s currency (somehow) that Petrus was going to be trouble later on in the journey. 

That depressed knight could also be trouble for all he knew. While helpful, that guy hasn’t done a lot either. He had no real proof for the claims, but one doesn’t get betrayed by a hundred or so NPC’s and players to not have learned some bits of pattern recognition. That preacher in the bell tower seemed alright, besides having the presence of a loony person. 

Jaune was pulled away from his thoughts of who could be a secretive enemy when realizing his body got him to the other end of the church and let him ride the elevator platform down to the main bonfire area. Crocea Mors was shifted back into its sheathe form so he could have a hand rub at his face. The weight of how…mentally tired he was starting to get from how confusing and offputting the world proved itself to be was getting to him. The mysterious ban on sleep was making him feel just that much more negative about his current situation: only at the tip of whatever chaos was waiting for him. 

“Maybe that’s the problem, no one got any sleep to not be a weirdo or creep,” he softly joked as he made his way off the elevator and sped his way down to the depressed knight. He didn’t spare a glance at Petrus as he got back to the sad warrior. He didn’t even get a sound out when the knight looked up at him. 

“What’s wrong? Get a bit of scare out there? No problem…have a seat and get comfortable. We’ll both be Hollow before you know it. Hah hah hah hah…well, what are you going to do? I’ve already decided. I don’t really care…I’m simply crestfallen,” was the whole river of words Jaune was forced to hear. After a minute or so, he stepped forward with his mouth ready to speak up…only to be beaten to the punch. “Have you…been to the ruins of New Londo below?” That, was certainly the kind of news Jaune hoped to hear. “Just head down the stairs, and take the lift.” Stairs? “It’s…certainly worth a visit…it was once an Undead city. You may find a clue or two. Unless…the ghosts find you first…keh heh heh heh!” 

He couldn’t give a farewell during his inner problem-solving of what the ‘crestfallen’ knight meant by ‘head down the stairs’. He already went down the stairs and saw the girl that’s behind iron bars. “Oh…oh. I…it can’t be that close…” he started to say, his steps taking him to and down the set of stairs that led to said imprisoned girl. Jaune paused once reaching the bottom of the steps. His sight instantly took in the sight of Lautrec and his vibrant armor sitting down in front of the girl. The golden or very bright orange whatever knight wasn’t sitting right in front of her, but he clearly sat himself to face her. He glanced more to the left to see that there was some doorway that might lead to this ‘New Londo’.

Crocea Mors was pulled into his free hand as fast as he made his way over. His instincts and another sense in him were going off like sirens, like they knew Lautrec was bad news. About a meter or so away from the sitting man, he had to pause and flounder around a bit when a coin was tossed his way. Jaune caught the coin and himself before either somehow fell into the foggy abyss below. He moved the coin to his shield hand to keep Crocea Mors out, not wanting to give Lautrec the benefit of a doubt yet. 

He looked the coin over and noticed that it was actually a medal. A medal with the image of a sun on it, it was strangely alike to the one Solaire had on his chest. He watched as the medal slowly faded into his palm. He slowly turned his head to glare down at Lautrec’s sitting form. Most of his posture daring Lautrec to even raise a finger toward the little girl behind the bars. He waited until he had to finally breathe from how still he tried to be. “I’m…watching you,” he hoarsely said before making his way to the doorway past Lautrec. 

He carefully stepped through it and was welcomed with the sight of how far down he would go if he tripped or fell. The back of his body moving to press against some of the broken wall near the doorway as he moved his eyesight low enough to just see his boots and some of the ground. He slowly and gracefully (awkwardly) made his way down the spiraling stone steps. He kept his eyes down for what felt like hours. Even the lightest shift back to the open air got him freezing up until forcing himself to look back down. 

His fear got the opportunity to subside after getting to a part of the spiraling steps where a wall was finally between him and death. He kept his back to the wall and took a few huffs of victory air. Another few minutes passed until he got off the wall and made his way…an opened gate door. His worry for what opened the gate before him was swept under the view of the interior. A glance to the right revealed a lever close by. His attention moved to the center of the stone room as there were a few large chains coming from the ceiling that connected to the large circular space of the room. A large circle piece poked up from the rest of the floor. A design that reminded him of an earlier area. 

“Oh…so they’re just all like that?” Jaune said as he clocked in that the Undead Church’s elevator may not be the only one. He made his way over and let his left foot press the circular button down and activate the rest of the platform. He braced himself for the little shift that was starting to be expected as most of the circular part of the floor started to descend. He shifted a few times, facing one way then another. He had no clue where an opening was going to be. The length of the ride down…wherever he was going didn’t help. A small tidbit that ruined some of his favorite games was that long wait times meant that something big was going to be loaded in. A thought he didn’t want to believe in and tried to hope wasn’t the case. He didn’t know what exactly he could do if he- 

The stone elevator finally stopped. Luckily, he managed to be in the right spot for the exit doorway to be in front of him. Unluckily, his fear was proven right. Jaune slowly stepped off the elevator and took just two steps forward to take in the new area. It looked like a huge cave was made to have room to build some hidden village. A soft, pale beam of light was shining down from a wide wall at some top part of the cave. It shined down to barely help make out the few buildings he could see in the rest of the darkness. “‘New Londo’, huh?” he murmured. It wasn’t so surprising to find out that some type of new expansion ended in…this. He was there for all of 30 seconds and instantly caught all he needed to know. A start of an idea. Effort being put in to make the idea real. Some event strikes and ruins all of it…and all of that leaves the leftovers that are forced to stay as a reminder. 

Jaune closed his eyes and tilted his head down. His own show of respect, not just for those who passed away in the tragedy but also for the vision people hoped to bring to fruition. A he kept his head down for a few seconds and stepped more forward. A broken wall was immediately in front of him, or would be in front of him. He followed the damage to see that some stone stairs were below him. “....I survived one fall,” he recalled with a stiff shrug. Aura surrounded him when he stepped off and plummeted down to the lower set of steps. His landing ended with a small crouch to mitigate the strain, a small burst of dust puffing up after it. The echo erupting from said landing made the hairs on his body stand straight up. He quietly hissed at what he did. His crouched form was held for a few more seconds, only letting himself stand straight after nothing happened. He stepped through the doorway he managed to land near and was a lot closer to the ruined town….city…whatever it once was. 

“Now that’s…a view,” he said, fully taking in how eerie this underground area was. This was a certified 8/10 view. The sight of what the place looked like in its prime must have been breathtaking. Jaune paused when picking up a multitude a soun- right by him were a few more of those ghoul-looking people. They…weren’t noticing him. A lot of them were doing their own thing or sitting around. “Okay, like this place isn’t offputting enough,” he added with an eyeroll. His steps tried to be as soft as possible, not wanting the echoes of said steps to set anything off. He started his search around the new area by going off to the left side. His focus couldn’t be distracted when he needed to find Blighttown, which was hopefully nearby or maybe even in the area. 

The left side gave him a new doorway to go through…and led to mostly nothing- Jaune stopped his brief disappointment as a new sound and sight came through. Some meters away was a small, blue glow on some pole. His ears picked up the sounds of rushing water, and it sounded very close. “Oh, great…city surrounded by water…” he whispered. His self-made theory of how this place died out had a few more notes added to it. “Was I supposed to find a lamp or something?” he questioned, his aura covered him to be used as a light source. He stuck by the closest wall of rocks he found after his aura came through. 

He carefully made his way down with the barest hints of a path. The trust he put on the path paid off by getting closer to the blue glow. The sound of moving water was also getting louder. He had to take a few extra steps as he thought he stepped near one of those ghouls, only to see that it was just some long blades of grass. “Is…am I even going the right way?” he finally asked. While he would like to explore this new area, there was still ‘Blighttown’ to find and ring a bell in. A ‘Blighttown’ was thought to be a mess of a place, and New Londo seemed very different from how a Blighttown would be. Jaune was very open to being proven wrong and it was going to suck if he found out that this area wasn’t even close to Blighttown. 

His thoughts were on hold when finding the descending path had led to a circular, stone structure with a few ghouls already there. One was just sitting, the other…frantically praying, and the last one was…in a huge vase. Jaune didn’t know how to properly dissect what he was seeing…so he dashed his attempts at doing so and got past them to finally see what the blue glow was. It was…just a light source where the flame was blue. He had some expectation in seeing something more odd…like a flaming skull. With a shrug he looked past the light source and saw that a poorly made wooden path was the next thing to put his trust on with a few more light poles spread out. “…do I really want to step on that? It’s- it can’t be safe. I mean it should be, but that is giving off too many bad vibes. Like…who uses just a few wooden boards for a bridge over a large body of water?” he went off while going over his choices. New Londo might prove itself worth the trouble if there was something to do with this ‘Blighttown’ place. Or, he was just wasting a decent amount of time in a place that he probably will have to go back to in the future as there’s no point in being here right now.

Chapter Text

As Jaune stood on the platform right before some wooden planks laid out like a kid’s first bridge, he spared some time to go over all the stuff he experienced so far…from the beginning. “So…I fell. I fell last. Weiss fell before me. Blake and Ruby were before her..and at the same-ish time. And Yang…Yang was the first to fall,” he recounted, “I was falling…then I caught Cres-” he stopped himself. A loud slap echoed in the huge cave space. A groan followed after it. “Crescent…Rose,” Jaune drawled out. The hand of his shield arm sliding down his face as he groaned again, “Ho-how did I forget about it-HER! Her,” he paused again to look around. He felt a smallest of chills run down his back before he corrected himself. “....is…did it…fall with me?” he wondered. 

There was certainly no way it was in the prison place, an area he’s 40% sure he couldn’t get back to. He thought about all the areas he went through with some hope that he somehow missed Ruby’s weapon. “Not there….not there either…definitely wasn’t there,” he listed off. With how depressingly…empty? Sure, empty. With how depressingly empty the world was of colors other than grey, black, and other dark colors, it shouldn’t be hard to spot a big red-and-black scythe. Yet that’s just it, he didn’t even have her near him when he woke up at the asylum. 

“Great…just great,” he sighed. Not only was it important to find the fastest way back to Remnant, but now Crescent Rose was maybe lost in this world too. The current thoughts of his friend’s missing weapon led to thinking of how the others were doing. “Are they…doing well? Handling it well?” he continued, “It..I’m barely hanging in there as it is…” he quietly admitted. He wasn’t going to deny that it was still…unbelievable. Who would have known that falling into some ‘magic abyss’ results in being sent to a medieval nightmare. “Who else…wound up lost?” he asked now. If the relics really have been around for a long time, then the amount of people who used them had to be numerous. Not only were there the Maidens that had to open the vaults in the first place but there would have also been a handful of people to A. use them or B. steal them. Considering the odd rules in place for just two of the relics: how many people got dealt with a worse hand? 

Was he one of the lucky ones? Was this deathtrap of a reality…actually one of the better ones? Was there a place where it was just underwater exploration with sea monsters? Could there be worlds where robots ruled the planet? Was there a place that had outer-space threats? If someone used the crown relic, could they be mentally/spiritually sent somewhere else but their  physical body stays in Remnant? If someone used the sword relic, would anything they hit be sent to another world instead of just…being destroyed? 

“A weapon that sends people to other worlds, huh?” Jaune softly joked. He couldn’t remember if he ever read something with a plot like that. He also wouldn’t deny that he would read a story like that if given a chance. If the staff relic was proven to have some ability to send people to another world, did the lamp have that same possibility? It…it wasn’t unlikely that someone would have asked if other worlds exist or if it was possible to go to another world. If Oz-whatever once asked if Salem could even be beaten…was it ever asked if Salem could be trapped in another world? Sure, she had enough magic while Ozpin was running on dry…but-

He paused, a new thought coming to him. “....couldn’t…would it be possible for their kids to be…brought back?” he slowly asked. He didn’t mean in the resurrection way, but in the multiverse way. A few memories came through of how he, Ruby, and even Ren talked at length about how other worlds would work. Would they have everyone they know? Would there be evil versions of themselves? After the fate of the world was unveiled, those kinds of talks were forgotten as they got closer to stopping the end of the world. The most fun idea they had was that anything was truly possible. He could have been another girl in his family, Ruby could have been the one to use fists as a weapon, and Ren could have been actually born with pink hair. Why stop at just the kids? Wouldn’t there be a world where Salem was missing out of her family’s lives? Might as well throw Ozma in there too…maybe find a way to separate him and Oscar first. 

Another slap could be heard as Jaune made himself get back on track, “....Crescent Rose…find a way back…everything else is not as important.” He stared forward, or at least as far as the glow from his aura let him see…it wasn’t much. “Spooky place or find somewhere else,” he eventually whispered. There was a part in him growing more and more with doubt. A part of him started to think this giant cave known as ‘New Londo’ was not at all tied to this ‘Blighttown’. “If this isn’t it…then what is?” he added. 

He hadn’t seen anywhere else to go. Admittedly, there wasn’t a lot to be seen anyway with how dark the area was. But an elevator straight down to this area couldn’t have been made for no reason. There was something for him to find here, sooner or later. “...more for later,” Jaune said, turning around and carefully retracing his steps. He wanted to increase his aura’s brightness, yet that would expend more aura than he was willing to use. It wouldn’t be wise to waste all of his aura right before a tough enemy or even another boss. As cool as his semblance was, turning himself into an unlimited aura generator wasn’t possible…yet. The best he had before the shitshow at the bridges was slowing the rate his aura decreased to a crawl. Even the hardest hits from Yang and Nora at the same time only took off a percent or so. He couldn’t improve or change how much was used up when boosting someone else, though. 

“Every thing has a downside,” he softly reminded himself. At least his semblance was something readily usable whenever he wanted. There wasn’t a rule to it like Yang’s or Nora’s. It also wasn’t as complicated as Ren’s or Weiss’. It still wasn’t as cool as firing lasers and stuff, but hey…support-type semblance. Considering the theory that ‘semblances reflect the soul’, it was surprising but absolutely a gift to have it unlocked then and there during the fight at Haven. 

The echo of his steps and the handful of sounds from the undead would have been horrible to experience as the first thing in the world. Thankfully, fighting huge monsters beforehand made it more bearable. He’d say it again, he was so glad that Salem’s creations weren't as unnerving or frightening as the stuff crawling and stomping around in this world. 

He was pulled from his internal rambling of randomness as he got to the bottom of how he would up in New Londo. When stepping closer to the doorway of the ruined tower-ish building, there was another doorway a few feet to the left of it. “If this one…goes down here and back to the bonfire,” Jaune started to say, “then what would a second one lead to?” Crocea Mors and the borrowed shield were held at the ready for any situation. Another skeleton? Dead. Another undead thing? Dead. A boss? Dead…hopefully. Ending up dead instead didn’t seem that bad since the area was just under and didn’t take much walking…it also wasn’t that bad considering the whole ‘respawn’ thing. 

“Should…is there something I should know-oh right…library,” he started to say before reminding himself of a big objective he made. A world can’t have huge monsters and dragons and not have a library…or at least a few books. If anything, how come there was no other…fighter…besides the knight that died, Solaire, and maybe Lautrec…oh and that knight with the dragon tooth. Siegmeyer was placed in the ‘maybe’ pile until proven otherwise. The depressed knight got a pass while the knight who didn’t want him around could suck an egg…two actually! If Solaire could summon bolts of lightning, the other warriors in this world must be as powerful as Hunters or maybe even Maidens. 

A short chuckle escaped his lips as he got closer to the doorway. He peeked his head through it, the image of Solaire absolutely destroying her playing in his mind. “Actually, could…could I bring Solaire with me?” he entertained the thought while seeing a set of stairs that spiraled up to the left. If one such as he could find himself here after falling into a relic-made abyss, then one could not only get back to Remnant but also bring something or someone back from this world to help in the fight against Salem…maybe. It would be like the old tale that he’s sure was probably actually a real adventure after everything got dropped on them: The Girl Who Fell Through The World. 

“Wait, tha- that means the Rusted Kni-” he began to say, finding himself cut off literally and figuratively when the stairs took him to…a cell door. Behind it was the view of two mountains and a small ‘bridge’. There was the mountain right behind the door with a curved path that led to said bridge. By ‘bridge’, it was just some wooden boards laid out from the mountain and went to the other mountain across it. The huge gap below the set of wooden boards wasn’t subtle about there being a whole lot of nothing to catch him if he falls. “This…this sucks,” he quietly said with a nod. New Londo was alright, but this new area looked like suffering was given a physical form. 

“Am I supposed to…guess…which piece of wood isn’t real?” was what came next. The gate door was forcibly opened. In other words, one aura-powered kick sent it flying off the doorway, bouncing off the side of the mountain, and dropping down into the gap between the two mountains. He dangled a foot out of the opened doorway, lightly tapping at the grassy path of rock in front of him. He fully stepped out after making sure that he wasn’t going to fall through and find out the mountains were somehow fake. Fully facing towards the other mountain let him see a…giant hole that was just black inside. “Creepy holes, okay…great,” he briefly sighed. He shuffled his way to the death trap that was supposed to be a bridge. 

Unlike other areas he’s been to, he risked it all and sprinted across the wooden planks. Each little step and shift that happened was met with his quick acceptance that he was stupid enough to trust such an obvious trap. To his surprise, he managed to run all the way across to the other mountain. He braced himself against the side of it. He took some time to breathe in and out deeply. “That. Sucked.” he added in. 

After taking a few seconds to recollect himself, he used his shield hand to slap himself and focus up again. “Blighttown…Blighttown, find it and ring the bell…know my fate,” he whispered. He leaned off the mountain and got to the huge hole. A peek inside didn’t give much to see. A boost of aura to give him some light only let him see the pieces of wood all in the hole- it was quickly realized how dirty it was going to be when exploring the…hole. There were planks, some sections of planks broken or set up along the walls and ceilings, and there were some wooden…barrier things that he forgot the name of. It wasn’t actual barriers but were more similar to…well it wasn’t that important to remember the name anyway. It looked like a three or four-dimensional ‘X’ made out of wooden spikes. The kind of barrier found in front of villages back then or whatever. 

Jaune’s exploration of the deep cave was slow. The light coming off his aura wasn’t enough to appease the feeling of literally stepping into danger. His temporary shield positioned in front of him to have just a bit of protection for whatever was lurking in the dark. Anything could be in this cave. Spiders. Boars. Zombies. Walruses. Maybe even- he stopped fully. He stopped when hearing a footstep that wasn’t his. The light coming from his aura reached farther as he pumped more to flow around him. What was stepping around turned out to be…a big, human-ish being. He slowly stepped back, his aura glowed less and less to save as much as he could. The new enemy was like a human bean bag with a wooden club-like weapon. The face looked like a mix of a human and a pug but more beat up. The glowing eyes were more off putting than the pieces of grass and fur that it used as clothes. A few bone pieces were hanging off various parts of its body. Either it was wearing a lot of bone necklaces or…it had bones sticking out of it. The sounds coming from it also weren’t pleasing, like a monkey’s wail mixed with a bird call. 

His eyes closed. A breath was let out. Then action was taken. Aura surged out to give him more lighting again. Deciding to be on the offensive first, Crocea Mors stabbed forward. An instant meeting of a blade through the skull made it fall to the side and sprawled out. His aura was emitting enough light to see another one of them a few feet away, standing still as it gazed at him. He stepped back into a defensive form right as it charged at him. Its one hand lifted up the club sluggishly as its speed was faster than expected. It was about a meter or so away when it hopped forward and brought down the wooden club. 

A simple step to the side flowed into Crocea Mors chopping down through the neck of the enemy. Only a second passed prior to its form slumping forward and sprawled out like its friend…or sibling. A poke from Crocea Mors was a test to see if either of them were playing dead or not. A soft kick was his ending move when he got to moving through the cave again. His aura stayed out to see any more of the barbarians before they saw him. 

More wooden planks, walls, beams, and the weird barrier things passed by him as he went deeper. The silence besides his steps getting to him. His eyes trailing around and focused more on the ceiling in case of any enemies that could somehow stay up there. The absence of regular animals was another worry he began to have. While he hasn’t felt hungry at all since waking up, he’d rather listen to birds chirping or dog barks than…than how empty the world felt like. The amount of things that wanted to kill him didn’t count at all as actual…beings. The people he’s met were…fine, but animals would provide a much needed sense of normalcy. 

His wish for animal life, normal ones, was put on hold when another one of the walls of flesh stumbled into his range. “Archer enemies…gotta remember those,” he reminded himself with the talk of range, not stopping his steps toward the newest barbarian. A feint and a dodge into a repeated downward slash brought down another one. He waited by the…the corpse and listened for any other enemy nearby. A few beats passed when he moved on again. The deeper he went, the more he found: some pots and other objects. The wooden boards started to be more common, like he was on actual path path-

He stopped his pace, the wooden floor under all the dirt and stone led to the end of the cave. It led to…what looked like a sewer…a GIANT sewer. He thought New Londo was in a big cave...this was like 10 or 20 New Londo's. “What…in the..” Jaune trailed off. He wanted to say more, the view of the underground area was lit up here and there with the torch flames. But, the horrid stench of what finally had to be Blighttown caught up to him. “...this….this is gonna suck,” he promised himself, since there was always that one level or area in a game. An area that no one liked, not even the most diehard of enjoyers. What was laid in front of him were wooden structures built to seem like an actual construction plan was happening before things went bad. He could see big mosquitos slowly flying in certain directions. Actually, the buzzing was a lot louder than he expected…which meant there were a lot of bugs in this area. Bugs that could maybe shoot lasers out of their eyes for all he knew. “Now this…is a Blighttown,” he breathed out, his voice sounding stuffy as he desperately pinched his nose close.

Chapter Text

Jaune stood on the very questionable wooden platform for a bit longer to let his eyes adjust. That was a lie, the stench of Blighttown was so distracting that he wouldn’t risk stepping forward or back in case he slipped on what he hoped was dirt or mud while his nose was suffering. “It’s like…everything in here died twice, got set on fire, it was put out with Ren’s ‘health drinks’, it all caught on fire…and then it was buried under the worst manure in existence,” his nasally voice got out. It was instantly regretted as a brief inhale almost led to adding on to the disgusting environment with his own puke. The taste of the air was just as loathsome as the area’s smell. Blue eyes closed, his mouth shut tight as he attempted to relax. “This is unfair…crazy even! Who- I’m supposed to go through this whole place?” he complained. 

As his eyes adjusted for real now, he took another look around from where he stood. There were remains of what looked like a failed plan to turn the huge sewer into a liveable place, it must have been a hassle during its infancy. The dozens or hundreds of wooden planks used for platforms, ladders, and other structures didn’t leave much to the imagination of what was planned to happen. Far off and above on the ceiling of the smelly area were some cracks of light. As big as the gaps were, they weren’t wide enough to be useful. He swore he could hear some creaking noises somewhere below the platform he was on, yet it wasn’t the sound of the platform about to break. It, for some reason, reminded him of the elevator systems he’s experienced so far. “Some things are unbelievable, yet this is so….dumb,” was said in a whisper. Huge monsters aren’t much help in terms of hints, but the existence of terrible platforms and layouts? Whoever created the world must have been a sadist. The one thing he could give credit for were the handful of torches and other light sources spread out the area, at least in the areas he could see. 

Thoughts of cursing out whatever higher power the world had was cut off by another rush of almost throwing up. His legs moved to get him far from Blighttown. It wasn’t until getting to the middle-ish part of the cave tunnel that he felt safe again. “Hah…hah…hah,” one non-resident blonde breathed in and out heavily, “Oh…sweet, clean air.” It took a good, few minutes for Jaune to not feel queasy. “Ho- how do I do this? I can barely walk with the smell all around,” he said in disgust. The drive to find the bell was still there, the physical will to find it wasn't as present. The stench of the area was too much for him to block out with willpower and luck. Cloaking himself with aura wouldn’t help anything since smells go through it. Any attempt to ‘boost’ his nose or any other part of his body wasn’t going to help either. Jaune looked around, “There has to be some…loose cloth or whatever I can cover my face with,” he hoped during the quick search. 

After finding nothing but wood-related objects, he tilted his head back and let out a long sigh. “And…of course there’s nothing. Not like I should have expected there to be…a piece…of clothing or cloth…to be around, “ he started to say. Blue eyes widened, his head moved to look down, and his mind gave him an idea. An idea relating to the red cloth secured under his belt. His mind and self went through multiple arguments and reasons of why and why not he should use the sash as a temporary cover for his mouth and nose. It wasn’t as if he was actually tarnishing the memento he had of Pyrrha, he was just moving it from his waist to his face. But, the reason for moving it is very disrespectful as it was going to be a mask and won’t be kept as an article of clothing that doubled as a tribute. 

The discourse in his head was eventually silenced. He leaned down to place Crocea Mors and his borrowed shield on the ground before he started thumbing at his belt. “This would be the right choice,” he whispered as he worked to get the red sash off while keeping the belt still on. If she was here…she wouldn’t hesitate to counter that the sash being used to protect his face was a better use than a memento. Thankfully, the article of cloth was long enough for him to wrap around the lower part of his head a few times before he had to secure it with a knot at the back of his neck. He quickly picked up his equipment off the floor and performed a few moves. “It’s a bit constricting on my neck, might have made it too tight…but it could work!” he told himself, his voice muffled by the fabric. He placed his weapons back on the floor so he could adjust the makeshift face mask. It took a few more tries for the cloth to be less detrimental than he wanted. Instead of securing it with a knot at the back of his neck, he moved the knot to the front for easier, quicker access. He also wanted to believe that having the knot below his jaw would lessen the chances of it falling off his face. 

He did one last round of light practice before nodding to himself. “Guess it’s time,” he added with a turn back towards Blighttown. The stench of the area used to be noticeable from the distance he was at, but now it was snuffed out by whatever aroma the cloth memento had. All that mattered was that it was a smell powerful enough to block out Blighttown’s. More steps took him back to the proper start of Blighttown. Jaune risked a hard sniff to push how useful the cloth mask idea was. Amazingly, the level of the underground area’s stench was way more manageable when the cloth was around the lower part of his face. “Another great plan by yours truly,” he self-congratulated. With a boosted drive, he walked along the wooden planks to wherever they led- it was a room. Well not a ‘room’ room, it was a cube made of planks with the side he was facing left empty. Jaune paused at the abrupt deadend. “Wow, just like that? Really? Where els-” he began to whine until walking towards the mounted torch to his right. Behind the torch were two points that were eerily similar to what ladders had. To his luck, it did seem to be a ladder. A ladder he can’t really check as he didn’t want to fall into the smelly darkness if he leaned too hard. 

“.....nothing wrong here,” he lied, moving his weapons around to put them back on him. He didn’t dare waste surprise on the idea that he could be attacked on ladders. It was during times like these that he wouldn’t mind having a smaller weapon like a knife on him. “It…would be funny if I could hop off of these and like…dropkick something,” he joked to himself. Surprise attacks were always a thing he dreamt of doing but realized he would likely never be able to, at least back on Remnant. Besides the glaring lack of grace he had to pull off anything stealthy, he was also too noticeable and not that athletic. Flexibility wasn’t a problem, but that has yet to prove much use outside of dancing and other things. He could have used some of it during the Beacon days, but that’s long gone. In video game terms, he went full on ‘tank’ instead of being more of a mix with agility or some other useful thing. 

He slowly and carefully positioned himself to start going down. He stopped moving when hearing a brief buzzing sound. It wasn’t the light buzzing one would hear from a fly, it was the type you would get from a bigger set of wings. “Please be a huge bird, please be a huge bird,” was repeated as he made his way down the ladder. The other thing besides a giant bird only leaves- “Wait…there’s nothing here,” he paused as only more wood flooring and walls greeted him. Near the middle of the floor was a square hole with another ladder. “....now this is definitely where I’m about to run into an enemy,” he sighed as he got closer to the hole. He sat himself on one side of the hole and dangled his legs through the opening. His ears caught extra buzzing sounds, the louder presence of them meant he was closer to whatever was causing the noise. 

“When in Mistral…” he shrugged, shifting enough to drop himself through the square hole. Crocea Mors and the borrowed shield were equipped again right before he landed with an echoing thud. A thought passed as the aura around him lessened. There should be enough light from the few torches in this part to ease up on how much aura he was using. His head turned to the left. Even though he was staring at a ladder he could have used and the wall behind it, the buzzing sound could be heard from the other side. “...it’s a giant bug, isn’t it?” he sighed. He could take on a wolf or bear monster anyday, but bug and insect monsters were not so easy to deal with. Everything about them became worse whenever they got ‘bigibized’. The larger fangs, the bigger eyes, the freakier looks about them…it was unfair. A bite from a regular-sized ant is nothing compared to a bite from an ant the size of a car. 

A few steps got him closer to the end of the wall of planks. His upper body leaned to the side inch by inch with his shield arm held up and at the ready as he did so. The rest of the area behind the wall wasn’t expected to have much. Even though there was another torch further away, there was also…a big, bug-like entity. An oval-ish, black body, extremely thin, brownish-red limbs (6 leg-like ones while the two front ones had four,small claws), the wings on top of its body were very thin and basically see-through. Oh, can’t forget about the bright flames on the front of its head area like that was the eye. No seriously, it was just a small flame sitting where a face would normally be. “Nope,” was all Jaune said, the next second a shield was chucked at the huge bug’s head/body. No real collision as usual when it went through the body, the fuel of nightmares responding to the attack with a slump forward and never moving again. 

The blue-eyed warrior stood still after it ragdolled. He let the little bit of excitement that built up from the encounter die down. “Wait, don’t tell me…” he spoke, his eyes not catching any sign of the shield he threw after the bug died, “....it’s…under the bug, isn't it?” he groaned. He learned that this area isn’t that tough to deal with, but at what cost. It wasn’t that dramatic to learn about, yet it was annoying when suffering consequences for trying things out. “So…shield throws can deal damage, but I can’t risk losing stuff if anything falls on top of them,” he noted to himself. A few memories played of a few game moments where some treasures or loot were unobtainable because an enemy’s body just so happened to land on where they would spawn later. 

“So that’s why all these enemies flop around,” he thought about how many times a weapon was available or was dropped after dealing with an enemy if he just looked under the bodies. Another thought he had was if he was going to have the ability to store more stuff, like other weapons, or if he had the ability already. He knew he could store some stuff already, but weapons and other larger items weren’t something he tried yet. “Could I like…store a bunch of bricks and throw them later?” he asked himself. There weren’t a lot of games that allowed that kind of fun, though it was always the rare, memorable ones that had unlimited space for creativity. He had no hate for games that had limited inventory space, but it was never a doubt what kind of games he enjoyed more at times. 

When he wasn’t arguing with Ruby and Nora about what makes a good weapon, it was usually about what games were at the top of lists. The mental mention of some of his friends got him sighing again. “Soon… I’ll see them soon,” he promised, mostly to himself. His empty hand went up to sweep his hair back. Another benefit of the world he started to like was that he has yet to feel warmer or colder than when he woke up..for now. Coming down with a cold shouldn’t happen, but coming under effects like poison or bleeding were future events to worry about. The worst effects he’s seen so far was Tyrian being able to have a strong enough venom to keep Qrow down for a good while…possibly even have one strong enough for a slow death. His face twisted into a grimace as he tried to get his mind away from ‘what-if’ scenarios. 

The hand in his hair slid back down to his face. “This…sucks,” he reminded himself. As much as he was getting back in the spirit of things beforehand, it wasn’t hard to miss what life once was during the first few semesters at Beacon…where he was just some idiot teen in a school he didn’t belong in with his friends. He once thought that everything after the Fall of Beacon was just some bad dream. That Nora or Ren gave him the wrong drink and he was in a long, realistic nightmare. That…he would wake up to Pyrrha’s voice after he wanted a few more minutes of sleep. But it wasn’t like that. It couldn’t be like those times ever again. Unlike Oz-whatever, he didn’t have infinite lives to start over with…he just had this one…kind of. Maybe he did die already, maybe this was the actual nightmare he was rewarded with after that huge demon in the church got him. 

The hand of his face dropped back down to his side, his eyes taking in the slumped over corpse of the bug from the fiery abyss. “Afterlife or not…I’m not done yet,” he started to say, “I made promises, I gave my word. I can’t stop…not yet.” A hard kick knocked away the flame-face bug’s body. It tumbled off the platform and dropped down to wherever else he had to explore. The same foot he used stomped down, catching onto one edge of the borrowed shield to make it flip upwards. His free hand caught another side of it so he could place it on his back for a moment. His other hand was already returning a de-transformed Crocea Mors to his waist. Unlike last time, he took time with this new ladder. He let his aura dial down as there were more than enough torches around after climbing his way down. The torches didn’t seem to be randomly placed around either anymore as he looked down at the small, rectangular area he’s now on and at the rest of where he’s headed to. 

Any wrong step meant falling off the wooden platforms and straight into whatever’s creating the obnoxious smell that plagued the area. It was up for debate if the smell was from whatever sludge the place was made mostly of or if there were garbage-type monsters waiting for any unlucky victims. “A garbage boss, now that would be something…” he joked, making his way down another ladder. He made sure to get semi-decent footing first as the portion he was now on was slanting at an angle. It wasn’t tilted enough to make him start slipping, but it wasn’t safe regardless due to the absence of railings, walls, and other means of safety. The few random items all across these platforms were just the icing on the cake of confusion. Who would put any kind of decoration in a place like Blighttown? Stuff like pillars and all that were more acceptable than intricate vases or whatever was hang- 

Jaune paused. He looked up for whatever source produced a quiet buzzing sound he began to hear. His eyes searching hard for whatever was above him, it was probably another bug enemy. A flying enemy was always annoying, a bug version of it was just adding another layer of bothersome. He lowered his head back down. Instead of pulling out Crocea Mors or his shield, he sprinted across the shoddy platforms to get to wherever the path was leading to. Waiting on enemies he couldn’t even see was the kind of time wasting he needed to avoid. Panicking over attacks or enemies that weren’t near him to begin with took a lot less priority compared to stuff that were close enough to hit him. His feet planted down firmly, focusing some aura to help stop his momentum. All these ladders were getting to him, sometimes alternative routes were needed to break up tedious level designs. The alternative path he was currently looking down at was a big enough gap between the wooden path he was on and some wooden wall near him. The hole led down to, hopefully, the same lower platform the ladder right by him would lead to. 

Everything looked normal…if one ignored a new flame-face bug waiting around the corner of the bottom of the ladder. “...this can’t be that easy,” he finally said. This bug was just sitting around…vulnerable. And because it was looking so vulnerable, he hopped off the platform. No weapons were needed for this idea. Aura surged more around his legs, timed right as he crashed on and through the flame-face bug. “Yep, yep…bad idea, very bad idea,” he regretted. The feeling of being inside a body but not at the same time was not a feeling he ever expected to happen. The best comparison he had was being waist-deep in gross, sticky water or quicksand. Stepping out and away from the bug corpse somehow wasn’t better. “That…never again, I…this idea is a -10,” he quietly added. He walked away from the corpse once he dusted and patted himself for anything that stuck onto him. A part of him expected to just be walking around the world with half of his body in a corpse after doing all that, he was grateful that it didn’t happen. 

He turned the brief corner to where he would have been if he took the ladder down. He was taken aback by the view of huge tree roots and…two giant water wheels? Not actual water wheels, though, since they were moving all on their own. The paddle-like additions that were all over them were replaced with larger platforms. Platforms that looked big and steady enough to handle a person’s weight. There were also a few stone archways/bridges close to where he was, yet the tree roots were the second confusing thing after the wheels. “Oh….oh. I, guess that’s cool?” he spoke. As glad as he was that it wasn’t more ladders- nevermind there was a start of a ladder right in front of him that would take him down to be closer to the wooden wheels. The low lighting in the sewer-like area was making him realize how much he was missing out on, both good and bad things. “Two dark areas near each other…I’m not liking all of this,” he added. First was New Londo, at least the ruins of it, and now this area. “What’s next, an area that’s just completely pitch bla-” shick, shick .

Jaune’s random thought was cut off by two intruders. By ‘intruders’, it was about the two sharp points poking through his chest now. The familiar sounds of annoying wing beats right behind him made his head turn that way. His surprise shot up as it turned out to be two giant mosquitos who had the effort to stab him when he was distracted. They shared a few similarities to the flame-face bugs, but just more mosquito-looking. His hands reached up to grab and snap off the mosquitos’ needle mouths. But, the pain from the attacks didn’t go away as the mouthless mosquitos flopped onto the floor behind him. He dropped the mouths as quickly as he broke them off. A queasy sensation flowed through his body in seconds right after. “Ah……shi-” he started to say, turning and leaning over an edge of the platform to prove Yang’s eternal nickname for him true. Thankfully, he pulled down the red sash in time before his mouth opened. It wasn’t bad enough that he got snuck up on by bugs of all things after pulling off a sneak attack on a different one…but now he found out that stuff like poison were an actual problem to worry about.