Arcane Manifest: A RWBY Story

Chapter 19: Something Best Left Forgotten

Team PREN and Qrow make their way through the overgrown and abandoned town. The town wasn't as big as Vale, but from the architecture, it had the potential to grow. But that time had passed due to the tectonic activity and the crashing of the island into the mainland, the original inhabitants left for Vale. The island city was nothing more than a ghost town, reclaimed by nature. What unsettled the team the most was the lack of Grimm. No wandering beowolves or Ursa. As far as they were concerned, this entire stretch of land was utterly lifeless.

Pyrrha: "Keep your eyes open. Look for any paths that lead downward."

Emrys: "You ever see something like this Qrow?"

Qrow: "Nah. Most ghost towns I visit aren't short in supply of Grimm. It's a lot more unsettling we haven't run into anything yet."

Nora: "Well, that's because we haven't woken them up yet."

Ren: "Nora, wait!"

But he was too late, Nora using her hammer, had slammed down on an old vehicle. Its echoes rang throughout the ghost town, and it echoed...and echoed...and echoed. But there was no response, no roars of awoken Grimm, nothing just the eventual return to the eerie silence.

Nora: "Now that's just creepy."

Pyrrha: "Nora! You can't just do that! What if something was here? You have to think of more than when's the next fight!"

Nora: "Ok...I'm sorry. It won't happen again."

Pyrrha: "*sigh* Okay. Let's keep moving."

Ren: "We can try to investigate inside one of the buildings. Maybe find some form of information."

Pyrrha: "Good idea, let's get moving."

They make their way into a small apartment building that seemed to have been a restaurant of sorts as the bottom floor looked more akin to a cafe. Investigating through the building, they managed to find some documents.

Emrys: "From what I can read, this place was known as the Blessed Island. It was marketed as a getaway paradise before it crashed into the coast. It seems it had some very high potential, even after the crashing. But something caused everyone to leave."

Ren: "Hey, I found a newspaper over here. Apparently, they were doing some digging and found an 'unexplained formation' whatever that means. After discovering it, the tremors began to occur. After several intense earthquakes, the townspeople decided to abandon the entire city."

Qrow: "That unexplained formation may be an undiscovered Grimm nest, or worse. There's only one way to find out. All we need to do is find where they found it."

Nora: "Hey, maybe the giant hole back here could help."

The rest meet up with Nora as she points towards a massive sinkhole that has swallowed a large chunk of the city. Below they could see many tunnel openings.

Qrow: "Okay, we don't have time to explore every single tunnel. So well split into three teams. Pyrrha and Emrys take a tunnel, Nora and Ren take another, and ill explore one by myself. Clear?" Team PREN nods and splits up.

Emrys and Pyrrha make their way into a large tunnel on the farthest end of the sinkhole. Emrys creates an orb of light to dispel the tunnel's darkness. The two continue through the cave. Pyrrha kept her eyes peeled for any form of Grimm activity. She kept watching for any claw marks, unnatural holes, or even tracks of some kind. But there wasn't anything to find, just her, Emrys, and the orb of light he made.

Emrys: "This eerie silence, it's...unsettling. It's like I can hear my own subconscious thoughts."

Pyrrha: "I know what you mean, but we can't succumb to our fear now. We have a job to do, and besides, it's you and me, what can't we face together." Her words of confidence brought a smile to his face and steeled his nerves, as well as it did her.