RWBY: The Son of Salem: Volume 4-5

Chapter Four: The Deal

"What do you mean we lost the map!?" Weiss exclaimed. "When!? How!?"

Silver looked around the area that his team had stopped in after they found out that somewhere along the way, they had lost their map of Anima, which not only meant that they were now hopelessly lost, but also that they no longer had any direction to go to.

"I guess it flew out of my backpack during our fight with that freaky Grimm." Jaune replied. "I'm sorry, okay? But sometimes stuff happens."

"Great..." Weiss seethed. "So, not only do we not have a map anymore, but now we're hopelessly lost in a thunderstorm risking getting a cold! We should've gotten to Oniyuri by now!"

"Well..." Nora began. "We are kinda near a village right now."

"WHAT!?" Weiss bellowed.

"Shion." Ren said. "It's about an hour's walk from here. There's an inn that we can stay at and rest, restock our food and supplies, and most importantly, get out of this storm."

"Then let's get moving." Silver replied. "We're burning daylight standing out here."

He heard light rustling coming from directly above him and turned to look at the source. Spotting a raven that was looking right back at him. Its eyes were a deep red and they held an intelligence that wasn't normal for a corvid to have. It seemed to be watching him.

His gaze narrowed at the bird, but he turned around a moment later and started moving with JNR and Weiss following close behind, wary of any Grimm that might try to attack them.

The group had walked for about half an hour in silence before Weiss seemed to stumble a bit as a brief but sudden bout of dizziness hit her.

"You okay?" Silver asked.

"Yeah. I'm fine." Weiss replied, waving a dismissive hand at her co-leader. "Just got dizzy for a moment. It's gone now."

Silver nodded, but still had a look of concern on his face. He heard a loud caw and looked for it, spotting what looked like the same raven he had seen thirty minutes ago watching them. He quickly realized that something wasn't right about that damn bird.

"What is it?" Weiss asked.

"Either I'm starting to lose it, or that raven's been following us for awhile." Silver replied quietly, sounding like he didn't want the bird to hear him.

Weiss gave the Bat Faunus a look that said she thought he was crazy.

"We should keep going." She said. "And don't worry about some bird, Silver. It's not like you to be so jumpy."

"With the shit we've seen on this journey, can you really blame me?" Silver asked.

There was a rather sombre silence.

"No..." Weiss finally said. "I guess not."

"We're almost there!" Jaune shouted. "Look!"

Sure enough, when they exited the forest, the village of Shion came into view. It was a quaint little village, housing perhaps a few hundred residents, and had a decent hiking trail.

"I haven't been here in a while." Jaune remarked with a fond smile.

"You've been here before?" Silver asked.

"Oh yeah, multiple times." Jaune replied. "My family would come here regularly for camping trips when I was younger. Man... I should really take Pyrrha here some time."

"Is there an inn?" Ren asked.

"Yeah. The Flying Boarbatusk Inn." Jaune replied. "It's a cozy place, and has enough rooms for everyone. We should be able to get a decent meal there as well."