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Cover Art: Jack Wayne

Chapter 118

The great stone door groaned and creaked as it slid open on mechanisms invisible to the naked eye. Beyond, the great lake of black ichor stretched out between towering walls of crystalline dust in shades of blue, yellow, green, red and white that carried on upwards seemingly forever. A rocky outcrop jutted out beyond the doorway some twelve feet, uneven and rough without any accompaniment but for a metallic spoke drive into the ground and a rickety wooden boat moored to it. How such a thing could have survived for so long without rotting away, Jaune didn't know.

The pools were still. Unnaturally so. There was no flicker or ripple, no movement and no sound to suggest it was anything other than a wooden floor painted black. That hands and arms could reach up out of it at any moment and pull them down to their doom didn't go unmissed. Jaune shared a worried look with Summer, who nodded silently back to the door for him to wait there, then stepped out onto the plateau with one foot, ready to dart back at the slightest sound or sight of movement.

There was none. He wished there had been because at least then they could have called it off. The lack of any came as encouragement or a challenge, daring Summer to take another and put herself fully in danger. Jaune braced himself at the door and held a hand outward, letting her grip it and forming a human chain as she stepped fully out. He was ready to pull back and seal the door if they needed to, but yet again the darkness remained tranquil.

Summer's fingers slid against his wrist as she pulled away. Their hands disconnected and Jaune's heart leapt into his throat, fully expecting the horror and carnage. There was none. Summer stepped anxiously to the edge and peered over, then took the knotted rope untouched by time or rot and gave it a gentle tug. The wooden rowboat slipped back on the thick liquid, causing small ripples and distortions on its surface as it drifted close and bumped against the rock with a gentle clunk.

The fact the pools didn't react changed little about his eagerness to ride the Grimm Gondola, though it did suggest that sound wasn't what would set it off. That would make sense since the door hadn't exactly been the quietest of things. He waved Summer back and she happily obliged, coming through the door so that he could close it if things went bad. He leant out with one hand cupped around his mouth.

"Hello!" His shout echoed off the crystalline walls, bouncing back as if someone in the distance was responding. "Hello!" he shouted again, listening to the sound echo away down the ravine. The Grimm pools remained still. "Testing! Ozma! Salem! Ashari! Grimm! Can anyone hear me?" He raised his voice suddenly, yelling, "Hey!"

Summer winced behind him but even as the noise sharply veered off into the distance getting quieter and quieter, the lake of darkness remained as tranquil as it had been when Summer stepped outside.

"Maybe you need ears to hear," Summer pointed out. "And unless it forms Grimm, it doesn't have ears."

"That's… That's ridiculous and yet I can't think of any better argument." Jaune ran a hand through his hair and took the plunge, stepping boldly out as Summer had. "It definitely felt us dropping that big Grimm into it, but as long as the surface isn't disturbed it doesn't seem to care."

"We could test by throwing a rock in."

"I'd feel safer doing that if we had more distance between us and it. The door doesn't close instantly and it could flood through into the tunnels." If it was as fluid as water, even the smallest crack as the door was closing would let a deluge rush through and kill them.

"Then it's the boat," Summer said. "I still have no signal on my scroll."

Wouldn't the boat be just as bad, though? Once they climbed into it the wood would sink lower in the water, surely disturbing the surface. Then again, the boat had done that mildly when Summer pulled it in, and the darkness hadn't cared. There was nothing in the vessel's construction to suggest magic of protections of some kind. It was a basic rowboat lacking oars, roughly made by hand, obvious from the uneven construction that had one side a little taller than the other.

Jaune unhooked the belt bag that contained his spare clips of ammo and bundled them up in his white coat to add some weight, then threw it onto the boat. It dipped and rocked in the water, creaking to the side where it clinked against a crystal outcrop. Ripples spread over the surface from the sudden movement.

Nothing more.

"We can test it until we die of old age," Summer said.

"Better safe than sorry."

"And we're neither. Go figure." Brave, stupid or just resigned that there was no other option, Summer walked past him pulling her white cloak up to her waist and stepping daintily out into the wooden vessel. It creaked ominously under her weight and would have drifted away if not for Jaune gripping the rope to keep it still. Summer clambered in and dropped to one knee, ready to bolt if anything happened. "It's a little scary but it's holding. I've no idea how the wood and rope hasn't fallen to pieces by now, but it's fine."

Summer took the rope and held it still while he climbed in beside her – though not before sealing the stone door behind them. It was as nerve wracking as she said it'd be, the world swaying and the boat listing to the left as though it wanted to tip them up, but right at the moment he thought it might the thing corrected itself, the wood easily supporting their weight and floating above the water. Grimm juice. Whatever it could be called. He knelt to pick up one of the two long poles as Summer unhooked the rope and pulled it back into the boat.

With a deep breath, Jaune aligned the wooden pole against the stone jetty and gave a gentle push, propelling them lazily out onto the substance. It sounded like water as it sloshed and lapped against the prow of their brave little vessel, and it parted in small rivulets of black that seemed to be as thin as water. The boat drifted slowly before coming to a stop, at which point he gently slid the pole down into the black mass in search of the bottom.

Something yanked on the wood. Jaune stumbled, the boat rocking and Summer wrapping both arms around his legs. "Let it go!" she gasped.

He did so, releasing the pole and falling back. Thin tendrils of black were winding their way up the wood, gripping and squeezing it tight. It twisted and the wood snapped under the pressure. His hand shot out, catching the upper piece before it could fall and splash down into the pool.

The lower half was dragged beneath the murk, the surface closing around it with a sickening gloop.

"Don't. Touch. It." Summer hissed.

"R-Right." Swallowing, he laid the much shorter pole down and took the second. This time he angled it up against his chest and gently probed the crystalline wall, finding a nook he could work the tip into without breaking any. Stabbing into it, he gave the boat a gentle push onward, afraid to go faster lest they set everything off.

The boat drifted lazily on. The darkness remained still.

/-/

The boat creaked and splashed gently as it cut through the water, the only sounds that and the tinkling of every push against the crystals that propelled them, first on one wall and then on the opposite, keeping the boat roughly in the centre, though they cut a zig-zag pattern. Jaune would push and then reverse, bringing the pole out the other side and cautiously slotting it into crystal, taking his time to find a solid bit of rock to push off. If the crystal cracked and came splashing down, it might all be over.

Summer sat loosely in the back, balancing his weight with her arms on the sides and her feet stretched out along the bottom of the boat. Her head rested on the crook of her right elbow as she peered over the side and down into the darkness.

"I thought I'd be able to see faces." Her soft words broke the silence of over thirty minutes, drawing a curious and distracted hum from Jaune. "It's silly, I know, but part of me imagined there'd be the faces of the damned staring up at me, teasing and cajoling me to jump into the water. Loved ones or lost friends, or children begging for salvation. I must sound ridiculous."

"This is the kind of place to make people think that."

"The kind of place nightmares are born from," she chuckled. "It's just like water. It births Grimm and that's terrifying, but it doesn't care for theatrics or stories. It's almost peaceful – and the Ashari must have known that. Why else moor a boat down here?"

He didn't know. "It wasn't always. The murals showed cracks opening up. I'll bet those disgorged rocks and dust down into the pools, which would have set the Grimm off, and then there was suddenly a direct way up to the surface."

"Terrifying. Those people had never seen Grimm before. How must it have looked?"

"Like hell was disgorging its demons." Jaune pushed off the left wall, drifting them forward and to the right. He brought the wooden pole back, rolling his shoulders to loosen the muscles before catching them gently before they could hit the dust. "I'm amazed they survived at all. Their magic must have been so powerful."

"Salem said Semblances were a remnant of that. Semblances and aura let us fight the Grimm, so them, with both in their ascendancy, must have been that much stronger."

"And yet they lost…"

Summer sighed and let her head rock back against the stern, eyes straining up into the gloom far above. Even the light from their scrolls reflecting off over a hundred billion lien's worth of dust didn't carry far enough to see the ceiling, or the end of said dust.

"How did they lose?" she wondered. "They had magic – and they had the Relics, too. Those murals you showed me looked like they were using them to power their warrior caste up, and the final scenes showed them beating the Grimm back."

"They built this place," Jaune reminded her. "You couldn't do that if you lost the war. The murals suggested a rift between the King and Queen, between Salem and Ozma. Their own words as good as confirm it."

"It must have been over the idea of magic running out. They had different solutions to it. I'm guessing Salem's involved a lot of people dying – that's pretty much her solution now. Ozpin would never accept that."

Jaune hummed noncommittally and kept the boat going. While part of him wanted to say Ozpin absolutely would sacrifice people, that didn't fit here. Even back then Ozpin sacrificed the few to save the many, and while it was painful to think of themselves as being `those few` it didn't change the fact they were. If Salem had intended the destruction of all, or a good portion, of the population of the Ashari then it wasn't hard to imagine Ozpin disagreeing.

That must have come to blows and from there the Ashari civilisation fell, collapsing into the empires that followed and the kingdoms that existed now. In a way Salem won; her goal had been the destruction of their own civilisation and throwing the world back into a magical dark age where the art could be forgotten, and there was no arguing that hadn't happened.

It was noble. In a way. People always saw self-sacrifice as that, and the Ashari had sacrificed themselves to ensure there would be a Remnant for the people of today. And as the one who championed that, it wasn't impossible to say she'd given them all a chance at life. Jaune doubted she'd asked the consent or opinion of her people, though.

If anything, you'd think Ozpin would want it the other way around. Since he can only come back if he possesses a likeminded individual, killing every single person on Remnant would end his curse. There'd be no one to take over.

Taking that to its logical conclusion created a scenario where Ozpin would want to keep the mining of dust going and would eagerly push for the world to collapse. That didn't make sense, though. If he wanted that then he'd also push for magic to return, and he was one of the biggest proponents against it.

I guess he's too honourable for that. Or maybe there's a caveat I don't know.

Some rule of the Gods thrown in to punish him if he failed, or even some horrible fate where, over the passage of eons, Salem would be the only person left alive to have an opinion, and so he'd be thrust into her head, the two locked together for eternity on a barren and lifeless rock. The thought was dark enough to have Jaune grimacing. Little wonder Ozpin so fervently fought for her death and the removal of their curses.

"Why do you think this stuff is here?" Summer asked, breaking the silence that had formed around his thoughts. He had a feeling she was speaking more to hear her own voice, or to keep them both distracted.

"I've no idea. Did the darkness come first or the dust?"

"Salem seemed to suggest it was both. If magic is the power of the God of Darkness-"

"If," Jaune interrupted. "If. We really don't know for sure she's telling the truth."

"Hm. If, then. If it is, then it makes sense the power and his creatures would be born of the same stuff. It's all his power, isn't it?"

There was no technical proof the Grimm came from the Brother of Darkness but given Ozpin's portrayal of them being creation and destruction incarnate, it didn't really make sense to imagine them being from the God of Light. Maybe if they had some strange habit like collecting the bodies of the dead to make other things, maybe, but they didn't eat, didn't maul the dead and existed only to destroy. It was a clean-cut case.

"The more I see, the more I'm starting to agree," he admitted. "I never really thought about how dust does what it does, I just took it for granted."

"Same. Dust has always been a thing so why question it? There's a lot we never question, like the Grimm."

"There are whole research groups dedicated to them."

"Yes, but they're always focused on how to stop them or why they do what they do – never where they come from or how. We've all collectively accepted that Grimm live on Remnant when if you think about it there's no reason to. They don't fit into any ecosystem." She sighed. "We know better, those of us that know about the Gods and magic, but how did we just accept it all before then? Looking back on it makes me feel so stupid."

"Yeah." He certainly couldn't understand how he'd been so relaxed about it all, but then there was a lot he couldn't understand about himself looking back. He'd been so stupid and arrogant and selfish that he could hardly stand the memory. "Life is hard enough for people without digging deeper, I guess. Or maybe it's a sign of how resilient we are as a species that we just accepted it and moved on with our lives."

"Both Salem and Ozpin would prefer that. Better we're ignorant and fighting than discovering magic again. Do you think they're right…?"

"Probably." His answer appeared to surprise her if the way she looked at him was any indication. "The Ashari were allowed to fall and I doubt that was an easy decision to make. It was evidently one so difficult they've hated one another for the past thousand years or more. We know they disagreed on how to do it, but not that it had to be done, so I'm guessing things were pretty bad. If we had full control of magic now, we might be facing the same moment, and those two might be reluctantly joining forces to wipe us from the face of Remnant."

Summer slunk back against the stern. "Do you think they would…?"

"Not happily. I think Ozpin would literally do everything within his power to stop it through other means, but if it came down to wiping out ninety per cent of civilisation or letting everyone die when the world falls to ruin? Yes, I think they'd do it. It would probably be the only option."

"Would you hate them for it?"

"Of course." He closed his eyes, pushing off the wall and letting the boat drift for a few seconds. "But even then, I'd know it was the right choice. Wouldn't stop me cursing their names with my last breath, but then I don't think anyone dying would."

"Yeah. Do you regret it? Coming back?"

"No."

"Even with all the little mistakes you've made? Even knowing that the world Ozpin made was technically a one where everyone won?"

"They didn't win."

"I know you said it was bad, the Kingdoms in shambles, Jacques Schnee taking over and declaring himself some mad warlord or King or something, and I know Ruby, Yang and everyone else perished, but so did Salem and Ozpin. The curse was lifted."

Jaune scowled and gripped the wooden pole tight, angling it between some crystals and pushing off a little more violently. "The curse was lifted on them," he snarled, "But not us."

"What do you mean?"

"The Relics were brought together to forge a weapon capable of killing her," he explained. "Salem died, or wad dying. Oscar died and Ozpin was freed. Their eternal war was over. It might have seemed like a victory, but if what Salem says is true now, it wasn't. The Gods didn't come back, and they didn't tell us how to summon them before they went."

Summer's eyes widened. "Remnant would still run out of magic."

"Yes. I didn't realise it then, but all they really did was jump ship before the end. Maybe Ozpin didn't mean it that way and thought everything would be better once the last traces of magic in them were gone, but the SDC still existed and Jacques would have mined every last dust crystal on the planet if he could. Even when he died, the culture would have been the same. Our cities run on dust. Sooner or later it would run out and the planet would die. The only difference is we'd all perish and there wouldn't be two immortals left to wander around for eternity."

The only problem that had been solved with Salem's death was their marital dispute. Maybe they could have found a way to summon the Gods – Jinn could have been consulted in another century, though they wouldn't have been alive to use her. It would have to be entrusted to his children, assuming he had any, and even they might falter, forget, use it for selfish reasons or lose it to someone else.

And if that knowledge was forgotten, no one would bother to summon the Gods. They'd never return and see that Salem was dead, and even if they did and agreed to give back to the planet, what would it mean? Trading their lives to serve the Brother Gods. Would it be a paradise? Part of him thought it might be – accepted it, even. If they were all-powerful then how difficult was granting every desire? Enough food to feed everyone. No discrimination. No disease, war or strife.

But then, hadn't it been when Salem and Ozma first lived? Ozma hadn't been a powerful Knight because there was nothing to battle, and Salem hadn't rallied people to attack the Gods if there hadn't been some reason to hate them. Even if it was human jealousy and greed, life obviously hadn't been a utopia, if such a thing could ever exist at all.

It was always possible to want more. Cinder had shown him that.

Summer scrambled onto her knees suddenly, rocking the boat as she shuffled from the stern to the prow, brushing past his legs as she went. Jaune adjusted his own footing to balance it, sliding a foot back. The rocking of the boat brought back all his motion sickness, though thankfully sheer terror dampened it.

"Summer. What are you-?"

"I saw something!" Her words had his heart clenching for a second. "I think there's land ahead!" Leaning out precariously, she angled her scroll and its torch forward, sending light rippling and dancing down the walls of crystal. The reflections curved ahead and came back to them, glinting off something in the distance. "Did you see that? The crystals are growing on the walls, so if there's light reflected off something up there, there has to be a wall. An end!"

"Or a bend in the river," he warned her. "Or a dead end or crystal growing up out the pool…"

Summer glared back, not at all pleased with his pessimistic rebuttal. He wanted to say he'd only meant it so she didn't have ger hopes crushed, but she didn't want to hear it. To be honest neither did he. It had been almost an hour now and while that wasn't a long amount of time comparatively, it felt like several years too long on this murderous lake.

They lulled along in silence, Summer eager to prove him wrong and Jaune desperately hoping she would. The glinting light ahead continued, though only when Summer angled her scroll at just the right angle to catch it. It drew them in like a lighthouse, and though he didn't dare move them any faster than they had been so far, Jaune's hands tightened around the wooden pole.

He'd never been happier to be wrong.

The wall ahead became clearer, covered with dust aside from one section of smooth grey rock set with the carved eye symbol on the back of his hand. There was a second boat on a second moor at the base of that door, almost like they'd somehow been turned around and come back to an exact copy of where they'd been before, as though they might come out the temple and find ten thousand years had passed without them ageing a day.

Jaune hooked his pole into the second boat and used that to draw them closer, clunking the two vessels together and letting Summer hold onto it for him. He stepped over into the one secured to the edge and then lifted her in after him, letting theirs drift away. It would have been much too dangerous to try and moor it and risk letting the rope splash down into the water. With the second boat already tightly secured, they were able to pull it in and step off, taking care not to step too close to the edge in case they sent a few pebbles tickling in.

He came off first and helped Summer off, pulling her back to the door before anything could go wrong. To his immense relief nothing did. Summer didn't trip; the boat didn't suddenly sink; dust crystals didn't randomly crack and rain down – nor did any one of a hundred other possibilities that would have ended their lives mysteriously happen.

In complete silence, he let go of Summer and approached the door, removed his glove and touched his hand to it. His sigil flared. The door responded. Rock groaned and slid aside, crunching through dust that must have grown over it on the other side. Summer, with her back to his, watched the lake of darkness in silence, but it never once responded to them, only swallowing the boat back into the gloom as it drifted away.

The chamber on the other side was not entirely identical to the first. It served the same purpose but there were subtle differences enough to tell him they hadn't come full circle. A larger dust deposit in the centre of the room worked as a landmark. Once Summer was inside, he touched his hand to the door and closed it again.

Once it was shut, Summer let out an explosive sigh. "We made it. I can't believe we made it without something going wrong."

"I feel like I've aged ten years," he said, crouching down among the dust to catch his breath. The chamber was empty but for another door that would surely lead to another viewing room, then a second sealed door that would, with any luck, lead back to the surface. A different surface that might be a distance away – not too much of one since their hour by boat hadn't exactly been faster than an hour of walking – but enough that he felt the need to ask. "Will the horses be okay if it takes us time to get back to them?"

"I gave them water and oats to last a day," Summer said. "And there's gras to graze, too. They have a good twenty metres of roaming on those ropes."

"Good. Think they can last while we take a break? I don't know about you, but I could use a quick rest."

"Yeah." Summer laughed the laugh of someone who'd just come out of a situation alive she had no right to. "Yeah, I think they'll be fine. And I definitely need to sit down for a bit if there's another staircase like the first to climb."

It was the work of a few minutes to safely chip and scrape a square space on the floor for them to rest on. The dust was mostly swept aside, though Summer collected some into a pack on her waist, saying they should have it tested when they got back to Beacon. It sounded an interesting enough idea that he collected a pair of crystals the size of his fist as well, exchanging them for two grenades in his pouch. Draining the refined dust out of them into a plastic cylinder disarmed them, and he let the shells roll off into the corner of the room.

The slot they'd scraped free was about six feet by four feet and they laid next to each other in it, body against body, heads beside one another, in what might have seemed a romantic position for anyone not used to working on a team and having to share just as, if not more, tight sleeping spaces with good friends. His rolled-up coat provided a useful pillow for them, while Summer's cloak served as a blanket for both. The floor was cold and uncomfortable but also flat, which made it easier than sleeping in the middle of nowhere.

Summer curled up onto her side, face pressing into his shoulder. In a way it reminded him of Pyrrha, though less them sleeping together as lovers since they never had, and more the first awkward time they'd had to camp together on a training stint with other teams in the Emerald Forest and Ren and Nora made them share a tent. Nothing had happened and he hadn't even known she had feelings for him back then but they'd both been so hilariously awkward about it.

It felt silly now. Summer leaned on him because he was warm, convenient and softer than the stone floor. That her breasts pushed into his arm meant little other than the fact she had them and couldn't control the fact they would.

"So," she mumbled quietly. "Salem's proof. Was that it?"

"It has to be," he replied.

"Did it work?"

"I'm not sure."

"It's convinced me there's some horrible things in the world," Summer said. Jaune hummed his agreement. "But I'm not sure it proves this whole end of the world scenario or dust being magic and related to the Grimm. It does hint at it, though. Maybe that's all we could ever expect."

Maybe so. Salem could only offer the proof that was out there and this certainly proved something had happened, not because of what he'd seen, not because of the dust or the pool trapped here, but because all of this had been contained and the Ashari still had to die. That more than anything proved that something was up, that something had been discovered that meant even after pushing back the Grimm, their way of life could not continue.

Ozpin and Salem agreed upon that, even if they clashed on the way for it to be done. And if they both agreed, as bitter enemies as they were, then he wasn't sure what else there was to say. Jinn could not be consulted so it was up to them to make their minds up and draw their own conclusions.

"Let's say I'm more open to the idea," Jaune said. "The Ashari had a handle on the Grimm situation once they managed to bolster themselves with the Relics. If it worked for the world once, Ozpin would surely have done it again by now. He had the Relics since he sealed them away. The fact he did that at all suggests the Ashari's solution didn't work after all."

"Or wouldn't work in the long run," Summer finished. "I'm not sure if Ozpin has ever spoken publicly against dust usage, though. I know he's not a fan of the SDC, but I always had the feeling that was Jacques and his work practises more than the fact they're mining dust. He's not exactly made great strides to phase it out of Beacon. All huntsmen use it."

He should have by now if he really cared to limit it. Then again, maybe it wasn't the fact dust was used so much as the quantity of it. Salem and Ozpin were fine with Semblances and Aura, even though Salem said they were technically part of that same limited supply of magic. And even though Salem was an enemy of humanity, her efforts to kill everyone hadn't really kicked off in earnest until this generation. She'd always been there, and yet in this time – or his last time – she'd attacked Beacon, waged war on Atlas, collapsed entire Kingdoms and pushed the world into total anarchy.

She could have done that at any other time, and the fact she accelerated so quickly from picking off isolated villages and towns to completely rampaging her way across Remnant spoke of one thing and one thing only.

Desperation.

"Something must have happened to speed her up," he said. "Something that happened in my time – some sign that magic was waning faster, or that it was approaching the point of no return, that set her off and pushed her to throw aside the slow siege approach to all-out attack the Kingdoms."

"You think it's the SDC? They've always been taking dust, but it was Jacques who turned it from a wealthy family business into a near monopoly spanning the entire world. I bet the tonnage of dust they mine went up a thousand per cent or more in the last twenty-five years."

That would have set alarm bells ringing for Salem. He didn't like to imagine the world ended solely because of Jacques Schnee - that made the man sound far too important when he was already an egotist!

Jacques couldn't have known, however, and Salem hadn't flipped a switch with the attack on Beacon and Atlas. It hadn't been Team RWBY or JNPR who started this because Salem had already been setting the stage with Cinder and Watts chasing the maidens and sabotaging Atlas before their teams set foot in Beacon. That it happened in their first year was just bad timing for them and a coincidence for her.

It was always a risk from her point of view. Victory was hers eventually, but something spooked her to play her hand early. That might as well be the SDC with what we know, and she did make use of the White Fang. Similar goals, I guess.

"The SDC can't know about this place," Summer said. "Maybe that's why it's sealed away with the pools of darkness. Not because they spawned together, but because the Ashari wanted it kept safe from mining. Like a big battery keeping the world going."

A battery? The idea, as odd as it sounded, had merit. The two walls of towering crystals might even look like one if you imagined the tonnes of rock and soil as its packaging. There had to be more chasms like this, each brimming with dust, with lakes of darkness at the bottom, maintenance tunnels and even a boat to sail out to… to what? Why sail out onto that if not for a purpose? It was a dangerous job for sure – probably a low life expectancy, and the doors were there to seal a worker in, the windows to watch aid, if necessary, report on someone's death.

It could have been a horrible method of executing criminals but that wouldn't explain the boats, and they could have tossed people from higher up and had more time to escape after. The lower doors and the boats suggested a purpose. That the dust had grown over them all by now was a sign of how long abandoned it had been, but once it would have been busier.

Grow. Growing.

"This isn't a battery," he whispered. "It's a farm. They were trying to farm dust."

Summer pushed off his shoulder. "Farm it? Can you-?"

"Probably not quickly, but there are people who do the same with reefs, aren't there? Even if it takes a hundred years or more, it could recycle some small amount of the God's power. That power is finite, but finite doesn't mean non-renewable."

"Ozpin's solution. This must have been his! Salem wanted to kill everyone and remove magic, but Ozpin would have done anything he could to avoid that. Maybe he wanted to balance the magic the Ashari were using with what they could give back." Her face fell. "And it didn't work. They tried their best but there just wasn't enough – or they were draining too much. That would explain what came after," she said, excited. "Vault is made to keep a smaller number of Ashari alive. Salem culls population. Ozpin leads them. Even as enemies, they're still basically keeping the order of the world. That explains why Salem hasn't gone for a more concerted attack before. Aura and Semblances aren't a big enough drain to not turn a net profit."

"Until dust mining intensifies." Jaune groaned. "We expand further and further, get stronger, develop weaponry. Salem can't stop everyone expanding out, and the wheels of industry turn. The SDC becomes the dominant dust mining force on Remnant, and even if they didn't exist, the sheer amount of dust we use in everyday life would inevitably mean someone else steps into their place."

"So, Salem gives up again. Wipes the board clean. It makes sense there's some way to replenish the magic because otherwise she knows she'd run out eventually and would give up and call the Gods back now. That must be her plan; wipe away civilisation after civilisation until one evolves that can defend itself without drawing on magic."

"A world of bloody evolution. It can't be stopped now," he said sadly. "Dust is part of our culture. It powers everything. We use it in cooking, medicine, weapons and household appliances. If the Ashari's time was the Age of Magic then we're the Age of Dust, and both are apparently headed the same way if Salem has any say."

The alternative was what, Ozpin? A man furiously trying to bail water out a sinking ship and looking for the first chance to jump. He couldn't even blame Ozpin for that. The man died eons ago. He'd lived his life and hadn't asked for another.

"What do we do?" Summer asked.

Jaune had no answer.

Edit: Just throwing this out because I've been accused of it (lol) but no, I'm not pushing a political agenda with this fic. For crying out loud, this is a fantasy story about a world run with magic caught in a war between an immortal power couple having a lover's spat. You don't need to get angry at me because I'm apparently a democrat (not even American by the way) and that I'm pushing the Green Deal down your throat.

This is a world created by two Gods having an argument and it runs on magical juice. I shouldn't need to explain how that's not comparable to Earth, and yet here I am.

Damn it's hot today. Thirty-two degrees, which I think is about ninety Fahrenheit for those in the US. Dragged out the paddling pool this morning for the dog to play in. She's never seen it before and was terrified for all the time it took her to realise it wasn't going to kill her. Since then, she's been splashing around and trying to dig in the corners of it. Probably finds the sound or material to be interesting.

Then she ran back into the house and all over the sofa because she doesn't normally get that wet and wasn't sure what to do. Fun times.

Next Chapter: 15th August

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur