The Temple : Part III

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Through the door they found a long hallway, but no more of the industrial sort of steel designs. Now, it was stone brickwork, like a medieval castle's long halls had been spirited from some ancient fortification and implanted here. The ceilings were vaulted, the walls lined with mirroring arches and braziers filled with burning stone of some unknown description. Whatever the little white chunks were, though, it warmed the hallway and kept it well lit where the lack of the implanted lights should have left them in the pitch dark.

Instead, the hallway was pleasantly warm and well lit, and the lights cast the dark, almost black stone in nearly sparkling relief.

"It's kinda beautiful. Like something out of an old fantasy story or something." Nora was the one to voice the thought, but, walking slowly, he heard gruts of affirmation and saw almost all of them nod. To Jaune, she asked, "Did you ever see anything like this while you were traveling?"

"No, never." And for once, he noticed with some pleasure, he had a completely honest answer to offer.

His temple home had been made of only the utilitarian kind like they'd seen before. Not the finer kind they were in now. Why it was different, he couldn't be sure, but the first likely enough to consider assumption was its apparent link to the Jedi. But from what he'd read, they were a more ascetic society, and so while they wouldn't necessarily live in mud huts, they'd not have had any reason to swap to a finer design deeper in.

Moving on, though, before they could fall into silence, he added, "I wish I had, though. Sight like this is once in a lifetime, I bet. Lieutenant?"

"Huh? Oh, right. More or less is, yeah." The man nodded, rifle clutched tight in his hands and clearly anxious about more automated security. Quietly, so he could listen for danger Jaune supposed, he went on, "Most places are wrecked all to hell in the battle and breaching procedures. There was one place, some kinda… Old tower, way on the western side of Mantle, though."

"Was it in good shape?" Or the one that the Lieutenant had mentioned precipitating, at least in part, Atlas' technological ascendancy.

"Nah, nothing like this." The man grunted and shook his head, "Only a couple floors of that, and they were wrecked and buried."

"It is nice, though." Pyrrha murmured, just loudly enough for them to hear but clear in her lack of trying to hide that she was talking. Quietly, she asked Jaune, "Is this of the kinds of temples you… Were told about, growing up?"

"Kind of, yeah." He answered plainly, but he knew her real question, hidden under the first. One about where he was from, where he'd grown up, and so added, "Especially back there. That kind is the one I read about more often than any other."

In truth, any temple would be. He'd read of everything from temples like the Grand Jedi Temple of Coruscant, which was so large he could scarcely fathom it, and temples like his old home. Small, ascetic, and with few purposes aside from a few people staying in it to curate it and meditate. From veritable temple cities, then, to what amounted to shrines, but all were referred to as Temples.

Distantly, he wondered why that was. Some sort of facet of the two Orders had to be what drove such a naming convention. Pride, maybe. For the Sith that was an easy road, and he could imagine the Jedi had enough of the same pride buried somewhere deep down inside of them. Maybe not as individuals, but as an Order altogether.

Or maybe that was just Sith bias acting up… A danger of starting with the Sith way and then balancing it as training went on, he knew, accelerated as his process had admittedly been.

"Arc?" His musings were cut short as the lead of his group turned, armored head cocked to the side. Black stepped to the side and jerked his rifle past him and grunting, "Another door, I, uh, I think. Think you can… Work your magic again, with your Semblance?"

As the man said, another door blocked passage further in, but this one wasn't made of wrought iron and steel like the first had been. Instead, the wall ended suddenly abruptly in a smooth, flat surface with four marble bricks straight in the center. A thick metal ring circled in the cold brickwork, and the same kind of ancient, Sith lettering crawled around its edges in angry red scrawls. It wasn't painted on, though, the words protruding slightly from the wall.

"Rubies…?" He murmured, giving the Atlesian soldier a look and letting his confusion show on his face. "Why rubies? I-It should be metal, or painted on, or Ky- or-or something else. Why rubies, of all the things?"

"I… Don't know?" And from his tone, the Atlesian was just confused that he was being asked about it. Waving a hand around them, he reminded him and his team both that, "We don't usually get them in this kind of shape. Maybe just read the words? Might have a… A clue or something."

It was clear the Atlesian just wanted him to read it so they could move on, but he couldn't blame him. Jaune really wanted to as well, and gently prodded the four of his company aside to get to the door.

"It says 'The way forward in light is seen to be the one most obvious'." He translated, trailing his fingers along the bold letters as he spoke, "'But such light only hides the paths in shadow, which are better by far. In light, clarity. In shadow, discovery. In balance, the way forward may be found'."

"What could that mean, for a puzzle?" Ren asked, joining him in looking at the ornately made ruby lettering. Reaching out, he laid a hand on the white in the middle and blinked. "The stone here moves, Jaune."

"It does?" The young Force user leaned in to see and sure enough when Ren gingerly prodded it, the stone shifted ever so slightly in. Stepping back so the others could see he murmured, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough he was clearly thinking, "It's a button…? Is that how the door opens, then? You press the buttons?"

"Call me crazy, and a lot of people do, but that isn't the point, but I don't think it's that easy!" Nora pushed in, prodding each stone individually while she explained. "The riddle means this isn't going to be straight forward for us. The same was true for Mister Boop back there."

"Mister Boop…?"

"Hush, Jauney, your queen is talking. And thinking. Don't throw off the queen's groove, 'kay? Kay, thanks." She waved a hand to shush him and their Atlesian friend groaned, looking to the sky for some kind of divine help. None, of course, came, and Jaune felt a pang of sympathy for the man. Nora ignored him, though, instead crossing her arms and tapping a finger against her chin in thought. "The path in the light is obvious, but it hides the better paths in the shadows… Light gives you clarity, because you can see, but…"

"Too much blinds you, keeps you from seeing what's around you clearly." The Atlesian officer offered, pulling a little ball off his waist and showing it to them. "A flashbang. Lotta light and a loud ass bang, and you can't see to maneuver."

"Without light, though, you can't see at all." Pyrrha commented simply, walking to one of the braziers and humming as she watched the fire crackle. Turning to them, she smiled and suggested, "Perhaps if we put some of these braziers out something will happen?"

"Like what, exactly?" The Atlesian asked, putting away his grenade and drawing out his water flask. In spite of his skepticism he pitched it to the Mistralian and she nodded her thanks. "Askin' since you're gonna use my water for your experiment."

"I… Don't actually know, really." The Mistralian shrugged, the water in her hand sloshing noisily as she checked how much there was in it. To make sure she could do what she was hoping, he assumed. Satisfied, the girl smiled thinly and offered a weak, unsure, "It does seem a clever answer to the riddle, though. And explains the presence of the braziers rather than the conventional lights from before."

"Worth a shot, I guess." And if worst came to worse, they could just smash through the door. Assuming that dimming the lights prevented them going forward, that was. "All right," he nodded, "let's do this, then."

Together with Nora and Black, they spread out, pouring just enough water onto the strange stones to smother the fire. To their surprise, the stones didn't need much in the way of water to extinguish, the entire brazier's worth sputtering and dying with naught but a splash of the life giving liquid. Hissing, their fires died, leaving behind cold, almost uniformly round silver rocks the size of their fists that were warm to the touch even minutes after their fires had been extinguished. As though the fires were within the stones, rather than being used as fuel to simply burn.

Later, he decided, he'd take some of the rocks with him to look into later. He couldn't afford to neglect such an obvious, unique link to his adoptive people's past. And, potentially, the path to power he so desperately needed if he wanted to save his partner. And be allowed to ascend to a Lord, though he hadn't even thought about that aspect in what felt like months. Not since his vision, at least…

"Lien for your thoughts?" Pyrrha murmured as she worked and he followed her, watching her absently. She gave him a small smile of concern and friendly affection and he returned it, even as she snidely asked, "Or are you thinking about precisely what I suspect you are? Even though you know we ought not dwell on it."

"Kind of, but not really." Her confusion at his answer was evident, as was the spike of dislike he sensed from her. Heading that off while he could, he elaborated as fast as he was able, safely far enough that he knew he wouldn't be heard, "The temple here, it's bigger than mine was. Like, a lot bigger, I think."

"I would wager so, yes. Yours always sounded more akin to a shrine, or a small hermitage perhaps, than a temple of any real power." He'd described his old home well enough for her to get the gist and see the difference, apparently. She was smart like that, though, able to feel her way through concepts even when they should have been entirely foreign to her. "Regardless, you think here is a place to find some power for us to use?"

"Maybe." He shrugged, unsure of the specifics but rattling on regardless, "Even just some information would be helpful. Leads to other temples, something to trade to Atlas for whatever I can get for it. Maybe backup, if things go bad, to protect you."

"Us." She corrected him, giving him a look with her eyes narrowed and lips pursed. "To protect us, Jaune. Not just me."

"Of course, yeah, that's what I meant. You know that." It wasn't, of course. She was the one in danger, not him. Thus she needed protecting, but he knew she'd never let her team risk itself in her stead. Even if she was fated and they were not. "Anyway, I'm hoping we can find some kind of way to-"

"Jaaaaune!" Nora called as she ran to him, the partner duo having wandered far and away from the new door. Enough they could almost see the old door that had let them in, back the way the'd come. Coming stuttering to a stop, the young explosives enthusiast pointed back towards the new door and said, "The door is doing something! Lighting up and stuff. Lieutenant Black said you should come and see it, before anyone touches it and we, like, get blown up or… You know, something else fun."

"I would hardly call exploding fun…"

"Hey, if Ruby got to do it, I wanna do it at least once." The woman waved off Pyrrha's amused, good-natured sigh and grabbed Jaune by the arm. Tugging him back towards the door, she rattled of, "Come on now, brave knight of the kingdom! Your Queen awaits!"

"How are you waiting if you're dragging me there?"

"I meant that I await you doing the thing!" She pouted and punched his arm with her free hand, leaving him to wince while she put on her 'I did nothing, Ren' face and dragged them there.

When they got there, the door was definitely doing something. Of the bricks in the center, one was glowing, while several of the words ringing it were glowing dim and red as well. Like they were backlit by something else. For their benefit, he read, chuckling as he did, "The glowing says 'The way forward may be found in balance' and the lit up stone is one that means 'entry'."

"So what do we…?"

"I got an idea. Jaune, show me the words in order." Nora commented quietly, stepping forward and reading out the words as he pointed them out and she pressed them. "'The way forward may be found in balance' and 'entry."

"Good work, Nora." Jaune complimented as the old stone door groaned, the hidden contraptions behind it pulling it back and rolling it aside. She was a lot smarter than most people gave her credit for, he knew, and this was just another show of it. Ignoring it, though, he drew his saber, though he kept its blade silent after their experience with 'Mister Boop' as he was apparently now called, and ordered, "Everyone be ready. You don't know what the next test will be, and we don't want to be caught off guard."

The next room was a mirror in shape and size to the first, albeit made of the farmer and finer black brickwork. Overhead, massive crystals speckled the ceiling and glowed brightly, as though they'd somehow captured the sunlight outside and implanted it into warm, yellow crystals. Paired with the wrought iron braziers from the hallway that ringed the room, it was bright enough to see more than easily, and warm as well.

"Luminous crystals." The Atlesian said quietly, looking around the otherwise empty, if pretty, room. In that same quiet, helpful but clearly anxious and distracted for it, voice he went on, "That's what the Division cals them, at least. They glow nearly constantly, though we don't know why. Though tests have noted they glow brighter with people nearby than when being handled by drones."

It was the Force, he knew, though he couldn't properly explain that. The crystals reacted to more intense focuses of the Force, such as people, and glowed in response to them. He could feel them harmonizing with him and glowing brighter and more warmly, and suddenly wondered if that was why the round stones felt warm. Something to test later, he decided, turning his attention back to the room around them.

Or rather, his attention was pulled back, as Nora called, "Found a button thingamawhatsit!"

"Coming!" He called in answer, putting aside what precisely 'thingamawhatsit' was meant to even try and convey.

What Nora had found, it turned out, was indeed a button of some kind. Only one that was placed in the exact center of the room, embedded into the floor rather than on a wall, and painted a somehow darker black. Emblazoned in bright crimson there was a sort of broken up hexagon. An image he recognized just as easily as he had on the first door, where Mister Boop had stood guard.

"The Sith… But..." He only barely murmured, before he could catch himself. Around the edged were more ruby based script lines and, louder so everyone could easily hear, he read it out, "'In victory, one shows strength and earns freedom. Show your strength, earn your freedom, and gain power with it. Submit willingly and step onto the path of power.'."

"So, step on the platform and... Then something will attack us?" Ren posed, standing in a circle around it along with the rest of them.

"Yeah, that… Sounds about right, yeah." Jaune sighed, standing and looking at the lightsaber in his hand. With a tired sigh, he stood and straightened, flicking his saber out and igniting one of the ends. Over its warm, familiar hiss, he murmured, "I guess we should just get it over with, right?"

"Quite right." Pyrrha chuckled at the melodrama, though, knowing he was playing it up. Cocking a hip, she rested her hand on it and asked, "So, what's the plan then, o' fearless leader mine?"

"Hm… Just give me a second to think." Experimentally, he put a foot on the platform and pushed down as hard as he could. So weight wasn't what mattered, then, it seemed. Which set his plan in stone, ironically given their surroundings. "Circle up around the button. I'll activate it with my Semblance, it needs it like the doors did, and we don't know where whatever comes will come from, or what it will be."

Four different variants of 'yes' echoed around him as the foursome filed out around him in a wide, loose circle. There they stopped and the sound of them preparing themselves echoed around him. Checking ammunition in magazines, clips or cylinders, tugging their armor to check its integrity, and so on. He himself matched them, checking the straps and fittings of his light armor and pulling his hood taught around his head.

"Everyone ready?" He asked loudly, spinning his saber beside him as he did. "Once this starts, I don't think it's over 'til we win. Or we don't."

"Oh I did not sign up for this crazy ancient cult stuff…" Regardless, the Atlesian pulled a bolt on the side of his rifle and nodded. "Ready to tangle with whatever you are, Huntsman. Let's all try not to die."

"Pffft, we can't die." Nora laughed, waving her hand and extending Magnhild, letting it lay across her shoulders as she often did. When she felt eyes on her she laughed, shrugged, and explained simply that, "I can't die until I get to bopo Mister Boop. I forgot too because you all dragged me off! So dying is banned."

"I don't think you can ban dying, Nora…"

"Just did, though, Renny. It was a royal proclamation and you can't undo a royal proclamation." She shrugged then and smiled innocently, though the giant hammer across her shoulders somewhat undermined the innocence she was going for. "I don't make the rules, sorry, guys. I just enforce them."

"As a queen don't you literally make the rules?"

"Your sedition will not be soon forgotten, Miss Nikos. I advise you watch your tone." The girl declared imperiously in her best impersonation of the headmistress, even going so far as to push an invisible pair of glasses up her nose to sell it. In a far more Nora display, the girl swung her hammer around to heft in her hands, "I wanna smack something, Jauney! Push the big fun button!"

Saving himself the time of trying to debate calling an ancient, at least semi-sacred switch in a temple meant to test people, the young man simply rolled his eyes and reached down with a hand. Fingers splayed, he gave it a firm push. With a metal and stone laden groan, the switch depressed under his power. For a long moment, nothing happened at all.

Then, they all flinched as they began to descend, the entire floor lowering steadily.

The floor now was shaped largely like a gear, with the braziers set on the protrusions of it and glowing overhead. Along the walls were now metal slats the size of men and just as long, layered like amor around the periphery of the room. It was like the front of a garage, in a way, except stretched around the round edges of the room. And like a garage, a heavy groan and squeal of metal gears echoed as one of the sides began to lift. It only rose a third of the way before grinding to a halt, only as high as they were tall, but why it did that didn't take long to discover.

What emerged was a rank of a dozen human shaped machines, with blocky, heavy silver armor and blaster rifles in hand. In unison, they marched three steps into the open and stopped. Behind them, another dozen stepped into the light and paused just behind them.

"Oh shit…" Black murmured, stepping back quickly and half-raising his own rifle towards them. Louder, he called out the warning, "Sentinel Droids! Brothers damn- Don't get hit by their guns. They burn you right through your Aura."

Blasters worked like lightsabers, he knew, super-heating the air directly around them and their impact zones. Aura could protect against extreme temperatures, he knew, but not to those ranges. They wouldn't outright bypass it, but a single hit could ruin a person's Aura levels.

"Spread out and keep moving! Circle around and close in on them, I'll distract them!" He ordered, surging forward with a thunderous crack of the Force augmenting him.

His leap ended halfway to the droids and coincided with them all whirring to activity, rifles snapping up to seek out targets. As the loud, punchy thum of the blasters began to fill the air and swamp his nose with the smell of burnt ozone, he grit his teeth. Reaching out with the force, he yanked two towards him and spun on his heel, igniting the other end of his saber and catching them across their midriffs.

Unlike Mister Boop, his saber cut them as easily as anything else, and the two tumbled by lifelessly a moment later, sparking but limp completely. When his spin finished, he let the Force guide his saber and sent a third's blaster bolts back at it. The shots smote it on the leg and then, when it sagged to a knee, perforated its head. As it tumbled, he felt the attentions of three more turn to him. From there began a mix between dancing and falling, jumping, stepping, and sometimes scrabbling on one hand while he desperately deflected rounds off his saber. Most missed entirely, sizzling into the walls beyond them, but some managed to score hits and two more droids fell that way.

Then his team was among their loose ranks, having swept around as ordered while he had their focus. In melee, the droids fared far worse, quickly crumpling under heavy hammer blows and Pyrrha's spear or Semblance. More than one sagged to the ground, active but hamstrung by the young dual wielder, too, but he'd have been lying if he said Nora didn't score most of the kills.

She had said she wanted to smash something, after all, so it only made sense.

No sooner had the last droid fallen, though, did he hear another of the garage fronts grind open. A second matched it, and this time, three ranks emerged with their rifles held across their chests. Sheathing his saber and not eager in the slightest to have to fight so many of them at once, he turned and stretched out with his hands and his mind.

Listlessly, the bodies began to rise, gathering in the air as bolts began to rain down around him. One sizzled by his ribs and he hissed in pain as the skin reddened under his armor, but he would never let that stop him. Instead he turned, letting it fuel his power and hurling the droids across the room. Most missed, falling short, sailing over or simply clattering in the steadily spreading formation of droids, but just as many hit. All told, six droids were crushed by their fellows, before a flurry of pink grenades sailed high overhead and landed among them in bright explosions that tore them asunder and hurled them aside.

"Can you make us some cover?" Pyrrha asked, kneeling beside him with her shield before her, a massive scorch mark across its surface but the structure still in place. In her hands she held her rifle, snapping off shots where she could but unwilling to rush in among the grenades to close with them. "We could use it to defend against them."

"Sure." He wasn't sure exactly how much she thought he could do with just the droids around them, but he tried regardless.

Using the droid bodies, he made piles of ruined metal. Lopsided, uneven, sparking and in some cases moving where droids hadn't fully deactivated, it was farm from perfect. But that didn't stop any of his team from rushing to the three mounds, kneeling behind it to send their answering fire into the droid ranks. Like that they were able to safely, relatively speaking considering his still sore side, repel the droid attack.

Then, though, another of the doors groaned open. And this one opened all the way, with almost fifteen feet of open air looking in on blackness.

From it a new droid marched, and only one of them. This one was massive, at least twelve feet tall and a fourth of that wide, with shining silver armor and a massive cannon for one arm. In the other was a long and, for its build, thin blade made of some kind of blue steel he couldn't place.In a way, it reminded him of Weiss' sword, albeit this one was a thick as she herself was.

Its head, chest and shoulders wee smooth tear drops, with four long and almost spider-like limbs covered in the blocky, heavy armor the Sentinels wore, with clawed feet that crushed the stone under it. Two small, red eyes glowed in the long black stripe that split its head, and when they landed on him Jaune felt earnestly afraid. The added limbs and smoothly armored, almost exoskeletal aesthetic gave it an insectoid feel, even as it stood tall and straight.

Then, with a heavy whirr of anger, it surged forward towards them and they scattered.

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(Review Responses)

Hirshja :

I mean he knows… Some of that?

Edward 4555 :

You're right! It's racial profiling and a girl who knows that beating the racist will make someone else a target. So she lets him hit her, like she does any other person when a Grimm threatens. Jaune disagreed with that approach or didn't know it.

Chris Adair :

Nah. He's more 'Scare them into submission or stab them'. At least at the moment.

Yavin Yams :

*burning notes while Betas scream in the background. one of them is Wilhelm for some reason* W-What? No! Never. He he… Uh… Yeah.

Zenith Tempest :

All will be revealed, my friend, I promise. For now I will elucidate the direct through line that won't violate much story integrity or ruin any reveals…

Ozpin is interested in the Silver Eyes, thus Ruby's presence. He's also interested in Pyrrha's potential, thus the higher caliber mission than they should strictly be on. BOTH now have a reason to have DIRECT interactions with Ozpin and Ironwood, allowing the 'Cabal' so to say to have more influence directly on them.