RWBY Through Worlds (End)

BC100: Belly of the Beast (Cinder & Co.)-5

[Why did I make this book so long? I have terrible self control with my plots!]

Emerald had followed the bandits who took Royal at a distance, trying to stay out of range of sight or sound.

She wondered if their scouts would see her anyway, but since no Grimm came to attack her, perhaps they never suspected anyone was moving through these woods.

The wind kept making an eerie whistling sound in the treetops that gave her the creeps.

The bandits finally went up some more gravelly path.

Emerald didn't see them go in the door because she was shadowing them from such a distance, so when she did see the waterfall, they were gone.

She squinted at it.

Something shiny caught her eye in the water.

She used her scroll's zoom feature to get a closer look. 

Glass. Black glass. It was hardly visible against the rocks--you'd never notice it if you weren't looking right at it.

Cinder.

That had to be the door. It must be behind the waterfall then. That made sense anyway--where else would you hide it?

Emerald didn't see anyone else around, but that didn't mean no one was watching.

She focused.

If people were very close, usually she could sense their minds, in a way. Minds gave out energy of a sort, though it was faint. If anyone was farther than 20 feet, though, she wasn't usually that accurate. Unless maybe they were the only living thing in the area. The Grimm lands used to be like that.

She didn't sense anyone right off here.

But she held still against one of the trees.

Her clothes luckily blended in pretty well with it. She was glad she'd never submitted to the Argus color code of white and blue to fit in.

A few tedious minutes ticked by while she wondered if she could try to find the door or if that was too dangerous.

She did take some pictures, and then she realized that her scroll had service.

That should have been impossible...unless there was a tower of sorts in the area.

Was it possible? Then bandits had scrolls, didn't they? If they could use them here too, that made sense--but no way they could through the rock...so they'd have to have it outside and step out to make any calls. But it was just possible they had a small device to send signals.

Even so, the service wasn't that good, and she didn't know if any of her messages would have carried far. They could be delayed. But at least she could send the pictures of the front here.

She started to sneak around the waterfall, up the hill it was in. The whole thing was made of rock without a lot of foliage on it.

She was sneaking around to the other side when suddenly she saw movement.

Pressing herself against another tree, she crouched and looked.

Some bandits had just come out of some other crags in the rocks and scrub bushes.

A back entrance!

Of course, no one would have a hideout with only one entrance.

Then she saw it was Mino and Hypnosia and the same others she'd seen with them before.

"Why not just take a tunnel farther out?" one of them grumbled.

"I still don't trust those tunnels to be stable," Mino huffed.