Oscar had felt better about this assignment before they got as far as the office.
But then he wondered if they were going to get caught immediately; there were students around.
But Emerald evaded them easily.
Neo slipped into the office as silently as a mouse and removed the plaque that said "There's No Place Like Home".
She held out her hand, and an image of a key appeared over it.
"Crap, how long have you been able to do that?" Emerald asked.
Neo shrugged like "I don't know."
"It's gonna be real easy having someone who can't talk to us as part of a stealth mission." Mercury didn't seem very happy to be here despite lobbying for it.
"I'll unlock it," Oscar said quickly.
Whatever Shine said about it, he preferred not handing Neo the key.
Anyway, Ozpin was the one who knew how to open it.
"Something about this doesn't seem quite right," Ozpin remarked. "I don't remember the plaque being over the key hole."
"The desk is built into the ground, right?" Oscar said aloud. "So it's all part of the door, right?"
He put the key into it.
It turned easily, and the whole floor underneath shifted.
It was clever how it did it: The gears seemed to be in the floor panel right under the desk, and they opened into a small hole only about the size of a small trampoline.
Under the door, about 4 feet down, began a staircase.
"That's lame. It's not an elevator?" Mercury looked down.
"I can't even see it," Emerald said.
Neo motioned at the door, then at the desk and the hole.
"You're right," Oscar said. "This way, even if it was open when you looked in, you'd barely see it. Makes it a bit stealthier than the other doors. But stairs would be slower than an elevator... Is Theo trying to slow down anyone who sneaks in here?"
"Well, that makes sense," Ozpin said. "But it was probably Henry who designed it this way. He always did like simple things."
Theo hadn't updated it though, Oscar thought.
Somehow he felt more like this was a trap because it was different.
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Mercury jumped the four feet down into it.
"Wait," Oscar called after Mercury and jumped down--it was a longer drop for him, and it kind of hurt, but he was getting better at landing with more balance.
Emerald slipped in and hit her arm on the doorway but tried to hide it.
Neo stepped in with the grace and poise of a trained gymnast and gave them a smug look.
She was grating on the other two kids' nerves already, but Oscar really just thought she was scary.
He realized suddenly that he was alone with three "reformed" villains, and, out of them all, Emerald was the only one who didn't make him nervous.
"Not the best match up for us," Ozpin muttered. "If they do attack, you had better let me handle it. I doubt you have the skill to beat Mr. Black--or Neapolitian."
"Thanks for the confidence boost," Oscar muttered.
Mercury lit up his scroll light. "Where're the light bulbs in here?"
The door closed overhead.
"Ah!" Emerald screamed immediately and moved, trying to find it.
"Emerald, watch it!" Mercury said.
Neo smacked one of them in an effort to keep from being pushed off the steps by them moving.
"Hey, was that you, ballerina girl?" Mercury said angrily.
"Guys, don't drop the light!" Oscar said.
Suddenly a handful of lightbulbs along the wall ignited.
They were very dull, but at least they could all see the steps.
"H-how do we get back out?" Emerald asked.
"I bet there's some lever here," Mercury said.
"The other one didn't close like that, automatically," Oscar said.
"Well, newsflash, Rhodes is smarter than Leo!" Mercury said crossly. "Now we're stuck down here."
"We're not stuck," Oscar said. "Shine can get us out."
He lifted up his scroll. "Oh...no service."
"Of course not, we're under the floor!" Emerald said, panicking. "I don't like this. I want to go back."
Neo made some motions at her that looked like they meant "get a grip!"
"Shut up!" Emerald said.
She got a derogatory look like "really?" in reply.

[Gotta love Neo's expressions.]
"I'm sure they'll come looking for us eventually," Oscar said bravely. "For now, we should look around like we said. The Vault has to be down these steps."
"What tipped you off, detective?" Mercury said dryly.
Oscar decided to ignore him and start walking, using his own flashlight.
The stairs were kind of nerve-racking to go down because there was no railing. True, there was a wall on one side--but not on the other, they quickly realized.
The others all looked down it nervously.
Just keep walking, Oscar told himself. Don't look down.
"If it helps, the physics of the structure make it less likely for you to fall off of it as long as you stick close to the wall," Ozpin said.
"Is that even true?" Oscar asked.
"It better be," Ozpin said.
"Not helping!" Oscar hissed at him.
"You know I can hear you just as well whether you whisper or not. Why bother?" Ozpin asked.
"Shut up, Oz, I'm trying to focus," Oscar said.
"Is he talking to himself on purpose?" Mercury asked.
"He can't help it," Emerald muttered.
Well, it felt like it took a long time--so long, in fact, that Neo got bored and pushed ahead of Oscar by vaulting over him and then hurried down the steps so fast she left them far behind. Her balance made this not difficult for her at all, and she jauntily sprang the rest of the way down when she got near the bottom.
"I so hate her right now," Mercury said.
But they hurried the rest of the way down.
It might have been 300 steps, Oscar thought. It was a lot.
The lights came on down here once they were at the bottom of the stairs.
"This doesn't look right," Ozpin said.
Indeed it didn't.
Instead of a tree or magical lock like both the others had, there was a pretty normal looking metal wall waiting for them.
And off to the side of it...there were shadowy parts of the wall that seemed to be doorways.
"Where did this come from?" Ozpin said.
"You don't know!?" Oscar said out loud, making the others jump.
"I haven't been down here in more than 40 years!" Ozpin said. "Why, I haven't been down here since after the Great War period. In fact, I didn't think anyone had. It was news to me that Theo was sneaking down here, and now I see why. This is not the Vault... It must be built just in front of it."
"What's he saying?" Emerald asked Oscar.
Oscar repeated it feebly.
"What?" Mercury said. "So you're telling me in...40 years, someone built this?"
"I doubt it took that long," Oscar mused, looking at it. "It looks newer than that. I mean, I don't see much wear on this door. The metal looks pretty new."
They glanced at him weirdly.
"Okay..." Emerald said. "But we're at a dead end."
"No..." Oscar walked up. "Look, there's a keypad on this door."
So there was.
"A combination lock?" Emerald said. "Or a code or something? This is no good--we can't use this."
"Yeah...well, it's not like we could have anyway without the Maiden," Oscar said. "But it's different than the key, so someone wants to make really certain that only a qualified person could get down here. Well...that's...interesting."
"We're screwed," Mercury said.
"Not really," Oscar said. "We aren't really trying to get the Relic. I don't think, anyway. At least I'm not."
"What?" Emerald said. "I thought we were."
"No," Oscar said seriously. "I'm not using magic anymore."
"You're not...what?" Mercury said like he was crazy. "Isn't that your thing, Ozpin?"
"I'm not Ozpin, I'm Oscar." Oscar frowned at him. "And I can't use it. It makes the curse stronger when I do. I'm not sure if that extends to the Relic, but it's from the gods, so I think it might. I don't want to risk it. But I'm sure the others would like to know at least that they're going to need help getting down here. Still, we don't really want to use the Sword at all, do we? It's kind of dangerous."
"I guess..." Emerald said. "You can really just swear off magic like that?"
"I guess," Oscar said. "It's been working so far. Oz and I don't seem to be merging like we were."
Neo made a motion like he was crazy.
"It's not crazy," Oscar said. "Would you want to become someone else?"
Neo looked at him oddly, like it never occurred to her to think about it, then she shrugged.
"So the wizard is okay with you nerfing yourself?" Mercury said, incredulously.
"It's not really his choice." Oscar had no intention of sounding boss as heck, but to them,at least, he kind of did. They held Ozpin in awe almost as much as Salem, though for a different reason.
They all stared at him in astonishment.
Neo finally pointed at the doorways.
"Should we check those out?" Oscar echoed her thoughts.
"Sure," Mercury said. "Emerald and I will go one way, and you and Princess here can go the other way."
Neo kicked him.
"Watch it, you little cupcake!" Mercury said angrily.
"Hey, stop it," Oscar said. "No fighting. Am I the only one who thinks something else could be down here besides a wall? There's not supposed to be other doorways."
"Unless they lead to the Relic and this wall is just to slow us down," Emerald suggested.
"It's unlikely, but it's possible," Oscar said. "Still, we probably should all stick together. Just so we can hide."
"Why? With one chick with each team, we can hide no problem," Mercury said.
Oscar didn't fully trust Mercury either...not that he thought he'd hurt Emerald, but he wasn't sure if he was planning to just slip away from her and look around himself...for whatever reason he might have. Maybe he wasn't fully convinced yet...
"I don't want to split up," Emerald said, rubbing her arms. It was cold down here, and she had discarded her Atlas jacket because of the heat of Vacuo.
Neo tapped her foot impatiently.
"Let's just start with the one on the left," Oscar said. "And maybe if it's all right, we can split up and check both."
"Oscar," Ozpin said. "I'm not sure this is a good idea. All of this is new. I have no idea how it was finished like this without anyone knowing about it."
"Someone must have known," Oscar muttered. "We have to try. We came down here for a reason."
Neo snapped a photo of the door.
Cautiously, they all moved into the second doorway.
Oscar half thought it would just loop back around like Emerald suggested, but it didn't. It went on for a while, and there were no lights down here, only their flashlights.
It was like being swallowed by a huge mouth.
"This place is creepy," Emerald said.
"Yeah, could really use some decor," Mercury muttered. "But, I've seen worse."
"Inside a Grimm might be worse," Oscar said in a low voice.
Neo said nothing, naturally, but she didn't look as saucy as usual.
Oscar was feeling like this was a worse idea the longer they went, but that only lasted until the floor suddenly gave out beneath them--then he thought it was so far beyond worse that it wasn't even a question anymore.
Emerald and he screamed as they all shot down--but it wasn't a dead drop, it was more like an incline.
They rolled along it, tumbling head over heels and colliding with each other, till they hit the bottom.
"I'd judge that was at least 50 feet," Ozpin said.
"50 feet into what?" Oscar groaned.
"I dropped my scroll!" Emerald cried in the dark. "Is anybody there? Oh, by the gods, I can't--Hello?!"
"All right, shut up, I'm still here," Mercury said. "Anyone else not dead?"

[Atlantis Clip--Who's Not dead?]
"I'm here," Oscar said. "Neo? Neo?"
"How is she going to answer?" Mercury said. Then, "Ow! Someone just--all right, she's here."
A light came back on, showing Neo looking a bit ruffled and with dirt all over her, but her scroll was still intact. She'd kept ahold of it and shoved it into her inside pocket so it didn't get lost.
Emerald's was lying on the dirt not too far off. They found it by shining the light around, and Oscar's.
Mercury hadn't taken his out yet.
"Lucky for us," he said, lighting his up also. "Well...that's a steep climb."
They looked back up the incline.
"I can't make that," Emerald said. "I mean, not easily... Maybe if I used my blades, I could."
"We might make it," Mercury said. "But it could take 30 minutes at least. I can't tell if this is a trap or just another way to slow people down."
Neo suddenly made some wavy motions...like water 💧.
"Water?" Oscar said.
Neo pointed into the blackness.
"Wait...she's right--I do hear water," Oscar said after a second.
Slowly, they followed the sound.
They found a trickle of water coming out of the side of the cavern and directly into the sandy gravel that lined the floor.
"I guess at least you wouldn't die of thirst," Emerald said.
"Who knew? There's water in a desert," Mercury said. "This just keeps getting better."
Neo washed some dirt off her parasol.
"Oh great, at least the umbrella will look good when they find our bodies somewhere," Mercury said.
"We're not going to die," Oscar said. "We can climb back up, you said so."
"I think Emerald, me, and Twinkle Toes might," Mercury said. "But you? I don't know. You don't look that tough to me."
Oscar frowned at him.
Neo made a questioning motion.
"Maybe the tunnel goes on," Oscar said.
"Doesn't matter. If we look now, we'll be too far away to find our way back and have the energy to get out," Mercury said.
Emerald took a drink and then spat it out. "This water tastes metallic."
"Like blood?" Mercury said helpfully.
"No, not like blood, you idiot!" Emerald said.
"Maybe there's minerals down here?" Oscar said. "Or it's coming out of a place with more metal..." He rubbed his chin. "I mean, water has to come from somewhere, right?"
"If it's coming from a rock, it shouldn't taste metallic," Ozpin said. "Unless it's running through some metal on its way out of here."
"Maybe there's something else on the other end of this rock wall then," Oscar mused. "I mean, it's a theory."
"A stupid one," Mercury said. "I say we just claw our way back up. Send a search party for you or something. This place is clearly not safe. And I didn't sign up for this just to die in some weird maze."
"Maze?" Emerald said.
"It sure seems like one." Mercury said, like it was stupid to ask.
Oscar snapped his fingers. "Yeah, just like that. It's like a maze... Maybe this whole underground tunnel was built like that, to make it harder to...or no...what if this is why we never see what happens to Theo?... Maybe this isn't just the exit out of the school that no one knows about. Maybe it's an exit to a bunch of places. What if it's like a maze?"
"That's a reach," Mercury said. "It's probably just his escape route from the school. Why would anyone go to that kind of trouble all over a kingdom? That would take ages walking."
"Well, not if you dumped them down inclines like that," Emerald said. "But of course, you couldn't get out."
"Or could you...?" Oscar mused.
He went back to the incline and flashed his scroll around, then he looked upwards.
"Hey, guys, look," he said.
There was some kind of chain ⛓ hook along the wall, one that would lead upwards.
"I guess that would speed it up a little," Oscar said.
"So the slide is an obstacle, but it's not impossible," Emerald said oddly. "As long as you're strong enough, I guess... But you'd have to be pretty confident you wouldn't be hurt while you were down here."
"What could come in here?" Mercury said. "Grimm?"
"Yeah, Grimm," Emerald said. "They always do. How is this place not crawling with them?"
Neo made a face.
"Let's not talk about them." Oscar was afraid they'd show up if they did. "Let's just get out of here."
"Well, hang on," Mercury said. "If this is a trail, I bet it leads somewhere. I wonder what's after that water trickle over there."
He headed back that way.
"I thought he wanted to leave," Emerald shivered.
But the other two were fine with following Mercury, so they did.
Mercury might have been getting interested in this in spite of himself. No way Salem knew about this place. He wondered if Watts did.

[The Run and go--21 pilots]
Past the water there was more tunnel, as it turned out--and it began to slope uphill, meaning it was leveling out.
They lost all sense of time for quite a while.
They found an actual stream of water farther up. In fact, it did run along some metal tracks that seemed to purposely take it across their path instead of just running into the rock. It was several feet deep.
However, there were some stepping stones placed across it, scattered like a cobblestone pattern.
Mercury stepped on one, and it sank beneath the water at once, making him have to jump, and he still fell partway in.
"D--- it!" he said.
Emerald and Oscar rushed to pull him out.
"Are your shoes waterproofed?" Oscar asked.
"Of course they are. What kind of idiot would not waterproof his shoes?" Mercury snapped at him.
Oscar swallowed. "Right."
"What's the freaking point of having trick stepping stones?" Emerald said.
"To make it really hard to get where this is going," Oscar said.
Neo snapped her fingers and then held her scroll up over the stones. Then she made a beckoning motion at one of them.
"What?" Emerald said.
Neo hopped nimbly onto the stone just 4 inches from the one Mercury had stepped on and tapped on it, then made some signs like "big rock."
"Maybe that one is made out of gravity dust?" Oscar suggested. "Maybe it floats."
"Over water?" Mercury said.
Oscar hopped onto it.
Neo held up a hand ✋ like "wait."
Then she hopped onto a different one that was the same color and make, from the look of it.
She then motioned for them to follow her.
"I hate this place," Emerald said.
Mercury gamely jumped after Oscar.
All the stones were close enough together to be stepped or jumped onto, and they were big enough for at least two people, but Neo would move before more than that could step on.
After about 12 stones, she was on the far side, and then Oscar and the others followed.
Emerald had only come reluctantly because they all did.
"Some trap," Mercury said. "Enough mistakes and the trick stones would be all gone."
"I guess you'd know someone came in here though," Oscar said.
They exchanged a look.
"So Theo is going to know we came in here..." Emerald said.
"I guess it's too late to worry about it," Oscar said. "But maybe if we hurry, he'll at least not figure it was us. Could be anyone, right?"
Neo motioned for them to move it.
"If we have to go back the same way, I quit," Emerald said.
But they kept going, and the incline continued.
Then they came to a dead end.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Mercury cried, swearing.
"Now what?" Emerald said.
Neo walked up to it and tapped on it. Then she tilted her head aside and walked forward toward the wall--then she seemed to disappear into the wall itself.
"What the heck?" Emerald said.
They ran up to it and discovered that, in fact, the wall did have an opening... It was fit so perfectly that it was an optical illusion. [If you've seen The Book of Life animated movie, you know what this looks like.]
It was inside this passage that they came to another door.
Neo was standing outside and frowning, then she turned to them and shrugged.
"That one is locked, right?" Mercury said. "Figures."
"We could try the key." Oscar took the handle, then he let go and gasped. "It's hot!"
"What?" Emerald said.
"The door--" Oscar activated his Aura, and his hand healed. "It's hot."
"Well, crap," Mercury said. "Guess the other side is some fire pit, like some last trap to say, 'Screw you, explorers.'"
Neo, who had gloves on, took the key from Oscar with an eyeroll and turned it in the lock, then she yanked on it--the door itself was kind of heavy, and her body weight wasn't actually enough to make it budge, which you could tell make her mad. She braced her foot against the wall and yanked.
"Here, let me help" Oscar put his orange gloves back on--he'd taken to not wearing them in the heat of Vacuo because they made his hands so sweaty, but he had them on him.
They finally got the door to budge, and it came swinging open.
At the same moment someone came springing out of the other side, with their eyes blazing fire and their hands sparking with it.
"You SOB, how dare you leave me here--" The person, who was a woman, they now could hear, grabbed Oscar by his shirt.
Why???!!! Oscar thought to himself. This always happened to him.
But just before he could burst into flames, the woman stopped, and the fire went out of her eyes.
"You're not Theo," she said. "Unless you went back in time... S---...oops... No one else ever comes in here. How embarrassing."
She dropped him. "Who the he-- are you people?" She looked at them all warily. "Not a pack of lost students, I'd say. No way you found this door by accident."
The others just stared at her blankly--well, Neo really couldn't have done anything else.
"V-Vara?" Oscar finally sputtered. "Vara Sol?"
"Who wants to know?" Vara glanced down at him, then she peered harder. "Mother of the gods...Ozpin?"
"What?" Oscar said.
She pointed to the cane. "Even without that, though, I could sense it in a way. Something about you just felt familiar."
"How could it? I've never met this woman," Ozpin said oddly.
"Oz...never met you," Oscar said aloud.
"No, he never has," Vara said carelessly. "But maybe magic knows its origins, hmm? Well, this is...perfect, actually. Quick, all of you come in."
"What?" Mercury finally spoke.
"Did I stutter?" Vara suddenly looked at him fiercely. "Get your a---- in there before Theo does actually come back."
She pointed inside, and they all went in, against their better judgment perhaps.
Vara shut the door and barred it.
"Were you just waiting for him to come in?" Emerald asked. "Is that why the door was hot?"
"No, I was trying to melt it," Vara said, and you could see some scorch marks on the inside of the door. "But the d--- thing is titanium or tungsten or something... I'm not that good at science. Takes forever to melt it, not even sure I can. Even lightning strikes weren't doing it. That b-----d really made sure no could just blast their way in or out of here. But I did figure if he came back, added bonus of giving him a hard time getting the door open. Knowing Theo, though, he'd probably just yell 'YOLO!' and grab the door open anyway, Aura or no Aura."
"You were trying to escape?" Oscar said.
"Why didn't you just unlock the door then?" Emerald said curiously.
"Oh, I never thought of that!" Vara was killingly sarcastic. "I can't. Not with the special key lock. Normally, I only bar the d--- thing, but after he knocked me out, Theo locked the extra lock. So I was stuck. The SOB... Does he know you're down here?"
"No." Oscar hoped that was still true by now. "So...you've been under the school the whole time?"
"The school?" Vara laughed.
She sat down in a chair at a tiny table.
The whole room was outfitted like a small hotel room: a fold up bed, a small kitchen, and a stove pipe that went up into the ceiling. Also a sink.
"This is miles from Shade," Vara said, amused. "Practically under the desert itself. It's a good thing we don't have earthquakes in Vacuo--one good shake could cut out my water and electricity. I wonder about it sometimes with the Grimm...but the little buggers haven't come in here much. Apparently that's usual for Maidens once they're pretty strong. Anyway, I'm glad you finally showed up. I was just coming to warn you all myself, but I figured by the time I busted out of here, it'd be too late. Quick, tell me, did Raven already disappear?"
"Wait, you knew that she would?" Oscar said. "Have you known the whole time? And why have you been down here if you did and not up there helping us?"
"Yeah, we've been getting our a---s kicked up there," Emerald said angrily.
"Salem's girl?" Vara looked at her more closely. "I saw a picture of you. Green hair, kind of hard to forget."
"I'm...not Salem's girl," Emerald said.
"And you're the kid from the festival, the one the angry blonde fought." Vara glanced at Mercury. "Some scandal there, right? But I can't place the midget at all."
Neo probably would have decked her if she didn't know she was a Maiden. Instead she just frowned.
"That's Neo," Oscar said. "I'm...Oscar Pine."
"You're just a little twig," Vara said in a tone that might have been sympathetic, but it was hard to tell. She had a rather husky voice that could have been considered harsh. [As a woman with a deep and yet often nasally voice, let me say, it's a constant problem to have people think I'm annoyed when I'm not. My voice just naturally rises in pitch when I inflect my words. Apparently I'm not the only one--my boss has the same problem. Women with harder voices, unite!]
"Uh..." Oscar wasn't sure how to respond. "So...you're...hiding..."
Vara put a hand to her forehead and sighed in frustration.
"I..." she said slowly. "...I don't like hiding. But Theo thought it was best. I... Well, let's just say, the way I ended up here is complicated, and I'm not about to explain it in front of those three."
She was blunt. Wow.
"It's enough to say that I'm not just going to go up there and do Maiden stuff, whatever that might mean," Vara said. "But I wasn't on board with kidnapping any kids, all right? They went behind my back for that."
"You mean Yang. You knew about that?" Oscar said.
"Only a few hours ago," Vara said.
"I guess Mystery Man really did plan it," Mercury said. "Wow, you know, I'd admire how much he stabbed his own team in the back, but really, it's kind of pathetic that the best he could do was kidnap some kid and then get caught."
"Shut up," Emerald said to him.
"Do you know why they took her?" Oscar asked Vara. "I mean, why is he doing all this? I know he wanted to keep you safe, but how is this doing it? Salem..."
"Salem," Vara said, flatly. "Yes...the big bad." She drummed her fingers on the table. "Frick Salem," she said after a moment, looking angry. "But it is what it is. We can't just take her on. Even with that stupid Relic. We had to do this. Look, I can't help you with the relic, all right? We're all doomed if I do that."
"Then why did you cooperate with Salem at all?" Oscar asked.
"To buy time, d--- it!" Vara burst out, making them all jump. "We had to give her something. That was the plan--buy me time, stall, pretend I wasn't available, pretend to be waiting for the right moment...and then get rid of the powers and get her attention somewhere else. Anywhere else. But we have a little problem. We still haven't cracked how to transfer these d--- powers. We thought we were so close, but then there's no way to do it without killing the host...so it was back to the drawing board. But then the target was Atlas and Beacon instead, so we had some time. But it wasn't enough."
"Why do you want to ditch the powers?" Emerald asked.
"I never wanted them at all," Vara said. "I'm...a poor choice for the Maiden." She held up her hand, and a tiny whirlwind swirled along her palm. "Don't get me wrong, I have great control, the best anyone's ever had, Theo thinks. But I'm unfit in other ways. Don't expect me to explain that to you. The point is, I can't do the job. And I'm sick of it anyway. I thought I could give it to someone who could handle it, but I didn't want to die. Who wants to die?... And besides...if we transfer Aura...who's to say we don't transfer our weaknesses with it?... There's just no way to know. So we have to try to transfer the magic without the Aura... So far, we can't do it. Then they said something about needing human test subjects, and I said, 'No, no one else is dying for my problem.' But it looks as though that's not the plan now. Theo didn't plan to hurt your teammate, though. It's just to scare Raven. But if it worked, well, I don't trust Vic not to get a little greedy. I hope for her sake that the blonde kid has a really boring Semblance."
"Actually it's pretty good," Emerald said.
"Then we are in trouble," Vara said dryly.
"Vara...you know more about this Kanap, right?" Oscar said. "Just why is she...so adamant about this?"
Vara sighed. "Okay, maybe you'd better sit down for this part. This might be a long story:"
[RWBY AMV to Bones -- by PanAceAtTheDisco]

[Good song for Vara, right? Also, here we go, finally getting some explanation of this, right?]