A Search Through Runeterra (Arcane)

"Demacia!"~ Jarvan IV, The Exemplar of Demacia

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The flooring was covered in dust.

That was a good thing.

It meant that no one had come inside this room in a while. Or that there was no one ever in this property after the owners had passed.

He observed the room. 

It was completely empty. Not a single furniture in sight. 

Getting low, he looked to see if some of flooring was at a higher level than the others. There were a few. Chances were that those were just creaky floorboards that raised up after years of neglect and unuse.

Gregori carefully made his way to the door, staying close to the walls. Floorboards near the walls were often the best secured ones.

They wouldn't creak. They wouldn't bend. They wouldn't break.

Slowly but surely, he reached the door. With a careful turn, the door clicked open and it swung open but he held it from opening too much too quickly. Old doors also made noise when opening.

He peeked out of the door, looked both sides, then slid the rest of his body out through the tiny gap he'd created..

What awaited him was a long corridor. With rooms on either side. He needed to investigate every single room . A full sweep of every single part of the house.

Any pictures of a Kiosar would be very useful.

A family photo would be even better. And it was quite possible for there to be one. Every noble family had a large family tapestry. It was part of the noble culture.

A large family portrait that was recommissioned every time a baby was born into the family.

The Kiosars were close enough to the noble status that they should have followed this particular tradition. After all, what made nobles weren't the title but they way they acted.

That was what made the nobles stand out. The rules they made for themselves.

This would also mean that there must be a hidden room or something similar in this manor, where certain records would be kept.

But before Gregori searched for all this, he needed to make sure that he was alone in this place. Being alone here would mean that he could do as he pleased without having the worry of alerting someone present in the manor.

And so began his check for any living beings in his surroundings.

He quickly and carefully made his way through every room.

Search and clear.

Search.

Clear.

Moving with militaristic precision, Gregori completed the check and found no one in the manor.

This gave him more leeway.

He climbed back up to where he had been originally and opened every single door. He looked through every single room. Almost all of them were completely empty, except for three.

The first room contained a mirror, the second a cupboard and the third a long sofa.

He examined each of the items, with the only one that seemed off being the mirror. It wouldn't budge from its original place.

No lifting, pushing or sliding would move the mirror.

The cupboard was empty and the sofa was nothing to note of as well.

Gregori made his way down to the grand staircase, where he found one of the items he was searching for.

A family tapestry.

With Amoline in the arms of a woman in a red dress. She was on the older side, with graying hair and spectacles hanging from a string. Her hairstyle was quite different. Took off on the back side. That didn't take away from her looks. She had Amoline's features.

Her mother.

Amoline looked to be less than five. Her smile bright. He reached out to touch her face

Her father was to their side, a hand on each of his twin sons. The three of them wearing sophisticated outfits. On first glance, Gregori assumed them to be quite pretentious. They had that air to them. Like they were looking down at you.

Gregori let out a silent chuckle, wondering what they would say if they had found out that someone like him had married their daughter.

Of course standards wise, Gregori was quite a lot higher than them. If nobility came from blood, Gregori was in its top brass from birth being from a high noble family but he wasn't that anymore. He could still use his old name but nearly fifteen years of this name.... well he had gotten used to it.

He felt comfortable with the name Gregori Hastur.

It represented him and what he was. 

As his eyes roamed over the tapestry, he noticed the mirror in the upper floor in the painting as well.

The mirror had to be something. It had to hold some kind of secret.

But before that, he needed to properly examine the painting and all of the statues that were still in the entryway for the manor.

And he did just that.

The tapestry had some lettering on it.

K969-FAMILY

Kiosar.

969AD.

Family tapestry.

That was somewhat useful. But not as useful as this picture. This gave him an estimate of the total members of the family. Four people minimum. Maybe more if they had more children after Amoline.

He then examined the other rooms. 

Every room except one was empty. The room which wasn't? It was fully furnished.

Completely furnished from end to end.

A dining room, with a large table and more chairs than a family of four would ever need. All fully stocked with plates and cutlery.

Cupboards as well fully stocked with more plates and cutlery and various wine glasses.

Paintings hung from the every wall. All paintings of people.

There was even a wine cabinet. Fully stocked with vintage wines. Really good ones. Ones that costed upwards of a thousand gold. The kind the average almost noble family could afford but that issue was that there were too many of these wines.

And wines on display were usually offered to guests.

This meant that there was the possibility of more of these kinds of wine in the cellar.

If there was one.

One could argue that they could have owned the group that made the wine or were closely related to the ones who made the wine. But that wouldn't be possible as they should have seemed more opulent.

The tapestry didn't make them look that rich.

They had the bare essentials in jewelry. Some nobles liked that but they were already nobles.

The first step to nobility was acting and believing oneself to be noble. Jewelry was a sign of status. To anyone looking to climb that social ladder, they needed to show they wealth. Flaunt it a little.

Something was wrong here.

He placed a finger on the table and slid it across.

Examining both the table and the finger, he felt the hair in his arms raise.

No dust.

This room was under use and constantly kept clean.

People used this room.

Regularly..... by the looks of the utensils. The spoons and forks had some wear on them. From recent use.

He observed the wines on display and pulled one that had been opened previously. Pulling the cork out he gave the wine a sniff.

Fresh.

Opened recently. It hadn't lost its freshness yet.

This room had probably been used anywhere from yesterday to a week ago.

Gregori recorked it and placed it in the same spot with the same positioning.

He slowly backed out of the room while looking for anything that seemed like a trap or an alarm. As he did, he let his magic wash over the room.

His eyes instantly shot toward a painting. One of a woman. The same woman as in the tapestry. Amoline's mother.

The problem wasn't that the painting was there.

The problem was that the woman's eyes were on him. 

Gregori stared at the painting for a moment before sighing and walking up to it. The eyes remained on him as he stood in front of it. The only thing that moved where the eyes. It was horrifying in a way.

He ran his hand along the sides of the painting and instantly found something etched to one of the sides. Turning his head he looked at what was etched into the frame.

Their symbol.

Their calling card.

The Black Rose.

It was just a carved rose. A rose with a stem. A thorn covered stem.

Gregori took a step back and fell into thought. He started to piece things together. His original deduction of the reasoning for the attack on his home had changed.

The Kiosars were involved with the Black Rose.

The Mallat arriving at his house made a lot more sense now. They weren't expecting Leanna. They wanted Amoline. And if they wanted Amoline, they knew she was in possession of Tybaluk. This meant that he was going to be embroiled in some large conspiracies.

The warband that had attacked were dead but there was the chance that one of them had managed to get away. Get away with crucial information to their superiors. They had to have found out about Annie.

The third party after Annie? They were probably involved.

This painting with the eye moving? It could probably listen in too. Gregori observed the painting and the face again.

The eyes moved trying to memorize his face but he knew that wasn't going too well, the cloak covered his face pretty well and the moonlight shone upon his back.

He leaned in and spoke slowly and calmly, "Run. Hide. Regardless, I'm coming for you." 

Without looking back Gregori walked out the room and up the stairs and made his way to the room with the mirror.

He observed the mirror once more.

SHATTERR

Before sending a fist through the glass, breaking the mirror. There was no point trying to be sneaky when his enemies were alerted to his presence. His fist went further than it should have been possible with the walls on the side. 

A secret space.

Examining it, he found a piece of paper with a single name written on it.

Mordekaiser.

He pocketed the paper before swiftly climbing out the way he had come from. He retraced his steps back to the wall and jumped up to grab the ledge of the wall, pulling himself to the ledge using his magic.

A quick hop over and he was gone from there.

The name was not something he had expected to see. The only people who said that name were blood mages. And most blood mages had connections to the Black Rose.

Now he had to deal with blood mages, demons and the Black Rose.

He could feel a headache rolling in.