A Search Through Runeterra (Arcane)

"Imagine if I had a real weapon."~ Jax, The Grandmaster At Arms

I almost put the tool tip for Jax E in Arabic for the memes. 

Full speed ahead!

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The next day, he hoped, was an easier one.

He would hop over to Metol and look into the Marron family manor. He needed to find something that linked the family's disappearance to the Black Rose or at least something that connected both the Kiosar and the Marron families.

It was a lead and could potentially be a dead end.

It was fine, if it failed to show any results. He still had a couple favors to fall back to. Talon being the main one. Though he hoped the man was just as he remembered, it would be annoying to have someone do him a favor and tell another of the favor and who he had done it for. He would need to specifically state that. Talon would be honor bound to not share. That would be enough.

That was Noxian nature.

It separated them from animals, is one of the most common noble sayings.

They spoke of honor and put in various rules without which their lives would be quite easy. That was why Gregori was able to do most of the things that had made him famous. He had no need for honor.

What good was that for him?

Morality was another thing entirely but even that could be ignored in the face of life threatening danger.

Not only that, who would check for his honor in a battlefield? Who would complain about him being honor-less?

The dead did not speak after all.

Of course, he would follow their rules when it would be useful to him. He would be a fool not to. He had once owed a favor to a man in return of information on enemy movement.

He didn't repay him. The Gray owed him a favor and the Hastur took his life.

Two different people. No one questioned his honor then.

You couldn't owe the dead any favors. Only if you were good of heart. But that Gregori could be on occasion. The rare moment when his heart beat his mind. But any other time? Gregori was what Noxians looked down on.

An animal.

One who didn't follow the rules of the game. One who should be taken down at any cost. Because if one is successful at not playing the game by the rules, what stops the rest from doing the same?

He was a danger not because of his prowess but because of the idea he represented. Which was the very reason he had been the last Hastur.

Why train your own enemies?

Then again, he would be wrong if he said he was the only Hastur. Annie and Daisy had both taken the surname.

And that's all it was to him. A surname. It meant different things to others but to Gregori it was just a name.

And since Amoline had wanted to take his surname upon marriage, he had decided to stick with it. Thinking back on it, he should have questioned her near unhealthy obsession with getting rid of her previous surname.

Getting up for the next day was a little difficult. He wanted to go to Metol and be back before sunset. And running on just a few hours of sleep was irritating, especially now that he had a bed. But he trudged through his daily ablutions and made his way to get himself some food.

It was around ten in the morning, leaving the place relatively empty. The inn was mostly filled right after four or so, veterans and the like preferred to spend time away from home in the evenings, something about not wanting to be near thankless fools. Though he thought that was quite a sad thing to call their own families, it did little to dissuade them. 

'You'll do the same just you wait!' Those were their exact words.

And it had never come to pass. He loved every moment with his family. No amount of 'fun times' in an inn or a tavern could ever top that. Wondering if he would have been the same if had grown old with either one of his wives was depressing to say the least.

What ifs always sent him over the edge, bringing back all the rage he had kept bottled up.

Hopping into a stool he ordered one of the specials for the day and silently ate his food. He didn't talk with any of the patrons or Harris himself. They would provide nothing of use and could demand something from him as well.

He had also not checked out the place where Marko and the others would send him messages. He would do so after his conversation with Talon. That place had a blood mage. An ally but not one he liked. That didn't stop the others from trusting or liking her.

She was likable.

And extremely honorable.

But she was a blood mage. Gregori didn't trust them on principle. His talks and experience with Caalyx had given him just enough information on blood magic and its nature to know that a blood mage could never be trusted.

Being able to control blood, regardless of who it came from, was difficult to deal with. And with them wearing red or covering themselves with red colored objects just made it that much easier to conceal blood among them.

To the average person who pissed them off, it would be incomprehensible to them as to how they were surrounded by blood in an instant.

Well... it was preparation.

Hiding blood in your surroundings and waiting to strike was something most blood mages relied on.

They had a limited supply of the thing they used as ammunition. Blood from their own bodies were used as a last resort.

Sneaky sneaky bastards.

As he finished his bread and soup of the day combo, he got up and left the inn. Walking to Metol had the same steps as the previous day's journey.

Winding roads, dirty alleyways and secret pathways.

Every movement designed to throw someone off his tail, even if they never did follow him. 

Once he had arrive to Metol however? All he could see were Noxian guards. There were normal people living there and shops and bars as well but there were quite a lot of guards. An unnatural amount.

He made his way to where the Marron household was said to have lived only to see it be a Noxian fortress.

It even had a bridge and a moat.

He walked around examining the entire structure. It was quite peculiar. Not the location or the security but the architecture itself. It had all the standard Noxian bells and whistles but it looked different.

The sharp contours on the building seemed to be inwards... like it wasn't designed to keep things out..... but to keep things IN!

Something or someone was inside. Something that could be a big threat if let out. 

Or.

Or a place where his daughter could be kept.

His eyes shot toward the sky. The star was still right above him, not giving him a clue about her whereabouts. It hurt to think about.

Her being kept captured in a place like this.

But he needed to investigate.

Judging by the moat and the draw bridge, he couldn't just waltz in there and demand to know what was kept inside..... No, he needed someone on the inside. There would be no help from inside. And since no one would help him get inside, he needed to get in himself.

He kept watch to see who were the members that came and went in on the regular. 

Few hours went by and the only notable ones were some nobles and some scholarly looking men, researchers, he deduced.

These were the notable ones. That meant that they couldn't be impersonated.

That only left one option. Guards.

Noxian guard uniforms were by far the worst ones ever designed. In order to show that all soldiers regardless of who they were, were always equal in war, they removed all the individuality in the soldiers. Closed of helmets and full body coverage was a requirement.

This was bad because often you didn't know who was under them.

His first order of business was to get his hands on the record for the guards. The book where they input their daily check-ins and check-outs.

From there he needed a target.

One who would be rotated to guard the inner regions.

Rotation was a constant. You couldn't leave the same guard in the same spot for a long time before they had started developing designs for the secrets hidden inside.

Now, if it was just a kill and escape mission, Gregori could just knock out a guard, switch into his clothes and waltz in after creating a distraction somewhere else.

But if his daughter was inside, it became a rescue mission. And having guards on high alert would make the rescue part of the rescue mission harder.

So book. Then target who would be rotated inside. And then profiling.

He needed to understand the target he was going to impersonate. Likes. Dislikes. Common phrases. Cadence. Style. Slang. Sexual Preferences. Marital Status. Hobbies. Skills.

Everything that made the target him was necessary.

Him. Obviously because the female form and Gregori were quite far removed from each other. That ruled all the female guards out. 

How he did the profiling? That meant snooping around. Following in the shadows. Watching. Learning.

Once that step was complete, he would just need to tie up the guard somewhere, and impersonate him.

That was easier said than done but it was doable.

Once he got inside...

Well....

That needed a little more planning.

He would need the layout of the fortress. That he could get from a certain information broker. 

The next steps were, Locate the target.

If it was his daughter, get her out.

If it wasn't leave without alerting anybody.

The semantics of getting the hostage out was something he could figure out after he got the blueprints of the place.

But he decided to this once his meeting with Talon was done.

After completing his watch, Gregori made his way back to the room and retired for the day.