I would have devoured the local newspapers with surprising zeal, desperately searching for those answers and questions that were often far too available on Opfum Lane, but there were none. The populace, after several more attempts at taverns and inns, did not want to talk about it.

I turned in my bed once again. It was of a strange material, perhaps some sort of sea plant fiber, but it was of appropriate comfort for the price of my booking. My mind was ruining my time, and for that I required relief of sorts.

I, as much as was not recommended by every brochure and sane man, required a walk.

Curse the consequences.

Bilgewater architecture is as literal to material plagiarism as one can get, taking shipwrecks from the shoreline and repurposing them to the new owners will as a house crab would an empty mollusc shell. The Inqura current is especially notorious, as wrecked hulls caught in the thousand mile Courier Weed have their crews picked at by all manner of creatures through the long trek to the Bilgean Isles, leaving them clean of all perishables provided that one patches a few breaches here and there.

Once one gets further inland, as was my booked abode, the shift in architecture can be rather startling. While a prefabricated overturn might do the resourceful a favor, they remain cumbersome and exhausting to carry. On any incline beyond an acute angle such plagiarism is considered far less practical.

Ingram's locale was originally a Conqyx settlement, albeit a full two centuries ago when pirate lords were relegated to more open waters instead of owning a miniature country. The Conqyx white mortar produced a calming marine hue amid the full moon while the almost scorching red of the terracotta roof tiles in the day melded black into the shadows of the manors. For a moment I almost forgot it was an afternoons sail from the Island of Pirates, but once the architecture took a turn for the pragmatic, I knew I should at least shift my course.

Then I heard a moan.

My shadow had, inadvertently, passed down several yards down a downward stepped alley, my 'head' now resting on a doubled-over man by some absurd circumstance of moonlight. Whatever was to transpire, to engage with the populace outside my terms was one of impending danger.

"'Oi! Mind helping a lad out?" He coughed.

I wished for his lack conscience in this single moment, such is the curse that permeates every rank of the Piltover Bourgeois is that undesirable awkwardness in denying charity of any sort. Such as it is, I descended the stairs to the man's location, my shadow miniscule before his broad shoulders as I helped him to his feet.

In an instant I knew this man was no local. The coal black hair and toned beige skin denoted him a Noxian by birth, possibly even hailing from an Officer's lineage. As my lanky writer's body helped him to his gigantic feet, I felt an animalistic fear refluxing inside me, ready to flee the instant he might recognize me as a Piltie. I gulped down the fear, but that taste is something I will never forget.

"My thanksch," he churned, coughing up a wad of ale-ladden spittle, none of which thankfully splattered on me. "Got ambush'd by a bunch'a kids who liked an idea of slamming a rotten plank to my balls."

==Note of the Author: There is no man alive who would not grimace at this, that much I know, but such are the children of Bilgewater, coming from second-hand experience.==

I was frankly something of a dead weight when his strength finally began returning to him. Propping him against the closest ship hull, the dreaded moment came when he reignited his dropped lantern.

"You ain't from around here," he stated "Piltover I assume?"

"What another place would spawn bodies like mine?" I joked.

He was incredibly puzzled at this. I shouldn't bother with joking around, no one ever gets me anyway.

"Yes, Piltover," I sighed.

"Huh, why're you here?" he asked as if he knew nothing more than a smidgeon of geopolitics.

"I am a 'tourist' of sorts."

"PFFFGHHGHAHAHAHA! Why'd anyone want to be a tourist in these times?"

"I do it for research and leisure, of a sort."

"Pleasure, eh? Why didn't you just say so! I'm a bouncer at Swallow's Inn, so let me give you a round on the house!"

I believe he misheard and conflated the two terms together.