"Achoo!"
Ezreal shot up from the bed, rubbing at his nose. Slowly looking up, the boy noticed a trickle of dust running down from the roof; the entirety of the Palace of Dreams rumbling with a thousand footsteps. He sloppily reaches for his gauntlet, but his hand slips.
In the nick of time, someone pulls him back to safety – with a bit too much strength. Ezreal tumbles onto one side like a ragdoll, ending up on top of his roommate. His cheeks flush as Kai'Sa shoved him off, sending the stunned boy rolling onto his side of the bed.
"Uhh…" Any drowsiness he had was gone in a second. "You heard that right?"
By the time Ezreal had processed all that had happened, Kai'Sa was already standing; tapping her foot impatiently near the window. She and her dual cannons look over one shoulder in silence.
"Go." He grabs his jacket, slipping it onto his back. "I'll be out in a second."
With a nod, the girl turns invisible; purple afterglow trailing in the air as Kai'Sa dives headfirst into the fray. Hurrying up, the explorer wraps up the shawl around his face and dashes out the door.
The room opposite them hung wide open, revealing a well-built Shuriman man wearing nothing but brown shorts and a white scarf. His long unkempt hair was somehow messier than the blond's, held in place by a hairpin in the shape of the insignia of the Sentinels of Light.
"What's going on?"
"I have no idea, But I'll be damned if I don't find the scoundrels responsible for interrupting my beauty sleep-"
A cloaked muscular woman rushes past; carrying a golden staff tipped with the head of some kind of bird. Ezreal follows in her wake, while the sentinel returns to his room to put on an actual pair of clothes before being seen in public.
The journey out of the Palace of Dreams was a blur of faces, and Ezreal found himself within a huge crowd - at least half the population of Zuretta. The gold staffed woman grunted in frustration; peeking up and over the crowd.
Despite not being that tall, Ezreal wasn't worried. He scans the buildings to find the tallest one in the area, blinking up with a flick of his gauntlet and a puff of golden smoke. Normally, such a brazen display of magic could get the boy in trouble – but the crowd's attention was fixated elsewhere.
"What the-"
When he and Kai'Sa had passed by these farms on their way to the inn, the sand had been brown.
Now, it was a deep crimson red.
Whatever animals were left huddled as far away as they could from the corpses littered within the pens; the sheer amount of blood carried the smell all the way up here. Body parts of all shapes and sizes lay strewn across the dirt fields, sliced cleanly with the surgical precision of a trained blade and the ferocity of a wild beast. Ezreal had been to many far-off places, and he had never seen such a brutal yet ritualistic display of violence. Worst of all, the blood was wet - glistening in the first rays of dawn.
The killer could still be nearby.
"Attention all!" A booming voice shouts, disrupting his shocked stupor. "The Holy Lady has arrived! Make way for The True Heir of Setaka and Queen of Zuretta- Lady Nedjem!"
The royal arrives in a palanquin, carried and surrounded by dozens of armed guards. The woman is dressed opulently even for the standards of a royal; braids woven in gold and jewels of all sorts. Her face is hidden behind the snarling visage of a lioness, voice resonant and booming despite the impairment.
As her vehicle is carefully lowered, the priestess rises; raising her hands and brandishing the cross-shaped insignia of their Ascended patron. Ezreal may not have known the local dialect of Shuriman, he understood the general idea of what she was saying.
Fear was an emotion no one liked, oftentimes it was much easier to turn it into anger.
The crowd cheers as Lady Nedjem finishes her speech with a bow, some particularly zealous individuals raising their weapons and cheering at her call. Looks like things were going to change around here, and not necessarily for the better.
Wait!
The shine of metal disappears into the stranger's billowing black cloak, the owner stepping backwards into the shadows of a small alleyway. The disappearing tip of their blade invokes memories of the night before, and of the hooded man lingering near the Watering Hole.
Hesitating only for a second, he blinks in pursuit.
The Figure had gone against the flow of the crowd, brushing past countless curious citizens packed into cramped alleyways. Safe on the rooftops, Ezreal hops across the small gaps between buildings- Arcane Shifting further ahead so he could keep up with the larger man's gait.
But somehow, his quarry had slipped away.
"Where'd he go?"
Arriving at the main street of Zuretta, left empty thanks to the appearance of the Holy Lady in the outskirts, Ezreal blinks down; kicking up a bit of dirt when he lands. The few people who dared to remain outside ignored him, closing up their shops and whispering to one another
From thriving city to ghost town in mere minutes.
Out of the corner of his vision the explorer notices large shadowy shapes moving between the buildings, billowing cloaks and the sheen of polished metal. But when Ezreal blinks, they are gone.
"Huh?"
Raising his boot, the explorer finds he is standing within a footprint the size of his head. The tracks looked old, pointing towards the remains of the Watering Hole. One door had been blown from its hinges, slammed into the sandy ground, and the other was barely hanging on for dear life.
"Ouch. Someone must have been mad."
Mustering what little courage he had left, Ezreal moves towards the ruins of the Watering Hole - and is swept away by the scope of the carnage.
Claw marks lined the wall, shattered bottles leaking a variety of colored drinks onto the floor. An odd scorch mark is on the floor, surrounded by countless smaller blots in either a dark red or ashen black. One blood splatter seemed to sparkle, coming with a gem of some kind. Pointed and sharp, it didn't take long for Ezreal to realize that the 'gem' was in fact a human tooth.
Something rattles at the counter.
Ezreal's Mystic Shot goes right over the head of the fearful barkeep, begging for his life in the local dialect.
"Woah calm down! Not here to hurt you-" He slips the glowing gauntlet within the robes. "Who did this?"
"Rengar, Bastard Child of Setaka-"
Thanks to his (forced) participation in history classes, Ezreal had some passing knowledge on this deity. Setaka was the lion headed Ascended, revered in Shurima as a goddess of war, change and growth. Her weapon of choice was a comically shaped 'cross-blade', often poked fun of by scholars for its impracticality in battle.
"Is he a demigod or something? I thought the Holy Lady was the – only heir of Setaka."
"I-I don't know Piltovan, all he does here is drink and fight -"
"Must be a bad customer then huh?" Ezreal chuckled, and the man turned even paler. "I mean, look at this mess he made – you should definitely find a way to keep him out of here."
The barkeep slumped onto the counter, muttering to himself. It looks like he wasn't going to get any more information out of this guy at the moment.
"Ok, ok thanks. I'm just going to go out now."
As soon as he sets foot from on the busier main street, the explorer lets out a sigh of relief.
"You know - I don't usually judge people by their cover, but I'm pretty sure I found the animal killer."
As a result of the killings, the Holy Lady had placed the city on lockdown, with patrols of lion-masked city guards becoming an increasingly common sight as he traveled. With everyone looking out for only themselves, that left either the reckless or the brave to find the killer and bring them to justice.
Ezreal figured he was the latter.
The adventurer had quickly learnt that the best way to get information was by exposing himself as a Piltovan - courtesy of his blond hair and fair complexion. Once people saw that he was a foreigner and had coin to spend, their lips loosened a great deal. Even the threat of losing livestock couldn't stop the economy from chugging on.
His latest target was a bored looking woman, surrounded by opulent and likely fake jewels.
"Madam." Ezreal takes and shakes her hand with a charismatic wink. "Those are some interesting pieces.'
"Ah! Thank you, good sir! Would you like to buy some?"
A bit of flattery later, and the woman starts explaining every piece of crystal in her collection. She was speaking too fast for him to translate, but Ezreal nodded through it all.
"Cool, cool - by the way, do you know where I can find Rengar? The demigod child of Setaka?"
The jeweler shook her head before quickly changing topic, saying something about the 'Brackern'. His cue to leave. In her excitement, Ezreal managed to slip away; pushing the gauntlet deeper into his pocket.
"Brackern? Really? What do you take me for? An idiot? Well, I am an idiot - but not that big of an idiot."
Pushing aside the ramblings, Ezreal spots another empty stall: a giant of a man carefully trimming the leaves off some strange plants. One of them snapped its jaws at his bearded face, earning a harsh slap from the Shuriman shopkeeper.
"Quick question- do you know anything about Rengar?"
"Rengar? Who is that?"
"You know, Demigod? Child of Setaka?"
"There is only one Child of Setaka." The gardener grunts offendedly. "Our Holy Lady."
Squirming under his harsh glare, Ezreal quickly mutters an apology before slipping away into the crowd. Albeit smaller than usual, the people made for good cover.
"Excuse me."
The speaker is - a little girl. She was half his height, wearing a patchwork of rags and covered in dirt.
"I know what you are looking for." The child spoke in perfect - albeit accented - Piltovan. "Rengar. I can take you to him."
Ezreal does the math in his head. It was him, with the gauntlet of Ne'Zuk, against one kid. He could take the risk.
"Sure, I guess."
The smaller child grabbed his arm, and Ezreal was pulled off the beaten path and to a quieter area of the city on the opposite half of Zuretta. The houses looked more run-down and dilapidated, with graffiti scrawled onto the walls at every corner. Apparently, word of the animal killings had reached even here: because Ezreal didn't see a single other person in the area outside of himself and his guide.
The girl was pulling him along at a surprisingly brisk pace, before slowing down near a plinth. The lower half of a statue remained stubbornly affixed to the stone base, with an ominous red and black banner poking out from the center of its body. It is only then that the realization hits him.
"Oh. This is a robbery, isn't it?"
From the shadows, dozens of armed men and women appear; sprinkled on a sliding scale of scrawny skeletons to someone who could pass for a sand troll.
Ezreal charges the gauntlet as the bandits circle him, drawing a variety of improvised weapons. Even the small child next to him had herself a dagger, pressing the point onto his back. He doubted he could Arcane Shift before she carved out his insides.
"Well - you got me. You want a prize for that or something?"
The one he assumed was the leader nods, gesturing towards a pouch on his belt. The explorer can do nothing but keep his hands raised as the little girl handily grabs one his bag of hard-earned coin. She drops her knife, running towards the rest of the group excitedly.
Big mistake.
Ezreal takes his chance, Arcane Shifting forward and snatching the pouch right out of her hands. The girl squeaks in protest, only to be shoved back as the explorer blinks past the line of bandits. They shout and look around in confusion, distracted by the golden clouds left in his wake.
"Hah! Let this day be remembered as the day you almost caught-"
A hand wraps around his left arm - stopping him dead in place with a loud crack. Ezreal is thrown towards a wall, landing face first and rolling onto the ground. His fist sparks with arcane energies, but the explorer holds himself back. He could have easily vaporized everyone here, but the boy doubted that he truly wanted to. Escape was always the better option.
The panic finally sets in when he realizes he needed a bit more time before he could Arcane Shift again. Sensing his hesitation, all of the bandits begin to approach; licking their lips and cracking their fists in anticipation.
"Wait, hold on - Maybe we can work things out."
Ezreal curses as an arrow nicks his forehead, taking aim with his gauntlet and pumping as much energy as he can into it. The sparks of blue and yellow make the thieves hesitate; but they advance on him nonetheless. Backed to the wall, there was nowhere for him to run.
"Hey - hey I don't want to hurt you guys but like - trust me. You don't want this fight."
For a split second - the bandits stop. Ezreal thinks he's in the clear, until they start laughing. His grimace tightens, grip tightening on the trigger for his mystical weapon.
"You." The Leader snorts. "You do not have the courage."
One of the more brazen thieves rushes forward with a longsword, but his quick Mystic Shot snapped the blade in half. Undeterred the man presses forward; missing a punch that would have probably hurt. The explorer ducked under another punch, only to be greeted with a knee to the face. Staggered, he is unable to block the oncoming kick.
Sprawled on the ground with his vision blurring, the boy watches as the blade is raised - poised to take his head.