I'll admit it now. I know nearly to nothing about League of Legends and its lore.
This was just an idea I had randomly at around 2am yesterday, so most of what I know about League comes from trailers, fanart and memes. I will likely get many things wrong.
As for the Fate side of things, while I am a fairly big fan of Fate, I'm not exactly an encyclopedia of knowledge about every little detail. So expect a few things wrong here too.
Anyway, enjoy!
"Borrowing."
It was a term Ezreal had taken a liking to throughout his career as an Explorer.
From "borrowing" an artefact of great religous importance to "borrowing" some old items from a tomb. The blonde haired boy found no issue with "borrowing" as afterall, money is meant to be spent and items are meant to be used. Such was the philosophy Ezreal had used when "borrowing" items collecting dust never to be used again.
"Hahaha...ah why is it always lasers? Maybe it was the trend of every ancient civilisation back then?" Ezreal was in the midst of one of his great adventures, raiding another treasure, within another tomb and of course, another laser.
"At least its a blue laser this time! Its always red!" With a quick squeeze with the Left Gauntlet of Ne'Zuk -one such item Ezreal had "borrowed"- filled the Explorer with the familiar feeling of power and might as space itself bended to his will, teleporting him a fair bit away in order to avoid the predicable blue lasers coming from the palm of a large stationary gargoyle that towered over him, at lesst 6 times his size.
"..."
Ezreal, while very much avid speaker had enough common sense and experiance to perform a rare technique that many of his...aquaintances would not expect from the otherwise narsassistic and slightly arrogant mage.
Shutting up.
Common sense dictated that he should be quiet and allow this Gargoyle to pass by. After all, in Ezreal's mind, he was out of sight and there was likely no chance that the magic empowered gargoyle had a sense of smell, so keeping stil and quiet while out of the way was the safest bet for the Explorer.
What? Was you expecting Ezreal to blast the gargoyle away with overpowering magical might?
As much as Ezreal would have liked to put into display his mastery over the arcane arts, he was limited also by his surroundings. These tombs or ruins seemed old, very old, the trace of magic and ancient patters he spotted every once in a while when traversing this area indicated that there was at least an attempt to preserve it. Yet it was dicrepid and crumbling away with clear cracks and some outright holes in the wall and ceiling, not man made though. There was more than enough treasure along the way for Ezreal to "borrow" and treasure means no one had come across this area before.
In other words. A strong magical blast likely would cave in the area, the blasts from the gargoyle were already pushing it.
So, after the resounding rumbling in the floor became fainter and fainter, Ezreal delves further into the ruins.
There, he had found what he was looking for. Well, not exactly.
"Propped up on an alter, check. In a large room bigger than my entire camp, check. The sole source of light in said room shining the singular object, check. That is defilently the main treasure of this place." Ezreal finally relaxes, his back slightly arching as he stretches to avoid becoming stiff from running around so much.
Quickly taking glance around the surrounding area for any obvious setups for traps such as a boulder falling from a secret door or a pit opening up below the treaure and himself when he inevitably "borrows" the treasure, Ezreal affirms himself with confidence at being fairly certain the place is not hiding anything too unexpected.
"So...the treasure is a cup?" He scratches his head slightly as he soon afterwards takes a hold of the ornate looking cup and observing it, albeit while keeping an eye out for any traps "Hmm, kinda tough I guess. But its gotta be worth something, this cup was hidden behind so many different kinds of traps and automated guards afterall. Man some of those were annoying."
"What do you mean this is worth nothing?!"
Ezreal slams his hands against the counter of one of his most common traders who had a taste of exotic treasure, they were close enough where the two often haggled the price of treasures Ezreal had taken. This was one such of those situations.
"This cup was the creme of the crop! The best that place had to offer, it was on a alter for crhing out loud!" It did slightly irritate Ezreal that the trouble and effort he put into claiming the artefact was dimissed so easily, though its nothing he was not used to in this line of work, some days you just don't find anything noteworthy.
"Look lad, while the cup itself might be nice to look at and the patterns grooved into it seem flashy at first glance, it has no gems or such on it. I'm not too sure what kind of metal is used to make it but given how light the cup itself is, its likely brass or some form of early steel rusted over the years to have such a unique look when the rust reacts with whatever preservation nagic was used on it." Here the portly man responded, with a top had and a nice two piece tuxedo with a rather fine moustache responded in a calm manner to Ezreal, though had a gleam of smugness in good nature.
"Come on old man. This thing is clearly important, it's probabaly magic. Everything interesting is magic nowadays." Ezreal huffs slightly "Can't you throw in a story on how the great Jarro Lightfeather himself had undergone an epic quest to claim such an item and ever so kindly lended it to your shop for a small small price? Let's say-"
"Now now my boy. I'll happily buy the other treasures you've had gathered in thay dungeon. But I truly see no value in that cup, it was likely a more sentimental item so to speak. Maybe it has value as a way to give tributes to some higher being an ancient religon had prayed to or maybe it was an item used in rituals. I'm just a merchant, I cannot unlock the magic of this, even if it had any magic in the first place. Nor can I find a market for such an item. By the looks of other treasure you found in that place, it was old. Very old, maybe once you could have sold that cup and a few other items at a high price to peoppe of that religon. However, they are long gone by now." The portly man, a merchant by the name of Bartholomew, takes the time to mkve out from his stall to pat Ezreal on the back.
"Yeah yeah. I've done his song and dance a bunch of times before. Thanks for the trade at least." While still a bit annoyed, Ezreal knows to take what he can get in such a market.
"Cheer up now, I certainly am. Afterall, these gems and gold coins were found by the great explorer Jarro Lightfeather afterall! I can surely make a profit from such an influential name in the right nations." Bartholomew chuckles quite a bit as he holds out a hand.
"Hah! You're true intentions are slipping out there old Bart. Thanks, I needed the ego boost." Ezreal shakes the hand of the trader, it was important to keep good relations with those you do work with no matter how bad of a day it has been "Besides, you know what they say. Greed makes every good entrepeneur. Us birds of a feather got to know when to share a few worms every now and again."
"Right you are, boy." Bartholomew and Ezreal have a bit of a talk, some about how life is, some about finalising the trade and giving each other the agreed goods.
Later that night, Ezreal examines some of the leftover spoils of war he was unable to sell at a worthy price when making the trade with Bartholomew. It wasn't just that strange cup, quite a few items were deemed wortheless or not worth buying at a high enough price, either due to damage or a lack of information regarding the items gathered.
"Ugh...while ancient and mysterious items are worth a lot, I guess there are cases where things are too ancient and too mysterious. Ugh...I can't even read the books I got and I'm fairly sure I know the basics of at least most ancient languages out there!" Ezreal sighs as he gently bangs his head against a makeshift desk with one of said books open.
He flips through some of the pages, what was strange was that some of these books clearly had different languages written in it, at least 12. But Ezreal could not make heads or tails of any of those languages at all.
"At least some come with pictures...ah! That one has a picture of that cup! I knew that thing was important!" Finally though the inevitable snag in his investigation, Ezreal suddenly stands up eagerly as he takes a second, closer glance at the page with the cup, on the next page across was clearlt some sort of magic circle.
"...I still can't read anything though. Ugh..." He slumps back down on the chair and takes a long sigh "This really wasn't one of the good weeks huh...maybe I should go to Demacia again to visit Lux."
Ezreal actually was in a streak of a few stagnant adventures. While of course, his life was full of risk and adventure as always, Ezreal felt that his path was going nowhere. His reputation in the right places was not improving and with every object he "borrowed" chances are he was stepping on the toes of some influential peoppe by accident.
This led to this current uncharacteristic introspection. Giving up on the book for now, and gently throwing one of the items on top of it and next to the cup, an ornate but blunt arrowhead that looked pretty impressive.
Ezreal layed on his bed and stared up at the ceiling, hands behing his head as he is more deep in thought than usual.
"...My name won't be that well known at this rate. I'll just be another Explorer that was young and had visions of glory but ultimately..." his eyes slightly harden as he exudes some anger out in no particular person or specific reason "I wasn't even able to join the Explorer's Guild...and they didn't even tell me why...dammit!"
Unbeknownst to Ezreal, the arrowhead he had cast on the book seemed to react. The circle imprinted on the book had behun gently glowing, yet due to Ezreal's monologue, he had not noticed what would otherwise be noticable magic at play.
"I didn't even need to be that well respected. The clout that comes with being a part of the Guild was good enough but...they did nto even accept me! Making my name well known could have been so much easier, I wouldn't have had to be constantly broke and having to make my own conenctions and information network. Heck, since I was rejected some commissioners just outright dismiss me!"
As if in response to his growing anger, the magic circle within the book grew more and more, a shade of red starts to fill the room.
"I could have...! Wait, huh?"
Ezreal was quickly taken out of his musings, sitting up and no longer laying on the bed and facing to see the ritual take place.
"...Don't tell me its another magic Plague!"
He fumbles around a bit, clearly flustered at the sudden magic as he trips over when getting off the bed in a hurry, but soon recovering and placing his trusty gauntlet on his hand once more, covering the newly forming red tattoos upon his left hand.
The room shakes, the red light nearly engulfs the entire room, Ezreal now stands ready for combat...no, ready to run away actually. For whatever evil demon or monster he had likely summoned.
Yet, he didn't. As the light dies down, first Ezreal saw unkempt white hair paired with just as pale skin. Covered in golden armour and what seemed to be a mane of red.
"Servant, Lancer. True name, Karna. Nice to meet you."
And so, the legendary Explorer responded in kind with an eloquent response that signalled the dawn of a tale that would help Ezreal achieve his dream for his name to be known across the world.
"Huh?"