Dusk rose. Dragula and Alejandro had already risen, holding the perimeter in check. Harvey and I started our search, from the top down. Even through the decomposing bodies that had been there prior to our arrival and the ones we now added to the place, we had to fulfill our orders to our coven leader. We needed to find anything that would give us a clue as to why Va’lis would visit this Dojo.
As we tore through the place, we left no stone unturned. In the second layer, Harvey called me over to the back into one of the northernmost rooms. There was an artful fan hung on the wall that depicted a dark figure crouching over what seemed to be several dead bodies. The man had a challis in one hand and a dark sword in his hilt. With his order hand he was pouring blood from the severed body parts into his challis.
That seemed very out of place and Harvey and I certainly recognized that this man in the painting was a vampire. His face was not shown; mostly done in shadows. Havery and I went to take it off the wall to take it with us, it would need a closer examination. As we lifted it off the wall, we found what seemed like remnants of a note. It had unrecognizable writing to either of us. And the sentences were not complete in some places. This could be something important. I packaged it back into the envelope it was held in and we decided to take the fan painting with us too.
Our long journey back to the moongate took most of the night. We arrived at Umbra at 3 am, having enough time to feed our dragons and rinse them. The stables for our beasts took them in and let them get their rest. We always get a warm welcome from the people of Umbra; all busy and about in the evening. We used our teleporters to the Lair from the Trade Center with the whatever we found at the Dojo.