Lord of the Night (Collector x IrishRose)

"The Castello de Imperia has a long and storied history dating back to the height of the Roman Empire. It was initially constructed as a Roman fort and stood until the fall of the Roman Empire, at which point many of the buildings were destroyed, although the walls remained standing. A few hundred years later, the castle was rebuilt and lived in by an aspiring warlord, though his name had been lost to time. After that, however, reports of the castle became muddled; accounts of its size and shape seemed to change based on the author and records clearly stated that locals were superstitious of the castle's inhabitants, claiming at different points in history that they were monsters, demon-worshipers or even fae creatures with wicked intent. However, all credible sources agree that, despite what the locals said about the ruling family, the nobles managed to keep their lands safe from outside threat and their subjects frequently enjoyed bountiful harvests. The earliest record of the family's name appears about two hundred years before the renaissance, when a man named Demetrius Baines came from the north claiming to be the son of the late lord. Demetrius's father had left for reasons unknown several years earlier and is believed to have traveled to the area we now know as England, where he sired a child with an unnamed woman. While the family living in the castle at the time initially resisted Demetrius's claim to nobility, records show that they, surprisingly, let him take the throne without contest in the end."

The tour guide stopped in front of a large tapestry, depicting an ornate tree with names ascending its trunk and spreading out across the branches. "As you can see here," explained the tour guide, a chipper young Italian woman who spoke flawless English and wore a crisp, light gray suit that managed to look simultaneously casual and professional, "the family developed a strange quirk starting with Demetrius: every son who took the throne after Demetrius adopted his ancestor's name. Even stranger is the fact that there is no numeral at the end. There's no Demetrius the second, or third or fourth: just Demetrius Baines all the way up." True to the guide's word, there was a straight line going up the tapestry's center with a Demetrius Baines placed along the line with every generation. "So far, we have not unearthed any texts explaining the reasoning behind this practice, though this was not the only unusual thing about the family by a long-shot. In fact, recent findings have shown that the Baines family was on good terms with several of the guilds of the City of London and to this day the Worshipful Company of Masons still owns the property we stand on now. Unfortunately, many of the documents detailing the relationship between the Baines and the guilds were destroyed with the fall of the last Demetrius, but the Worshipful Company of Masons retain the legally-recognized deed to the castle and claim to retain undamaged copies of their relationship with the Baines in their private library." The guide smiled and looked about at the group following her. "Now, I will take a few brief questions before we move on. Does anyone have anything to ask?"

Several members of the tour group raised their hands and the guide began to answer in her chipper tone of voice. The Castello de Imperia was the center of many conspiracy theories, with many claiming that the Baines had ties to the Knights Templar, the Illuminati or any number of other secret societies or cults. It was true that many accounts of the Baines family and their lands were strange, though the most likely explanation was that they were simply eccentric and inbred and their subjects had simply blown their actions out of proportion. That said, the construction of the castle itself intrigued many historians: letters written by guests often made references to rooms that did not appear in the castle's structure and there was no evidence that they had ever been destroyed. Entire cellars and towers were entirely unaccounted for and there was rumored to even be a secret crypt deep below the castle that no one had been able to find. Some tried to write off the inconsistencies as embellishment, but several authors from different time periods made references to similar sections of the castle that just didn't exist. On top of it all, though the walls surrounding the castle were supposedly of Roman design, historians were quick to point out that the techniques used to construct them were far too advanced for that to be true. Due to the mystery surrounding the castle, thousands of people toured it each year, many of the visitors hoping to discover a secret room or passage that would lead to hidden treasure or an occult ritual room of some kind, though so far such discoveries had yet to be made. Nonetheless, several security cameras had been installed throughout the castle in order to prevent visitors from accidentally damaging the artifacts or the castle itself during their futile search for secrets.