Noah had reached the top of the stairs in a matter of seconds. He swished his head right and left excitedly, thinking which room he should start exploring first.

He took a few steps forward and looked up to observe the many painted portraits. Walking down the hall Noah stared at every portrait until he came across one with the face very close to his fathers.

He dropped his gaze down to the writing encased on the golden frame. He read the first few words "General Major-." He stopped dead after the word Major because the words that were written after that would haunt him until he died.

'General Major Noah Astradgein.' Who was he? Is he still alive? Why does he look like his father, or more importantly, like him?

Noah hears a door being shut from downstairs.

"Hey, Noah! Rajul, I mean, your Cap'n Buck has gone out to get some groceries so he'll be back in a couple of hours." Pyriko yelled.

"Uh…ok." Noah answered.

"Hey, Pyriko?" Noah called whilst keeping his eyes firmly on the painting.

"Yes?"

"Can…can you come up here for a second?"

"Sure."

The floor creaks as Pyriko makes his way upstairs where Noah is still immersed in the mystery of the vivid painting.

"What do you nee-." Pyriko stopped as soon as he saw what Noah was staring at.

"Do you know who this person is?" Noah said, carefully.

Pyriko sighs, thinking about how he should have stayed in the dining room instead of coming up here.

"I…" Pyriko started.

What was he going to say? He can't really tell the truth about the painting, otherwise Cap'n Buck would possibly grill him in the oven.

"I'm not sure. I haven't seen this painting before. Maybe it was put up after…" Pyriko paused.

"After the fire?" Noah finished the words off.

"Yeah." Pyriko smiled, quite regretful for doing what he and Cap'n Buck had done to the village.

"Sorry about that." Pyriko hanged his head down.

"It's okay." Noah said, encouragingly.

"Anyway, let's go."

"Where?" Noah asked.

"To my secret base I created when I was younger."

"We were playing with my father's matchsticks and we set a bit of fabric on fire…what we didn't see is that it was touching a building and the fire started to spread…"

"Don't bricks not set on fire?" Noah inquired carefully.

"Oh, well, at my time, the houses were made from water, cardboard and cemented sand as cutting trees down was expensive and we weren't able to get bricks from anywhere." Cap'n Buck explained.

"Oh."

"We were scolded badly and taken as criminals that my father disowned me and threw me out of the house. Pyriko got sent away and I lived on the streets for a couple of years…that's until your father took me in."

"M-My father?" Noah said. He had never seen his father nor known anything about him so he wanted to know more about what was hidden from him…