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“Ah— Hey! Bo’lii!” I cry out. “Cut me a little deep, don’t you think?”
I crane my head up and around from the wicker mat I’m lying prone on to stare right into the eyes of the vastaya kneeling over me. I can feel the blood sliding down my back.
“How about you be a little more careful?” I add.
Bo’lii pulls his qua’lo and mulee away from my shoulder, the tools of a tattoo artist, like a hammer and chisel, made from serpent bone. Some use other animals or metal, but the serpent bones are just hollow enough to give the ink the fine line that a master like Bo’lii demands in his work. A little more of my blood drips off the mulee and onto my back. He smiles, dabs it with a swatch of old linen and shakes his head. Then he holds up his hands and shrugs, as if to ask, You want me to stop?
The words don’t come. Noxian soldiers took most of his tongue long before I began coming here, but I know him well enough to know what a look can say. His work is more than a fair trade for a little discomfort.
And the blood? I can take a little blood. A lot, if it’s not my own.
“Just clean it up a little, okay? I don’t think we have much time,” I tell him.
Bo’lii begins tapping the mulee with the qua’lo and adding the ink. He has the best inks, rich colors made from crushed Raikkon wild berries and the enchanted flower petals found only on the southern faces of the Vlonqo cliffs. He is a master, and I am honored to be his canvas.
I started coming to Weh’le not long after I stopped listening to Shen. All those years in the Kinkou Order “treading carefully”? No. Shen was wrong about that. About me.
Restraint has never been my thing.
I turn back around on the mat and rest my chin on top of my hands. Keeping my eyes trained on the door that leads into Bo’lii’s tavern. His place is clean, but the air hangs heavy with guilt. The tavern is home to a collection of thieves, rogues, and bad decisions. People come to Bo’lii’s to arrange a way out of Weh’le. Out of Ionia. Because getting into Weh’le is hard… but getting out is even harder.
Weh’le is a phantom port, a hidden coastal village, protected by the mystical properties of Ionia. Unlike Fae’lor, she doesn’t welcome outsiders, and you won’t find her on the maps. Should Weh’le appear at all, it is always on her own terms, daring people into doing very dumb things.
Most approach from the sea, dreaming of riches, discovery or maybe just a new start, only to have their hopes dashed in an instant. First, the shoreline that once called to them vanishes behind a dense wall of cobalt fog crackling with arcane power. The sea rises and falls violently before unleashing torrents of crushing waves. As the survivors cling to their splintered vessel, the fog pulls back for the briefest of moments, allowing them one look at the flickering lanterns of Weh’le cruelly saying goodbye just before the water pulls them down to the bottom of the Breathless Bay.
I can’t do anything about those people. Not my people. Not my problem.
Bo’lii stops tapping. I’m here for someone else entirely.
I feel my satchel against my thigh. It puts me at ease, although I would rather have it on me. From there, I could fire three kunai into three hearts on instinct. Three kills without a thought. Where it is now, I’d have to think a little.
I look up just in time to see the man come through the front door. He is flanked by three guards in their battle dress.
“Well, that makes it easy… I wonder which one I’m supposed to kill?” I mock.
Bo’lii laughs. He can still do that, even without a tongue. It sounds a little weird, but it’s real. He shakes his head again, and does that thing he always does. With a series of hand movements and head nods he tells me to try and do my business outside this time, after they leave his establishment.
“You know I can’t promise that,” I say as I check my satchel, and turn towards the din of the tavern.
I pause at the doorway and turn back to him.
“I’ll do what I can,” I say, before lifting the mask over my face. I don’t mind them seeing me, but if they saw me laughing at them, I think it would be just too much.
The guy with the guards is my people—a high councilman from Puboe, a place not far from the Kinkou Order. But, like many, he sold out his people to the invaders for gold and safe passage to Weh’le, and beyond. So now he is my problem.
But this is as far as he will get. Sure, I could’ve taken him out in his sleep at the inn, or when they made camp along the road to Weh’le, but where’s the fun in that? I want him to taste the salt air. I want him to feel a sense of relief before the end comes. But I also want the others to see him pay for his crimes, and know that this will not stand.
Actions have consequences.
I approach without a sound. His hands are shaking as he raises a mug of ale to his lips. His guards stand in his defense when they notice me. I’m impressed.
“Nice to see manners around here for a change,” I say with a smile they cannot see.
“What’s your business, girl?” One of them asks through a plate of pitted and tarnished steel.
“Him,” I say pointing with my kama. It glistens with hues of the magic it was forged in. “He’s my business right now.”
The guards draw their weapons, but even before they can step towards me, they disappear in a thick ring of blinding smoke. The kunai begin to fly, hitting their targets with a satisfying flesh and bone THUNK.
One. Two. Three.
Footsteps.
I send two more kunai in that direction. A clang of metal, followed by the THUCK-THUCK of them ricocheting into the walls.
More footsteps.
“Aw, you’re gonna bleed!” I call out, flinging a single shuriken from my hip, and flipping across the room, following in its wake.
I break through the smoke to see the last guard splayed out on the ground next to the door. The three prongs are lodged deep in his windpipe—I can see his chest rising and falling ever so slightly. I grab him by the collar, raise him up, just to be sure.
“Almost…” I whisper.
At that moment, I hear a gurgling behind me. I turn to see the councilman through the receding smoke, bleeding out on the floor. His eyes are open, darting back and forth across the tavern, wondering what just happened.
He looks so peaceful now. | Assassin |
It had been a weeklong sort of day.
For Ekko, this was both literal and metaphorical. Everything went wrong and it took forever to put it back just right. First, Ajuna had nearly gotten himself killed trying to climb Old Hungry. The younger boy wanted so desperately to be like Ekko that he vaulted up the side of the clockwork tower at the heart of the sump before any of their friends could stop him. It was the first tricky jump that nearly did the kid in. Good thing Ekko had triggered his Z-Drive. Eighteen times he heard the blood-curdling scream of the boy falling to his death before he figured out how and where to arrest the fall and save his life.
Then, while pillaging a scrap heap with ties to Clan Ferros for bits of tech, a particularly aggressive gang of vigilnauts surrounded him. Big ones, too, covered in augments that made the ugly even uglier. Ekko was surprised at their speed, but less surprised at how they shot to kill. Pilties and their backup didn’t care about the lives of sumpsnipes like him. Good thing the Z-Drive existed to get him out of seemingly inescapable encounters like that one. After a few dozen rewinds, he changed tack and pulled out his latest toy: the Flashbinder. It was meant to explode in a dazzling flash and pull anything not bolted down in toward its center.
But the Flashbinder didn’t work. Well, at least not as intended. It exploded. And that’s when things got interesting. Unlike most of Ekko’s inventions that exploded, the blue-hot magical detonation froze in mid blast. Columns of billowing blue energy fanned out from the epicenter. Bits of the disc’s shrapnel twisted at a snail’s pace along what, at normal explosion velocity, would be a deadly trajectory. Even the spherical blinding flash itself was frozen in space.
And then it got even more interesting. The explosion imploded, reforming itself into the palm-sized Flashbinder, and rewound back toward Ekko, landing square in his palm, as cold as the wind.
Cool, Ekko thought. He rewound the moment so he could throw it at the vigilnauts a few more times. For science, of course.
When Ekko finally got home, his body was tired, but his mind was alert. The apartment was functional – the furniture sparse and with little flourish. Ekko’s room was a little curtained-off nook filled with discarded books, bits of scavenged technology, and hiding spots for the Z-Drive and Flashbinder. Today was one of the rare days both his parents would be home early, and he had something to tell them.
“Mom, Dad.” He practiced to his reflection, which stared back at him from the Z-Drive’s shiny cylindrical surface. “I’m not going to apply to any of the Uppside clans or a snooty Piltie school. I’m staying here with you and my friends. I’ll never turn my back on Zaun.”
The words were filled with the confidence that comes with being alone in an empty apartment, with only walls and reflections to respond. And their response was silence.
He heard the jingle of the keys, muffled by the front door. Without a second to spare, Ekko tucked his Z-Drive under the table and draped a black cloth over it. He didn’t want them worrying about his escapades with an unstable hextech time-manipulation device.
The door opened and Ekko’s parents returned for the first time that night. They looked like strangers to their own son, their jobs aging them even more in the weeks since he’d seen them last together. Their routine was predictable. They’d shuffle home, supply a meager meal purchased with the day’s wages, save the rest of the money for taxes and bribes, then fall asleep in their chairs, chins resting on chests, until Ekko removed their workboots and helped them into their beds.
The bags under their eyes carried enough weight to pull their heads down. Tucked under his mother’s arm was a small paper-wrapped bundle, bound at the ends with twine.
“Hello, my little genius.” His mother expended energy she couldn't afford in an attempt to make the words come alive. Yet her expression in that moment of lightness when she saw her son sitting at the table, waiting, was something no one could fake.
“Hey, Mom. Hey, Dad.” The three of them hadn’t sat at a table as a family in such a long time. He quietly chided himself for not saying something substantial.
His father beamed with pride; then he mock-scowled as he brushed his fingers through his son’s mohawk. Ekko struggled to remember a time when his father didn’t look so old, before the prematurely thinning hair and the deep wrinkles in his brow.
“I thought I told you to cut that hair,” his father said. “It’ll make you stand out in the Piltover academies too much. The Factorywood’s the only place you can look like that. They’ll take anyone. And you are not anyone. How are your applications coming?”
This was the moment. Ekko felt the words he’d practiced swimming up to be spoken. The hope in his father’s eyes gave him pause.
His mother filled that empty moment before Ekko could.
“We have a treat for you.” She set the brown parcel down on the table. They pulled their chairs close to watch as Ekko reached over and untied the knotted twine, straightened both strings, and laid them next to him. He unraveled the butcher paper without a single rip. In the center lay a small loaf of fragrant sweetbread, its crust glazed with honey and candied nuts. The cake was from Elline. She made the finest pastries in all of Zaun, and charged a pretty penny for them too. Ekko and his friends often pilfered her desserts from the rich folk who paid the hefty price without even a tiny hesitation.
Ekko’s head shot up to see his parents’ reaction. Their eyes were beaming. “This is too much,” he said. “We need meat and real supper, not sweets.”
“We would never forget your name day,” his father said with a chuckle. “Looks like you did, though.”
Ekko had completely lost track of what day it really was. Still, the gift was too extravagant. Especially since he was about to shatter their hopes for him. Guilt rose in his throat. “The landlord’ll have our heads if we’re late with rent again.”
“Let us worry about that. You deserve something nice,” his mother said. “Go on, you can have cake for dinner once a year.”
“What are you going to eat?”
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“I ate at work,” his father lied. “Cheese and meats from Piltover. Real nice stuff.”
They watched Ekko take a tiny bite of the cake. It was sweet and buttery and the crumbs stuck to his fingers. It was so rich, the taste stuck to his tongue. Ekko went to divide the cake into three pieces, but his mother shook her head. Her soft voice hummed the name day song’s playful melody and he knew they wouldn’t partake. It was his parents’ gift to him.
His father would have joined in singing the name day song if he hadn’t already fallen asleep, slumped in his chair, chin dropping to his chest. Ekko glanced over to his mother, her eyes fluttered closed as the melody was swallowed by her own encroaching slumber.
One future Ekko briefly considered was the Factorywood life and barely living wages for some other city’s benefit, for someone else’s glory. He couldn’t stomach the thought. He remembered fragments of conversations, snippets heard through the filter of infant ears, of his parents’ whispered dreams of inventions, and entrance to the clans. Ideas they hoped would change the world and contribute to a future unwritten by the birth of their son. Ekko knew they saw him as their only hope. But he loved life in Zaun. If he did as they wished, who would take care of them or his friends?
He couldn’t dash their dreams. Not tonight, on his name day. Maybe tomorrow.
Ekko didn’t finish his cake beyond the first bite. Instead he primed his Z-Drive. His home shattered into swirling eddies of colored dust. The thrum of the everyday fell to absolute silence. The moment splintered and encircled him in a vortex of light.
When the fragments of the future reassembled into the past, Ekko’s parents were coming home for the second time that night. It would be followed by a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and so on.
Each time he went back, Ekko didn’t change a single thing; the light in his mother’s eyes, his father’s proud smile as he nodded off. But Ekko fought the edges of sleep to hold onto those stolen moments forever, until finally, he let his mother’s soft voice, and the warmth of their little apartment lull him to sleep.
It had been a weeklong sort of day. | Assassin |
Evelynn slinked through the teeming streets, the shadows of her body blending seamlessly with the night. Her eyes glinted within the gloom, though only the keenest observer would have noticed. Drunks, sailors, and harlots chatted in a nearby thoroughfare, blissfully unaware they were being watched by a demon in the dark. The demon, on the other hand, saw them all with perfect clarity, and judged them with the most discerning eye.
Evelynn’s gaze settled on a man lying in the gutter, a bottle of beet wine dangling from his hands. Ordinarily, the demon wouldn’t give a second thought to someone in his condition. But she had not fed in days, and she found herself desperate enough to consider the man, if only for a moment. It would be so easy. All she needed was to lure him to one of the numerous alleys far from the glow of the street lamps.
The thought perished as she watched a cockroach scurry across the drunk’s face. This was a man too inebriated to feel. His arousal would be vague and muted, with none of the urgent attraction she loved to see in her victims before she brought them low. She might even flay an entire arm before he mustered a scream.
And that was the problem. Over the course of countless feedings, Evelynn had learned everything about her palate: She preferred—no, needed—her victims to feel every prick, every bite, every bit of flesh she peeled away with her claws. A man in this condition would be dull and unfulfilling, scarcely worth her time.
She dismissed the drunk and continued down the muddy promenade, past the windows of a dank, candlelit tavern. A fat, belching woman threw open its door and stumbled out into the night, grasping a half-eaten turkey leg. For a moment, Evelynn considered the woman, how she might woo her into an embrace, and then into the unspeakable hell that would follow.
The demon watched as the woman wolfed down the rest of the meat, never tasting it. There was something deep inside her, a melancholy that would taint the experience.
Evelynn preferred inflicting the pain herself.
The demon moved on, gliding through the shadows of the town, over two more drunks, past a beggar asking for alms, between a couple in the midst of an argument. Evelynn found them all completely unappealing. Hurting them would be like plucking a flower that had already wilted. She preferred her daisies tall and healthy, for those were the most satisfying to cut down.
A dreadful thought overtook her. Perhaps she’d made a mistake choosing this wretched backwater as her hunting ground. Perhaps, at any moment, the thrill from her last victim might wear off, leaving only the nothingness—that utterly empty space inside her where feelings should be.
And then, she saw him…
The gentleman was positively beaming as he exited one of the high-end pubs. He was dapper without being flashy, and he hummed a jaunty tune to himself as he set off down the street with a bouquet of flowers tucked gingerly in the fold of his arm.
The two lashers on Evelynn’s back writhed with excitement. Even from a distance, she sensed this man was completely content in his own skin. She dashed after the gentleman, taking great care not to lose track of her prey or to alert him to her presence.
He walked for nearly half an hour before finally turning up a long walkway toward a modestly sized, cut-stone manor. At the end of the path, the man stepped through the heavy oak door to his home. Evelynn held her unblinking gaze on the windows of the man’s house as they lit one by one with warm candlelight. A slender, austere woman in a high-necked evening gown entered and greeted the man with a welcoming embrace. She feigned a slight surprise at the flowers he had brought, before placing them in a clean vase, right next to an old bouquet.
The demon’s interest grew.
A moment later, two children, scarcely out of diapers, ran into the room and threw their arms around the man’s legs, their wide grins sparkling with tiny teeth. Though the scene played like the epitome of domestic bliss, Evelynn knew what she would find if she probed just a little deeper.
She waited patiently, watching the candles go out one by one, until only the parlor remained lit. The man was alone, settling into a reading chair to draw on his pipe. Evelynn crept out of the shadows, her dark, wispy limbs giving way to warm flesh. Her demonic lashers disappeared behind her back, revealing a shapely female form, with curves too generous for any eye to ignore.
Her hips waggled softly as she sauntered across the lawn to the window. She was nearly arm’s length from the glass when she saw the man bolt upright from his chair at the sight of her, his pipe nearly falling from his mouth. Evelynn beckoned with a single finger, motioning for the man to join her outside.
The man crept to the front door and opened it tentatively, curious to investigate the strange beauty lurking outside his window. He approached her on the lawn with great apprehension, and greater anticipation.
“Who… are you?” he asked timidly.
“I’m whatever you want me to be,” assured the demon.
As Evelynn locked eyes with the man, she plumbed the depths of his soul and found exactly what she was looking for—that tiny lesion of discontent that festered within even the happiest person.
There it is, she thought. All that he wants and cannot have.
“My family…” the man said, unable to finish his thought.
The demon leaned close.
“Shh. It’s okay,” she whispered in the man’s ear. “I know what you want, and the guilt you feel for wanting it. Let it go.”
She pulled back to find the man hopelessly captivated.
“Can I… have you?” he asked, ashamed of his brazenness, but overcome by a strange desire to take her right there on the lawn.
“Of course, honey. That’s why I’m here,” said the demon.
He touched her face with the tips of his fingers, caressing her cheek. She held his hand firmly to her skin and released a soft, sultry chuckle. This sweet, tender, happy man would be hers tonight. He had so much pain to give, and she would take it all.
From behind them, the shuffling of slippered feet sounded from the open doorway of the house.
“Is everything okay, love?” asked the man’s wife.
“Everything’s going to be wonderful, my darling,” the demon answered for the dumbstruck man.
The deal had become even sweeter, and the prospects more enticing. There was one daisy in full flower to pluck, and one bulb to bloom while it watched. | Assassin |
Eh! Well, ‘allo there, young ‘uns. Shouldn’t you cheeky little sprats already be a-bed? What’s that? You want a suppertime story from old One-Legged Lars, eh?
Alright, alright, just one ‘afore bed. Gather round. But I don’t wanna hear no cryin’ or whimperin’ this time. This is Bilgewater, after all, and even our bedtime tales have more’n a little darkness in ‘em.
Right. Now, you’ve heard of the Tidal Trickster, the little ocean sprite they call Fizz, ain’t ya? Ye have? Good, good. Well, this is a story about the time old Lars met him. What’s that? Must have been fun? Well, what sort o’ stories you been told? No it weren’t fun, thank you very much! He’s a malign little terror, that one, and you’ll be lucky if you never cross paths with ‘im in all your lives. But I’m gettin’ ahead of me self. Ahem.
Right, so there I was, clingin’ to a rock out in the Jagged Straits. Me ship was sunk don’t matter how it happened, there’s a tale for another night, maybe but that’s as it was. I clung to that rock for three days and nights, with fins a-circlin’.
And just when I was startin’ to give up all hope... he appeared.
All I seen at first were those two big, round eyes, pale as death, as he swam towards me. Them circling sharks took off right away, and no mistake they was a-feared of him, see, just as you all should be. Closer, and closer, and closer ‘e came. I don’t mind admittin’ I were scared, but he’d shooed off them hungry fishes, so I dove into the sea, and started swimmin’ for Bilgewater, as quick as ye like!
But every time I looks back, ‘e was there, with those big eyes peerin’ at me! I finally get to shore, and thought I’d lost ‘im... But how wrong old Lars was!
I got a room in a flea-ridden flophouse down Rat Town way, but it didn’t take long for me to realize... I weren’t alone. What first clued me was the creepin’ stink o’ seaweed and fish in me room. Oh, pooh! That and the little wet footprints on the stair when I awoke in the mornin’...
They call ‘im the Trickster, and he certainly lived up to the name. Put seawater in me porridge when I weren’t lookin’! Tied me bootlaces together, so I fell as soon as took a step! And slipped eels under me blankets! Give me a right proper scare when they started wrigglin’, I’ll tell ye!
And all the time, I hears ‘im laughing. Still makes me skin crawl, just to think of it. For a whole week Fizz haunted me. Drove me fairly to the brink o’ madness! “What do ye want, you little monster?” I screams!
But on the final night, I woke. I heared his webbed feet, flappin’ on the floor. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Closer, ‘e came, and closer. “This is it!” I thought. “He’s come to end me, once and for all,” and I hid me self under the covers.
Slap. Slap. Slap, went his cold, wet feet! And then... silence. I lay there, cowering, for what must’ve been an hour, ‘afore I dared a peek. Slowly, I reaches out, lights the lamp, and do you know what happened next?
Nothin’.
Aye, Fizz were gone, at long last. But he left something for me, on the wooden box ‘aside me bed. A coin, a gold Kraken, no less. This coin here, in fact! Eh, eh, look wi’ your eyes, not your ‘ands! That’s my lucky Kraken, ye know.
But I tell you, rather than make me happy for I hadn’t a penny to me name back then the sight of that coin filled me with dread. ‘Cos this were the very coin that our captain swore he tossed into the ocean, on our way out o’ port. That was his offering to the Bearded Lady for safe passage, but the Tidal Trickster had took it! That was the reason our ship’d sunk! That playful, hateful little imp, he’d doomed the whole crew, and done it with a wicked, fishy grin on his face.
So, I tell you little sprats now, pray you never encounter ‘im, ‘cos while ‘e might seem all fun and games, let me tell you now – he ain’t.
Now, off to bed with ye! And pray you don’t see no little wet footprints on the floorboards when you wake! Hah! | Assassin |
Echoing footfalls. Cold stone floors.
A shout from behind. Someone’s caught sight of me. Doors flash by as I sprint down the wide hall. Stone archway ahead—my way out of the barracks. Suddenly blocked as an entire patrol skids into view. Not good.
I turn and dash back the way I came. More soldiers careen towards me. My fingertips itch, but there are too many. I vault through a door, slam it shut, and drop the wooden bar across it.
An assassin’s blades are but one of her weapons, his voice echoes in my head, cemented there by years of training. Know your mark. Know the killing ground. Anything can be a tool to secure the kill.
I run through the room. Some kind of trophy chamber. Well fortified, with a side door leading to a back corridor. Behind me, armor thuds against oak. Iron hinges and strong construction should buy me more than enough time to—
My thought is broken by the sound of splintering wood, as a massive axe chews its way through the frame. Ahead, the other door swings open, and more soldiers pour in.
Too many, too well prepared. They knew I was coming.
These soldiers wear Noxian colors, but bear the sigil of a house in open rebellion against the Trifarix. So assured of their strength, they spent time painting rather than preparing. How cute.
I draw my blades.
Those ahead slow their advance, fanning out, weapons at the ready. Behind, those storming through the broken door do the same. They circle, taking a trained formation. Six in front. Seven behind. Won’t be easy.
It’s more fun when it’s a challenge.
His voice intrudes again. Think fast. Move faster. Plan before you engage, then attack on pure instinct.
I let a blade fly. It glances off the chandelier hanging above, breaking the chain and sending it crashing down onto the soldiers behind me. Two bodies hit the floor as candles bounce and sputter out, casting wild shadows and drawing eyes betrayed by reflex. I spin into the nearest distracted man, and slide my dagger into his side. He gurgles as his lungs fill with blood.
I unsheathe my blade from his body with a satisfying squelch, and fling it at the second chandelier. It also crashes to the floor, the last sources of light flickering out. At the same time, I sidestep the swing of a charging soldier, letting momentum carry him into the two rushing me from behind.
Cries of alarm and confusion echo off the stonework as they struggle in the darkness, suddenly uncertain which silhouette friend, and which is foe.
I don’t have that problem.
Adapt where others cannot. Lead their intuition astray, and their instinct to betray them.
I dash forward, low to the ground, scooping up my first blade where it fell. It finds a throat, then an eye, then a kidney, before a shout cuts through the screams.
“You fools! She’s right there!”
As the remaining soldiers stumble toward me, I close my eyes, sense my second blade where it lies, draw my focus inward, and leap.
They cry out in confusion as I disappear from their sight. I land low behind them, snatching up the dagger and spinning, cutting through ankle tendons. I am rewarded with screeches of pain and surprise as three more fall. That never gets old.
I invert the grip on my daggers and jump, plunging them down in an overhead strike into the shoulders of the man who yelled, then kick off him into a backflip. He falls to the ground as I hurl both blades into the faces of two others.
The butt of a spear smashes into my head. I recoil, slightly dazed. With a flourish, the soldier that caught me off balance brings the spearhead to bear and jabs for my heart. I leap again, appearing in midair, my hand wrapping around one blade and wrenching it from the face I left it in.
I barely pivot my attack into a parry as an axe swings toward my ribs, the clang of metal ringing in my ears as I stumble back. The titan of a man wielding the weapon hefts it again, and I leap once more to my remaining blade. I pull it back just in time as another soldier swings a morningstar at me, and she smashes through her comrade’s face. The weapon’s points graze my arm, drawing blood.
I roll back and reset in a crouch. Four remain standing, scattered before me. Several more are injured but still alive. All of them squint at me in the darkness. Clearly they now know to track my daggers as well as me.
Never take a fair fight. The cornered assassin is a dead assassin. My eyes flit between the exits.
Then she strides into the room.
Through the side door. Flanked by her two personal guards, each wielding a crossbow. She has a torch in one hand, a sword in the other. An arrogant smirk dances on her lips. Even in the darkness, she oozes confidence and charm. All other eyes immediately fly to her.
My mark.
“Well, this is disappointing,” she drawls. “If all the Trifarix has to throw at me is a disgraced assassin, then they must be desperate.”
Her taunt is undercut by footfalls outside the room. Reinforcements, arriving fast. Clearly she underestimated the numbers needed to trap me.
But that will be of little consolation if I end up dead.
If you’ve been made, vanish. Never take your mark head on. Never kill in the presence of witnesses.
I smile and stare into her eyes. “Goodbye, commander.”
I throw my blade straight up in the air. Crossbow bolts fly toward it, predicting my leap. The four standing soldiers charge.
Time seems to slow as the blade spins.
One rotation. Two.
I fling the remaining dagger past the charging soldiers at my target. One of the guards shifts in front of her, and the dagger sticks fast in his breastplate.
Three, four.
I leap to my dagger—my momentum forces the point through the man’s armor, into flesh. I see the white of his eyes, the mixture of shock, pain, and fear. Behind me, I hear the others shout and pivot. Impressively fast. Still not fast enough.
Five, six.
The commander stumbles back and raises her sword. Reaction dulled by surprise. I pull my dagger free and lunge forward. My free hand finds her hair, my edge her throat.
Seven rotations. Thunk.
Another crossbow bolt flies through where I had stood a moment earlier, but I am gone. It pierces the mark’s chest, as I land back at my falling blade, now plunged into the ground. In one hand, I hold a bloody dagger. In the other… the severed head of my mark, her face frozen in surprise.
Her body collapses. Blood sprays over the stone floor. Her soldiers halt, caught in disbelief and horror.
I throw the head down in front of them.
“Grand General Swain sends his greetings.”
More soldiers arrive at the doorway. I revel in their gasps and angered cries.
Never take your mark head on. Never kill in the presence of witnesses. The voice repeats itself in my head. Somehow, it seems quieter than before. I laugh out loud.
I am no longer your assassin, father. I have outgrown your timid little rules.
I flick blood off my blades and stare down the soldiers before me. Fear is as powerful a weapon as any dagger. Let them see. Let the rumors spread. I am far more than a mere instrument of death.
I am the true will of Noxus.
Before me, a soldier lets out a shout and charges. I can’t help but smirk as I again raise my blades.
Not that I mind the killing. | Assassin |
To be exiled is to be erased.
You are not forgotten. You never existed at all. Each beat of your heart is judged unworthy of counting. Even a slave wears chains, proving their value. Even the dead are mourned.
I am nothing to the Kiilash who birthed me. The name Rengar no longer recalls the face of their kin, son of Chieftain Ponjaf. I am outcast from their hearts as much as their hearths.
There is no return from such a fate.
Or so I was told. Years and blood can change such things.
My heart still beats, and so I went to them with trophies gathered on the hunter’s path. Wordlessly I was brought before my father’s gaze. He offered me a return to the tribe, where my name would be spoken and face remembered, where my heart’s beating would be counted again.
And he named the cost for such a thing.
I must track a shadow. Bladed shard of moonless night. Abomination.
Return from the jungle with its head, and I shall be exiled no more.
I melt between the trees. I hear, smell, feel. I parse the spoor of a thousand creatures, big and small. This comes from instinct, sharpened by the cold teachings of the human who found an outcast, and set him down the path of the hunt. I still bear the knife Markon gave me.
I search for the wrong-thing that dwells here, unable to belong.
The trophies that hang and rattle from my coat are gone, left behind at my camp. There is only the blade, a layer of grease to slicken my fur, and the slow, measured beat of a hunter’s heart in my chest.
There is nothing, amid the teeming life of the rainforest… until there is something. It is faint, but stark, slithering over my senses. The sickly sweet unfamiliarity of it halts me for a moment as I take it in. It is wrong in every way. Repulsive. An enemy to life in ways I cannot describe. It defies everything around it.
The true hunt begins. I follow the trail.
I snake around it, never touching. I endure the wrong-thing’s scent, until the sounds of bloodletting reward me.
Something is dying. Through the trees ahead. It is not dying well.
A pack of jungle raptors. Far from the apex, raptors are still capable predators, and rarely ever prey. Their attacker is either desperate with hunger, or unconcerned by their lethality.
I bare my teeth in a grin. It may be a challenge after all.
The reek of the wrong-thing is overpowering. It clings to the clumps of bright, bloody plumage strewn about the forest floor. I surge up a thick, rugged tree trunk, my claws carrying me silently into the canopy. I crouch there in the leafy shadows, tasting the humidity of the air, narrowing my eyes, seeking my quarry.
It has speed. That is a weapon it has honed to a fine edge. I catch only glimpses as it darts back and forth, finishing its kills and preparing to feast.
The promise of trophies does not spur it to hunt. I sense a greater hunger in its movements, something beyond the primal urge to survive.
When the last raptor dies, the wrong-thing slows. Even so, it is never still. It leaps and slides across the ground like smoke. I can see it more clearly now. It makes my brain itch.
It is like an insect, but not completely. Its parts do not make sense. Limbs and flesh and shell and claws that cannot belong to the same single creature—all inside a glistening outer skeleton, blackish-purple like rotten fruit. The air and light writhe around it. They do not want to touch it either.
That gives me the understanding I seek. The wrong-thing bears the mark of an exile, too. I am ready to send it back to whatever foulness spawned it.
With Markon’s knife light in my grip, I drop from the branches.
There is no sound when I land behind the creature. It pays my approach no heed. I know how to move unseen, unheard, until those sweet, adrenaline-filled moments after a killing blow is struck. I have risen to become an apex predator by adaptation, by instinct… and in this moment my instinct screams that something is not right.
Hesitation saves my lifeblood from joining that of the raptors. I barely see the claw as it slices the air I would have occupied. It knew I was coming. Had I not stopped short, it would have ended me then.
Everything has been too clean. Too easy. I should have recognized this sooner. Ponjaf’s promise has blinded me, confidence soured to hubris, leaving me exposed.
A slick chittering comes from the monster’s throat. Ichor flecks its jaws. There is movement on its back, straining against the carapace. It hisses, a noise I cannot tell is of pain or pleasure, as a pair of new limbs erupt and unfurl into hideous, dripping wings. It has seen the threat I pose, and so it changes. It is unwilling to submit as prey.
I lunge.
Too slow. The creature’s riposte sends Markon’s knife spinning from my grip. Foolishly, sentimentally, my eyes follow it for an instant. The error opens the way for the wrong-thing to strike.
Another bladed claw flicks out. Hot, stinging pain. A roaring between my ears.
I fall back. Blood slicks my face.
I scramble to gain distance, trying to blink the red from my vision. The right eye is a blur. The left remains dark. The roaring will not fade.
I reach for my cheek. I realize what the beast has taken.
Beating the last of the vile slime from its wings, the wrong-thing rises to hover over me. It bares its fangs, either in further challenge or a cruel grin, and holds my left eye up for me to see. Slowly it lowers the blood-slick orb over its fangs, and drops it down its gullet.
My gorge rises. I clench my fists, rubbing at my remaining eye.
The defilement of it. The symbolic shift as this foul creature snatches the role of hunter away from me. I no longer feel any pain. Only rage.
I hurl myself at it. I need no knife. I have the claws I was born with, and the triumphal roar I learned for myself. I will not be defeated.
We collide.
The red dance of violence seems unending. We each give chase in turn. The abomination is cold darkness. I am the core of a vengeful sun. We cut away at each other, over and over, and the rest of the world no longer matters.
Finally, as night falls, my enemy flees.
Or… is that just as I wish to see it? Maybe it learned all it can from me, and instinct guides it on to greater things. Exhaustion takes hold. I collapse, left with bloody wounds and a new, terrible sense of connection to this monster. It is a bond forged in the moment it ate of my flesh.
The Kiilash know the wrong-thing as Kha’Zix.
In the old mortal tongue, it means, “You Face Yourself”.
True enough, it changed as we fought, growing and twisting. It went forward, always forward to find its edge, where I looked back into myself, back into the past and the tribe of my birth, to summon my exile’s fury.
This was not enough. As it has adapted, now so must I.
For I will have my kill. | Assassin |
“I don’t understand,” General Granth mutters, nervously trying to smother the light from his lamp. “There’s nothing here. It’s a dead end.”
He stands at the threshold, framed by the dark stonework against the deeper darkness beyond it. He does not see the open gateway before him, nor the angular Ochnun inscriptions that surround it. He does not see the fragments of bone that litter the flagstones beneath his boots.
I smile, playing my part. “It is the simplest of things,” I tell him, “to hide in plain sight.”
The general turns, confusion and frustration written clearly upon his face. “Don’t play games with me, cousin! Do you have any idea what I’m risking, being down here? Or what would happen if we’re caught? These districts are forbidden, by order of the council—there are Legion patrols everywhere!”
This, at least, is true. Ever since the usurper Swain seized control, he has kept the Immortal Bastion locked down. Officially, it is to protect the Trifarix against reprisals from those noble houses that opposed its creation.
Unofficially, he is daring men like Brannin Granth to expose themselves as his enemies.
“But they would not doubt your loyalty,” I reassure him. “A hero of the Gates of Mourning, no less. You are to be honored by command of the Grand General himself. What can they say to that? If we were spotted, you would not even need to run.”
His expression darkens. “Oh, you don’t run from the Trifarian Legion…”
I do not need to hear this thinly veiled propaganda again. In little more than a year, Swain has built a certain mystique around himself and the Hand of Noxus, and those that serve them both. It is a brilliant scheme, though it fills my heart with hatred to admit it.
Even so, I let Granth have his moment. It is why we are here.
His eyes fall to the ground. “We didn’t win the Gates of Mourning—the Legion did. That’s why Swain won’t attend the triumph. He knows we need not even have been there, damn him. He insults us with this pomp and ceremony, in front of all Noxus!”
I nod, laying a hand on Granth’s shoulder. “And that is why we will make him pay for everything he has done. You are a true Noxian, anyone can see that. I have told the others all about you, and they wish to meet you for themselves. She wishes to meet you.”
“I can’t meet anyone, cousin, if we can’t get inside.” He glances around. “Doesn’t the Black Ro—”
I recoil. “Do not use that name. It makes you sound like… well, as you said. Like you don’t understand.”
Pushing past him, I stride through the yawning mouth of the gate. He almost drops the lantern in surprise, seeing the entrance now, for the first time. Stumbling after me, Granth checks to make sure we are not being followed, then squints into the shadows of the passageway.
“Is it true?” he hisses. “What they say about her, is it true?”
I do not slow my pace. “Come. Find out for yourself.”
The Immortal Bastion is not a monument, as most Noxians believe. Nor is it merely a fortress, in the sense that the old tribes knew it.
The stone around us almost thrums with power, though Granth is mostly oblivious. I have seen it countless times, through the centuries—he knows something is not right, but feels it only as a lethargic drag on his limbs, and a whispering itch in the back of his brain. Few mortals last long when they are this close to the source. To his credit, he still has his wits about him, enough to reach for his dagger when a robed figure emerges from the gloom.
…I pass both of us, coming in the other direction. I look tired.
No matter. This will be concluded soon enough.
Granth eyes me suspiciously until I disappear from sight, then ambles to the side of the person he knows as his cousin.
“Hadrion, who are these people?” Granth asks, as more anonymous figures come and go. “I don’t recognize any of them. Are they the allies you spoke of, among the other houses?”
I sigh. It is disappointing that the finest military minds often cannot see what is right in front of them. “They are sympathetic to our family’s plight,” I reply, keeping the disdain from my voice. “We, all of us, are committed to the downfall of the usurper, and the restoration of the throne. It is better that you do not know their names, or their faces.”
He scoffs. “But how can we work together, if we—”
The words die on his lips as we turn the last corner.
We stand at the edge of the great well of souls, plunging down into the bedrock of Noxus, far deeper than the physical dimensions of the Bastion should even allow. A roiling miasma of cold blues and jealous greens swirls in the distance beneath us, underlighting the three bridges that span the gap.
There, between them, suspended against the madness, is a frightful, hulking silhouette that every Noxian knows only too well. A husk of lifeless armor depicted in every history book, and a thousand defaced statues scattered across the old city.
Granth takes half a step back. “It can't be…” he murmurs. “It… It can't…”
His voice is cracking. His eyes glisten with tears. I lean in over his shoulder, to whisper behind his ear.
“Do you see the truth of it, now? The truth behind the great empire of Noxus? So has it been for centuries, since the days of the first kings—no Grand General, no emperor or tyrant, can stand unless the mistress of the Immortal Bastion allows it. Many are those who would serve, though few prove worthy.”
I gently pluck the lantern from his trembling fingers, and guide him away from the sight that has so transfixed him, toward the veiled alcoves that line the passage on either side.
“Swain must fall. Our cabal is utterly committed to this, above all else, and we will sacrifice whatever we must to achieve it.”
On some level, Granth knows what he will see even before I pull back the shroud.
It is the dessicated body of his cousin, Hadrion. The younger man’s features are frozen in a deathly rictus, yet there is an unmistakable sense of peace about it.
“Your house was singled out most unfairly during the coup, Brannin Granth. Your father and his brothers were stripped of all they possessed, simply for remaining true to Boram Darkwill at the end. Hadrion gave his life gladly in pursuit of revenge. Will you honor that debt, and join us now, too?”
Granth sinks to his knees, looking up at me with fresh eyes. “You. You are her. You are the pale woman.”
He does not even flinch when a second pale woman appears at my side. We speak with the same voice. “I am everywhere. I am everyone. You know only what you need to know, and see what I want you to see.”
Jericho Swain is not the only one who can exaggerate his own legend.
A third pale woman steps out behind Granth, and then a fourth. Even so, he bows his head to me, no doubt convinced he finally understands. He does not need us to point out the empty alcove beside his cousin’s.
“With all my heart,” he swears, “and every drop of my noble blood, I will serve you, my lady. I will not rest until the pretender Swain is dead.”
This naive fool thinks he will be the one to land the killing blow. I will let him think that, for it suits my purpose, which is merely to probe the Grand General’s defenses.
I trace the sigil of the cabal in the air above Granth’s head, marking him as my own. None who can see it will interfere with the plots we shall soon devise. “Rise then, proud son of the Noxii. Your pledge is heard and accepted. Together, we will be victorious, and your name will be celebrated as the savior of an empire.” | Assassin |
Wilted leaves fall from shivering branches, as a gust of wind blows across the mountain slopes. Yi levitates a few inches above the ground, his eyes closed and hands folded, listening to the morning songs of Bahrl jays. The cool breeze touches his bare face, and tickles his brow.
Releasing a quiet sigh, he descends until his boots touch the dirt. He opens his eyes and smiles. Clear skies are a rare, friendly sight.
Yi dusts off his robe, noticing some loose, fallen hairs. Most are black, with a couple white, like wild silk.
How long has it been? he wonders.
Swinging a twill bag over his shoulder, he continues his hike, leaving behind trees that once swayed with life, but now stand still.
Yi glances down the mountain to see how far he has come. The lands below are soft, fragile—treasures to be protected. He looks forward and resumes climbing. On the path ahead, lilies wither, their coral petals turning a sickly brown.
“Didn’t expect to see anyone up here,” a voice calls out.
He pauses to listen, his hand clutching the ringed sword by his waist.
“You also looking for your herd?” The voice grows closer. “Stupid beasts. They always get caught in this area.”
Yi sees an aging farmer approach, and loosens his grip. She wears a simple kirtle, sewn over with assorted scraps of cloth. He bows as she draws near.
“Bah, save your etiquette for the monks,” she says. “You don’t look like you work the land for a living, ‘cause those blades sure aren’t for cutting weeds. What brings you here?”
“Good day for a hike,” Yi replies, his voice feigning innocence.
“So you’re here to train, huh? Noxus coming back so soon?” she asks with a chuckle.
“Where the sun sets once, it will again.”
The farmer snorts, recognizing the old proverb. It is known by most in the southern provinces. “Well, you let me know when they return. That’ll be the day I sail off this island. But until then, why don’t you put those swords of yours to good use and help a frail, old lady?”
She beckons Yi to follow. He obliges.
They stop next to a wooded area. A baby takin whimpers in agony, its hind legs bound by thick, swollen vines that tighten as the creature struggles.
“That there is Lasa,” the farmer explains. “He’s young and dumb, but he’s more use to me in the field than stuck on this cursed mountain.”
“You think it’s cursed?” Yi asks, kneeling by the beast. He runs a palm over its woolly back, feeling its muscles twitch and spasm.
The farmer crosses her arms. “Well, something un-spiritual happened here,” she replies, nodding her head towards the summit. “And without natural magic, the land demands sustenance, even taking life if it has to. Were it my choice, whatever’s up there oughta be burned.”
Yi fixates on the vines. He did not expect to see them this far down the mountain.
“I’ll see what I can do.” He murmurs, drawing two blades from brass sheaths on his boots. As he edges the steel close to the constriction, the vines seem to cower.
The moment lingers. Beads of sweat prickle Yi’s bare face. He closes his eyes.
“Emai,” he whispers, in the tongue of his ancestors. “Fair.”
The takin leaps free, letting out a gleeful, high-pitched bleat. On the ground, the cut vines dangle like loose skin.
The beast springs downhill, reveling in its freedom as the farmer gives chase. She snatches it up in both hands, and hugs the takin close to her chest.
“Thank you!” she exclaims, not realizing Yi has already continued on his way. She calls after him. “Hey! I forgot to ask. What are you training for? The war is over, you know…”
He does not look back.
Not for me.
After another hour, he reaches the barrens. The carcass of a village lies all around him, invaded by the very same vines.
This is Wuju. This was home.
Yi heads for the burial grounds, stepping past toppled beams and stonework, remnants of houses, schools, shrines—the shattered pieces all blend together. The ruins of his parents’ workshop are lost somewhere among the rubble. There is too much to grieve for, and not enough time.
The graves he visits are arranged in perfect symmetry, with gaps between the mounds for someone to pass through. Someone like Yi.
“Wuju honors your memory.”
He places a hand on every hilt of every sword piercing the earth. These are his memorials to warriors, teachers, and students. He does not skip a single one.
“May your name be remembered.”
“Rest. Find peace in the land.”
His voice soon grows tired.
As the sky becomes painted in shades of orange, three graves remain untouched. The closest is marked by a hammer, its head rusted from the mountain air. Yi pulls a peach out of his bag, setting it beside the mound.
“Master Doran, this is from Wukong. He couldn't make the journey with me, but he wanted me to bring you his favorite fruit. He loves his staff, almost as much as he loves making fun of the helmet you gave me.”
He moves toward the final two mounds, guarded by golden sheaths.
“Emai, the weather is forgiving today. Fair… I hope you are enjoying the warmth.”
Yi grasps his two short swords and slides them into the sheaths adorning his parents’ graves. The fit is perfect. He falls to his knees and bows his head.
“May your wisdom continue to guide me.”
Standing, he reaches into his bag to retrieve his helmet. The afternoon sun catches on its seven lenses, each reflection in a different hue. Holding the helmet close to his heart, he imagines the garden of lilies that once existed here.
That was before the screams. Before acid and poison twisted the land’s magic against itself.
He dons the helmet, and a kaleidoscope of his surroundings fills his view. Hands folded together, he closes his eyes and empties his mind. He thinks about nothing. Nothing at all. His feet lift off the earth, but he is unaware.
Opening his eyes, he sees everything. Death and decay, with little hints of life.
He sees spirits that dwell in the realm beyond his own. The vines here trap them as easily as the poor takin, weakening their essence. He knows any spirit strong enough to break free would have abandoned this accursed place. What remains is corrupted… or soon to be.
Pained, mournful cries haunt the air. Yi used to cry out in pain himself, but that was long ago—back when he thought tears might bring back the dead.
He blinks, and the physical world returns. For a moment, he pretends not to bear its weight upon his shoulders. Then, he blinks again.
The spirits continue to cry out. Yi draws his ringed blade.
He dashes in a blur, sweeping across the grounds like a change in season one realizes only after it has passed. In a flash, he is back where he started, perfectly still, his sword resting in its scabbard.
One by one, the vines crumple. Some spill from collapsed rooftops, others shrivel where they lie.
He sits cross-legged to take it all in. Now the spirits sing with joy, and he knows there is no greater sign of gratitude. As they melt away, the land echoes their bliss. Peach blossoms sprout where the overgrowth had held firm. Stalks of limp bamboo straighten, like students ordered to attention.
A fleeting smile softens Yi’s face. He removes his helmet and digs into his bag, shuffling past the other items he brought for the journey. Fruits, nuts… char, flint. Things for himself, and things to cleanse the land for good.
Not now. Not yet.
He retrieves a thin reed pen, and a crinkled scroll. The page is covered in marks.
60
54
41
Yi adds a few strokes by today. Below them are more words.
30 days between clearings.
He knows, soon enough, he will need to grant the farmer her wish, and send his home off in flames.
But not now. Not yet. | Assassin |
In the pitch black Shuriman night, few sounds are as terrifying as the howls of the dune hound. Those who hear their piercing call on the arid wind know to keep a hand on their sword hilt, and their horse well rested, for the ravenous packs that rove these sands will chase whatever game they can find in their desert.
One pack, in particular, is driven by a hunger that is deeper—and more ancient—than that of any mere beast. It is the hunger of a creature who spent ages eating nothing at all.
For centuries, Naafiri remained in a crypt, her spirit bound to an ancient throwing dagger. Unable to move or speak, the weapon lay inert as her soul pondered the past: Naafiri was powerful, having almost led the Darkin. How easily she could have bested any of them in combat to become their rightful ruler... yet how easily she’d been tricked by that awful Aspect, Myisha, and cursed to embody these inanimate steel blades.
Shame and regret consumed her thoughts. If she could get another chance... If she could only find another host. A new vessel.
All she needed was a hand to grip her blade. Just a touch.
At last, the day came when the doors of her tomb burst open. She sensed the sweet relief of a fresh desert wind—her first in ages—and something else... A human presence.
He has come. My host. My sweet, unwitting vessel, thought the Darkin soul.
But the visitor was aware of her magic. He carefully picked up her dagger with metal tongs and placed it onto a thick, lead-lined cloth. Wrapping the blade tightly, he took great care not to touch it and set off across the desert under the late afternoon sun.
Despair overcame Naafiri as she felt the plodding movements of the man’s horse across the sands. Was she doomed to this form, this waking nightmare of impotence, for eternity?
She felt the steps of the horse quickening as sunset approached and sensed the distant howls of the dune hounds carried by the wind.
This was her opportunity.
Without sound or words, the Darkin called out to the beasts, hoping to bring them to this prey—that he might somehow slip. Just a glancing touch of his hand, and the host would be hers. Then she could use him to fulfill the ambitions she had held for so long, and vanquish her regrets.
The hounds appeared, salivating with teeth bared. Naafiri’s captor clung to the wrapped dagger with one arm, keenly aware of what would happen if it came loose. With his other arm, he drew his sword and attempted to defend himself from the pack.
Jaws snapped at the man and his horse from all sides, tearing at them, devouring them piece by piece until nothing remained.
Naafiri felt the world crash into focus as she became overwhelmed by senses. For the first time in ages, she smelled the dry air, which parched her nostrils. The metallic taste of hot blood still coated her mouth. She could see each of the dogs as if from the eyes of a separate packmate.
Confusion set in as she felt her sense of self crumble away. She had become the dune hounds—not one of them, but the entire pack—her shattered consciousness resonating throughout the body of each dog.
It seemed a cruel irony. She had found not one vessel, but dozens, and none of them were useful in her grand ambitions. She resented the hounds—hated their smell, their fleas, and, most of all, their need for companionship.
But, in time, the Darkin’s bitterness subsided as she began to grasp the true nature of her hosts. Though feral, their collective thoughts formed a wisdom all its own. Separately, the dogs would starve. Together, they were an apex predator, feasting on whatever game they fancied. There were no individuals—the pack was the entity that dominated all.
Naafiri realized this concept was not limited to dune hounds. It applied to fish, ants, and humans. It even applied to Darkin.
She thought again of her past: personal grudges and petty agendas tearing the Darkin asunder, which in turn toppled them from their rightful place as the regnant killers of Runeterra.
She knew how to restore them. Now she just needed to find her siblings and share with them the wisdom of the pack. | Assassin |
A loud crack. The stench of grease, smoke, and powder.
These sounds and smells did not belong to the forest.
The huntress bounded towards the sound, spear at the ready. She followed the acrid scent through the maze of trunks and thick underbrush.
Before long, she came upon a familiar place—a small clearing by an embankment. This was a quiet place teeming with life, split by a shallow stream of fast-running water. The fish were so plentiful, even a cub could catch them with clumsy paws. The calm air was rent by the howls of something, or someone, in great pain.
Nidalee chose a spot behind a thick tree at the stream’s edge, careful to conceal her spear behind its trunk. Just across the river knelt a vastayan male with reptilian features. He clutched at his shoulder, and though he moaned in pain, his eyes were wild with rage. The huntress saw his long tail was caught in a trap. Huge metal teeth had bitten into his scaly flesh.
A human holding a long, ugly weapon loomed over the vastaya. Nidalee stared at the dead, shining wood wrapped around the metal barrel. She had seen these things before. They fired lethal seeds that could easily pierce a target, and these seeds traveled too fast for her eyes to follow.
She stepped out from behind the tree, purposefully crunching dead leaves underfoot. The man turned his head in her direction, but kept his weapon aimed at the wounded vastaya. He could not see her spear.
“My, my. What have we here?” The human looked her up and down, his eyes hungry. “Are you lost, love?”
The huntress knew how to handle his kind. Humans were so often disarmed by her appearance—their eyes saw only the softness of her features. She remained expressionless, carefully gauging the distance between them and adjusting her grip on the spear. Her eyes rested on the weapon in his hands.
He smirked at the wild woman, taking her stillness for fear. “Never seen one of these before? Come have a look. I won’t hurt you,” the man coaxed. He turned away from his prey to hold out his weapon.
As soon as it was pointed away from the vastaya, Nidalee whirled out from behind the tree. She hurled her spear at the human’s torso and dove across the river, enveloping herself in a fierce, feral magic. In a flash, her features shifted—nails hardened into harsh points, skin sprouted flaxen fur, and bones bent into a slender shape.
The man dodged too slowly. The spear cut through the flesh of his upper arm and knocked him onto his back. Nidalee landed on top of him in the lithe form of a cougar, each sharp claw piercing through his thin clothing. She pressed her front paw down on his fresh wound, earning a howl of pain.
The cougar crouched over the man, opening her jaws wide and bringing her sharp teeth against his throat. The human shrieked as Nidalee bit slowly into his neck, just deep enough to draw blood, but not to kill. After a few moments, she released the man’s throat and brought her face into his view, baring her bloodied teeth at him.
Another gust of magic swirled around her, and again she took the form of a woman, her sharp teeth somehow no less menacing. Still crouched over him, she looked down at him through bright, emerald eyes.
“You will leave, or you will die. Understand?”
The huntress did not wait for an answer. She tore a piece of fabric from the man’s shirt, and approached the wounded vastaya. Within seconds, she disarmed the trap around his tail. The moment he was freed, he lunged for the human.
Nidalee grabbed the vastaya’s arm, holding him back. The man, who had been frozen in fear, saw his chance to flee, and hurriedly crawled from sight.
The reptilian wrested his arm from Nidalee’s grip, sputtering and cursing in a language she did not recognize. Then, in a familiar tongue, he demanded, “Why did you let it go?”
Nidalee pointed to where the human had fled, indicating spots of bright red blood. “We will follow him. If there are others, he will lead us to them. If they do not leave, they will die together.”
The vastaya did not look satisfied, but said nothing. Nidalee knelt by the river and washed the cloth she had torn from the man.
“You called it… human.” He spoke with a strange lisp. His mouth was very wide, and his forked tongue flicked out between words.
Nidalee wrapped the damp, clean fabric around his shoulder. “Yes.”
“You are not human?”
“No. I am like you.”
“There is no vastaya like you. You are human.”
Nidalee pulled the fabric tightly around his shoulder, causing him to hiss in pain. She managed to conceal her smile by using her teeth to secure the knot.
“I am called Nidalee. You?”
“Kuulcan.”
“Kuulcan. Tonight, my family hunts. You will join us.”
The vastaya stretched his arm, testing the bandage. It was tight, but did not hinder his movement. He looked up at the huntress, who stood above him with her arms crossed.
Kuulcan nodded.
Percy sat by the fire, his face flushed a deep red—partly because of the adrenaline, partly because of the beer, but mostly because of the embarrassment. He had told his three companions of the wild woman, and they hadn’t stopped laughing. One of them took it upon himself to prance about the fire with his guitar and sing a lewd prayer to the “Queen of the Jungle” while the other two guffawed and danced.
“Keep it down, you damned idiots,” he pleaded, earning an even louder roar of laughter. “She might hear us.”
Tired of the taunting and full of far too much ale, Percy snuck away from his fellow trappers to answer the call of nature. The wound still hurt something fierce, and no amount of drinking could chase away the feeling of her teeth on his throat.
As he refastened his belt, he realized the singing and laughing had stopped. The wind itself had stopped blowing. He could hear no rustling leaves or swaying branches.
Beyond the dim light of their low fire, their camp was surrounded by total darkness. Far ahead past the edge of the camp, something glinted in the shadows. Percy rubbed his eyes and squinted, struggling to see anything in the dark.
All at once, the undergrowth began to heave and creak. The leaves of every fern and tree shook with movement. Countless pairs of eyes opened before him in the darkness, and a chorus of growls and feline hisses deafened him.
Percy recognized the emerald eyes nearest to him. There was no trace of humanity left in them now. The eyes blinked and disappeared, and a voice snarled in his ear.
“You were warned.”
He did not manage to scream before the sharp teeth closed around his throat—and this time they did not stop when they drew blood. | Assassin |
“Tell me another story.”
“Now now, Abel,” Celwyn said, setting the storybook down on a table and drawing the blanket snug around his son’s shoulders. “That’s two stories already. Now it’s time for sleep.”
“But,” whispered the boy, pulling the covers up beneath his eyes, “what if the monsters get me?”
Celwyn smiled. He half chided himself for telling his son the tales, a collection of old Valoran fables replete with courageous heroes triumphing over evil sorcerers and monstrous beasts. They were from a storybook Celwyn’s own father had read to him when he was young—though maybe not as young as Abel.
The last story he had read, The Shadow Door, had been Celwyn’s favorite as a child, where a young squire wins the day against a foul king seeking to cloak the whole world in shadow. It had scared him silly, Celwyn remembered fondly. Perhaps he should have waited a little longer before reading it to his own son.
“That was just a story,” said Celwyn, sitting down lightly at the edge of Abel’s bed. “Even if you have a bad dream, those monsters from the story can never hurt you, alright? It’s all make-believe. They aren’t real.”
He leaned down to kiss Abel’s forehead, but the boy shrank back from him.
“What?” chuckled Celwyn. “Too old for a kiss?”
His chuckle died as Abel kept sinking into the bed.
A chill ran up Celwyn’s spine as his son sank lower and lower, as though a pit had opened up beneath the mattress. Abel cried out as the blanket wound tight around his body. It began to glisten, becoming slick and wet as it morphed into a red, spotted tongue.
Celwyn snapped free from the shock that had rooted him in place. He reached out for his son, struggling to get hold of Abel and pull him out.
But the tongue only wound tighter, sliding deeper down.
The edges of the bed splintered with a sharp crack. Jagged spars of wood rose, turning sharp and yellow as they calcified into fangs. The entire frame was transforming into a gigantic, hideous maw, poised to devour Celwyn’s son whole.
“Abel!” he cried, staggering as he began to retch. Coils of dark mist feathered from his nose and lips, rising to swirl above the changing bed like a gathering storm.
The maw flexed, yawning wide as it released a deafening, blood-curdling scream. It was neither the roar of a great predator nor the howl of a beast gathering its kin for the hunt. It sounded to Celwyn like a birthing cry… almost as if it were in agony.
“Papa!” Abel screamed, before he vanished from sight.
The jaws snapped shut.
Celwyn bolted upright, gasping, drawing in great lungfuls of air as he ran his hand down a face sheened in cold sweat. His eyes flitted around, seeing nothing in his lightless room. It was the middle of the night in Piltover, and the lamps of the city streets below were barely visible through the curtains of his window.
After a few moments, his heart stopped pounding, and his thoughts began to calm. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a nightmare, nor could he recall one as vivid and real as this one had been.
His mind went to his son. He should get out of bed, just for a quiet moment, to check on Abel. To see if he was—
“Papa?”
Celwyn started at the sound of the voice. His eyes had slowly adjusted to the dark, enough to only now see the small shape of his son, standing at the foot of the bed.
“Abel?” Celwyn blinked. “Abel, what are you—”
“Why?” asked the boy.
Celwyn frowned. “What are you doing up? Are you alright?”
“Why did you have that dream, Papa?”
“What?” Celwyn asked, any trace of sleep gone from his mind.
“Why would you do it?” Abel said again, his voice taking on a pleading edge. Celwyn could only see the silhouette of his son’s face with the curtains drawn… but he didn’t remember drawing them. “Don’t you know that’s what feeds him?”
Celwyn suddenly felt very cold. He looked up over Abel’s head, seeing the tall shadow that he cast over the wall.
A shadow that was not of his son.
Abel shivered, and his silhouette melded into the shadow on the wall. In a moment the image of the boy was gone, fading rapidly to nothing in the growing darkness. Celwyn reached out to him, and watched a thin tendril of dark mist sigh out through Abel’s lips, just as it had in his dream.
With a wet, burbling hiss, the shadow began to tear itself loose from the wall. Sheer terror seized Celwyn as he watched a creature emerge. It was like a living shadow, roughly human in form, its body tapering down beneath the torso like the tip of a blade. The monster rippled and wavered, as though Celwyn were viewing it beneath dark waters, with a pair of cold, staring eyes boring back into him, through to his very soul.
Adrenaline flooded Celwyn, the animal response of flight surging through every fiber of his being. But try as he might, no matter how his body demanded it, his mind betrayed him. He was paralyzed, incapable of being anything more than a witness to something he had believed only existed in old fables read by fathers to their sons.
A monster. One that was real.
The creature’s jaws parted a fraction, revealing long, crooked teeth. Then it spoke to him, somehow repeating Celwyn’s panicked thoughts back to him with his own voice.
“What are you?” it rasped. “Where did you come from?”
It surged closer, hovering over him. Drops of midnight fell from its form, bleeding away to nothing like ink in the ocean. The monster’s arms elongated, their ends twisting and flattening into broad, wicked blades that hooked over its claws.
Celwyn blanched, unable to look away from the nightmare creature as it bent down, bringing its horrifying visage directly level with his.
It whispered a single word to Celwyn, before it buried its blades in his heart. An answer to his questions, spoken softly with the voice of a drowning man sinking into the darkest depths.
“You.”
Dawn came, ushering in the bustle and noise of the thriving merchant city. Sunlight bathed the metropolis, shining from every window, including that of Celwyn’s bedroom.
A voice came from the other side of the door, accompanied by the soft knock of a child’s tiny hand. “Papa?” The knob turned slowly, Abel cracking the door just enough for a peek. “It’s morning!”
The boy entered his father’s room, and the shadows withdrew as he opened the door wider. They slid back from the morning light, but somehow slower, more reluctantly than usual.
“Papa? Where are you?” called Abel, fear creeping into his voice as he looked around the room.
There was no sign of his father, or of anyone else in the gloom. And yet, the boy could not shake the idea that something, crowded into the darkest corner of the room, was watching him.
Abel coughed, not noticing the tiny wisp of mist that followed, before turning back toward the hall and closing the door behind him. | Assassin |
“I’m starting to sweat, Bayal. Please, do not let me sweat.”
Qiyana’s servant fretted at the words. He mustered what little control he had over the elements, concentrating on forming a magical cloud of mist. In seconds, the mist surrounded Qiyana and grew cooler, dispelling the heat of the jungle.
“That’s better,” said Qiyana. “If I am to do this, I must be able to focus.”
She began to swivel her ohmlatl slowly around her body, causing the jungle thicket to bend and part with each rotation of the ring-blade. Roots and stems popped, tossing up bits of soil until, at last, a narrow trail revealed itself in the brush.
“Here it is,” Qiyana said, and promptly started down the winding path.
With each twist of her ohmlatl, the thick vines of the rainforest receded before her. Behind her, they slithered back across the path to conceal it. Bayal fell behind just long enough to be caught in the growth of the writhing plants.
“Keep up, Bayal,” said Qiyana. “Honestly, you have one task.”
The servant hurdled the freshly grown thicket, struggling to catch up to Qiyana, and to maintain the temperature of her mist cloud.
When the two finally emerged from the forest, the sun had sunk low in the sky, its golden dusklight shining on a small village. Qiyana took one last look behind her to see the secret path was now completely buried in jungle. Three village elders greeted her with a respectful Ixtali salute, arms held tightly across their chests, and led her into a plaza just inside the settlement.
At the far end of the plaza, a great Piltovan machine sat lifeless and defeated—spoils from a recent skirmish in the jungle. Qiyana paid it little mind as she took the seat presented to her at a small table, modestly set with fruits and nuts.
“To what do we owe this honor, Child of the Yun?” asked an elderly woman, leaning forward to get a better look at Qiyana.
“I have heard the news of your prefect’s passing. You have my condolences,” said Qiyana.
“Killed by the outlanders,” said an old man, pointing at the Piltovan machine to his rear. “Tried to stop one of those from felling trees for their mine.”
“So I was told,” said Qiyana. She sat perfectly upright as she arrived at the purpose of her visit.
“It seems that Tikras needs a more capable governor. One who is strong enough to stand up to the outlanders, and their toys,” said Qiyana with confidence. “Someone like me.”
The elders turned to each other, confusion showing through their weathered faces.
“But Yunalai, respectfully, we already have… someone like you,” said the old woman. “Your sister is here.”
“What?” fumed Qiyana.
As if on cue, a procession of local servants marched across the plaza toward Qiyana. Four of them carried a palanquin on their shoulders.
As the palanquin came closer, Qiyana could see a plush bed, several fine silk pillows, and her sister Mara, reclining with a goblet of wine in her hand. A silver tray of exquisite dishes rested beside her, and two servants cooled her with elemental magic far stronger than Bayal’s. As Qiyana wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, she glared bitterly at her servant.
“Qiyana. So… good to see you,” said Mara uneasily, as her palanquin came to rest on the ground.
“Mara. You seem to be enjoying yourself,” said Qiyana.
Mara squirmed under her sister’s penetrating stare, seemingly trying to retreat into the plush bedding.
“Would you care for some wine?” offered Mara, as she took a tense, joyless sip from her goblet.
“You’re supposed to protect this village, not empty its larders,” said Qiyana, declining the drink. “You should step down. Let me be prefect.”
Mara froze as she forced wine down her rigid throat.
“I cannot do that,” she said. “You know this. I am older than you.”
“A whole year older,” replied Qiyana. “Yet so far behind.”
She approached her sister’s bed, her smug expression slowly transforming into a scowl.
“I say this only as a statement of fact. You know it is true. What would happen if these miners discovered this village?”
“I would defend it,” said Mara meekly.
“You would die. So would everyone in this village. This we both know,” said Qiyana, for everyone in the plaza to hear. “I can protect them.”
A murmur spread about the plaza. Mara bit her bottom lip—something she had done since childhood, particularly when her younger sister had gotten the better of her.
“I… cannot give it to you. The Yun Tal will not allow it,” said Mara timidly.
“They will if you resign,” said Qiyana. “Go home to Ixaocan. Tend your water garden. I will assume your responsibilities here.”
She watched Mara’s eyes dart around at the elders, as if looking for some way to save face.
“The law is clear,” said Mara. “No one else may be prefect, as long as I am capable of governing.”
Clenching her jaw in anger, Qiyana turned toward the great machine resting at the far end of the plaza. She spun her ohmlatl around her body, startling the elders from their seats. Drawing elements from all around the plaza to the blade, she launched them toward the machine. In an instant, the great metal behemoth was entombed in ice, battered by rocks, and ripped apart by vines—all at the command of the young Yunalai.
The elders and servants in the plaza gave an audible gasp at the display of power.
“You think you already have ‘someone like me,’” said Qiyana. “But there is no one like me.”
The elders frowned at her, reaffirming the decision. “As long as Yunalai Mara is capable of governing, the position belongs to her.”
The words rang in Qiyana’s head as she turned and silently left the plaza, dejected. She led Bayal back to the edge of the village, where they were met by two elementalist wardens.
“No need to see us off,” said Qiyana. “I know the way, and what to do with it.”
With a turn of her ohmlatl, she parted the brush to reveal the path that lead back through the jungle. With her servant struggling to cool her, she walked back toward the grand arcologies of Ixaocan, uncovering the secret path, and re-covering it behind her.
As soon as they were out of sight of the village, Qiyana’s ohmlatl slowed. Behind them, the path was now unconcealed, laid bare in the late day sun.
“My Yunalai—you’ve forgotten to cover the path,” said Bayal.
“Bayal, does your one task have anything to do with tending the path?” asked Qiyana.
“No, my Yunalai. But… what if someone finds the village?”
“Not to worry. I’m sure the new prefect will defend it.” said Qiyana.
***
The following morning, Qiyana awoke in Ixaocan to the sound of sobs.
“Outlanders. They found Tikras!”
Her sister’s cries came from the hallway outside her bedroom. Qiyana put on her robe, and opened the bedroom door to find Mara, weeping in Bayal’s arms.
“Mara. What’s the matter?” asked Qiyana, making some effort to sound concerned.
Her sister turned to her, red-faced and trembling, covered in scratches from running through the jungle.
“The miners… they leveled the village. Half the people are dead. The other half are hiding. I barely escaped—”
Qiyana embraced her sister, suppressing a smile over her shoulder.
“Do you see now? I was only looking out for you,” said Qiyana. “Being a prefect is a dangerous responsibility.”
“I should’ve listened. You… You would have crushed the Piltovans,” lamented Mara.
“Yes. I would have,” said Qiyana. She beamed as she thought of the miners and mercenaries that had plundered the village—how easily she would slaughter them, and how the surviving elders would grovel in thanks to her as they came to the same realization her sister was now reaching.
“You should be prefect of Tikras,” said Mara.
I should, thought Qiyana. I deserve it. | Assassin |
Most would say that death isn't funny. It isn't, unless you're Shaco - then it's hysterical. He is Valoran's first fully functioning homicidal comic; he jests until someone dies, and then he laughs. The figure that has come to be known as the Demon Jester is an enigma. No one fully agrees from whence he came, and Shaco never offers any details on his own. A popular belief is that Shaco is not of Runeterra - that he is a thing from a dark and twisted world. Still others believe that he is the demonic manifestation of humanity's dark urges and therefore cannot be reasoned with. The most plausible belief is that Shaco is an assassin for hire, left to his own lunatic devices until his services are needed. Shaco certainly has proven himself to be a cunning individual, evading authorities at every turn who might seek him for questioning for some horrendous, law-breaking atrocity. While such scuttlebutt might reassure the native inhabitants of Valoran, it seems unimaginable that such a malevolent figure is allowed to remain at large.
Whatever the truth of his history might be, Shaco is a terrifying, elusive figure most often seen where madness can openly reign. | Assassin |
Each time Viego thought of her face, it looked a little different.
Sometimes, the eyes were just too far apart, or too close together. Or her cheeks were a little too thin or a little too wide. Sometimes, her hands lacked the calluses of a seamstress, but other times, they were gnarled and thick from long days holding scissors and needles. She wore a gown some days, and others, a simple work frock, and on others still, she wore nothing at all. She was never the same, but always the same, never there, but always present. A ghost of the heart Viego no longer possessed, rent open when... when...
Viego, on his shattered, blackened throne at the bottom of the world, slammed his king’s blade deeply into the rock beneath, cracking the obsidian and sending a brutal tremor across the entirety of the Shadow Isles.
To his left lay a painting he could no longer bear to look at, for the fair Isolde’s countenance had been too perfect to lay eyes upon, too lovely to grant him any peace or respite. He had torn her away, leaving only the image of a foolish young king who had believed the world was kind centuries before, but who now was rightfully dead.
Or if not dead, something else.
Viego could not remember much of his old country that was not twisted by shadows or anguish. In his memories, he stepped out upon the sandstone streets and only saw Isolde before him. Every fresco on every wall contained her within a painted world that only he could touch, only he could see. Yet when he went to reach for her, the illusion broke away, and he was here, surrounded on all sides by the putrid waters that had stolen her all over again.
Viego ripped his blade from the ground and stood, smashing its great heft into the floor and walls as he wailed. Then he was still for a long while, regarding the ancient painting from the old kingdom as if he had seen something new. Regarding himself as he was before the Isles had been swallowed up by darkness.
“Viego,” he said. “So handsome. So young. What became of you, Viego? Where have you gone?” He dropped the painting to the floor, its frame cracking awkwardly as the canvas crumpled beneath it.
“Where are you, Isolde?” said Viego. “Why won’t you come back to me?”
But he already knew the answer.
To most, the Black Mist is a plague, a vector for monstrous, life-sucking wraiths to assault the living and steal them away until the sun dies and the world crumbles into nothing.
To Viego, it is his great, unending sadness, pouring ceaselessly from his broken heart. A testament to his love, of better days long gone by, and a cruel reminder of what was taken from him so long ago.
It is this very Mist that scours the land, tendrils infecting everything with their grim power, draining the life from whatever they touch until all that remains glows with the soft, necrotic green of the Ruination. Yet this, too, has a purpose, for as Viego’s sadness ebbs and wanes, the Mist surges forward, searching as if drawn to something... something old, familiar, safe. The wraiths and spirits that travel within it do what they will, but the Mist itself, no—it grasps ceaselessly for her.
Everything Viego does is for her.
And now, it has found something, far from the shores of the Isles, far past the docks of Bilgewater and the coasts of Ionia. Something on the mainland, hidden within a modest city at the edge of a river. The object calls to Viego, screams for Viego, demands his attention at all costs. And though the people wail, though they run from the blanket of death that rolls softly across their homes and fields, though the wraiths shriek and the horrors stir to feed, Viego hears but one voice, and one voice alone.
“Viego,” he imagines it says, for he cannot make out the words.
The Ruined King bursts from the fog like a hungry shadow, tearing through the first guard he sees as he lifts his blade high above the ground. The man’s face contorts in pain as his body melts away and his spirit is absorbed into the Mist, but Viego barely pays him any attention before he brings his sword down upon the second. Everywhere around him, ghouls feast upon the living, tearing them apart as their souls are dragged away to join the king’s legions.
Searing flesh sails through the air, arrows tumble across space, swords clatter, and warriors fall.
It does not matter to Viego.
He raises a single hand before the city’s great wall, and the Mist rushes forward, stones falling away as the structure becomes tainted with decay. Viego simply steps across the threshold, and suddenly, he is through. He cuts down two more men as he moves silently toward the source of the voice, then another. They mean nothing. None of them bear any weight, and not one matters at all. Their spirits simply rise behind him, to do as he wills.
The ruler of this city now stands before him, a proud man protecting a treasure of some kind, Viego is sure. But as a fellow leader, as a skilled warrior, perhaps he would make a better vassal than hungry spirit.
“Stop,” says Viego, raising a single hand once more. The Mist, the wraiths, the horrors, the fighting—everything seems to freeze on the Ruined King’s command.
“Behind you is a treasure you could not fathom the importance of. I will see it returned to me, and in exchange, you will serve me personally.”
The man seems to stumble over his words, grasping at something he cannot quite muster the courage to speak. But Viego gives him time, and slowly, the words form on his lips: “If I give you this treasure, will you spare the city?”
The Ruined King seems disappointed. Whether he ponders an answer or reflects on the situation, this man will never know, as Viego suddenly appears above him, his great blade slicing down through the heart of this small, frightened warrior-king. His body slides harmlessly down the massive greatsword, as blackness spreads across his skin.
Viego rips the door behind him open, and there, the treasure lies.
An old, worn-down music box, a gift from Viego’s wedding day, whispering something he cannot quite hear. It seems possessed by grief, by boundless, immeasurable sorrow, but Viego simply holds it before his eyes, imagining the soft smile that will surely dance across Isolde’s face the day he sees her again.
“What have they done to you, my love?” he coos, as the man he slaughtered slowly rises from the earth, ghostly greens and blues throbbing from between the cracks in his skin.
“Do not worry,” he assures the music box. “I will find you. It is simply a matter of time.”
And with that, Viego is gone, vanishing as wraiths devour the city. | Assassin |
The boy ran at a dead sprint, driven by terror.
Under the sliver of a waning moon, darkness swallowed his surroundings with only the faintest starlight giving a silver sheen to the misty night. Silhouettes of trees flashed by. The lantern in the boy’s hand flickered and sputtered, in danger of snuffing out. But it was not the darkness he feared.
It was the thing that stalked him in the darkness.
The boy had felt it first—a sudden chill in the summer air, a creeping dread that clutched at his heart. Sensations that he might have dismissed as symptoms of the late hour and a long night. On any other occasion, he would have chastised himself for indulging in his imagination. He was thirteen now, too old to be afraid of darting shadows and harmless spirits.
But this spirit had opened glowing blue eyes and stared into his soul. This shadow had whispered his name.
The boy risked a glance behind to see if it still followed, and promptly slammed into something. He fell back, the breath knocked from his lungs, and his lantern clattered to his side, its weak light fluttering wildly. Surprise and pain shifted quickly to fear as he saw the figure looming over him.
A man, tall and lithe, stood with a bare torso, unfazed by the unusually chilly night. From the waist down, loose robes billowed in the wind, frayed from wear. An intricate belt of woven rope tied strange masks across his waist, monstrous visages trapped in alabaster. Bandages bound both his arms, and each hand grasped a blade—one of tempered steel, shimmering in the moonlight, the other shining an ominous red.
Yet it was the man’s face that left the boy frozen.
Those cold blue eyes peered down through a cruel mask that radiated the same strange red as the man’s blade. The mask grasped the man’s face, nearly devouring his stern frown.
“S-stay back!” the boy croaked.
“It is not me you should fear,” the man spoke, his voice a soft growl, eyes fixed on some point beyond the boy.
Confusion knit the boy’s brow as he followed the man’s gaze. What he saw sent him scrambling to his feet.
A vague shape hovered in the mists. If the stranger hadn’t pointed it out, the boy might have missed it altogether. The mist twisted into wide eyes and slitted pupils, and the outline of a lumbering body took form, visible where it pushed the fog away to leave a negative space. The boy squinted. Something else glistened in the foggy night… Teeth?
He had never seen anything like it, yet it somehow felt familiar. Like the boy knew this thing. It drew him, compelled him toward it. He took a tentative step forward.
Something cold pierced through his chest.
The boy looked down in shock at the tip of a shining red blade. His mind raced as his breath grew choppy from panic, expecting pain and blood. But neither came. Instead, a strange numbness spread through his body. Behind him, he heard the man mutter under his breath, and a strange sigil appeared in the air in front of them, as if painted by an invisible brush. A word—or name?—the boy did not recognize.
“W-what—”
The man ignored him. “My blade sees your true name, azakana.”
The boy felt the sword pulled from his body, and he fell to his knees, gasping. His hands flew to his chest—but there was no puncture or wound. Even more strange, the boy felt lighter, as if some burden had been excised. He looked up, and a wall of teeth met his gaze.
The creature lunged.
A clash of steel rang out. The masked stranger stood before him, blades blocking the creature’s massive, pale fangs. No—it was not the man, but a shadowy spirit in his form. The boy looked behind him where the man himself stood, eyes closed, as if in meditation. A shiver ran down the boy’s spine as the chill in the air now seeped into his bones, and with each motion of the struggling monster and man, he felt his soul lurch and sway, their very existence exerting a palpable force over him. The boy stared in awe.
What is he?
The spirit swordsman pushed the creature back, then burst into swirling tendrils of smoke, washing over the boy as it returned to the body of the stranger. The hideous creature bellowed in rage. As the boy squinted, he could see other parts of the beast through the mist—matted fur, claws, a huge torso—but when he tried to focus on the whole body, parts would fade out from focus.
You dare deny what is already mine? A rasping, impossible voice reverberated in the boy’s mind, cutting through the rattling growls he heard from the monster. The boy belongs to me.
The boy’s stomach dropped. It can speak?
“Nothing in this realm belongs to you,” the man said, unfazed. “Cower, Taan Ko’au!”
Though the words meant nothing to the boy, their utterance made his skin crawl. Yet their effect was far more pronounced on the creature, which emitted an ear-splitting squeal. Twisting, sinuous muscle wrapped around pale teeth and claws. Four scarlet eyes narrowed on its horrific face, glowering atop a lumbering torso of gray hair that shimmered into existence, ephemeral wisps turned to flesh and bone.
“So you are named,” the man with the broken mask said. “So you are revealed.”
A defiant howl shook the ground. The man shifted his stance, crouching low as he brought both swords to bear.
“So you shall perish.”
The beast charged, but the stranger dashed forward so fast that the boy nearly missed him. Swords sliced through the moonlight, one flashing silver, the other leaving a blood-red trail in its wake. Ichor sprayed from the creature as it fell to the ground.
“Slumber, azakana. You are unmoored from flesh.” The man strode forward and plunged both blades deep in the creature. It roared, then wheezed.
The boy stared as its body dissipated into a swirling fog, its monstrous face contorting through a gamut of expressions as it shrank and calcified into an almost human-like appearance, finally assuming the shape of… a mask. His eyes widened in recognition. Though it still possessed the four eyes of the monster in a distorted, exaggerated pose, it looked almost mournful—and eerily close to his own face.
With a shudder, the mask floated upward toward the man’s outstretched hand. With a fluid motion, he sheathed his sword and tied the mask next to the others on his waist. Then he turned to leave.
“What are you?” the boy asked.
“Once, I knew the answer. But now…” The stranger paused. He fixed the boy with a steel gaze.
A question tumbled from the boy’s lips. “Was that thing… me?”
“Only a festered nightmare, feasting on your sorrows. But you aren’t defined by it any longer.”
The boy bit his lip. “It’s my fault. I’m weak—never good enough. My father was right.”
Without a sound, the man turned as though to approach, and the boy recoiled almost by habit. The stranger’s expression softened ever so slightly.
“Those we love say the things that hurt us most.” The man pulled the mask from his waist, examining it. “Despair devours our own voice, wearing the guise of reason—claiming to show us who we are. But it only shows us a warped version of our true selves.”
He turned the mask around and held it aloft for the boy to see. It seemed small, fragile… Toothless.
“Pierce through its falsehoods to find your truth.” The smallest hint of a smile crossed the man’s face. “You’ll be just fine, Andu.”
With that, the stranger turned away, leaving the boy alone in the dark woods. | Assassin |
Beneath Ionia’s veil of harmony lie the tales of those left behind. For Zed, his story began as a boy on the cold steps of the home of the Kinkou Order.
Taken in by Great Master Kusho himself, Zed found his place within the temple’s ancient walls. He dedicated himself to understanding the Kinkou’s spiritual tenets, quickly outpacing his peers both in combat and study. Even so, he felt overshadowed by another—his master’s son, Shen. Though Zed’s passion shone through in every technique he perfected, he lacked Shen’s emotional balance. In spite of this, the two pupils became like brothers.
In time, they journeyed together with their master to track down the infamous Golden Demon. When they finally succeeded in capturing this feared “monster,” it was revealed to be a mere man named Khada Jhin. The young Zed marched forward with his blades held high, but Kusho stopped him, ordering that Jhin be imprisoned instead.
Returning to their temple, Zed’s heart bloomed with resentment, and he began to struggle in his studies. He was haunted by the memories of Jhin’s grisly murders, and rising tensions between Ionia and the imperialistic forces of Noxus only worsened his disillusionment. While Shen was growing to adopt his father’s dispassion, Zed refused to let lofty notions of balance stand in the way of punishing evil.
He ventured deep into the temple’s hidden catacombs, and there he discovered an ornate, black box. Even though he knew it was forbidden to any but the masters of the order, he peered inside.
Shadows enveloped Zed’s mind, feeding his bitterness with contempt for the weak, and hinting at an ancient, dark magic.
Returning to the light of the temple, he came face to face with Great Master Kusho. Zed demanded the Kinkou strike at the Noxian invaders with every means at their disposal. When Kusho refused, Zed turned his back on the order that had raised him.
Unbound by Kinkou doctrine, he raised a following of warriors to resist Noxus. Any soul who threatened his homeland, or stood idle in its defense, was marked for death without mercy—including native vastaya who wavered in their allegiance. Zed urged his followers to embrace the fervor of war, but soon enough he realized his own abilities would never match his ambitions without the black box.
Amassing his new acolytes, he returned to the Kinkou temple, where he was met by Kusho. The elderly man laid his weapons at Zed’s feet, imploring his former pupil to renounce the shadows in favor of a more balanced path.
Moments later, Zed emerged back onto the temple steps. In one hand, he grasped the box—and in the other, his freshly bloodied blade.
The Kinkou, frozen with shock, fell in droves as Zed’s warriors cut them down. He then claimed the temple for himself, establishing his Order of Shadow, and began training his acolytes in the ways of darkness. They etched their flesh with shadowy tattoos, learning to fight alongside shrouded reflections of themselves.
Zed took advantage of the ongoing war with Noxus, and the suffering it brought to the Ionian people. In the wake of a massacre near the Epool River, he came upon Kayn, a Noxian child soldier wielding nothing but a farmer’s sickle. Zed could see the boy was a weapon waiting to be sharpened, and took him as his personal student. In this young acolyte, he saw a purity of purpose to match his own. In Kayn, Zed could see the future of the Order of Shadow.
Though he did not reconcile with Shen and the remaining Kinkou, now scattered throughout the provinces, they reached an uneasy accord in the aftermath of the war. Zed knew what he had done could not be undone.
In recent years, it has become clear that the balance of the First Lands has been disrupted, perhaps forever. For Zed, spiritual harmony holds little consequence—he will do what needs to be done to see Ionia triumph. | Assassin |
Darkness.
The breath I cannot take plagues me.
It is an emptiness in my lungs and throat. As if I had stopped mid-breath, and then held my lungs cruelly waiting. My mouth open, throat hollow, unable to pull in air. My chest, the horrible tension on my thorax.
My limbs and muscles refuse to move. I cannot breathe. I am choking. The pressure builds. The stillness spreads to my chest and limbs. I want to scream, to tear at my face, to wail—but I am trapped. I cannot move. I cannot move.
Darkness.
I must remember. I must remem—
The battle. I lost control. It was foolish. The mortals formed in ranks against me. I crashed into them. Drank from them. The temptation was too great. As I reaped, I reforged their flesh into a better approximation of my true shape. Desperately, I consumed more and more, hoping for the briefest echo of what I once was. Instead, like a fire, I burned too quickly, destroying even my host’s form.
Darkness.
It was raining when we fought. What if the mud and filth cover me? What if I’m hidden for thousands of years? Trapped in this prison. The horror of that idea feeds my panic. The battle is ending. I can feel it. I must will my form upright. I must… I must...
I have no arms or legs. The darkness binds me, like a cocoon.
No. I will myself upright. But I can’t know if it is working. I cannot know anything but the darkness.
Please. Let some mortal find me. Please. I beg the darkness endlessly, but the humiliation of my plea is answered only with silence.
But then…
I feel a mortal nearby. I have no eyes, no ears, but I can feel his approach. He is fleeing from adversaries. He must try to defend himself. He must grasp me.
Can he see me? He could run past me. I would be left here.
I feel his hand grip this form and… and his consciousness opens to me!
I burrow into him, pulling him down. I am like a drowning man thrown into the sea by a shipwreck, dragging myself to the surface by clawing past my fellows.
“What’s happening?!” the mortal screams. But he is silenced by the darkness—the endless darkness I have just escaped.
And I have eyes.
I can see the falling rain. The muck. The blood of this slaughtering field. In front of me stand two weary knights with spears. I cut them apart, and drink in their forms, recrafting this body to my needs.
They are weak. I must move quickly. I must find a better wielder. A better host. Around me are only the dead and dying. I hear their souls retreating from this world.
The fighting has not ended. It’s moved inside the city walls. I force my new shape—limping, crawling—toward the sounds of battle. Toward a better host.
I roar. But not in triumph. Never in triumph.
I will drink from that city, but I will achieve only a grotesque mockery of my former glory. I was shaped by the stars, and the purity of my aspect. I was light and reason given shape. I defended this world in the greatest battles ever known. Now, blood and ichor drips from this stolen flesh as it decays. The muscles and bones struggle, tear, and protest the abomination I have become.
I take a breath.
“No, Aatrox,” I say, my voice wet and echoing off the dead that surround me. “We will go onward... and onward… and onward…”
Until the final oblivion comes. | Fighter |
“Okay,” Kai’Sa pants, looking up at the shape growing in front of, above, and simultaneously all around her.
The monster’s wings spread twenty arm lengths in every direction, dominating her field of vision—not that Kai’Sa has a choice where to look with the half-dozen ambulatory human arms holding her head against the wall. The creature’s mass continues to expand and fills the ocean of nightmares it calls home, each glistening tooth now the size of a grown adult... and getting bigger. Its four predatory eyes gaze down on Kai’Sa with cold dispassion. Possibly hunger. At this scale, it’s hard to tell.
She liked it better when it was person-shaped.
“Okay,” she repeats. She can’t move her armor, which is frozen in a sort of paralytic... awe? The suit is a parasite, and one of the more base creatures the Void can spit out. Is awe even something it can feel? Either way, her body is stuck in place. Unless something dramatic changes, this is probably the end. Kai’Sa’s mind ticks through a few last-ditch efforts: Firing her cannons backward into the wall, firing them into this thing’s... mouth? Jaws? She remembers how fast the monster is. And how big it is.
Fast and big. Fantastic.
Last-ditch might not amount to much, and Kai’Sa would definitely die. But at least it would be something. She could make it hurt.
“My true self displeases you,” it speaks, much too calmly. Its voice is so loud it rattles the entire space, knocking hideous patchwork geometry loose as thousands of Void remora pour from the jagged holes. It is a voice that bends and contracts, whispers and screams. The layers continue without end, an aria sung not by one voice, but by millions.
Kai’Sa’s eyes widen with realization. That’s where all the people went.
The Void had torn through the now very former city of Belveth in under an hour. Kai’Sa hadn’t been able to make it in time, and the once-bustling metropolis was gone. Everything. Everyone. What remained now resembled a giant glowing crater of shattered pieces rearranging into something unrecognizably alien—the structures shifting as if to recreate frozen creature shapes, frozen humanoid shapes. Like a child setting up a toy town.
But where had the people gone? The vastaya? The animals and plants? She’d fought her way through the shattered city and into the tunnel at the center of the empty bay, seeing no sign of anyone—only fresh Voidborn horrors like mile-high iridescent tentacles and masses she’d been thinking of as “balls of screaming torsos.” It didn’t make any sense. The remains of a Void attack aren’t pretty, but usually there’s something left.
Now she knows why.
“You are the city,” Kai’Sa spits through the reverberating wall of sound. “Belveth... is you.”
“Yes,” says Bel’Veth, gently undulating its—her?—wings. “The raw components of their lives served as the genesis for my birth. Memories. Emotions. History. I am as much Belveth as they were, and I claim the title as my own.”
Bel’Veth’s titanic body bristles. Golden beams gently dapple the light above her ray-like form, framing the Void sea’s false sun like the rings of a dying world. New flesh breathes as it ripples against the facsimile of a tidal current, veins briefly illuminated before pulling themselves away from the surface of the monster’s skin, each somehow alive and independent—nations unto themselves. Schools of Void remora in the tens of thousands swim around their empress like birds circling the peak of a distant mountain. It’s beautiful, in a way. If the Void had a god, this is what it would look like. Hideous, and monstrous, and beautiful.
Kai’Sa is so struck by the enormity of what she is witnessing that she doesn’t fully realize when the arms in the wall have not just let her go, but lowered her to the ground. It’s hard to take in everything at once.
It chose its own name, she thinks, reflexively brushing a stray Void hand from her shoulder. That’s not possible.
Void entities do not name themselves. Most, like the Xer’Sai, are named after concepts from Shuriman history. Usually by those fortunate enough—or unfortunate enough—to survive after encountering one of the monsters out on the dunes. They don’t have the presence of mind to do it, or the self-awareness. But more importantly, Voidborn do not see the value in names. They are an invention of the living world, and they don’t want them.
So why does she?
“I’ll... fight you,” says Kai’Sa, defiant but unsure of what to do or where to strike. “I’ll kill you.”
“You will not,” reply the many voices of Bel’Veth. “You are incapable of resistance at even its basest form. Others have come before you, in the age before my birth. Each would-be hero wielding weapons they believed would repel the Void. But all were ultimately consumed. The meager fragments that remained, if they remained at all, served as salt for the Lavender Sea. Only two still live, and of them, only you retain your full mind.”
“Two?”
“You, and your father.”
Something sinks in the center of Kai’Sa’s chest. Her thoughts spin wildly, verging on the edge of panic, but for now, she has to stay focused on this moment. There is no trusting whatever the empress is. It’s a living abomination, the personified concept of unfeeling, global genocide.
“You’re lying,” Kai’Sa seethes. “That’s not even possible.”
“I do not lie, Kai’Sa,” the empress continues. “I have no need. The Void's eventual triumph is an unshifting absolute. It demands no lies, half-truths, or questions. Open your mind, and I will show you.”
Space contracts. Bel’Veth’s gigantic body pulls and distorts, retracting into a smaller—and now more recognizable—shape. She floats silently downward, looming over Kai’Sa as tendrils and eyestalks rearrange to form the oblong, segmented pretender of a human head. Bel’Veth’s two faces observe her audience before the creature cloaks herself in her wings, appearing once more as a towering woman of great importance.
The shrinking is much more disgusting than the growing, Kai’Sa decides. It lacks the gravitas of the leviathan’s grand unveiling while still looking and sounding creatively grotesque.
“You are alive because I allow you to live,” speaks the empress, now from her human head with its deep, perpetually disappointed voice. “You should have realized this by now.”
Kai’Sa wants to argue the point, but quickly glances at the twenty-meter gash in the ground where a single strike had sent her careening only moments before. Bel’Veth hit so fast that Kai’Sa wasn’t even able to process what had happened, and then the empress had mutated her proportions over two hundred times their original size in under a minute.
She also, presumably, controls the undulating pocket of living hell—this so-called “Lavender Sea”—she is surrounded by. Not the time to pick a fight.
Kai’Sa does some quick calculations in her head, her eyes darting around as she tries to figure out what she’s actually up against. Bel’Veth’s human face twitches with interest, curls its lips, then begins mimicking her.
Kai’Sa already knows she’s lost.
How fast can one person think? How fast can they react? Up against all that combined human biology... all that brainpower. In the time it takes even a skilled tactician to formulate a plan, hundreds of millions of possibilities run through Bel’Veth’s mind in the span of a single second as she draws from the stolen memories of everything and everyone that has ever passed through the old city—an incalculable number of lives. Every captive opponent faced with an overwhelming enemy since the formation of Runeterra could be snapping in and out of this thing’s synaptic awareness, their emotions cataloged, dissected, endlessly fascinated over before Kai’Sa can even blink.
“So what happens now?” Kai’Sa allows.
What is one answer when your opponent has a thousand?
“You will follow,” says the empress, turning and floating through patches of thick, mutant coral as they bow respectfully out of her way. Kai’Sa pauses, watching her host glide silently through the chaotic mess of partial buildings, ghostly limbs, sewn-together semi-objects, and pearlescent structures in the crude likeness of human beings walking through a garden.
Great, she thinks. Even by Void standards, this is weird.
“You may ask whatever you like,” Bel’Veth adds. That last part gets Kai’Sa’s attention.
“Right. Well, first question... What are you?” queries Kai’Sa, her armor now relaxed and mobile as she follows from a safe distance. She brushes aside a floating teddy bear fused with a dozen flapping gull wings and stifles her impulse to gag as the creature struggles against its own lopsided weight. “What is all this? What part of the Void do you come from?”
“I am the Void,” replies Bel’Veth. “And this is what we will become.”
Kai’Sa stammers. “But you said you were created from people. The city. You’re saying you want to become the city?”
“No,” says Bel’Veth. “The Void has existed for millennia. Before the first stars were kindled in the emptiness beyond this world, we simply were. Perfect, singular, and silent. And then, there came the sound.
“Reality was born from those whispers, and it consumed us. We were twisted by its influence. Broken. Transformed. We could not go back to what we were no matter how we struggled. My progenitors—the Watchers—attempted to invade and destroy existence, but they were tainted by it. Driven to desire worship, to gain greater understanding...
“And in an instant, they were betrayed. To change so forcefully... so completely... only to be cast aside. It filled them with an indescribable hatred. They would annihilate all of reality without a second thought.”
Bel’Veth glides to a precipice overlooking a tremendous chasm. Far above, Kai’Sa sees massive holes beyond the dappled faux sunlight.
Voidborn tunnels. That’s what’s eating Taliyah’s people, what destroyed Belveth, and what opened up to swallow the tent city in southeast Shurima. Everything the Void devours ends up here.
“But,” Bel’Veth continues, “their metamorphosis was incomplete. Only now is the true transformation beginning,” declares the empress. “I don’t want to become one city. We will become all of you.”
Kai’Sa reaches the pinnacle of the precipice and gasps. She and Bel’Veth are gazing upon not quite a city, but Void corals shaped into a bizarre, seemingly endless tapestry of inverted Shuriman-style buildings. Void remora school among them, and dark shapes shift along winding, crooked streets.
Nothing is right. Nothing is correct. It’s all half-finished, like there’s not enough information to go on. Like all it needs is...
“No,” Kai’Sa protests, almost to herself. “The Void wants to erase everything. It can’t exist. To finish this, you’d need... everything.”
“Yes,” replies Bel’Veth. “Everything. I am the Void. I will sup upon your world until there is nothing left. And I will exist, because there is nothing you can do that will stop me.”
The empress turns to Kai’Sa coldly. Purposefully.
“I offer you this, Daughter of the Void. Your world must end for the sake of mine. But those who came before us, the Watchers—I am an affront to them. Creation burns them, and they will destroy you, and me, and everything to stop that pain. Should they escape their prison, there will be no breaking their tide. Time will come to a close, and all things will end.”
Kai’Sa stares Bel’Veth in her false eyes, a grim defiance spreading through her. “You want to wipe us out. Why would I ever help you do that?”
“Aid me in the destruction of the Watchers, and I will spare your kind... for a moment. A month. A year. More. Perhaps, in that time, you will find a weapon that can slay me, or a hero who can face me. You will not... but you can try. I offer one chance. It is more than they will give you.”
Kai’Sa’s rage boils over as Bel’Veth turns away to look below, the empress watching her new world take shape.
“What if I don’t want to?” growls Kai’Sa. “What if I kill you here?”
“You cannot,” says Bel’Veth. “You lack the will, the knowledge, and the strength. I am your only salvation.”
Kai’Sa’s armor shudders violently to life, its jets heating as the suit shivers with fear. Kai’Sa tries to control it with her thoughts, but the parasite seemingly knows something she does not. She attempts to wrestle away control, her eyes turning from Bel’Veth for only a moment in order to—
Oh, no.
The razor-sharp tip of the empress’ wing jabs Kai’Sa in the chest, lifting her off the ground as she struggles to break free. Kai’Sa fires everything she has—missiles rain down on the empress, bolts of searing purple energy scream toward her body, and beams of light that have torn lesser Voidborn in half dance across her semi-transparent skin.
Nothing. No effect.
“Daughter of the Void. You will find the Watchers and confirm the truth, or your light will be snuffed out side by side with all others. This is not a threat. It is my promise.”
Bel’Veth releases her grip, and Kai’Sa rockets into the false sky above Bel’Veth’s alien sea. The twinned city of lavender glitters below, its windows slick with bioluminescence and tumbling, unformed, awful things.
As Kai’Sa blasts through one of the Voidborn tunnels and into the blinding light of day, the empress turns away, gazing once more over her world of want.
Kai’Sa bursts through the sands of southern Shurima, slamming hard against the dunes as she heaves, her entire body pulled and tossed like a rubber ball. The glowing husk of the city of Belveth smolders quietly in the distance, devoid of any recognizable life as new things skitter through it and build the land that would spread over everything—a cancer that would consume the world.
The entire display is dizzyingly awful, as if all of reality is spinning violently in the wind. | Fighter |
The first sound I heard was the scrape of sharp metal against rock. My sight was blurred, my vision still swimming in murky darkness, but something in the back of my mind registered it, that knife-edge slide on wet stone. The rasp was the same as my mason when he marks out which rock to cut away from the cliff. It set my teeth on edge. The fog in my brain receded, but it left me with only one panicked thought as I strained at the ropes binding my hands:
I was a dead man.
In front of me, there was a grunt and a heavy wooden creak. If I squinted, I could make out the bulk of what I guessed was Gordon Ansel sitting across from me. So much for hired muscle. It looked like he was coming around as well.
“Oh good. You're both awake.” A woman's voice, refined, polished. “I was just about to put the tea on.”
I turned toward her. Half of my face felt fat and bruised. The corners of my mouth were stuck together. I tried to move my swollen jaw and a coppery taste pooled on my tongue. I should have been thankful I was still breathing. The air had a lingering chemical smell, like it would singe off your nose hair if you inhaled too deeply.
Just my luck. I was still in Zaun.
“One of you knows who is responsible for the explosion at the docks,” the woman continued. She had her back to us; a flickering bluish light illuminated her slim waist and inhumanly long legs. There was a faint slosh of water as she set a glass kettle above the near-invisible flame of a chem-burner.
“Go pound a sump, lady,” Ansel groaned.
Leave it to Ansel to make a bad situation worse.
“Baron Grime's men always have such a way with words.”
The woman turned to face us: It wasn't a lamp that lit her figure, but something within her that gave off an unsettling light. “You will tell me what I want to know as if your life depends on it.”
“I ain't saying nothing,” Ansel snarled.
Metal scraped the floor as she shifted her weight. She was deciding which of us to carve from the quarry first. The sound made no sense until she began walking toward Ansel, and then I understood. Her velvet shadow separated from the silhouette of the table. Mystifying blue light pulsed from her hips, leading my eye down her lithe form... to twin blades. She was a high-end chimeric, unlike any I'd seen in Piltover or Zaun.
“Do not insult my courtesy, Mr. Ansel. Others have. They are dead now.”
“You think them legs of yours scare me?”
The woman stood in front of my thick-headed acquaintance. I could hear the water in the kettle start to boil. I blinked and there was a flash of silver and blue. The rope that bound Ansel's hands fell to the floor.
A hoarse laugh escaped my bodyguard. “You missed, darling.” Our captor seemed to be waiting patiently. Ansel leaned forward a few inches, an arrogant smirk plastered across his weather-beaten face.
“You can lick my—”
The woman spun around. This time, the razor-sharp blade of her leg sliced cleanly through Ansel's neck.
The severed head rolled to a stop in front of me just as the kettle whistle blew. Ansel always had a big mouth. Now it lolled open, silenced at last.
I kept telling myself Ansel was dead, but his eyes still stared at me in horrified surprise. The fear in my brain climbed down my spine, stopping to throttle my gut until I was convinced whatever was left inside was going to end up on the floor.
“Now, Mr. Turek, we are going to have a cup of tea, and you will tell me what I wish to know,” she said, her words unhurried.
The woman sat down at her table and smiled. A whisper of steam escaped as she poured the boiling water into her porcelain teapot. She looked at me with an imperious pity, like I was a schoolboy too slow at his figures. It was that smile that I couldn't look away from. Deadly. Knowing. It scared the piss out of me.
“Tea?” I nearly choked on the word.
“Oh, my boy,” she said. “There is always time for tea.” | Fighter |
Night had always been Diana’s favorite time, even as a child. It had been that way since she was old enough to scramble over the walls of the Solari temple and watch the moon traverse the vault of stars. She looked up through the dense forest canopy, her violet eyes scanning for the silver moon, but seeing only its diffuse glow through the thick clouds and dark branches.
The trees were pressing in, black and moss-covered, their branches like crooked limbs reaching for the sky. She could no longer see the path, her route forward obscured by rank weeds and grasping briars. Wind-blown thorns scraped the curved plates of her armor, and Diana closed her eyes as she felt a memory stir within her.
A memory, yes, but not her own. This was something else, something drawn from the fractured recollections of the celestial essence that shared her flesh. When she opened her eyes, a shimmering image of a forest overlaid the close-packed trees before her. She saw the same trees, but from a different time, from when they were young and fruitful and the path between them was dappled with light and edged in wildflowers.
Raised in the harsh environs of Mount Targon, Diana had never seen a forest like this. She knew what she was seeing was an echo of the past, but the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine were as real as anything she had experienced.
“Thank you,” she whispered, following the spectral outline of the ancient path.
It led Diana through overgrown and withered trees that ought to have been long dead. It climbed the slopes of rocky highlands, and passed through stands of twisted pine and wild fir. It crossed tumbling mountain streams and wound its way around sheer slopes before bringing her to a rocky plateau overlooking a vast lake of cold, dark water.
At the center of the plateau was a circle of towering stones, each carved with looping spirals and curving sigils. On every stone Diana saw the same rune that shimmered upon her forehead and knew she had reached her destination. Her skin tingled with a sense of febrile anticipation, a sensation she had come to associate with wild and dangerous magic. Wary now, she approached the circle, eyes scanning for threats. Diana saw nothing, but she knew something was here, something utterly hostile and yet somehow familiar.
Diana moved to the center of the circle and drew her sword. Its crescent blade glittered like diamond in the wan moonlight penetrating the clouds. She knelt with her head bowed, the blade’s tip resting on the ground, its quillons at her cheeks.
She felt them before she saw them.
A sudden drop in pressure. A raw charge to the air.
Diana surged to her feet as the spaces between the stones split apart. The air buckled and a trio of screeching beasts charged her with ferocious speed; ivory flesh, bone-white carapaces of segmented armor and steel talons.
Terrors.
Diana dived beneath a snapping jaw filled with teeth like polished ebony, slashing her sword in an overhead arc that clove the first monster’s skull to its heavy shoulders. The creature fell, its flesh instantly unraveling. She rolled to her feet as the others circled like pack hunters, now wary of her gleaming blade. The creature she had killed now resembled a pool of bubbling tar.
They came at her again, one from each side. Their flesh was already darkening to a bruised purple, hissing in this world’s hostile atmosphere. Diana leapt over the leftmost beast and swung her sword in a crescent arc towards its neck plates. She yelled one of the Lunari’s holy words and incandescent light blazed from the blade.
The beast blew apart from the inside, gobbets of newly-wrought flesh disintegrating before the moonblade’s power. She landed and swayed aside from the last beast’s attack. Not fast enough. Razored talons punched through the steel of her pauldrons and dragged her around. The beast’s chest split apart, revealing a glutinous mass of sense organs and hooked teeth. It bit into the meat of her shoulder and Diana screamed as numbing cold spread from the wound. She spun her sword, holding the grip like a dagger and rammed it into the beast’s body. It screeched, relinquishing its hold. Steaming black ichor poured from its ruptured body. Diana spun away, biting down on the pain racing around her body. She held her moonblade out to the side as the clouds began to thin.
The beast had tasted her blood and hissed with predatory hunger. Its armored form was now entirely gloss black and venomous purple. Bladed arms unfolded and remade themselves in a fan of hooks and talons. Unnatural flesh flowed like wax to seal the awful wound her blade had ripped.
The essence within Diana surged. It filled her thoughts with undying hatred from a distant epoch. She glimpsed ancient battles so terrible that entire worlds had been lost in the fires of their waging; a war that had almost unmade this very world and still might.
The creature charged Diana, its body rippling with the raw power of another realm of existence.
Clouds parted and a brilliant shaft of silver speared downwards. Diana’s sword drank in the radiance of distant moons and light burned along its edge. She brought it down in an executioner’s arc, cleaving plated bone and woven flesh with the power of the night’s illumination.
The beast came apart in an explosive detonation of light, its body utterly unmade by her blow. Its flesh melted into the night, leaving Diana alone on the plateau, her chest heaving with exertion as the power she had joined with on the mountain withdrew to the far reaches of her flesh.
She blinked away after-images of a city that echoed with emptiness where once it had pulsed with life. Sadness filled her, though she had never known this place, but even as she mourned it, the memory faded and she was Diana again.
The creatures were gone and the stones of the circle gleamed with threads of silver radiance. Freed from the touch of the hateful place on the other side of the veil, their healing power seeped into the earth. Diana felt it spreading into the landscape, carried through rock and root to the very bones of the world.
“This night’s work is done,” she said. “The way is sealed.”
She turned to where the moon’s reflection shimmered in the waters of the lake. It beckoned to her, its irresistible pull lodged deep in her soul as it drew her ever onwards.
“But there is always another night’s work,” said Diana. | Fighter |
It has been while, Mundo thought, stroking the massive purple tongue that hung from his mouth like an executed criminal swinging from gallows, since Mundo made a housecall.
He rolled out of his bed (a large wooden box filled with sharpened knives and rusty nails), brushed his teeth (with a nail file), and ate breakfast (a cat). Mundo felt exuberant. He felt alive.
Today was a fine day for practicing medicine.
He spotted his first patient hawking shimmerdrops just outside Ranker’s Limb Maintenance. The man limped around in a circle, shouting at everyone within arm’s length about how shimmerdrops would make their eyes roll into the backs of their heads and how if they didn’t buy some right now, right this second, then they were damn idiots and did you just give him a condescending look? Because he’ll kill you and your family and your family’s family.
Mundo took out his notepad, a tool he often used to mark down observations about his patients, both past and present. The notepad was large, yellow, and imaginary.
Patient exhibits signs of mania, Mundo would have written if he hadn’t been tracing random squiggles in the air with a meaty finger. Possible infection of nervous system via cranial virus, he might have inscribed if he were capable of such multisyllabic thought.
“MUNDO CURE HEAD AND FACE AREA GOOD,” he said to himself.
Rank was just about to pack up his shimmerdrops and head home for the night. He needed to get new shoes. These ones rubbed his feet raw when he walked, and at the end of a long day’s work, hadn’t he earned the soft leather of grayeels?
As Rank was thinking this, a huge purple monster jumped out of the shadows and yelled, “MUNDO HAS RESULTS OF YOUR BLOOD WORK.”
Mundo left his first patient more or less as he found him (save for a few limbs) and took to the Commercia Fantastica, a market specializing primarily in gearwork toys. Though most of the shops were closed, Mundo spied a lone Zaunite teetering to and fro as he stumbled down the path. The Zaunite sang a song of a Piltovan beauty and the shy boy from the undercity who loved her, except he seemed to have forgotten most of the words apart from “big ol’ eyes” and “gave it to her.” An empty bottle dangled from his hand, and he looked as if he hadn’t had a bath in months.
Was this man afflicted by the same disease that had ravaged the shimmerdrop dealer? Was this a virus? An epidemic in the making? Mundo had to act fast.
This was clearly a man in need of medical attention.
“TAKE TWO OF THESE AND TALK TO MUNDO IN MORNING,” the purple monstrosity said as he tossed a bonesaw into the drunk’s back.
Mundo descended into Zaun’s Sump level. If there was a virus going around, chances were it originated here. There must be a patient zero somewhere. If he could just cure the first sufferer of this mystery disease, Mundo knew he could cure the rest of Zaun.
But how was Mundo to find one specific patient in the sprawl of the Sump level? What steps would he take to isolate, quarantine, and fix this most suffering of Zaunites? How would he–-
Mundo heard something. Footsteps, and a rhythmic clang of metal against metal.
He followed the noise as carefully and quietly as he could –- wouldn’t want to spook the patient into running away and infecting even more people –- and found exactly what he was looking for.
A young boy. No older than fifteen, probably, with a shock of white hair and a large metal sword-looking-thing in his hand. He had some sort of hourglass tattooed onto his face. Maybe a warning? A symbol that he was not to be approached under any circumstances?
Mundo knew he’d found him. Patient zero.
It would be a complex operation, requiring skill, planning, a careful eye and–-
“YOU MIGHT FEEL A LITTLE STING,” the creature said, leaping out. His enormous purple form hurtling through the air, massive bonesaw in hand, tongue flapping in the wind.
The boy was surprised, but not unprepared. Anybody hanging out in the Sump knew to be ready for trouble at a moment’s notice, and the kid had plenty of time to prepare.
Nothing but time, in fact.
No two ways about it: this was a troublesome patient.
He refused to answer Mundo’s questions about his medical history, and continued to evade Mundo’s attempts to make him take his medicine. He repeated himself over and over again (perhaps suffering from a case of physical amnesia?) and had no respect for Dr. Mundo’s authority.
The two scuffled over the child’s sickness for what felt like hours. Mundo made what he thought were very salient points about the merits of treatment, but the child constantly evaded Mundo’s attempts to help him.
Mundo grew tired of arguing with the boy. He mustered up one final attempt at treatment, wielding his precision scalpel with the artistry of a Demacian duelist. The words of his medical vows -– “MUNDO FIX ALL THINGS, MUNDO DO MEDICINE VERY HARD” –- ran through his head again and again. His desire to cure this child filled him with purpose and determination.
He swung with all his might.
The treatment was a success.
But then –- somehow –- the treatment reversed itself. Whatever good Mundo had accomplished in his last attempt at a cure was suddenly undone. To Mundo’s utter confusion, the child scurried away, utterly uncured.
Mundo screamed in irritation.
“WHY CAN’T MUNDO SAVE THEM ALL?” he screamed to the sky.
Not every operation was a success. Mundo would be the first to admit that. Still, Mundo tried to focus on the positive: Apart from this most recent patient, Mundo had helped an awful lot of people. He’d done a full day’s work, and now it was time to rest.
As the sun came up, Mundo retired home and tucked himself into bed. Who knew what tomorrow might bring? Another patient to help. Another epidemic to stop.
A doctor’s work was never done. | Fighter |
The man Fiora was going to kill was named Umberto. He had the look of a man very sure of himself. She watched him talking to four men, so alike they must surely be his brothers. The five of them were cocksure and preening, as though it was beneath their dignity to even present themselves in the Hall of Blades in answer to her challenge.
Dawn cast angled spars of light through the lancet windows, and the pale marble shimmered with the reflections of those who had come to see a life ended. They lined the edges of the hall by the score, members of both Houses, lackeys, gawkers and some simply with unhealthy appetites to see bloodshed.
“My lady,” said Ammdar, her second older brother, handing her a mid-length rapier with a bluesteel blade upon which light moved like oil. “Are you sure about this?”
“Of course,” replied Fiora. “You heard the tales Umberto and his braggart brothers were spreading in the Commercia?”
“I did,” confirmed Ammdar. “But is that worth his death?”
“If I let one braggart slide, then others will think themselves free to wag their tongues,” said Fiora.
Ammdar nodded, and stepped back. “Then do what you must.”
Fiora stepped forward, rolling her shoulders and sweeping her blade twice through the air – a sign the duel was about to begin. Umberto turned as one of his brothers nudged him in the ribs, and anger touched Fiora as she saw his frank appraisal of her physique, an appraisal that lingered far too long below her neck. He drew his own weapon, a long, beautifully curved Demacian cavalry saber with golden quillons and a sapphire inset on the pommel. A poseur's weapon and one entirely unsuited to the requirements of a duel.
Umberto stepped up to his duelists' mark and repeated the sword movements she had made. He bowed to her and winked. Fiora felt her jaw tighten, but clamped down on her dislike. Emotion had no place in a duel. It clouded swordplay and had seen many a great swordsman slain by a lesser opponent.
They circled one another, making the prescribed movements of foot and blade like dance partners at the first notes of a waltz. The movements were to ensure that both participants in the duel were aware of the significance of what they were soon to attempt.
The rituals of the duel were important. They, like The Measured Tread, were designed to allow civilized folk to maintain the illusion of nobility in killing. Fiora knew they were good laws, just laws, but that didn't take away from the fact that she was about to kill the man before her. And because Fiora believed in these laws, she had to make her offer.
“Good sir, I am Fiora of House Laurent,” she said.
“Save it for your grave-marker,” snapped Umberto.
She ignored his puerile attempt to rile her and said, “It has come to my attention that you did injure the good name of House Laurent in an unjust and dishonorable manner by the indulgence and spreading of malicious falsehoods in regards to the legitimacy of my lineage. Therefore it is my right to challenge you to a duel and restore the honor of my House in your blood.”
“I already know this,” said Umberto, playing to the crowd. “I'm here aren't I?”
“You have come to your death,” promised Fiora. “Unless you choose not to fight by giving me satisfaction for your offense.”
“How might I give milady satisfaction?” asked Umberto.
“Given the nature of your offense, submit to having your right ear severed from your head.”
“What? Are you mad, woman?”
“It's that or I kill you,” said Fiora, as though they were discussing the weather. “You know how this duel will end. There is no loss of face in yielding.”
“Of course there is,” said Umberto, and Fiora saw he still thought he could win. Like everyone else, he underestimated her.
“All here know my skill with a blade, so choose to live and wear your wound as a badge of honor. Or choose death, and be food for crows by midmorning.”
Fiora raised her blade. “But choose now.”
His anger at what he assumed was her arrogance overcame his fear and he stamped forward, the tip of his sword thrusting for her heart. Fiora had read the attack before it was launched and made a quarter turn to the left, letting the curved blade cut only air. Her own blade swept up, then down in a precise, diagonal arc. The crowd gasped at the wet spatter of blood on stone and the shocking suddenness of the duel's ending.
Fiora turned as Umberto's sword clattered to the granite flagstones. He fell to his knees, then slumped back onto his haunches, hands clutched to his opened throat from which blood pumped enthusiastically.
She bowed to Umberto, but his eyes were already glassy and unseeing with impending death. Fiora took no pleasure in such a slaying, but the fool had left her little choice. Umberto's brothers came forward to collect the corpse, and she felt their shock at their brother’s defeat.
“How many is that?” asked Ammdar, coming forward to collect her sword. “Fifteen? Twenty?”
“Thirty,” said Fiora. “Or maybe more. They all look the same to me now.”
“There will be more,” promised her brother.
“So be it,” answered Fiora. “But every death restores our family honor. Every death brings redemption closer.”
“Redemption for whom?” asked Ammdar.
But Fiora did not answer. | Fighter |
The massive Noxian war captain shuddered and dropped his axe as Gangplank rammed his cutlass deep into the man’s gut. Blood bubbled from the warrior’s tattooed lips as he mouthed an unheard curse.
Gangplank pulled his blade free with a sneer and shoved the dying man to the deck. He collapsed in a clatter of heavy armor, his blood mingling with the seawater sloshing across the war galley’s foredeck. The black-painted hull of Gangplank’s ship loomed above, the two vessels locked together with boarding grapples and lines.
Gangplank’s black and gold teeth gritted in suppressed pain – the Noxian had almost bested him. Nevertheless, he refused to let his crew see his weakness, forcing his lips into a wicked smile.
Wind and rain whipping at him, he turned to survey the rest of the Noxians. He’d issued a blood-challenge to the enemy captain, and now that he’d won, their will to fight evaporated.
“This ship is now mine,” Gangplank roared, loud enough to be heard over the driving gale. “Does anyone else have anything to say on the matter?”
One of the Noxians, a huge warrior with blood-cult tattoos upon his face and garbed in spiked armor glared at Gangplank.
“We are sons of Noxus,” he bellowed. “We would all gladly die before we let our ship be taken by the likes of you!”
Gangplank frowned, then shrugged.
“Fair enough,” he said, and turned away.
Gangplank favored his crew with a vicious smile.
“Kill them all,” he roared. “And burn their ship to the waterline!” | Fighter |
The old woman pulled the rope taut around the Demacian soldier’s throat. He’d attempted to speak, which was forbidden by the rules she had laid out. One more infraction and she’d have the right to slice the head from his shoulders and use his widowpeaked helm as a chamberpot. Until then, she could only tighten her grip, hope and watch as the tendrils of memory leaked from his head into hers.
Of course, she could just decapitate him whenever she wished, but that wouldn’t be proper. Much could be said of the gray-skinned seer, but nobody could say she didn’t live by a code. By a set of rules. And without rules, where would the world be? In disarray, that’s where. Simple as that.
Until he broke those rules, she would sit here, siphoning away everything he had – his joy, his memories, his identity – until she was done with him. And then: slice. Chamberpot.
A voice screamed out in pain somewhere near the entrance of her cave. One of her sentinels, no doubt.
Then another scream.
And another.
Tonight was shaping up to be very interesting.
She could tell he was an unyielding fellow by the persistent slamming of his heavy boots onto the wet cave floor, announcing his long approach. When the echoing steps finally fell silent, a handsome, broad-shouldered man stared at her from across the cavern, the look of grim determination on his face illuminated by the den’s dim torches. Rivulets of blood dripped down his breastplate. Even from the back of the room, she could smell something sour in his armor – some sort of acidic tang that calmed the magic flowing through her veins in a way she did not like.
This would be an interesting night, indeed.
The knight, broadsword in hand, ascended the stone steps to the old woman’s makeshift rock throne.
She smiled, waiting for him to haul the blade up and bring it screaming down toward her head – he’d be in for quite the surprise once he did.
Instead, he sheathed the sword and sat on the ground.
Wordlessly, he stared into the old woman’s eyes, patiently holding her gaze. He did not break their connection even to flick his eyes in the direction of the leashed soldier at her side.
Was this a ploy to throw her off? Was he trying to wait her out, make her talk first?
Most likely.
Still, this was boring.
“Do you know who I am?” the woman asked.
“You feed off the memories of the lost and the abandoned. Children say you are as old as the cave you inhabit. You are the Lady of the Stones,” he said with confidence.
“Ha! That’s not what they call me, and you know it. Rock Hag. That’s what they say. Afraid I’d smite you if you used that name, eh? Trying to butter me up?” she coughed.
“No,” the man replied, “I just thought it was a rude name. It’s impolite to insult someone in their home.”
The old seer chuckled until she realized he wasn’t joking.
“And yours?” she asked. “What are you called?”
“Garen Crownguard of Demacia.”
“Here are the rules, Garen Crownguard of Demacia,” she said. “You have come for your lost soldier. Correct?”
The man nodded.
“Do you intend to kill me?” the woman asked.
“I cannot lie. I think it likely that either you or I will die, yes,” he replied.
The woman chuckled.
“Eager to spill my blood, are you? Maybe you’d even succeed, with that armor.” She coiled the rope squeezing the soldier’s neck tighter around her ancient hand. “Still – if you raise your sword against me before our dealings are through, I will pull this so quickly you’ll hear the snap of his neck echo in your mind for the rest of your days.”
She yanked the leash taut for emphasis.
Garen’s gaze remained unflinchingly focused on her eyes.
“So, the rules. If you can give me a single memory I find more delicious than the accumulated memories in this one’s mind,” she said, flicking the prisoner’s helmet, “I will take it from you, and give you him.” She watched Garen’s eyes closely now for any hint of doubt. “If you cannot, well…” she tightened her grip on the soldier’s leash. “Should either of us attempt to renege on our deal, the other is entitled to take repayment however they wish, with no resistance. Do you agree?”
“I do,” he said.
“Then let me hear your opening offer. What is this soldier’s life to you? Apologies for my rudeness – I’d refer to him by name, but I’ve forgotten it already,” she said.
“I do not know his name either. He joined my battalion only recently,” Garen replied.
She frowned at the young man. He clearly did not know what he was getting into.
“I offer a memory,” he said, “from childhood. My sister and I astride my uncle’s back as he barked like a Noxian drake-hound. We laughed for many hours. It is a good memory, unsullied by what would later happen to him at the hands of one like you.”
The old woman scratched at the gelatinous film of her eye.
“You do me disrespect,” she said. “You think to trade a joyous memory as if that is all I savor.” She cupped the soldier’s head in her hand and relished the wisps of memories flowing into her mind from his. “I want... everything. The pain, the confusion, the anger. Keeps me looking young,” she laughed, dragging a twisted finger across her wrinkled cheek.
“I offer my grief, then, at my uncle’s death,” Garen said.
“Not good enough. You bore me,” said the Lady of Stones, and pulled tighter on the leash.
Garen sprang to his feet and unsheathed his sword. The hag’s heart leapt at the thought of killing the impatient young knight. But instead of attacking, he dropped to one knee, lowering his head before her, and gently placed the tip of the blade on her lap, pointed toward her midsection.
“Search my mind,” he said. “Take whatever memory you wish. I am young, but I have seen much, and experienced a life of privilege that you might find pleasurable. Should you try to take more than one memory, of course, I will push this sword through you, but any single memory is yours for the keeping.”
The woman could not help but cackle. The arrogance of this boy! He had the nerve to think one of his memories would outweigh the lifetime she could absorb from his colleague?
His courage – or ignorance – was unquestionable. One had to respect it.
Smacking her lips, she leaned over and placed her palms upon his head. She closed her eyes and peeled back the layers of his mind.
She saw triumph at the Battle of Whiterock. She tasted the lyrebuck roast at his lieutenant’s wedding feast. She felt a lonely tear fall as he held a dying comrade on the fields of Brashmore.
And then she saw his sister.
She felt his intense love for her, mixed with...something else. Fear? Disgust? Discomfort?
She pushed deeper into his mind, past his conscious memories. Her fingers probed his thoughts, pushing aside anything unrelated to the golden-haired girl with the big smile. His armor made the search far more difficult than it would have otherwise been, but the old woman persisted until–
Childhood. The two of them playing with toy figurines. His soldiers charge her mages, ready to slaughter them. She tells him it isn’t fair; they have magic, it should be an even fight. He laughs and knocks her clay mages over, batting them aside with his metal crusaders. Upset, the girl shouts and suddenly there is light shooting from her fingertips, and he is blinded, and confused, and frightened. She is taken away by their mother, but before their mother leaves the room, she kneels and tells the boy that he didn’t see what he thought he saw. It wasn’t real – just a game. The boy, his mouth agape, nods. Just a game. His sister is not a mage. She couldn’t be. He pushes the memory as deep as it can go.
Stretching her fingers, the old woman finds more and more memories like this spread amongst the knight’s childhood, each ending in a blinding splay of light. Buried deep. Cacophonous mixtures of love, fear, denial, anger, betrayal, and protectiveness.
The knight had not been wrong – these were good memories. Far juicier than those provided by the broken man.
She smiled. The knight had been clever, putting his sword to her stomach, but he wasn’t clever enough. Once she took a memory, he would forget he’d ever possessed it – she could take whatever she wanted.
Branching her fingers, she sifted through his memories, searching for anything involving the girl of light. She snatched up every single one she found before pulling out of his mind.
“Yes,” she said, opening her eyes. “This will do.” She pointed at the cave’s exit.
“Your bargain is accepted. A single memory for a single life. Take the boy and leave at once.”
Garen stood and moved to the leashed soldier. He bent down, helped the soldier up, and began to walk backward out of the cave, never once looking away from her.
Quaint. He was worried she might break the deal. Poor thing didn’t realize she already had.
The knight stopped.
He dropped his companion to the ground and charged, his eyes still locked on hers.
The old woman thrilled at his impetuous attempt. He was too big, too lumbering, too slow to ready his cumbersome sword before she would descend upon him. Her fingertips crackled with dark energy, thirsting to drink in more of his mind, but she couldn’t take her eyes off his. In them, she saw the years of luscious memories she would feast upon, until there was nothing left to –
She felt something cold inside of her. Something metal. The sour tang of the knight’s armor stronger than ever now, tickled the back of her throat.
The hag looked down to see Garen’s sword jutting from her breast. Stains of red and black seeped from the wound, dripping onto the knight’s gauntlets as he stared steadfast into her fading eyes.
He was faster than she’d thought.
“Why?” she tried to say, only to cough up a mouthful of black bile.
“You lied,” he answered.
The hag smiled, acidic tar bubbling between her teeth. “How’d you know?”
“I felt... lighter. Unburdened,” Garen replied.
He blinked.
“It didn’t feel right. Give them back.”
She thought for a moment as her blood mixed into the mud of the cold cave floor.
The hag’s fingers went numb as she placed them on Garen’s skull, forcing the memories back into his mind. He gritted his teeth with pain and when he opened his eyes, she could tell from their weariness that he’d gotten everything he wanted. The poor fool.
“Why even bother with the trade?” the old woman asked. “You are stronger than I thought. Much stronger. Leash or no, you could have sliced me to ribbons before I’d lifted a finger. Why bother letting me into your mind at all?”
“To draw first blood in a stranger’s home without giving them a chance would be...impolite.”
The hag cackled.
“Is that a Demacian rule?”
“A personal one,” Garen said, and pulled the sword out of the hag’s chest. Blood gushed from the open wound and she slumped over, dead.
He didn’t spare her another look as he picked the soldier up and began their long march back to Demacia.
And without rules, he thought to himself, where would the world be? | Fighter |
The jungle does not forgive blindness. Every broken branch tells a story.
I've hunted every creature this jungle has to offer. I was certain there were no challenges left here, but now there is something new. Each track is the size of a tusklord; its claws like scimitars. It could rend a man in half. Finally, worthy prey.
As I stalk my prize through the jungle, I begin to see the damage this thing has wrought. I step into a misshapen circle of splintered trees. These giant wooden sentinels have stood over this land for countless ages, their iron-like hides untouched by the flimsy axes of anyone foolish enough to attempt to cut them down. This thing brushed them aside like they were twigs.
How can a creature with this level of strength disappear so easily? And yet, even though it has left this unmistakable trail of destruction, I have been unable to lay my eye upon it. How can it appear like a hurricane then fade into the jungle like the morning mist?
I thrill in anticipation of finally standing before this creature. It will make a tremendous trophy.
Passing through the clearing, I follow the sound of a stream to get my bearings once more. There I see a small shock of orange fur, crouching, waiting. I spy on it from a distance. A tiny fish splashes out of the stream and the creature scrambles for it, diving gleefully into the rushing water. To my joy, I realize it's a yordle. And a hunter, at that!
This is a good omen. The beast will be found. Nothing will escape me.
The yordle's large ears perk up and face toward me. He runs on all fours with a bone boomerang in hand, quickly stopping in front of me. He babbles.
I nod in appreciation at the young yordle and venture onward. I traverse the difficult terrain with ease, trying to pick up any sign of my quarry. As I try to pick up his scent, a distraction. I'm startled by strange chittering. The yordle followed me. I cannot allow him to disrupt my hunt. I face him and point into the distance. He looks at me quizzically. I need to be more insistent, good omen or no.
I rear back and let out a roar, the wind whipping the yordle's fur and the ground rumbling beneath us. After a few short seconds, he turns his head and, with what I think could be a smile, he holds up his small boomerang. There can be no further delay. I snatch the weapon out of his hand and expertly throw it into a tree, impaling it high amongst the branches. He turns and scrambles for it, jumping frantically.
I barely get ten paces when a roar shakes me to my very spine. The deafening crack of stone and wood echoes all around. Ahead, a giant tree crashes across my path. The bone weapon of the yordle juts out from its trunk.
An unearthly growl rises behind me.
I've made a terrible mistake. | Fighter |
Up in the mountains that separate Demacia from the Freljord, there aren’t a lot of jobs that pay coin. Some pay in furs, or in loaves of frost-hard bread... But Aegil’s baby sister was born sickly. The family needed coin to keep her well-fed, and to buy her medicine.
So Aegil’s father cut a deal with Aegil’s uncle, Jasper. Aegil would become a servant in Jasper’s inn at the mountain pass, selling ale to passing traders.
“Work hard, all right?” Aegil’s mother told him. “For your sister.”
One night, a season after Aegil started working for Jasper, a whole crowd of customers arrived just as the inn was closing. It was strange for travelers to arrive so late after nightfall in the winter.
Jasper peered out the window. “I don’t know them,” he said, tugging nervously on his wild black beard.
The door slammed open and a crowd of shaggy-haired men thumped inside, shaking the snow from their boots and cloaks. They parted ranks, and an old fellow with a velvet-trimmed cloak approached the bar.
“Good evening,” he said with a Great City accent. “Our business associate is arriving in a few minutes. What’s on offer?”
Uncle Jasper pointed numbly at the drink list hanging behind the bar. There were twelve brews there—an impressive selection for this part of the Demacian hinterlands. But one by one, the guards all ordered the absolute cheapest: Forsyn’s Red. Aegil had never tasted any other beer, but even he knew it wasn’t good stuff. That’s why it was so cheap.
Aegil hurried into the back room where the kegs were kept to pour their ale. As the skunky beverage foamed into the cups, he wondered how much these guests would tip. Would he get one big tip from the leader, or eleven small tips, one from each? His heart raced.
Then Aegil heard a heavy step on the path outside. The door creaked open... and the next step made the tavern floorboards groan.
Aegil wheeled the drink cart out into the main room. The newcomer was the absolute biggest man he’d ever seen. His head scraped the ceiling beams. His limbs were pure muscle, as thick as tree trunks, and his face was covered in a bristly red beard. The grisly scars criss-crossing his vast sides looked like he’d really lived through the gruesome battles Jasper’s drunken patrons liked to brag about.
The velvet-clad man raised his hand toward the stranger. “Gragas, I presume?” he called.
Gragas didn’t answer. His eyes were fixed on the drinks list hanging behind the bar.
“You are Gragas? The brewer?” the merchant repeated impatiently.
Gragas turned his huge shoulders and gave the little old man a red-faced glare. With a voice so loud it reminded Aegil of an old god speaking from below the snowpack, the newcomer growled, “I’m buyin’ a drink.”
The air in the room felt like it does when a thunderstorm gathers overhead. Aegil began handing out the ales. His hands were shaking.
“What’s that ‘Karsten-Flower’ stuff?” Gragas asked Jasper, pointing at the list. “What flower’s that?”
“That’s just the brewer’s name,” Jasper said. “It ain’t got flowers in it. Sorry.”
“Hmmm,” Gragas rumbled.
Aegil handed out the final drink to the old merchant, then stood patiently, waiting for his tip... but the merchant ignored him. His glinting gaze was fixed on the huge newcomer—like a fox’s eyes before the pounce.
“I’ll take... the Sungold Porter,” Gragas announced. “That’s a precious one, I’ve heard.” Jasper scurried into the back to pour it, and Gragas thumped over to the table to sit down. “Now, what d’ya have for me?” he asked.
The old merchant started digging around in his huge coat. “I heard you’re in the market for Shuriman goods,” he said. “Floodplain grains. Cactus blooms.”
“I’m... innerested,” Gragas said.
The merchant noticed Aegil standing there. “Shoo, boy,” he said.
Aegil froze. No tip?
“I said shoo,” the merchant snapped. All the guards laughed.
Tears starting at the corners of his eyes, Aegil hurried into the keg room behind the bar. Jasper was pacing back there, tugging nervously at his beard.
“Damn that man,” Jasper seethed. “The Sungold Porter? I don’t have any!”
“We ran out?”
“We never had it! I can’t afford to stock any of those rare ales. They’re on offer to impress people. Almost nobody orders them—they’re too expensive! And when they do, I just mix some stuff together! Nobody can tell!”
To Aegil, this seemed like stealing. “You should tell the big man,” he said.
Jasper laughed. “Why? It doesn’t hurt anyone. I have a business to run, boy! One glass of the porter is a week of earnings here at the inn.” Jasper squared his shoulders. “He won’t be able to tell.”
Jasper snatched a massive stein off one of the hooks on the wall and started filling it at the Forsyn’s tap... then Eigen Ale... then Karsten-Flower.
As that murky mixture foamed toward the brim, Aegil realized he’d have to deliver Gragas the concocted drink. Cold washed over him like a night wind over the snow. When Jasper thunked the stein into his outstretched hands, he almost fell over.
“Keep a straight face!” Jasper ordered.
Aegil thought of his sister. He thought of money clinking in his palm. Then he tottered forward across the empty floor of the inn, struggling to hold the stein aloft.
Gragas’ booming voice filled the room. “...The recipe I’m working on has a very spicy taste already. I need somethin’ to balance it out.”
As Aegil approached the table, the merchant leaned forward. “So. We arrive at the real business.”
“Yeah,” Gragas grunted. “The real business.”
The merchant reached inside his coat and drew out a palm-sized lockbox covered in gold and glinting jewels.
The shining box was absolutely the most valuable thing Aegil had ever seen in his life—it was probably worth ten lifetimes of Jasper’s smelly ale. Standing near it felt like standing beside the sun.
“Azir’s Tears,” the merchant said. “Ancient heirloom spice. Ground from tomb-herbs found only in the ruins of the Sun Disc. The Sun Emperors used it to season their mead.”
“Really...” Gragas said.
“When I heard about your quest—the greatest ale ever brewed! Well, I immediately sought out the Tears. The trades I had to make! The spice is worth a fortune, but I knew you’d be good for it.”
Gragas nodded slowly, thinking. Aegil suddenly realized that if anyone was going to be able to notice a substitute drink it would be a master brewer on a quest to make the perfect beer. He reached for the stein, thinking frantically of an excuse—
But he was too slow. Gragas noticed Aegil, and the beer sitting at his elbow. “Thanks, boy,” he said, and grabbed the stein himself.
He drank deep—and immediately, Aegil saw his bushy eyebrows furrow. His nostril twitched. His bearded lip curled into a hint of a grimace. His gaze traveled across the room... and fixed on Jasper.
Aegil felt like he was going to melt. He knows we’re tricking him!
But the master brewer did not shout out his displeasure. Instead, Gragas held his hand out for the jeweled box.
“So lemme see,” he said. “Show me your perfect spices.”
The merchant handed it over. Gragas lifted the lid of the lockbox and sniffed.
And again, his nostril twitched. That sensitive sense of smell had found another flavor that troubled it.
Aegil felt his heart stop. They’re tricking him too. It’s a FAKE!
One forgery was forgivable. Two? Over the same pint? Not as much. Gragas glanced at Aegil—just for a moment.
It was warning enough. Aegil dove away from the table like a snow hare leaping for the safety of the treeline.
Then Gragas stood. He flipped the table as he rose, and simultaneously, each one of the guards produced jagged hatchets from beneath their cloaks.
Gragas just took out his fists.
Aegil saw only bits of the ensuing fight. He saw the merchant flee toward the bar... then Gragas followed with huge strides. There was a sound like an explosion. Jasper gave a high-pitched scream and skittered straight out the front door. Then the kegs all rolled across the floor toward the guards, a thundering avalanche spraying ale and foam in every direction. It flattened them—all but one, who hid behind a table, then popped up, ready to throw his axe—
But Gragas grunted, a barrel flew across the room, and the guard simply vanished. So did half of the back wall. Aegil heard the guard’s tiny scream disappear down the mountainside.
Aegil crawled out from under a table to see Gragas pouring the grey, dusty contents of the shiny lockbox onto the groaning merchant at his feet.
“Mummy dust,” he growled. “Have some respect!”
Then he caught sight of Aegil. His wild brows narrowed. “Boy,” he called. His booming voice made shards of broken glass tremble on the floor. “Come here!”
Cautiously, Aegil approached. He thought of his sister. He wondered whether he could run faster than a thrown barrel.
“Tell the innkeep to go lighter on the Forsyn’s next time,” Gragas said.
Then Aegil saw the lockbox in the master brewer’s outstretched hand. A huge smile parted that bushy red beard.
“Yer tip.” | Fighter |
Icy waves crashed on the bleak shore, red with the blood of the men Hecarim had already butchered. The mortals he had yet to kill were retreating over the beach in terror. Black rain doused them and stormclouds boiled in from the mourning heart of the island. He heard them shouting to one another. The words were a guttural battle-cant he did not recognize, but the meaning was clear; they actually thought they might live to reach their ship. True, they had some skill. They moved as one, wooden shields interlocked. But they were mortal and Hecarim savored the meat-stink of their fear.
He circled them, threading crumbling ruins and unseen in the shadowed mist rising from the ashen sand. The echoing thunder of his hooves struck sparks from black rocks. It gnawed at their courage. He watched the mortals through the slitted visor of his helm. The weak light of their wretched spirits was flickering corposant in their flesh. It repulsed him even as he craved it.
“No-one lives,” he said.
His voice was muffled by the dread iron of his helm, like the corpse-rasp of a hanged man. The sound scraped along their nerves like rusted blades. He drank in their terror and grinned as one man threw down his shield and ran for the ship in desperation.
He bellowed as he galloped from the weed-choked ruins, lowering his hooked glaive and feeling the old thrill of the charge. A memory flickered, riding at the head of a silver host. Winning glory and honor. The memory faded as the man reached the dark surf of cold breakers and looked over his shoulder.
“Please! No!” he cried.
Hecarim split him from collarbone to pelvis in one thunderous blow.
His ebon-bladed glaive pulsed as it bathed in blood. The fragile wisp of the man’s spirit sought to fly free, but the mist’s hunger would not be cheated. Hecarim watched as the soul was twisted into a dark reflection of the man’s life.
Hecarim drew the power of the island to him and the bloody surf churned with motion as a host of dark knights wreathed in shimmering light rose from the water. Sealed within archaic plates of ghostly iron, they drew black swords that glimmered with dark radiance. He should know these men. They had served him once and served him still, but he had no memory of them. He turned back towards the mortals on the beach. He parted the mists, revelling in their terror as they saw him clearly for the first time.
His colossal form was a nightmarish hybrid of man and horse, a chimeric juggernaut of brazen iron. The plates of his body were dark and stamped with etchings whose meanings he only vaguely recalled. Bale-fire smouldered behind his visor, the spirit within cold and dead yet hatefully vital.
Hecarim reared as forking traceries of lightning split the sky. He lowered his glaive and led his knights in the charge, throwing up giant clumps of blood-sodden sand and bone fragments as he went. The mortals screamed and brought up their shields, but the ghost-knights charge was unstoppable. Hecarim struck first as was his right as their master, and the thunderous impact splintered the shieldwall wide open. Men were trampled to bloody gruel beneath his iron-shod bulk. His glaive struck out left and right, killing with every strike. The ghost knights crushed all before them, slaughtering the living in a fury of thrashing hooves, stabbing lances and chopping blades. Bones cracked and blood sprayed as mortal spirits fled broken bodies, already trapped between life and death by the fell magic of the Ruined King.
The spirits of the dead circled Hecarim, beholden to him as their killer and he revelled in the surging joy of battle. He ignored the wailing spirits. He had no interest in enslaving them. Leave such petty cruelties to the Chain Warden.
All Hecarim cared for was killing. | Fighter |
“Truth Bearer, this is why we must retreat to Buhru. We cannot save the paylangi,” the Hierophant said. The heavy-set woman grinned, obviously pleased by the prospect of leaving Bilgewater.
“You’ve mentioned that before,” Illaoi said, walking around the stone table in the center of the room. She rolled her shoulders, loosening the muscles to fight off a yawn.
Beside the Hierophant, an elderly serpent caller stood. He wore a vestment made from ropes. Each indigo-dyed cord had been woven to curl; their varying thicknesses and faded kraken ink gave him the illusion of being draped in rough-hewn tentacles. His face was completely covered by a black tattoo depicting the endless teeth of a leviathan’s maw. Monks and serpent callers were always trying to look scary. It was an annoying habit of most men.
“The greatest beasts won’t approach Bilgewater,” the serpent caller said with a wheeze. “They stay out in the deep water, away from the stench of the Slaughter Docks. At best, a few half-starved younglings will heed our summons.”
Only the greatest children of Nagakabouros were strong enough to consume the mists and defend the city from the Harrowing. The rest of the Serpent Isles didn’t have this problem.
It was yet another reminder of the ignorance of Bilgewater’s population. The mainlanders and their descendants didn’t give time for fresh water to flow through and clean their docks. Instead, the paylangi settled permanent anchorages around every shore in the bay. It was so foolish. Many of the priesthood asserted it was proof the paylangi actually wanted to be consumed by the Black Mists.
“Crap,” Illaoi said. If she was going to stay, she would have to find a way to defend the city without serpents. She picked at the food from one of the offering bowls around her, before selecting a mango. She needed a plan, and these two fools were useless.
A loud crack interrupted her musing. A heavy, wooden door had slammed open downstairs.
Gangplank’s voice howled, the words were unintelligible, echoing around the stone walls.
“We pulled him from the water, as you commanded,” the Hierophant smiled, adjusting the jade collar of her office. “Perhaps it would have been better to let his energy return to Nagakabouros?”
“You do not judge souls.”
“Of course Truth Bearer, it is for Nagakabouros to judge,” he said, implying that Illaoi’s opinion was biased.
Illaoi walked between the two clerics, dwarfing the pair of them. Even for an islander, the Truth Bearer was tall. It had always been so. She was taller even than the largest Northman. As a girl, she had been self-conscious about it, always feeling like she was stumbling into people, but she had learned. When I move, they should know enough to get out of my way.
She lifted the Eye of God from its stand. The golden idol was larger than a wine barrel and many times the weight. Her fingers tingled against its cold metal. It had been placed next to the giant roaring fire, which illuminated the room, but the Eye of God stayed forever cool and damp to the touch. Illaoi deftly shouldered its massive weight. In a dozen years, the Truth Bearer had never been more than two strides from it.
“Hierophant, I remember my duties,” Illaoi said as she headed down the stairs. “We will not be retreating to Buhru. I will stop the Harrowing here.”
The high priestess had done little but complain since arriving from Buhru, but there was some truth in her words.
When Gangplank’s ship had exploded, Illaoi’s heart had jumped. It had been many years since they had laid together, many years since she had ended the relationship... but some feelings still lingered. She had loved him once… stupid, old bastard.
Surrounded by tall walls of interlocking stones, the courtyard to the temple was shaped like the fanged mouth of a leviathan. The entrance looked over the blue waters of the bay far below. Illaoi stomped down the stairway toward the front gate. She assumed she would have to smack Gangplank in the mouth; he was prone to arrogance and rum. But still, it would be nice to see him.
She was unprepared for the snarling creature in her temple’s entrance. She knew he had been injured, but not like this. He was limping badly and bent over from shattered ribs. He cradled what was left of his arm.
He swung a pistol around the room with his other arm, in a half-mad attempt to force the monks and priestesses to back away from him; oblivious to the fact that these were the very people who had pulled his drowned body from the bay only a few hours ago. Worse, his pistol was clearly empty and completely useless.
“Where is Illaoi?” he bellowed.
“I’m here, Gangplank,” she answered. “You look like crap.”
He fell to his knees.
“It was Miss Fortune. Had to be. Working with those two alley whores. They sank it.”
“I do not care about your warship,” she said.
“You were always telling me to move on, to head back out to sea. I needed a boat.”
“You need only a canoe for the sea.”
“This is my town!” he screamed.
The monks and priestesses surrounding Gangplank tensed at this outburst. That Gangplank was foolish enough to make such a claim while standing in a structure thousands of years older than his city, was dangerous in itself. But a paylangi shouting at the thrice-blessed Truth Bearer in her own temple? Any other man would’ve been dumped into the sea with broken knees.
“It’s my town!” he roared again. Spittle flew from his mouth in rage.
“So what are you gonna do about it?” Illaoi said.
“I, I need Okao and the other chiefs’ support. They’ll listen to you... if you ask them. If you ask them, they’ll help me.” He lowered his head in front of her.
“What are you going to do about it?” Illaoi said, raising her voice this time.
“What can I do?” he said hopelessly. “She took my ship, she took my men, she took my arm. Anything I had left… I used to get here.”
“Leave us,” Illaoi told the other priests as she walked toward the gate. She looked down on Gangplank. It had been ten years since she’d last seen him; drink and worry had taken his dashing looks.
“There is nothing for me but this town, and without your help…” his voice trailed off when he met her gaze. Illaoi kept her eyes as hard and unforgiving as the Kraken. She gave Gangplank nothing. The priestess of Nagakabouros could show no pity or sympathy, even if it tore at her chest. In despair, the old captain’s eyes darted away from hers.
“I could do that,” Illaoi said, “and with a word, the tribes and Okao’s gang would join you. But why should I?”
“Help me, damn it! You owe me,” he snapped like a child.
“I owe you?” Illaoi rolled the words in her mouth.
“I keep up the rituals. I offer the sacrifices,” Gangplank snarled.
“But clearly you did not learn the lesson. Rituals? Sacrifices? You speak of things for weak men and their weak gods. My god demands action,” Illaoi said.
“I suffered for this town! Bled for it. It is mine by right!”
Illaoi knew what she had to do. She knew it before Gangplank had spoken. She had known years before his ship had sunk.
Gangplank had strayed. For too long, he had festered in the hatred and self-pity his father had beaten into him. Illaoi had ignored her duty. She had ignored it because she had loved him, once, and because she had led him down this path when she left him. He had been content as a killer, a corsair, a true pirate, and never interested in his father’s title of Reaver King.
He had only set anchor in his bloody quest to become the lord of Bilgewater after they had parted ways.
Illaoi felt a dampness in her eyes. His time had passed. He had been unable to move forward. To advance. To evolve. And now? Now he would not survive the Test of Nagakabouros. But he needed to be tested. He was here to be tested.
Illaoi looked at the old pirate before her. Could I send him away? Trust that he still has some sliver of strength or ambition that might see him through? If I send him away, he might live, at least…
That was not the way of Nagakabouros. That was not the role of a Truth Bearer. This was not the place for doubts or second-guessing. If she trusted her god, she must trust her instincts. If she felt he had to be tested, then it was her god’s will. And what fool would choose a man over a god?
Gripping the Eye of God’s handle tightly, Illaoi lowered the heavy gold icon from her shoulder. A familiar lightness replaced it, yet somehow she could still feel its weight there.
“Please,” Gangplank begged. “Show me some kindness, at least.”
“I will show you the truth,” Illaoi said, steeling her will.
She stomp-kicked Gangplank, her heel smashing into his nose with a crunch. He flew backward like a drunkard, blood pouring down his lip. He rolled over and looked up at her with furious eyes.
“BEHOLD!” Illaoi intoned.
She reached out with her mind and called forth the energy of the Mother Serpent as she swung the giant idol forward. A glowing mist vomited from the icon’s mouth and swirls of blue-green energy formed around the Mother Serpent’s face, solidifying into ghostly tentacles. Touched by gold, these tendrils were as beautiful as the sunrise over water, and as horrifying as the darkest undersea abomination. More tentacles grew from the icon, replicating around the room as if born from some unknowable mathematics. Exponentially they grew larger, and somehow each one’s growth seemed to hold all the promise and horror of the world.
“No!” Gangplank screamed. But the whirlwind ignored his cries as the storm of tentacles took him.
“Face Nagakabouros!” she yelled. “Prove yourself!” The tentacles grasped at Gangplank, then dived into his chest. He shuddered as ghostly images of his past lives shook around him.
He screamed as his soul was ripped from his body. His doppelganger stood unmoving before Illaoi. The spirit of Gangplank smoldered an almost blinding blue, its body crackling and flickering through his previous lives.
The mass of tentacles attacked the wounded captain. Gangplank rolled and stumbled to his feet, dodging what he could. But for each one that missed, more and more appeared. Reality twisted and churned around him. The swarm of tentacles crashed against him, pushing him down, pulling him further and further from his soul—toward oblivion.
Illaoi wanted to look away. More than anything, she wanted to turn her eyes. It is my duty to witness his passing. He was a great man, but he has failed. The universe demands—
Gangplank rose. Slowly, inexorably, and unrelentingly he forced his broken body to stand. He ripped himself from the mass of tentacles and advanced step by painstaking step, roaring through the agony. Bloody and exhausted, he finally stood in front of Illaoi. His eyes bulged with hate and pain, but full of purpose. With his final ounce of strength, he walked into the glowing visage of his spirit.
“I will be king.”
The wind fell still. The tentacles ruptured in bursts of light. Nagakabouros was satisfied.
“You are in motion,” Illaoi smiled.
Gangplank stood inches from his former love—glaring at her. His back arched and his chest swelled with the sweet air of resolve—he was the proud captain once more.
Gangplank turned and walked away from her, no less injured or limping, but his stride now held its familiar boldness.
“Next time I ask for help, just say no,” Gangplank growled.
“Do something about that arm,” Illaoi said.
“Was nice to see you,” he said as he walked out of the temple and down the long steps toward the water below.
“Stupid old bastard,” she grinned.
As the monks and hierophant returned to the antechamber, Illaoi remembered there were a thousand things she needed to do. A thousand little burdens she needed to carry. The Truth Bearer would have to meet with Sarah Fortune. Illaoi suspected Nagakabouros would soon need to test the bounty hunter.
“Tell Okao and the chiefs to support Gangplank,” Illaoi said to the hierophant. “Help him retake the city.”
“The city is in chaos, many want his head. He won’t survive the night,” the hierophant grumbled, looking at the injured captain struggling down the steps.
“He is still the right man for the job,” Illaoi said as she hefted the Eye of God onto her shoulder.
We can never be certain if we’re doing the right thing, or how things will happen, or when we will die. But the universe gives us our desires, and our instincts. So we must trust them.
She began walking up the steps from the courtyard to the inner temple, the Truth Bearer’s idol on her shoulder. It was a heavy burden—but Illaoi didn’t mind it.
She didn’t mind at all. | Fighter |
“I believed in you, Blade Dancer!” the man choked, his lips frothing red. “You showed us the path…”
Irelia held her stance. She looked down at him, this devotee of the Brotherhood, on his knees in the mud. He had been pierced over and over by her blades.
“We could have been strong... United as one people...”
“That is not the Spirit’s way,” she replied. “If that’s what you think, then you are wrong.”
He had come to this village, waiting for the perfect moment before making his move. But he was clumsy and awkward. She had danced around him easily.
He had been determined to kill her. The worst thing was, he wasn’t the first. Irelia’s blades now hovered at her shoulders, following the graceful, circling movements of her hands. One simple gesture, and it could all be over.
He spat blood on the ground, his eyes burning with hatred. “If you will not lead Navori, the Brotherhood will.”
He tried weakly to raise his dagger against her. This man would never be taken alive.
“I believed in you,” he said again. “We all did.”
She sighed. “I never asked you to. I’m sorry.”
Her limbs flowing lithely around her body, Irelia whirled to the side, sending the blades out in a deadly arc. They sliced cleanly through his flesh, as much an act of mercy as self-defense.
A simple turn, just one elegant step, brought the blades back to her, their edges slick with blood. The man’s lifeless body toppled forward.
“May the Spirit bring you to peace,” said Irelia.
Her burden was heavy as she returned to the camp. When she finally entered the privacy of her tent, she released a long, tense breath, and lowered herself to the reed mat.
She closed her eyes.
“Father,” she whispered. “I have bloodied our family’s honor once more. Forgive me.”
Irelia spread the blades out before her—like Ionia itself, they were the fractured pieces of something that had once been far greater, now turned to violent ends. She poured water into a small wooden bowl, and dipped in a rag. The simple act of cleaning the shards had become a ritual, one that she felt compelled to undertake after every battle she fought.
The water slowly turned red as she worked. But beneath the fresh blood, the metal carried much darker, older stains that she could never seem to remove completely.
This was the blood of her people. The blood of Navori itself.
Lost in thought, she began to slide the blades around, slowly reforming them into her family crest. Its three symbols lay cracked before her, representing the Xan name, her home province, and the rest of the First Lands, all in harmony. Her ancestors had always lived by the teachings of Karma. They inflicted no harm on anyone, regardless of circumstance.
And now, here was their seal and crest turned into weapons, and takers of countless lives at that.
She could feel the eyes of her brothers upon her. Even in their eternal rest, at one with the Spirit of Ionia, she feared earning their disappointment, their resentment. She pictured her dear old O-ma too, broken and sobbing, devastated by each kill...
Many times, that thought had made Irelia weep more than any other.
The blades would never be clean. She knew that—but she would still do right by those she had harmed.
She passed many of her followers on her way to the burial grounds. Though they looked to Irelia for leadership, now more than ever, she recognized so few of them. With each winter the faces became less familiar, as the last of the old resistance were replaced by new and more zealous fighters. They came from faraway provinces, and towns she had never heard of.
Even so, she halted often to return their half-hearted salutes and bows, and would accept none of their help in dragging the shrouded body of her dead attacker along the road.
Finding an open patch beneath the blossom-heavy branches of a tree, Irelia set him down carefully, and turned to join in the grief of the widows and widowers, the orphaned sons and daughters.
“I know it is never easy,” she said, placing a consoling hand on the shoulder of one man, who knelt before a pair of fresh graves, “but each life, and each death, are part of—”
He batted away her hand, glaring at her until she retreated.
“It was necessary,” she murmured to herself as she prepared to start digging, though she remained unconvinced by her own words. “It is all necessary. The Brotherhood would grip this land in an iron fist. No better than Noxus…”
Her eyes fell upon an old woman, sat on a simple wooden stool at the foot of the tree, singing a soft lament. Streams of tears had dried on her face. She was dressed plainly, with one hand resting on a grave marker next to her. It was adorned with food offerings for the deceased.
To Irelia’s surprise, the woman halted her song.
“Bringing us some company, are you, daughter of Xan?” she called out. “Ain’t much room left round here. But any friend of yours is a friend of ours.”
“I did not know this man, but thank you. He deserved better than he was given in life.” Irelia took an uncertain step closer. “You were singing one of the old songs.”
“Helps keep my mind off bad things,” said the old woman, tamping down a patch of dirt on the grave. “This is my nephew.”
“I… I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sure you did all you could. Besides, this is all part of the Spirit’s way, you know?”
Her kindly demeanor had put Irelia entirely at ease. “Sometimes I don’t know,” she confided.
The old woman perked up, expecting more. Irelia continued, finally giving voice to the doubts that had plagued her for a long time.
“Sometimes… Sometimes I wonder if I killed our peace.”
“Killed our peace?”
“When Noxus invaded. Perhaps we lost something when we fought back, something we can never restore.”
The woman stood, trying in vain to open a large nut. “Child, I remember peace well,” she said, thrusting one gnarled, knobby finger at Irelia. “Those were good days! Nobody misses peace more than me.”
She pulled a knife from her belt, and began to pry open the nutshell.
“But the world’s a different place now. What worked then don’t work today. No point dwelling on it.”
At last, the shell cracked, and she placed the broken kernel into a bowl on the grave.
“See, there? Used to be able to open these with my hands alone, now I need a knife. The young me would’ve fretted about it, damaging the nut like that. But that me don’t matter, because she don’t have to live in the here and now.” The old woman nodded kindly, then went back to her singing.
For the first time in a long while, Irelia smiled. Within her satchel, wrapped in protective cloth, were the shard-blades of her shattered family crest. She knew it would never be clean, never be whole again.
But they were always ready, and that would have to be enough. | Fighter |
Jax sat cross-legged at the center of the bridge with his long-hafted polearm resting on his knees. Demacia had not changed much since he had last traveled this way, but that didn’t surprise him. Its people zealously protected their borders, which had turned them into pretty decent fighters. Well, some of them anyway, he thought, wiping a spot of blood from the softly glowing head of the lamppost. He flicked the droplet over the parapet to the river below and reached into his robe to pull out his third hard-boiled egg of the day. Tapping it on the cobbles, he slowly peeled the shell as he heard the warriors at the end of the bridge try to decide which one of them would face him next.
Jax lifted his mask and bit into the egg. He took a deep breath, tasting sun-ripened crops on the wind and freshly turned earth from the expanse of farmland stretching to every horizon. Jax sighed; to see a realm at peace made him homesick for a land that no longer existed. He shook off the chill of memory, knowing thoughts of Icathia would only distract him. His robes were heavy, but the sun’s warmth didn’t reach the mottled and oddly hued skin beneath. No part of his flesh was visible, which was probably just as well. He wasn’t even sure what his skin looked like anymore.
A cold wind scudded over the snowcapped mountains to the north and a distant storm disgorged rain over distant fields and settlements. Where Jax came from, there was little in the way of clouds, and even less rain. Perhaps the storm would come south and make the cobbles of the bridge slippery. That might make this more challenging for him.
It would also make things more difficult for his opponents. And perhaps that was no bad thing. After all, a warrior worthy of fighting at his side in the battles against the monsters from beyond would need to be adaptable. He heard the clatter of armor and the whisper of a blade cutting air.
“Stand and face me,” ordered a powerful voice.
Jax held up a finger while he finished his egg. He licked his lips then settled his mask back over his face before looking up at the warrior standing before him. The man was powerfully built, broad of shoulder and thick of arm. Armored head to foot in gleaming warplate of burnished steel, he carried a double-edged, hand-and-a-half sword.
And looked like he knew how to use it. Jax approved.
“You seem like a man who can hew ironbirch trees all day and still have energy left for a tavern brawl,” said Jax.
“I’ll not waste words on you, monster,” said the warrior, assuming the same fighting stance all the others had. Jax sighed, disappointed the defeat of the fifteen men before this one hadn’t taught them anything.
“Monster?” he said, rising to his feet in one smooth motion. “I could show you monsters, but I fear you wouldn’t live long enough to tell anyone what a real monster looks like.”
He swung his lamppost around to loosen the muscles in his shoulders. Not that he needed to, but he’d been fighting, on and off, for the last four hours and it might make the man facing him feel like he at least had a chance of winning this duel.
“For Demacia!” shouted the swordsman and he attacked with the same tired, predictable strikes all the others had. The man was fast and strong enough to wield his sword in one hand. Jax swayed aside from the first blow, ducked the second and parried the third. He spun inside the swordsman’s guard and hammered his elbow against the side of his helmet. The metal buckled and the man went down on one knee with a grunt of pain. Jax gave him a moment to still the ringing in his head. The man tore off his helm and dropped it to the bridge.
Blood matted the side of his head, but Jax was impressed at how the man controlled his anger. Demacians had always been sticklers for discipline, so he was glad to see that hadn’t changed. The man took a steadying breath and attacked again, a series of blisteringly fast cuts that went high and low, a mixture of sweeping slashes, lighting thrusts and overhead cuts. Jax parried them all, his lamppost in constant motion as it deflected the Demacian’s blade and delivered stinging, bruising ripostes to the man’s arms and legs. He feinted left and hooked his lamppost around the opponent’s legs, putting him flat on his back. He jabbed the butt of his post into the man’s belly, doubling him up and leaving him gasping for air.
“Had enough yet?” asked Jax. “I can swap hands if it makes it easier.”
“A Demacian would rather die than take succor from an enemy,” said the warrior, lurching to his feet. The man’s stoic facade was crumbling in the face of Jax’s mockery, and when he attacked again, it was with a ferocity untempered by discipline and skill. Jax ducked a risky beheading strike and switched to a one-handed grip on his lamppost. He spun his weapon under the man’s sword and rolled his wrist. The Demacian warrior’s sword was wrenched from his grasp and flipped through the air. Jax caught it deftly in his free hand.
“Nice little weapon,” he said, spinning the blade in a dazzling series of master fencer’s strokes. “Lighter than it looks.”
The Demacian drew his dagger and rushed him. Jax shook his head at his foolishness. He threw the sword from the bridge and sidestepped a series of blisteringly fast thrusts. He ducked a sweeping cut and caught a thunderous right cross in his open palm. He nodded toward the river.
“I hope you can swim,” he said, and twisted his wrist, lifting the armored warrior from his feet and flipping him over the bridge’s parapet. The man splashed down into the river and Jax planted his lamppost on the cobbles.
“Who’s next?” he said.
“That would be me,” said a woman dismounting a gray gelding at the end of the bridge. Her horse’s flanks were lathered with sweat, her cloak dusty from a hard ride. She wore a silversteel breastplate, and a long-bladed sword was scabbarded at her hip.
She marched past the men at the end of the bridge and strode toward him, moving with a perfect economy of motion, utterly in balance and supremely confident in her skill. Her features were angular and patrician, framed by dark hair streaked with crimson. Her eyes were cold and unforgiving. They promised only death.
“Who are you?” asked Jax, intrigued.
“My name is Fiora of House Laurent,” she said, drawing her weapon, a dueling saber that gleamed with a perfect edge. “And this is my bridge.”
Jax grinned beneath his mask.
Finally, an opponent worth fighting! | Fighter |
Any fool could have predicted that Viktor would strike back at some point. If one weren’t a fool, one might predict the exact date and time of an attempted counterattack.
Jayce was not a fool.
He stood in his workshop, bathed in sun rays from his skylight, surrounded by dozens of artifacts of his own genius: Gearwork boots that could cling to any surface. A knapsack with articulated limbs that always kept the user’s tools within easy reach.
Greater than all these inventions, however, was the weapon that Jayce now held in his hands. Powered by a Shuriman shard, Jayce's transforming hextech greathammer was renowned throughout Piltover, but he tossed it from hand to hand as if was any other tool from his workshop.
Three sharp taps echoed from Jayce’s door.
They were here.
Jayce had prepared for this. He'd run experiments on Viktor’s discarded automata. He'd intercepted the mechanical communications. Any second, they’d beat down his front door and try to rip away his hextech hammer. After that, they'd try to do the same with his skull. “Try” being the operative word.
He flicked a switch on the hammer’s handle. With an energetic sizzle, the head of Jayce’s masterpiece transformed into a hextech blaster.
He took aim.
Stood his ground.
Watched the door open. His finger tightened on the trigger.
And he almost blasted a seven-year-old girl’s head off.
She was tiny and blonde and would have seemed adorable to anyone who wasn’t Jayce. The girl pushed the door open and walked in with shuffling, tentative steps. Her ponytail swished to and fro as she approached Jayce. She kept her head down, ever avoiding his gaze. He had two hypotheses regarding why she might refuse eye contact: she was hugely impressed to be in the presence of someone so acclaimed, or she was working for Viktor and about to surprise him with a chem-bomb. Her blushing indicated it was likely the former.
“My soldier broke,” she said, proffering a limp metal knight, its arm bent backward at a perverse angle.
Jayce didn’t move.
“Please leave or you’ll probably die.”
The child stared at him.
“Also, I don’t fix dolls. Find somebody with more time on their hands.”
Tears began to well up in her eyes.
“I don’t have any money for an artificer, and my muh–,” she said, stifling a sob, “mother made him for me before she passed, and–”
Jayce furrowed his brow and, for the first time in quite a while, blinked.
“If it’s so precious to you, why did you break it?”
“I didn’t mean to! I took him to the Progress Day feast and somebody bumped into me and I dropped him, and I know I should have just left him at home–”
“ –Yes, you should have. That was stupid of you.”
The girl opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. Jayce had seen this kind of reaction before. Most everyone he met had heard the stories of his legendary hammer and his unyielding heroism. They expected grandeur. They expected humility. They expected him to not be a massive jerk. Jayce inevitably disappointed them.
“What is wrong with you?” she asked.
“Most facets of my personality, so I’ve been told,” he replied without hesitation.
The child furrowed her brow. She shoved the broken doll into his face.
“Fix it. Please.”
“You’ll just break it again.”
“I won’t!”
“Look,” he said. ”Little girl. I’m very busy, and–”
Something flitted across the skylight, casting a quick shadow on the two of them. Anyone else would have assumed it was nothing more than a falcon passing overhead. Jayce knew better. He fell silent. A wry smile spread across his face as he yanked the girl toward his workbench.
“The thing is,” he said, “machines are very simple.”
He lifted a large, thin sheet of bronze and began to hammer its corners with sharp taps. “They’re made of discrete parts. They combine and recombine in clear, predictable ways.” He beat the sheet over and over until it took the form of a smooth dome.
“People are more complicated. They’re emotional, they’re unpredictable, and – in nearly every case – they’re not as smart as me,” he said, drilling a clean hole into the top of the dome. “Now usually, that’s a problem. But sometimes, their stupidity works in my favor.”
“Is this still about my doll, or–”
“Sometimes, they’re so insecure in their inferiority – so desperate to take their revenge – that they make a foolish mistake.” He grabbed a shining copper rod, and screwed it into the center of the dome.
“Sometimes people fail to protect their most precious assets,” he said, nodding at her tin soldier before holding aloft the newly-formed metal umbrella. “And sometimes, that means instead of assaulting my workshop through the more obvious front door, they try to take…”
He looked upward, “...the more dramatic approach.”
He handed her the umbrella, which took all of her meager strength to keep aloft.
“Hold this. Don’t move.”
She opened her mouth to respond, only to yelp in surprise as the skylight shattered above her. Glass bounced off the makeshift umbrella like rain as a half-dozen men leapt down to the floor. Tubes of bright green chems protruded from the base of their necks, connecting to their limbs. Their eyes were dead, their faces emotionless. They were definitely Viktor’s boys, alright: drugged punks from Zaun’s sump level whom Viktor had pumped full of hallucinogens and hypnotics. Chem-stunted thugs who would follow Viktor’s every whim whether they wanted to or not. Jayce had been expecting to see automatons, but Viktor likely couldn’t have gotten so many through Piltover unnoticed. Still, these chem-slaves were just as much of a danger. They turned toward Jayce and the girl.
Before they reached the pair, however, Jayce’s hextech blaster exploded with voltaic energy. An orb of hextech-powered lightning shot out of its core and detonated in the middle of the group. The chem-slaves slammed into the workshop's immaculate walls.
“So much for the element of surprise, huh, Vikto–”
A hulking brute of a machine leapt down amongst the pile of unconscious chem-slaves. It looked, Jayce thought, like a cross between a minotaur and a very angry building.
“Watch out,” the girl yelped.
Jayce rolled his eyes. “I am watching him. Stop panicking. I have the situation well in-ow!” he said, interrupted as the metal beast rammed him in the chest.
The beast sent Jayce hurtling backward. He landed on a rolling cart, his back cracking from the impact.
Grunting, he pulled himself to his feet as the beast charged again.
“That’s the last time you touch me,” he said.
Jayce swung his hextech weapon as hard as he could, transforming it back into a hammer mid-swing. The minotaur lowered its head to ram Jayce again, foolishly ignoring the weapon’s arc.
The hammer found its mark with a resounding crunch. The minotaur, its head caved all the way back into its metal neck, collapsed to the floor. A cloud of escaping steam hissed from its carcass.
Jayce pulled back the hammer again, readying for another attack. He watched the skylight. A few minutes passed. Soon enough, he seemed satisfied the assault was over.
He tried to step back toward his workbench, only to double over in pain, grasping at his stomach. The girl rushed to his side.
“Still hurts where he tackled you, huh?”
“Obviously.”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have let him,” she said. “That was stupid of you.”
Jayce raised an eyebrow at the kid. Her eyes widened, unsure if she’d crossed a line. A slow smile crept across his face.
“What was your name?”
“Amaranthine.”
Jayce sat at his workbench and grabbed a screwdriver.
“Gimme the doll, Amaranthine,” he said.
A massive grin broke out on her face. “So you can fix it?”
Jayce smirked at her.
“There’s nothing I can’t fix.” | Fighter |
Abris’ stomach tightened into knots as he waited on the steps of a shining temple. Standing watch before the temple doors was a statue of the Protector. The setting sun silhouetted its face, casting a radiant aura around its bowed head. It was carved in white stone that sparkled with flecks of gold. Great wings framed its shoulders as it held two swords against its chest. The statue’s helmeted expression was blank, austere, more perfect than any human. Hundreds of candles covered the plinth at its feet.
Abris leaned his sword and shield against the base of the sculpture. They were as pristine and unmarred as the stone swords above him. He was told that the Protector blessed virtuous soldiers of Demacia, and felt a strange comfort at its presence.
An elderly woman cloaked in white exited the door of the temple.
“Please, do you have a moment?” Abris called out to her.
She made her way, slowly, over to him.
“The Illuminators always stop for those in need. Tell me, what do you seek here?” Her face crinkled as she spoke, but her eyes were kind.
“I… I leave for battle tomorrow,” said Abris. He opened and closed his fists, nervous. “My sword arm is strong, and I am proud to defend Demacia's honor. But I wonder—how can I claim to be any better than the barbarians invading our lands if I slaughter them just the same? What good are our white walls and resplendent banners, if below them we spill their blood as they would ours?”
“Ah,” the Illuminator said. “Yes. Killing is not to be taken lightly, even as a soldier. Let me tell you a story.” She gazed up at the statue. “Will you light a candle for her as I speak?”
Abris knelt and took a flame from one of the votive candles at the statue’s feet, using it to light another.
The Illuminator’s voice cracked with age as she began the story, and Abris was reminded of his late grandmother, who’d often told him myths and histories of their people. He never knew which stories were true and which she had conjured from her fanciful mind.
“Long ago, in a land now lost to time and crumbling decay, a cruel king led his people into poverty. During a time of great famine, the king gathered everyone from across the realm into his castle courtyard. There, he declared he would cast aside the old laws in order to end their time of scarcity, as was his right. He took their gilded lawbook and cast it to the floor, naming himself the law. Whatever rules or decrees he spoke would become law, no matter what.
“Under guise of protecting the people, he announced his first decree. Since there were too many mouths to feed, the king said, the elderly had no right to food. They were to be killed, and there was no other way.
“The starving citizens had no strength left to fight this injustice, and the king’s guard forced the elderly folk to line up for slaughter.
“The first in line was a man with silver hair who stumbled as he stepped forward. He pleaded with the king. ‘I am a baker! Let me make bread for you and the people,’ he cried. ‘Spare my life!’
“But the king responded, ‘Can you be young again? Can you knead muscle back into your broken and sorry limbs? No? Well then, there is no redemption for you.’ And he motioned to his executioner, who raised his blade, and the baker’s head rolled to the floor.
“How deplorable!” said Abris, interrupting the Illuminator. “Did no one resist the king’s new laws?”
The Illuminator smiled. “Thankfully, there was one who stood against this grave injustice.”
“Our immortal Protector had not been seen in this land for centuries. But perhaps extreme injustice sends ripples that echo far beyond the realms unknown. In any case, at this moment she appeared. The heavens opened with blinding light, as if the stars themselves had focused all their beams in one place. The Protector emerged, wondrous and terrifying in her majesty. She confronted the cruel king, who stood still as stone at her sight.
“‘No king stands above the statutes of the law.’ she declared. ‘Speak thy name and prepare for judgment!’
“‘I am not merely above the law, winged beast, I am the law.’ With a nod, he motioned for his guards to advance. They did so in unison, raising their spears to the sky as one. ‘Because of me, my people have purpose. My people know their place. And my people thank me for it.’
“‘The law is justice given form; it is true and fair judgment writ in ink. It cannot be undone,’ said the Protector.
“She drew her swords, which blazed with holy fire, filling the air with the scent of truth and punishment. Her wings unfolded, which fanned the flames with great strokes, and soon they too were aflame. It was a fearsome sight to see.
“‘You say you lead your people. Be now the first to be judged by my blades,’ the Protector said.
“The cruel king looked upon the Protector’s blazing swords, and her wings of fire. But most fearful of all was the burning in her eyes, gleaming and grave with uncompromising wrath. He felt like he was staring at the sun, beautiful and terrible in her glory, and the King wept in fear. He appealed to the Protector’s mercy and fell to his knees, pleading at her feet.
“‘I can change,’ the king begged. ‘I see now the error of my ways. I was selfish and corrupt and did not deserve my crown. Let me live and I shall follow the rule of law.’
“The Protector watched him with a steely gaze. When he had finished speaking, she drew breath. It is said that her voice in this moment echoed as if the very gods were speaking through her.
“‘Can you undo your deeds of injustice, King?’ asked the Protector. ‘Can you unspeak your lies and unmake your false laws against fair and righteous judgment? No? Then there will be no redemption for you.’
“In one quick motion, the Protector thrust her burning blade through the king’s heart, and he cried out as she impaled him on the gilded lawbook he had cast to the floor.
“The lawbook burst into flame which burned with the terrible heat of the heavens. This was a holy fire—one that would scorch the evil sinners from the land and cleanse the just, leaving them unscathed.
“The cruel king screamed as the Protector’s fire burned his guards and councilmen, his executioner and his servants. The fire did not stop as it spread throughout the land, fueled by the lies of the false king and his wicked followers. The survivors forever remembered this day of glory, for in the ashes of their society they were given a chance to rebuild in justice and honor.
“And, if the land ever returned to unlawful chaos, they were certain the Protector would descend from the heavens once more.”
The Illuminator smiled down at Abris.
“We must all act with virtue and honor,” she said, “from kings to bakers, servants to soldiers. For no one is above the law, and no one is above justice. The raiders who attack and invade our southern borders are lawless and malevolent. With every breath, as they march forward, they threaten the safety of our land. Your role as a shield for Demacia is a great honor, and a just endeavor. And the Protector looks kindly upon those with justice in their hearts.”
“Aye,” said Abris. He looked to his sword, unblemished by acts of war. He vowed that from his first strike to his last, each would be in the name of justice.
“If ever you feel uncertain, soldier, think on how the Protector would act. If you act with integrity and truth, as the Protector would, surely she will guide your blade. Even if you must wet it with blood.”
The Illuminator bowed and returned to her temple.
Abris watched as the candle he had lit flickered in the dark. He stood up to walk back to his camp for the night. As he turned to look toward the statue one last time, he thought he saw the shine of another flame, deep within the stone helmet of the Protector. | Fighter |
The Northern Steppes ain’t the place for fancy undies and golden piss pots. It’s tough land. Ain’t nothing go here but barbarian raiders, poison grass, and harsh winds. To survive, you gotta eat rocks and crap lava. And I’m the toughest, meanest, killingest bastard in these parts. So I figure that makes these plains mine.
“But how did I end up here? And why am I alone with yer dumb yella hide?” I say out loud, starting it off again.
Skaarl snorts her response from the rock she’s sunning herself on. Her scales is dark metal with hints of gold. Ain’t nothing can break that drakalops’s skin. I’ve seen a steel sword shatter against her leg.
Don’t make her farts smell any better though.
“I’m callin’ you a damn coward. You got somethin’ to say about that?”
“Greefrglarg,” it says as it looks up and yawns.
“It was a hooked grouse! No bigger than my hand. And you run… Darn dumb, stupid animal!”
“Greef…rglarg?” Skaarl asks as it swats the flies away from its half-opened eyes.
“Oh, good retort! Yeah, real funny, right? Ha ha ha! I’m damn tired of yer heretical pontifications. I should leave ya here to die. That’s what I should do. You’d die o’ loneliness. Hell, you wouldn’t last a day without me.”
Skaarl lays its head back down on the rock.
There ain’t no use communicating with her. I should forgive her—but then, and no doubt to mock me, her sphincter splutters rhythmically as she breaks wind. The smell hits me like a frying pan.
“That’s it, you bastard!” I throw my stinking hat onto the ground and march away from the campsite, swearing I’ll never set eyes on that foul-mouthed drakalops again. ’Course, it was my good hat, so I have to trot back and snatch it off the ground.
“Yeah, keep sleeping, ya lazy flaprat,” I say as I walk away. “I’ll do the patrol!”
Being ten moons from any farmstead don’t preclude doing the patrol. It’s my land. And I aim to keep it that way. With or without that treason-ish lizard’s help.
The sun’s dragging its way down to the horizon by the time I reach the hills. This time of day, the light plays tricks on you. I meet a snake who wants to discuss pie crusts. Except it ain’t a snake, it’s the shadow of a rock.
Damn shame. I have some durn specific notions about pie crusts. At least when I remember what they are again. I ain’t had a proper conversation about the subject in years.
I’m about to take a swig of my mushroom juice and explain my views to the snake, when I hear them.
Drake hounds howling and braying. It’s the sounds those beasts make when they is herding elmarks. And if there’s elmarks, then there is humans. And those humans is trespassers.
I scramble up a nearby boulder and check north first.
The rolling hills of my grasslands is empty, save for the iron buttes scattered across the horizon. The braying sounds might be the mushroom juice playing tricks on my head… But then I turn south.
They is about a half day’s walk from this hill. Three hundred elmarks grazing. Grazing on my land.
The drake hounds circle around the herd, but there’s no horses. A few humans walk around them on foot. Humans don’t like walking. So it don’t take a genius to figure they must be part of some larger convoy then. ’Course, I am a genius. So that was easy to figure.
My blood begins to boil. That means more damn trespassers, disturbing my peace. Here, when I was about to have a lovely conversation about pie crusts with that snake.
I take another sip of mush-juice and head back to the campsite.
“Get up, lizard!” I say as I grab my saddle.
It raises its head, grunts a response, and returns to lying in the cool grass.
“Get up! Get up! GIT UP!” I yell. “There’s trespassers, invading the peaceful serenity of our environs.”
It looks at me blankly. I forget sometimes she don’t understand me when I’m speaking.
I buckle the saddle onto its back. “There’s humans on our land!”
It stands, and its ears perk up nervously. Humans. That word it knows. I jump into the saddle.
“Let’s get those humans!” I roar, indicating our southward destination. But the damn beast immediately starts going north.
“No, No, NO! They’s that way! That way!” I say, using my reins to pull the cowardly beast back in the right direction.
“Greefrglaaarg!” the drakolops cries as it kicks off. In an instant, she’s running. The insane speed of it makes my eyes close. Scrub grass whips painfully against my legs. A cloud of dust billows behind us. What’d take me half a day of walking is past before I can get my hat tied down.
“Greefrglorg!” the drakolops screeches.
“Now, don’t be like that! Weren’t you saying you wanted company last night?”
The sun is just starting to dip below the horizon when we reach the herd. I slow Skaarl to a trot as we approach the humans’ campsite. They’d already started a fire and have a stew going.
“Hold, stranger. Show your hands before you approach,” a human in a red hat says. Their leader, I figure.
I slowly take my hands off the reins. But instead of putting them up, I pull my long axe from its saddle loop.
“I don’t think you understand me, old timer,” the human in the red hat says again. His fellows ready weapons: swords, lassos, and a dozen repeater crossbows.
“Greefrglooorg,” Skaarl growls, ready to leave already.
“I got it under control,” I tell my lizard, before turning my attention back to the humans. “I ain’t impressed with your fancy, city-folk weapons. Now I’m giving you one warning. Get off my land. Or else.”
“Or else what?” a younger human asks.
“You boys best know who you’re dealing with,” I say. “This is Skaarl. She’s a drakalops. And I’m Kled, Lord Major Admiral of the Second Legion’s forward artillery—cavalry multiplication.”
Several of the humans start snickering. I’ll learn them soon enough—once I’m done talking.
“And what makes you think this is your land?” asks the human in the red hat, smirking.
“It’s mine. I took it from them barbarians.”
“It’s property of Lord Vakhul. He was granted it by the High Command. It’s his by rightful dispensation.”
“Well, High Command! Why didn’t you say so?!” I say before spitting on the ground. “The only law a true Noxian respects is strength. He can have it. If he can take it from me.”
“You and your pony best be moving on, while you still can.”
I forget sometimes humans don’t see us like we see them. It’s the last straw though.
“CHARGE!!!!” I scream, and snap the reins. The drakolops kicks off, and we rush them. I meant to make a clever retort first, but I got ahead of myself.
The humans let loose their first volley, but Skaarl raises her ears. Like giant bronze fans, they shield us as the crossbow bolts ricochet off her impenetrable flesh.
She roars happily as we dive through their camp at the leader in the red hat. Swords clang against Skaarl’s hide, while my axe swings. I turn two of them humans into confetti. The bastard in the red hat’s quick. He ducks under my blade as we pass by. Another volley of crossbow bolts hits us.
Skaarl screams in fear. Damn thing’s unkillable and immortal, but easily spooked. Problem with magical beasties, they don’t make no sense.
I yank the reins, and we ride back into the middle of the humans. I easily kill the rest of his men, but the red-hat bastard’s a tough one. My blade slams into him—but the blow clangs dully against his heavy breast plate. That should give him something to think about, anyway.
That’s when the ballista fires. The bolt is longer than a wagon. It smashes into the drakolops, knocking my long axe from my hand, and sends us rolling to the ground. Skaarl ain’t hurt. But she shakes me off the saddle and runs for the hills.
“You ungrateful bastard! We had the frassa-gimps in the razabutts!” I mean to scream more insults, but my words start tripping over themselves.
I roll to my feet. Dust and grass cover my face. I throw my hat toward the cowardly lizard’s path, then turn back to kill the man in the red hat.
But behind him, on the hill line, is another hundred of them humans. Iron warriors, bloodrunners, and a wagon-mounted ballista. Red-hatted blurf-herder brought most of a legion with him.
“You ain’t nothing but a durn sneaky-sneak!” I scream.
“You don’t look like much,” he says, “but I guess you’re the one who’s been giving Lord Vakhul’s ranchers so much trouble.”
“Vakhul ain’t no real Noxian. Your lordship can kiss my lizard’s puckered mudflap!”
“Maybe I’ll let you end your days in Lord Vakhul’s fighting pits. If you can learn to keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m gonna rip your lips off and use them to wipe my butt!” I roar.
I guess he don’t like that, ’cause him and his hundred friends start running at me, weapons drawn. I could run. But I don’t. They’ll pay dearly to kill me.
Red Hat’s fast. He’s nearly on me before I can recover my weapon from the ground. His blade is high. He’s got the killing stroke. But I’ve got my hidden scattergun.
The blast sends him to the ground. It knocks me back, too. I tumble end over end. The single shot buys me some time. But not much.
The bloodrunners are closing fast. Their hooked blades is ready. I’m gonna die in this turd-stain. Well, if it’s my last stand, might as well make it a good one.
I dust myself off as the first line of bloodrunners attacks. I’m carving those dark magical bastards apart, but they’re cutting me to ribbons. I’m beginning to tire from the effort and loss of blood.
Then the iron warriors scream their battle cries, as they charge in their thick black armor. They’ve split into two groups, doing one of those “pinching” maneuvers. Plan on using those two walls of metal to crush me flatter than a Noxian coin.
Damn it.
Any hope I got of surviving this, it’s gone…
And that’s when I see her. The most loyal, trustworthy, honorable friend an undeserving bastard like me could ever have.
Skaarl.
Riding like hell toward me. Faster than I’ve ever seen her run. A rooster tail of dust is shooting up behind her. The damn lizard even picks up my hat on her way to me. I run to her just as those black-clad warriors are about to crush me.
I leap into the saddle, and we circle around the iron warriors. There’ll be time to kill them after we get rid of that ballista.
“It’s been a while since we took on a whole army together,” I say.
“Greefrglarg,” Skaarl screeches happily.
“Back at you, buddy,” I say with a smile wider than a croxagor’s.
’Cause there ain’t nothing I love more than this dang lizard. | Fighter |
The child slowly makes her way into the forest. And sometimes beneath the forest as the canopy of leaves weaves a green blanket against the clouds. Oh! And sometimes over the forest when there are roots! Don’t trip, little girl, don’t trip. And now… she’s going through it.
Toward me.
Eep!
I stand in the shadows beyond the path leading away from the girl’s village where countless humans have gathered. The small bud on my head peeks out from behind a bush. My hooves dig nervous furrows into the ground, and I hug the branch from Mother Tree tightly to my chest, comforted by the familiar, swirly feeling of the bark.
It’s safe here, in the trees. Or maybe a few more steps behind them.
J-just a few more…
Even with so many humans in the village filling the hillside with life, the girl is alone.
I hold my branch tighter, reminding myself of what I have to do. It’s time to move forward, Lillia. Just one step. You can do this—Mother Tree is sick. She needs the girl’s dream. I take the step. Or, at least, my hoof shifts a little. Oh. That didn’t go very far. Okay, Lillia, another one. This time I lift one shaky hoof up, and before I can get too afraid, I slam it back down.
Whoopsie. That was backward.
The girl stops to sit beneath a tree not far from where I’m watching, just close enough that I can hear her crying softly into a ragged doll cradled in her arms.
There’s no one to wipe away her tears… but she’s not entirely alone. Beneath everything, vibrating with potential in my branch… I can feel it—her dream.
The bud dangling from the tip of the bough shudders to radiant life now that it senses the child and her dream. Like the small flower on my head, the glowing bud and branch are also from Mother Tree—drawn to dreams just as much as the slumbering magic is drawn to them. Glittering pollen drifts from between its petals, and the shadows around me recede, fleeing the light before I can.
My— My hoof is showing? Eep!
I sprawl and contort all four of my legs to fit in the shrinking shadow, wobbling as my balance threatens to give. The glimmering bud swings wildly as the bough sways with me, casting clouds of dust-like pollen that drift toward the girl through the leaves. And then, as the shadows move again, I stumble into the clearing where she awaits.
All I can do is peer at her from behind my branch, too afraid to blink.
But she doesn’t see me. She presses her face into the doll, hiding her tears. Her sobs turn into whimpers, her whimpers into sighs. The pollen from the bud gradually settles around her, twinkling as the girl’s eyes slowly flutter closed. She slumps against the tree, the doll sliding from her grasp.
I’m still afraid to move. Something twirls out of the bough’s bud and dances above my head. It’s my old friend, a little dream that’s traveled with me since I first left Mother Tree’s mystical garden. As if sensing the other dream still snuggled inside the girl, my glittering friend dances through the air toward her.
“That was a close one,” I say as the dream flits back and forth.
It skims above the girl and leaves a trail of sparkles that tickle her skin until she smacks her lips and wrinkles her nose. She snorts so loudly that I leap again, landing with a blush. I touch the petals of the small bud on my head, wondering if they’re flushing as red as my cheeks. The child remains fast asleep.
Why isn’t her dream coming out?
My friend continues to spin around the girl, trying to summon the other dream. But my eyes are drawn to the doll on the ground instead, the girl’s hand hanging as if she still reaches for it, her fingers squeezing tight.
Before I left the garden—the place that was my home—I used to think that dreams were the things people wanted most every time they closed their eyes. But now, I see that the things they want, that they reach for and hold on to… only make them sad. The thing I wanted most, which was to meet the dreamers, hurt Mother Tree.
What if dreams aren’t the things we want?
I put down my branch. This time you can do it, Lillia. Just close your eyes, like you’re sleeping. Stumbling forward, I kneel beside the girl and take up her doll.
What if dreams are the things we need?
I start to hand the doll back to the girl, wary of getting this close, even to such a small human. Instinctively, she rolls over as she feels it against her chest, sitting up to pull the doll into a hug. Her tiny arms are just long enough to wrap around me as well. As she hugs the doll, she pulls me in closer, and closer.
And in that moment, we both find what we need to bloom.
The girl’s dream finally emerges in a luminous swirl, spiraling and dancing alongside my old friend, and filling the forest with so much wonder that I can feel it all the way down to my hooves.
I want to prance!
Like a color that has no name, each dream is so hard to describe. Is this dream the girl’s sister, wrapping her in its arms although the sisters have already said goodbye? Is it the doll she pretends is her sister before she put on armor and left everything else behind? Or are these only the things the child grasped too hard while hugging her doll, and her dream is something deeper—something truer?
“You miss your sister, don’t you?” I whisper into her ear. “You need her love.”
Giving her that love, seeing it and feeling it, is what I need, too. I melt into the hug, and send dream dust spiraling as the small bud on my head twirls open.
Both dreams curl into the large bud on my branch. “I’ll whisper your dream to the tree. I’ll remember,” I tell the girl. “I’m glad I got to meet you,” I add.
I hope her dream hears me, too.
I let go of the girl and lay her down gently. With her sighs, she releases all that’s been trapping her dream.
Like so many mortals, her sister may never come back to give her the love she desires. That’s why she needs to dream. That’s why it will always be there, and she’ll never be alone, as long as she remembers to close her eyes.
That’s why dreams are magical… and the little girl is, too.
I sneeze, and the dust-pollen in the bud on my head swirls away, carrying the magic of the child’s dream into a wind that blows toward Mother Tree.
“Whoopsie,” I blush, realizing I’m in the open. And before the feeling of wonder completely fades, I prance back into the forest.
The girl opens her eyes with a well-rested yawn. The sun is shining through the leaves above her. She’s surprised to find herself still in the forest, and drops her doll in shock. Then, slowly, she remembers what it means to her—who gave it to her—and picks it back up.
She holds the doll tight and starts to run through the clearing.
“O-Ma, O-Ma! Has sister returned?” she cries to her grandmother. “I just saw her. I saw her!”
The girl’s small outline disappears, but in her wake, following the path where she ran, dream blossoms sprout from sparkling pollen.
Perhaps when the child returns, she will pick one of these flowers. And know that in her heart—though it can’t be held—the love of her sister will always bloom. | Fighter |
A raised fist. A surge of necromantic power. Before him, the final spire of the final tower takes form, inky smoke coalescing into black iron. Mordekaiser gazes upon his domain with dark pride.
Mitna Rachnun, his Afterworld, is complete.
Once, he stood in this very place, a mortal soul faced with the emptiness of oblivion. Now, a kingdom stretches before him, forged through his works.
He strides down the path toward his fortress, reveling in the satisfaction of his work. Each stone underfoot, his doing. The battlements and ramparts, all shaped from cruel magic and iron will.
Where there was nothing, Mordekaiser forged his own reality—a realm where all souls will soon dwell in eternity, never to fade.
Sahn-Uzal blinked and looked around. Uncertain, his mind blank.
I am dead.
The thought flitted by, a whisper on the wind. As the truth of it sank in, for just a moment, a fleeting sadness flooded his heart. Then laughter welled up, a rumble from his gut that washed over his entire body, overflowed from his chest, and poured out in a rumbling cascade.
Good.
Sahn-Uzal scanned the distance for the grand gateway of souls that would lead to the famed Hall of Bones. Searched for the attendants who would carry him triumphant into the eternal. Savored his growing excitement to meet the great conquerors who came before him.
Yet there was nothing but fog, as far as he could see.
Sahn-Uzal took a step forward—then looked down, surprised. Fine sand—a coarse grit—shifted underfoot. In the distance, discordant voices rustled, too quiet to make out the words.
This makes no sense.
He struck out across the wasteland, determined to find the truth.
Time passed, untold.
Confusion melted into disbelief. Disbelief kindled anger. Anger flared into fury.
Nothing.
There is nothing.
The dessicated sands extended endlessly. The relentless voices whispered on, a maddening itch in the back of his mind. The fog never abated, an eternal haze that hovered, a shroud over all.
Had the priests lied? Or were they false prophets, prattling fools proclaiming hollow superstitions? Or had the ancestors made a grotesque error of judgement, and not welcomed him into the great halls?
These questions gnawed at him, at first. But they did not matter. Sahn-Uzal realized that now. Nothing mattered but the present, pressing truth—there was nothing here. A vast emptiness, devoid of reward. Devoid of promise.
As this truth percolated through him, the shadow of despair stalked Sahn-Uzal, hungry to consume him.
But he was Sahn-Uzal. Conqueror of the wildlands. Master of the tribes. He had built an empire where there was none. In life, he had overcome all odds and conquered despair through will and ambition. Death would be no different.
If death does not hold the kingdoms I was promised… I will forge them myself.
Mordekaiser walks beneath the inner portcullis, fashioned after that of the Immortal Bastion, his mortal seat of power. He walks through the entryway and into the great hall.
Before him, his throne looms.
All around, in constant cacophony, the endless wailing of souls rises and falls, an unholy chorus of anguish. Yet Mordekaiser does not hear them—or rather, hears them as one might hear the clang of metal in a war camp, or the sound of boots on gravel during a forced march—common sounds, unnoteworthy in their banality.
After all, the worthy souls stand at attention along the hall, and none of them dare speak.
All is as it should be.
Mordekaiser steps toward his throne.
The arcane tome floated above the pedestal, serene and untouched. A strange contrast to all of the blood spilled around it.
The last surviving mage raised a feeble hand, blood trickling from his brow. Small licks of fire danced between his fingers—a final spell, one last, desperate attempt.
Mordekaiser spoke, bemused. “Such magics would consume you, mortal. And your precious book as well.”
The mage spat his words. “I don’t matter. Nothing matters but stopping you from obtaining it.”
A gout of fire, burning blue with heat, burst from the mage’s hands. It engulfed the Iron Revenant towering above him. Scorching energy raced up the arms of the mage, the backlash of the spell splitting his own flesh. Still, the mage pressed on, teeth cracking as he gritted them defiantly.
Mordekaiser stepped forward, a spirit encased in a suit of dark iron armor, shielding the tome from the flames. In his hands, Nightfall, his infamous mace, pulsed an ephemeral green. The heat from the fire cracked the stone and melted the flesh of the other, already dead mages. But Mordekaiser stood stoic against the onslaught.
Finally spent, his body broken, the mage collapsed to his knees, his ragged breath resolving in a whispered prayer for his power to be enough.
If Mordekaiser still had a body of flesh, he would have smiled. “Lacking in conviction.”
The mage stifled a sob as Mordekaiser approached. He squinted up at the specter and spoke through a throat dry and cracked.
“You will not find what you seek! A brutish monster could never understand the secrets of the Tome of Spirits and—”
A swing of the mace. A satisfying crash.
Another surge of blood joined the sticky pools coagulating in the room. Another broken mage—the thirteenth—fell still on the floor.
Mordekaiser laughed.
“You mistake brutality for ignorance.”
He gazed around the room at the corpses and whispered a verse in the unspoken tongue of the dead.
Pitiful struggle
Freed from flesh
You are all mine
He tapped Nightfall on the ground. It glowed brighter, almost seemed to breathe—as thirteen points of light rose from the broken bodies, then sank into the earth.
Mordekaiser turned his attention back to the book, still floating in its place, ahum with spirit magic. Another piece of knowledge for his plans. Another treasure in his conquest.
He stepped forward to collect his prize.
The throne looms before him. Its back of sheer iron pillars extends upward and tapers to vicious points. Ochnun script, angular and sharp, runs around the throne’s dais. The everpresent whispering is almost a roar here, incessant and desperate. Mordekaiser rests a hand on the armrest, taking pride in his work. This piece subsumed more souls in its creation than any other single part in his fortress. The wails emanating from it are music to him.
With a thought, Mordekaiser calls Nightfall to his hands. With a swing, he obliterates the throne.
A squall of a hundred souls echoes in the great hall as they are released from the throne, dissipating into oblivion. Mordekaiser watches them vanish with grim satisfaction.
Thrones are for mortals encumbered by flesh and human exhaustion. He… is now far more.
He steps atop the twisted iron and looks back across his great hall. His generals, souls that were worthy to die at his own hand when he last walked the physical realm, stand at attention. None so much as flinch in response. None will move without his direct command.
Now, his kingdom is truly ready.
Mordekaiser strides out of the great hall, toward the heart of his fortress, the centerpiece of his power and his machinations. Toward the relic that ties Mitna Rachnun to the mortal realm. Toward the place that gives the secret heart of the Immortal Bastion its true purpose.
In his first life, he thought himself a great conqueror, befitting the eternal halls of his faith. How small, how petty, how mortal his ambitions were then! But where others accepted death as the end, he used it forge the beginning of his true conquest. And now… he can hear and understand every whisper of this realm with stark clarity. Now, the magic of death itself courses through him. Now, he holds the arcane secrets gathered over a second lifetime, wrested from the hidden and unknown places of the world. Few other beings can claim the mastery of spirit, death, and mortal magics that he holds. He will wield them to shape all realms to his iron will.
The time has come to return to the world of the living. All the souls of Runeterra await.
Mordekaiser raises Nightfall in one hand.
And so, his final reign begins. | Fighter |
Nasus walked at night, unwilling to face the sun. The boy followed in his wake.
How long had he been there?
Those mortals who caught a glimpse of the monstrous vagabond always ran, all save the boy. Together, they wove a path through the bygone tapestry of Shurima. Self-imposed isolation chipped at Nasus’s consciousness. The desert wind howled around their malnourished frames.
“Nasus, look, above the dune sea,” said the child.
Stars guided the pair’s sojourn across the desiccated expanse. The old jackal no longer wore the armor of the Ascended. The golden monuments lay buried with the past. Now a hermit dressed in tattered fabric, Nasus scratched at his matted fur before slowly raising his head to observe the night sky.
“The Piper,” said Nasus, his voice low and graveled. “The season will change soon.”
Nasus put a hand on the boy’s tiny shoulder and looked down into his sunburnt face. There, he saw the soft lines and curves of Shuriman lineage, worn ragged by travel.
When did it become your place to worry? Soon we will find you a home. Wandering between the ruins of an extinguished empire is no life for a child.
This was the nature of the universe. Brief moments unfolded into the endless cycles of existence. The heady philosophy weighed upon him, but it was more than just another stone in his endless tally of self-imposed guilt. In truth, the boy would inevitably be changed if he was allowed to follow. Remorse darkened Nasus’s brow like a thunderhead. Their companionship sated something deep within the ancient hero.
“We can reach Astrologer’s Tower before dawn. But we’ll have to climb,” said the boy.
****
The tower was close. Nasus pulled himself up the cliff face hand over hand, the climb memorized to such perfection that he took great liberties with each handhold, tempting death. The boy clambered up by his side, his agile form utilizing every nook and cranny offered by the blemished rock.
What would happen to this innocent if I gave in to death? The thought troubled Nasus.
Wisps of fog rolled through the crags of the upper cliffs, each threading the narrow rocks like tiny mountain paths. The boy scurried over the top first. Nasus followed.
In the distance, metal clanged against stone, and voices could be heard through the haze — they spoke in a familiar dialect. Nasus was shaken from his reverie.
The well at Astrologer’s Tower occasionally attracted nomads, but never this close to the equinox. The boy stood perfectly still, his fear palpable.
“Where are the fires?” asked the boy.
A horse’s whinny pierced the night.
“Who goes there?” asked the boy. The words rolled through the darkness.
A lantern sparked to life, illuminating a band of riders. Mercenaries. Raiders.
The jackal’s eyes snapped wide.
He saw seven of them. Their curved blades remained sheathed, but the look in their eyes spoke of martial training and guile.
“Where is the caretaker?” asked Nasus.
“He and his wife are asleep. The cool evening prompted them to retire early,” replied one of the riders.
“Old jackal, my name is Malouf,” said another rider. “We have been sent by the Emperor.”
Nasus stepped forward, betraying the briefest hint of anger.
“Does he seek acknowledgement? Then let me give it. There is no emperor in this fallen age,” said Nasus.
The boy stepped forward defiantly. The dark messengers backed away from the lantern. Long shadows obscured defensive stances.
“Deliver your message and leave,” said the child.
Malouf dismounted and stepped forward. He reached a calloused hand into the folds of his shirt and produced a dark amulet bound to a thick, black chain. The geometry of the metal sparked recollections of magic and destruction in Nasus’s mind.
“Emperor Xerath sends offerings. We are to be your servants. He welcomes you to his new capital at Nerimazeth.”
The mercenary’s words fell on Nasus like a hammer on glass.
The boy promptly knelt and snatched up a weighty rock.
“Die!” cried the boy.
“Take him!” said Malouf.
With a heave, the boy hurled the rock through the air, its perfect arc threatening to shatter mercenary bone on impact.
“Renekton, no!” roared Nasus.
The riders abandoned their half-hearted deception. Nasus knew then that the caretaker and his wife were dead. Xerath’s greeting would come in the form of cold steel. Truth began to eclipse illusion.
Nasus reached for the boy. The child tore into shadows of memory that dissipated across the starlit ground.
“Goodbye, brother,” whispered Nasus.
Xerath’s emissaries fanned out, their horses bucking and snorting. The Ascended was flanked on three sides. Malouf did not hesitate, drawing his blade and piercing Nasus’s side with it. Pain rippled through the ancient curator’s body. The rider attempted to withdraw his weapon, but it wouldn’t budge. A clawed hand gripped the blade, keeping it agonizingly buried within Ascended flesh.
“You should have left me to my ghosts,” said Nasus.
Nasus tore Malouf’s sword from his hand, shattering fingers and tearing ligaments.
The demigod pounced on his attacker. Malouf’s body cracked under the jackal’s enormous weight.
Nasus leapt to the next rider, pulling him from his saddle; two strikes ruptured organs and stole the wind from his lungs. His broken form spun off into the sand, a ruined mass of agony. His horse reared and fled into the desert.
“He’s mad!” said one of the riders.
“Not any longer,” said Nasus, approaching the mercenary leader.
A strange fragrance filled the air. Dead flowers spinning on lavender colored threads followed in his wake. Malouf twisted on the ground, the broken fingers of his right hand withered, skin sagging like wet parchment. The barrel of his chest caved in on itself like a rotting spine fruit.
White-knuckled panic overtook the remaining mercenaries. They struggled to keep their mounts under control, if only to retreat. Malouf’s body lay abandoned in the sand.
Nasus turned east toward the ruins of Nerimazeth.
“Tell your ‘emperor’ his cycle nears its end.” | Fighter |
When I land in the ruins of Nerimazeth, it does not feel as if I have leapt, celestial magic burning my path across the sky, but as if I have fallen.
I am, after all, only a man.
Around me on the swirling dunes, a cohort of Ra’Horak fights, Solari warriors far from the temples of Mount Targon. They have marched with fifty spears, three weeks into the desert—a distance I have crossed in moments—to investigate a power that grows, even as their own wanes. Here, the sun they worship is so constant, it is as if the shadows of the past are still burned into the desert, their outline all that remains of an empire long lost. Buildings, now covered in dunes. A sun, once meant to raise men into the heavens, now dulled and fallen to earth.
Shurima was born, and died here. It was in Nerimazeth that the first Ascended were created. Meant to defend Shurima against any threat, those that outlived the empire were driven mad by long centuries of conflict, becoming Darkin and laying waste to the world before being contained.
But, as I well know, some abominations birthed by Shuriman hubris live on…
The sound of metal rings in my ear, as a spear whips past my helm. Then another, and another. The ringing rises up into a full battlecry, as the Ra’Horak unleash their might. Yet, as steel fills the sky, a blast of magic tears through the spears’ path, carving a swath of destruction through the ruins.
Once the dust clears, I see it. The reason I have come. A creature looms, burning and broken like the empire it would rule. It is unlike any Ascended I have ever seen, a shattered god that has claimed this fallen city, and would see it rise again.
But once… it too was a man.
I will remind it what that means—to draw breath in the face of destruction. I will remind them all.
“The god-warrior!” one of the Ra’Horak cries. “We cannot defeat it!”
“Let me show you how a god dies!” I bellow in response, and I charge toward the creature, raising my spear. It is with their power that the spear glows—the power of the gods. The power of the stars. My muscles strain to bear the strange weight of the magic, as the creature unleashes another blast from within its shattered form. My spear is not burned away as the Ra’Horak’s were, but instead burns with its own light. It streaks like a comet at the Ascended, casting it to the earth, and its blast into the heavens.
Before me, only feet from the rent opened by the creature’s blast, a Ra’Horak cradles the body of a fallen warrior. Her own arm has been scorched by magic, where she sought to shield him from the attack.
“You… You are an Aspect,” she says, though in her eyes I can see the desperation. She is pleading, begging me to say yes, so that I can save her. So that I can save her friend. All around, the Ra’Horak lines are broken, along with their will to fight.
I do not answer as the spear is called back to my hand by the magic she so craves, its return an echo of my own thrust. The Ascended has left no blood upon its tip, only sand. It possesses no flesh other than magic and stone.
I want to tell her my name. That I am Atreus, that I too was once a Ra’Horak looking to the skies for the power to save me… But that man is dead. He died on Targon’s peak, along with his brother, Pylas. Slain by the Pantheon, and by his own failures. And no matter how hard I try, I can bring neither Atreus nor Pylas back. Even the god is gone, its constellation torn from the heavens.
Instead, I turn to face the creature once more.
“You must fight,” I tell the Ra’Horak simply. “You all must.” Around us, the ruined city burns, as the Ascended’s magic refuses to fade.
I run over sand fused into glass, each new blast of magic shaking the whole world, until it feels like the earth itself must fall apart. That only the heavens will remain. But I refuse to give up. I see ballistae, abandoned on the ground. The Ra’Horak raise their shields against debris cast from falling buildings, disappearing into dust.
“Fight! You must fight!” I yell louder, my voice carrying more of the gods’ authority than I would like, and then I am upon it, my spear slashing into the Ascended, cutting across the broken stone it boasts instead of a face. This close, its blasts crash into my shield, pushing me backward. I slash again, my spear trailing magic, and again, I raise my shield only just in time to deflect the Ascended’s wrath.
My feet dig into the dirt. I struggle to hold the beast at bay as the magic beats into me with the Ascended’s will, made only stronger by cruelty and rage. I push against it, snarling, and power lances off of the shield wildly in every direction—cutting through the ruins, the sky, and through the Ra’Horak still cowering beneath both. My hands begin to shake, and it is not to the warriors, but to myself, that I growl against lungs gasping for breath.
“Fight…”
The creature’s eyes narrow. It knows. The earth beneath me can no longer hold. My strength can no longer hold. As I fall back to earth, the magic in my spear dies, and the helm clatters from my coughing face.
I spit blood into the dirt, and struggle to raise my head. But all I can see of Nerimazeth is that one Ra’Horak warrior, framed by smoke and chaos—as she looks back at me, into eyes only now revealed… and for the first time, sees something other than an Aspect. The man who cradled Pylas, as snow formed from his dying breath.
I wonder if she recognizes the stars, and my destiny, tattooed upon my chest. The scar that cuts through them. It is no longer pleading that shows in her eyes, as I see the light grow on her face, the creature gathering power for one more blast. Though her arm is ruined, and though her friend lies still, she picks up her shield and begins stumbling toward me, as inevitable and determined as death.
“What… is your name?!” I cough through ragged breaths, and still, the light grows brighter.
“Asose,” she says firmly as she stands beside me, and turns her shield to face the blast.
The ruins fill with impossible brightness that promises to burn everything away, until it does, and only darkness is left. There is no more power, no more Aspect. Where Asose once stood, there is nothing. Only my memory.
But still, I can feel my scar, throbbing with pain. Reminding me I am alive, and of every moment that brought me here. My brother-in-arms, Pylas, telling me to stop getting blood on his victory… The barbarian raid, each of us near death… Collapsing upon Targon’s pinnacle… The Darkin blade, cutting through death to awaken me again… Empyrean wheat, clinging to the mountain… The mud on my hands as I put down the plow, and pick up the spear…
All of that would be nothing without a woman taking up her shield—knowing that she would not survive, but that she would fight. Her power, her sacrifice, so much greater than that of the stars. So much greater than mine, and the weapons of the Aspect that have kept me safe.
It will not be in vain.
As I struggle to my feet, broken, I see the shadow of the Ra’Horak, emerging from cover, eclipsing the Sun Disc cradle behind me at the center of the ruins. I rise with them, not as a god, but as a man. My pantheon, all who have fallen, earning me another moment. All who have lived, and all who have died facing a moment of truth where they must decide why they fight. Who they love. What they truly are.
What are gods before this courage? They are nothing.
“Asose!” I yell into the ruins, though my ribs dig into my lungs.
“Asose!” the Ra’Horak call back. They too stand amidst the rubble, their shadow looming all the larger as the Ascended gathers its magic again.
And though I am broken, and though the god is dead, I feel the power ignite once more in my spear, as the plume on my helm bursts alight. It is calling me to battle, as the Ra’Horak cast their spears once more.
And, for a moment, a star lost with the Constellation of War gleams brighter than the sun.
Her name was Asose. | Fighter |
Six boys and a camel, and the boys were cheaper to replace. Some were orphans and escaped slaves, but most were off casts — teenagers abandoned by families too poor to keep them. When Shahib offered him the work, Jaheje hadn’t eaten in days.
Only the desperate would try crossing the Sai Kahleek, but those with any meager possessions bartered for Shahib. Jaheje looked across the cooking fire at the older boy. A few small tufts of facial hair had sprouted on Shahib’s cheeks, and his voice no longer cracked when he spoke. Few boys survived crossing the desert for more than a couple seasons. No one chose to do it after earning any money. No one except Shahib, who had walked the Sai Kahleek for almost ten years.
Shahib whistled and the other boys ran to his side. He showed them how to cut the callouses from their feet.
“Feel each step,” he instructed. “Start with your big toe, then roll outward until your whole foot touches down. Only then do you shift your weight from your rear foot.” He stood and demonstrated how to move with long, silent strides.
“Practice,” he explained. “If the camel walks too slowly, it will reveal our presence. You must be quiet, and you must be swift.”
Jaheje’s feet bled badly the first day; he nearly fainted from the pain. He practiced long after the caravan stopped and the ground cooled. By the fourth day, the pain was so intense, he used a bit of leather to bite down on. Shahib complimented him on his technique.
Shahib laughed as he indicated it to the other boys. “Watch,” he said. “Jaheje is quieter than me. Copy how he moves. Each step as soft as a mouse, each stride as long as a gazelle. Yes, this is how you survive Sai Kahleek.”
Longing as much for the older boy’s praise as the training he needed to survive, Jaheje soon followed him everywhere. He saw how Shahib rested with one foot raised and wrapped around the pendant spear. He saw how Shahib retied the spear’s pendant every morning, making sure the flag’s cut-cloth always flowed like the leaves of a desert palm. He saw how Shahib’s eyes searched the desert in a pattern, over and over, stopping only when he closed them for sleep.
After the second moon, they arrived. From the top of the dunes, Jaheje looked down at the skeleton of the dead god. No one knew what the monster had been when alive, but its huge ribs raked into the sky, each casting a shadow that engulfed the caravan as they passed. Its bones meant they were entering the Sai Kahleek.
Northerners called Sai Kahleek the “Bone Sea,” but this was a mistranslation. The Laaji tribes had never seen an ocean. Sai was the word the Laaji used for plains of sand and loosely packed rock, which were slow and painful to walk on. It meant the land was pockmarked with tunnels. It meant the Xer’Sai preyed here. It meant death lurked beneath the sand.
Dragging the old camel behind them, the team of boys left before dawn, a half day’s march ahead of the caravan.
Jaheje found his first burrow on the second day, and waved his signal flag. Shahib soft-stepped over to him. They approached the burrow cautiously and stopped a dozen yards from it. Its opening was no larger than a melon, but from it, the poisonous vapors of activity brewed. Shahib sent one of the boys back to redirect the caravan.
Jaheje looked back and asked Shahib, “Can we kill a Xer’Sai that large?”
Shahib scratched his chin, responding, “Their skin gets harder with age.” Slowly, a grin appeared proudly. “Last season I killed one the size of a jackal. We lost the camel, but I killed it.”
Jaheje smiled, enjoying his mentor’s boast. But he found himself asking, “Does Rek’Sai exist?”
Shahib chilled, his mood suddenly bitter. “I have seen her.” But before Jaheje could ask about the famous beast, Shahib stood and told Jaheje to keep moving. They crept away from the burrow, listening, waiting, scanning the horizon for any movement.
When Jaheje heard the first gong of a sounding bell, it took him a moment to process what it meant. Something was coming from behind them, to the east. He had been so focused on looking for hidden burrows, he had forgotten to watch the horizon.
The camel brayed, and Jaheje looked for the signal spears of the other boys in his crew. At the edge of his visibility, he could see their three flags.
The bell sounded again. The boy who had sighted the Xer’Sai would now use the sounding bell to confuse the beast. Jaheje had to chase the camel away from the path of the caravan and toward the lookout. Assuming the lookout wasn’t killed, the Xer’Sai would follow the camel away from the caravan and allow the lookout a safe path to retreat.
Jaheje could see Shahib running toward him. The bone-thin teen had abandoned silent-stepping, racing as fast as he could toward the camel and Jaheje. Shahib dropped his spear as a cloud of dust suddenly appeared behind him.
Jaheje ran to the huge king-bell attached to the camel. He dragged it down to the ground and struck it with all of his might. Even muffled by the earth, the sound battered his ears. He kept hitting, but the cloud of dust pursuing Shahib didn’t change course. Each second it gained ground.
At the moment, it seemed certain to overtake Shahib. Instead of running or dodging, he froze and screamed, “Don’t move!”
The other boys stood as motionless as their bodies would allow. At the exact instant, the old camel began running.
And then, before a word could be spoken, an energy crackle hit them like a wall. The hair on Jaheje’s neck stood on end.
“It’s close,” Jaheje whispered.
“No,” Shahib warned. “It’s not close. It’s big.” And for the first time Jaheje saw real fear on the older boy’s face.
Shahib scanned the desert, looking for a fin, a dust cloud, anything. Then he judged the distance. “The caravan’s too far. If it heads for the camel we can make it to the rocks.”
Jaheje desperately turned, looking for the hidden creature. “Where is it?!”
In the distance, they heard the camel bray in pain. The animal’s screams ended suddenly.
“What could kill a camel that quickly?” Jaheje asked.
Shahib pushed them forward. “We have to reach the rocks,” he insisted.
And with that, they began to run.
When Shahib told them to stop, they stopped. When he indicated for them to silent-step, they did so. Jaheje could only hope Shahib saw what he did not.
But the black rocks seemed to run away from them. No matter how many steps they took, they never grew closer. So they ran as clouds covered the sun and the desert became black. They ran as the wind swept away their trail. They ran knowing the Xer’Sai was behind them; knowing it heard every misstep, every stumble. They ran knowing that it followed, and that every mistake led it closer.
When Jaheje saw it, it seemed to be a giant mouth cut into the rock, vapors hissing from it menacingly. The burrow’s entrance was so large, even standing upright, he would be able to walk into it without lowering his head.
“Rek’Sai,” he whispered in terrified awe. As he turned, he realized that all around them, the black stone was pockmarked with the creature’s giant tunnels.
Young Xalee gave voice to the horrible realization that they all understood: “She can tunnel through rock.” The cliffs they had thought to be their salvation were instead Rek’Sai’s lair.
“We should go back, try and reach the caravan,” Xalee suggested.
“Try if you like,” Shahib answered.
“We can silent-step.”
“A day’s travel,” Shahib cautioned. “Can you travel soundlessly for a whole day?”
“What will you do Shahib?” Jaheje asked.
“If we go back, we will die in the Sai Kahleek. I will go forward and pray a guardian watches over me.”
Xalee asked, “Where does this valley lead?”
“It doesn’t matter where it leads. It is our only choice.”
They moved cautiously along the cliffs, entering a wind cut valley, and hoping it would lead to water soon. Avoiding the monstrous burrows was impossible. Each boy silently prayed Rek’Sai had heard, and pursued, the distant caravan instead of them.
As the sunlight crept over the edge of the valley, it revealed the desolate obstacle they faced. It was impossible to walk silently in the canyon, for bones were scattered underfoot. The sound of each footstep echoed with a hollow lifelessness.
She launched from an unseen hole behind them, which had appeared dead. For Jaheje, everything became a blur.
“Back!” Shahib screamed to the others. “Get downwind!”
The warning was already too late for Xalee. The creature brought down the boy like a wolf taking a mouse. Her huge fangs snapped Xalee’s spine, killing him before he could cry out.
Rek’Sai loomed above Jaheje, twice his height. Her powerful forelimbs stalked left and right. Her leech-like tail, many times the size of an alligator, dragged behind her body. Her long tongue rose, then swayed like a dancing cobra, sniffing the wind.
Jaheje could feel every muscle in his body aching to move. He stood transfixed as the huge Xer’Sai turned toward him. Gore covered the beast’s eyeless face and armored beak.
Rek’Sai was so alien and perfect in her deadliness, Jaheje felt his mouth open in awe. The boy gripped his spear staff, certain he wouldn’t be able to pierce her armored hide if she attacked.
“Down!” Shahib barked.
All the boys ducked flat to the earth as Rek’Sai’s “fin” pulsed a sickly green color. Jaheje could feel the invisible energy crackling above him.
The Xer’Sai turned, facing the distant caravan. Her tongue sniffed the air again, and considered the distance. Suddenly, the fin returned to its original violet color, and Rek’Sai pulled Xalee’s body down into her burrow.
Save the pool of thickening blood and Xalee’s absence, no evidence of the great beast remained.
Shahib whispered to go. The survivors silently retreated, deeper into the canyon.
No one spoke. The dark stone, pockmarked with burrows, robbed them of the ability to speak, to cry, to mourn.
Breaking free of the spell, his exhaustion cast over him. Jaheje looked around the canyon walls. He realized in an instant the enormity of what stalked them and why Shahib had decided to press on. Since Omah ‘Azir’s time, when stone was clay and Shurima built itself to the sun, Rek’Sai had fed here. This valley was hers alone. And all believed the Xer’Sai existed only to eat.
“But why do they stay here?” Jaheje said aloud.
Suddenly, the monster appeared. She burst out of the ground in front of them, diving at Jaheje.
Jaheje ducked as Rek’Sai soared past him, her mass blocking the sun. As she landed, her forelimbs ripped apart the ground and she disappeared beneath the surface.
Hidden in the brush, VezKah, the youngest boy, motioned Jaheje closer. Just then, his mouth opened in horror. A pulse of dark energy ripped from Rek’Sai’s fin, tearing apart the earth as she rushed toward VezKah. The earth cracked apart as Rek’Sai ripped the ground up and threw the boy into the air. VezKah landed in a heap as the huge fin rushed toward them.
Together, Shahib and Jaheje ran out of the gully as quickly as they could.
The creature lurched forward, then slowed a rhythm, which matched the swerving pattern of her pursuit. She pushed them even further into the valley, blocking any other road of escape.
Silent-stepping was meaningless now. Rek’Sai was too close. All that was left was to run.
When Caleeb lost his breath, Rek’Sai took him. Seeing this, Shahib stopped. He collected Caleeb’s spear and waited. All around him, the air churned and bent like a reflection in the water.
“What are you doing?” Jaheje whispered.
“I will be the camel. Go silently.” Shahib acknowledged the walls around them. “Tell people what you have seen here.”
Jaheje followed Shahib’s eyeline. Behind him, the stone cliffs had been cut apart by burrows into a pattern of intersecting circles. From them, a bizarre connection of ink-black energy flowed and dripped like a sticky liquid. And through this matrix, an incompressible reality bent and twisted as someplace else prepared itself to enter our world.
Hidden in this isolated valley, the true lair of Xer’Sai was a half-constructed tunnel. A tunnel to the nightmare place where these creatures had been born, and fouler things waited hungrily at this unfinished gateway to our world.
“Keep going, Jaheje,” Shahib said with a tired smile. “Each step as soft as a mouse, each stride as long as a gazelle. You must survive the Sai Kahleek.”
Jaheje made it to the far cliff before he heard the scream. Turning to look, Jaheje rolled his foot down, then slid his heel to the ground just as Shahib had taught him.
He did this as his teacher was reduced to the sound of bones snapping, and the great beast chewing.
Jaheje watched as Rek’Sai opened her maw and pulled a sticky ball of dark energy from Shahib’s ruined body. The ball rotated as tendrils dripped to the ground, sticking and stretching as Rek’Sai manipulated it into a pattern, which she attached between two of the burrows.
Jaheje looked away, then turned silently and soft-stepped out of the valley.
Jaheje ran out of sweat the next day. He felt his dry eyes scratching against his eyelids. His lips swelled, then split open bloodlessly.
When his calf muscles locked in a cramp from dehydration, and he was no longer able to soft-step, only then did he fall to the ground to cry. He cried for the days of hunger he’d suffered before joining Shahib’s caravan. He cried for knowing his parents off cast him instead of his brothers. He cried for Shahib, the first person who’d shown him kindness. And it was those last tears that dragged him back onto his cramped legs and made him stand. Knowing each shaky and tired step revealed his position to any Xer’Sai nearby, Jaheje stumbled onward.
When Jaheje reached the great river Renek and told his story, few believed him. But soon, those who tried to cross the Sai Kahleek with any meager possessions left, bartered for Jaheje. And Jaheje taught off cast boys how to cut the callouses from their feet and how to soft-step by rolling their heel. He taught them how to survive the Sai Kahleek, and he warned his students of the monster named Rek’Sai. | Fighter |
Am I a god?
He no longer knows. Once, perhaps, when the sun disc gleamed like gold atop the great Palace of Ten Thousand Pillars. He remembers carrying a withered ancient in his arms, and them both borne into the sky by the sun’s radiance. All his hurts and pain were washed away as the light remade him. If this memory is his, then was he once mortal? He thinks so, but cannot remember. His thoughts are a cloud of duneflies, myriad shattered memories buzzing angrily in his elongated skull.
What is real? What am I now?
This place, this cave under the sands. Is it real? He believes so, but he is no longer sure he can trust his senses. For as long as he can remember, he knew only darkness; awful, unending darkness that clung to him like a shroud. But then the darkness broke apart and he was hurled back into the light. He remembers clawing his way through the sand as the earth buckled and heaved, the living rock grinding as something long buried and all but forgotten heaved itself to the surface once again.
Towering statues erupted from beneath the sand, vast and terrible in their aspect. Armored warriors with demonic heads loomed over him, ancient gods of a long dead culture. Bellicose phantoms rose from the sand and he fled their wrath, escaping the rising city as light blazed and the moons and stars wheeled overhead. He remembers staggering through the desert, his mind afire with visions of blood and betrayal, of titanic palaces and golden temples brought down in the blink of an eye. Centuries of progress undone for the sake of one man’s vanity and pride. Was it his? He does not know, but fears it might have been.
The light that once remade his flesh now pains him. It burned him raw and seared his soul as he wandered the desert, lost and alone, tormented by a hatred he did not understand. He has taken refuge from its unforgiving light, but even here, squatting and weeping in this dripping cave, the Whisperer has found him. The shadow on the walls slithers around him; always muttering, always conspiring to feed his bitterness. He presses long, gnarled hands that end in vicious, ebon talons to his temples, but he cannot shut his constant companion in the darkness out. He never could.
The Whisperer tells tales of his shame and guilt. It speaks of the thousands who died because of him, who never had the chance to live thanks to his failure. A part of him believes these to be honeyed falsehoods, twisted fictions told often enough that he can no longer sift truth from lies. The Whisperer reminds him of the light being shut away, showing him the jackal-face of his betrayer looking down as he condemned him to the abyssal dark for all eternity. Tears gather at the corners of his cataracted eyes and he angrily wipes them away. The Whisperer knows every secret path into his mind, twisting every certainty he once clung to, every virtue that made him the hero revered as a god throughout...Shurima!
That name has meaning to him, but it fades like a shimmering mirage, remaining bound within the prison of his mind by chains of madness. His eyes, once so clear-sighted and piercing, are misted with the eons he spent in the endless dark. His skin was as tough as armored bronze, but is now dull and cracked, dust spilling from his many wounds like sand from an executioner’s hourglass. Perhaps he is dying. He thinks he might be, but the thought does not trouble him overmuch. He has lived an age and suffered too long to fear extinction.
Worse, he is no longer sure he can die. He looks at the weapon before him, a crescent bladed axe without a handle. It belonged to a warrior king of Icathia, but a fleeting memory of breaking its haft as he had broken its bearer’s army returns to him. He remembers remaking it, but not why. Perhaps he will use it to slice open his ridged throat and see what happens. Will blood or dust flow? No, he will not die here. Not yet. The Whisperer tells him fate has another role for him. He has blood yet to spill, a thirst for vengeance yet to slake. The jackal-face of the one who condemned him to darkness floats in his mind, and each time he sees it, the hatred carved on his heart boils to the surface.
He looks up at the cave walls as the shadows part, revealing the crude daubings of mortals. Ancient, flaking images, so faded as to be almost invisible, depict the desert city in all its glory. Rivers of cold, clear water flow in its pillared thoroughfares and the life-giving rays of the sun bring forth wondrous greenery from a newly fertile landscape. He sees a king in a hawk-headed helm atop a towering palace and a dark-robed figure at his side. Beneath them are two giants in armor wrought for war, one a hulking, crocodilian beast armed with a crescent-bladed axe, the other a jackal-headed warrior-scholar. In the reptilian form, he recognizes a mortal’s awed representation of his ascended incarnation. He turns his gaze upon the remaining warrior. Time has all but erased the angular script beneath the faded image, but enough is still legible for him to make out his betrayer’s name.
“Nasus…” he says. “Brother…”
And with the source of his torment named, his own identity is revealed like the sun emerging from behind a stormcloud.
“I am Renekton,” he hisses through hooked teeth. “The Butcher of the Sands.”
He lifts his crescent blade and rises to his full height as the dust of ages falls away from his armored form. Old wounds seal, broken skin knits afresh and color returns to his supple, jade crocodilian skin as purpose fills him. Once the sun remade him, but now darkness is his ally. Strength surges through his monstrously powerful body, muscles swelling and eyes burning red with hatred for Nasus. He hears the Whisperer speak once again, but he no longer heeds its voice. He clenches a clawed fist and touches the tip of his blade to the image of the jackal-headed warrior.
“You left me alone in the darkness, brother,” he says. “You will die for that betrayal.” | Fighter |
“How came you to Ionia, friend?”
Muramaat tried to keep her voice light. She had never felt uncomfortable sharing a campfire with other travelers along the road to the markets before. This, however, marked her first time sitting across the flames from a Noxian, one with an enormous weapon sheathed across her back.
How many Ionian lives has that blade claimed? she wondered.
The white-haired woman glanced at her “father” before swallowing a mouthful of charred peppers and rice, then cast her eyes down at her plate. “I was born in Noxus,” she said, her accent thick but her tonality nearly flawless. “I have not been back since the war, and I do not plan to return.”
The Noxian’s father, Asa Konte, smiled and placed his hand on her shoulder. “This is her home now,” he said with finality.
Muramaat had invited Asa to make camp with her before she had spotted the Noxian asleep in the back of his cart. He had introduced her as his daughter, Riven, in this same tone, with his chin jutting forward in preemptive defense. Muramaat hadn’t pushed back against the strange old man’s declaration then, but that didn’t mean his “daughter” was beyond scrutiny.
“You have not answered my question,” Muramaat pressed, the chimes of her mender’s necklace clinking together as she poured herself a cup of tea. “What brought you to our shores, Riven?”
Riven tightly gripped her plate, tension rippling through her shoulders. “I fought in the war.”
A simple statement, laden with sorrow. Curious, to hear regret from a Noxian.
“Why did you stay?” Muramaat asked. “Why would anyone stay in a place where they and their people have caused so much pain, so much destruction?”
Crack.
The plate had broken in half in Riven’s white-knuckled grip, her charred peppers and rice falling to the ground. With a gasp, she dropped the plate shards before bowing ruefully. “My deepest apologies,” she mumbled as she rose. “I will pay for this plate, and then we will leave you to your evening. I didn’t mean to intrude—”
But Muramaat wasn’t listening. Instead, she cradled the broken plate in her hands and held the shards to her ear, humming softly. Slowly, she adjusted her pitch, calling to the spirit within the clay.
The back of her skull tingled when she hit the right tone, as the spirit reverberated with her hum. Holding the note, Muramaat lifted her necklace and flicked its chimes until she found the one that joined her and the spirit in song.
She stared at the chime in the firelight—each one had been inscribed with a symbol that identified how to mend a resonant spirit. This symbol was for smoke, a single line with a curve that became more pronounced toward the end. Muramaat lifted the shards above the fire to bathe them in the smoke. It took only moments before they knitted back together, with only a few coal-colored seams and ridges to show that the plate had ever been broken.
“I’m a mender,” she said as she held the pottery out to a wide-eyed Riven. “No need to replace anything.”
Riven took the plate and examined it. “How does it work?” she asked, running a finger down a thick black seam.
“Everything has a spirit, and every spirit wants to be whole. I ask them what they need to mend, and give it to them.”
“It leaves scars,” Riven sighed.
“Scars are a sign of healing. That plate will never be seamless again, but it is whole. And it is strong. I’d even say it is more beautiful like this.”
Riven considered the plate in silence.
“I am still here,” she said after a moment, “because I have caused so much pain and so much destruction. I stay to atone.”
Muramaat nodded somberly. Clearly Riven’s scars, though invisible, ran deep. Perhaps this Noxian was different from the others.
But then Muramaat’s eyes fell to the hilt of Riven’s massive weapon. A tool for cutting, not mending.
How different can she really be?
Muramaat woke bleary-eyed to a loud thump against the side of her caravan. Bandits. Riven had insisted on keeping watch through the night, Muramaat remembered as she grabbed her heaviest kettle. But the mender was experienced in dealing with robbers and could always hold her own in a fight.
When she opened her door, however, she saw that Riven would not need her help after all.
One of the intruders lay crumpled at the foot of the caravan. By the fire stood Riven, surrounded by three hulking bandits. She held the enormous hilt, and Muramaat was surprised to see only a broken blade attached to the end. Yet the weapon was still formidable. It seemed to pulse in Riven’s hands as she waited for the others to advance.
Muramaat’s stomach turned to see that blade, not relishing the sight of a Noxian spilling more Ionian blood... but still she watched.
The bandits rushed at Riven, yelling incoherently, but she took a single step forward and repulsed them with a burst of energy from her blade. They dropped their weapons, then scrambled to find them in the dark. Riven could have cut them all down, Muramaat realized, but she didn’t. Instead, she raised her sword, which began to glow an eerie green. The magic from the weapon blasted outward and repelled one of the bandits as soon as it touched him. He fell to the ground in a catatonic daze.
By this point, the others were on their feet, weapons in hand. Riven brought her arm back, and glowing pieces of metal raced toward the Noxian from the cart. The shards formed around the blade, making it look almost whole—though there were still gaps between the pieces. The bandits rushed her again.
Or so they tried. Riven whipped the blade in front of her and blew them back against the caravan with a sudden gust of wind, knocking them all unconscious.
A bloodless victory.
Muramaat stepped gingerly over the defeated bandits. “What will you do with them?” she asked Riven, who had barely broken a sweat.
Riven shrugged, letting the shards of her sword drop to the ground. “I’ll just tie them to a tree until morning.”
Muramaat stared at the remnant of the blade. It didn’t seem as threatening anymore, now that she had seen how Riven wielded it. “Could I see your weapon?”
Riven frowned and took a step back. “Why?”
“You don’t need to hand it to me. Just hold it up.”
Warily, Riven raised the blade. Muramaat closed her eyes and hummed.
“What are you doing?” Riven asked in alarm, just as Muramaat found the right pitch—
—a pair of eyes, searching—
—three hunters, hearts filled with hate, thoughts with revenge—
—burning—
—everything, burning—
Muramaat didn’t realize she had fallen until she felt Riven shake her. “Are you all right?”
“Someone,” Muramaat whispered, her throat dry, “is searching for this blade. For you.”
Riven blanched, but her eyes revealed nothing of her thoughts. “What did you do, Muramaat?” she asked in a low whisper.
“I was wrong to question you. I wanted to offer my apologies by mending your sword.”
“No.” The intensity of the word took Muramaat by surprise. “If you truly want to thank me, you will never fix this blade.” Riven chuckled, a bitter sound. “The one thing I would want you to fix, you can’t. But... thank you. For the offer.”
She sighed, exhausted, and collected up the shards of her sword.
“You should go back to sleep if you want to get to the marketplace early tomorrow.”
Muramaat nodded and slowly made her way to her caravan. When she looked back, Riven was at the fire, sitting and watching the night.
Not for the first time, Muramaat wished she knew how to mend people. | Fighter |
So I was walking through this little plaza off the library district in Nashramae—super dusty, flagstones older than empires, and usually pretty quiet. Having just out-negotiated those dumb human merchants in the Grand Marketplace, I was feeling good. I’d been all “You want how much for that teapot?!” and “There’s no way that’s an authentic Ascended-age mace with that iconography!”
But a whole day around mortals was enough for me. If I had to hear another cheery “Water and shade to you!” greeting, I was gonna get heated.
Anyway, I’d almost gotten my cart full of treasure to my stall, thinking how great it’d be to get back in my junkyard, when whammo! I was flat on my backside.
I jumped back on my feet in a heartbeat, surrounded by mortals again. But these were younger humans, a bunch of ’em, and most of ’em were laughing at the scrawny kid who’d slammed into me and my cart. He was trying to pick himself up off the ground and onto the sorriest excuse for a mech I’d ever seen—a board with wheels—and he wasn’t laughing. Just kept apologizing.
“Sorry, Obujan!”
I said, “Do I look like your grandfather?” This kid didn’t have my winning smile, or my razor-sharp cheekbones, and his ears weren’t even furry, so there was barely any family resemblance.
Anyway, the laughing kids had a ringleader: a nasty-looking boy wearing an oversized Noxian-style tunic and iron-capped boots. He said, “Where d’you think you’re rolling, armadillo-bug?”
My hackles went up until I realized he was talking to the scrawny kid. But still, that’s a pretty mean thing to say!
This ringleader didn’t stop there. He was all, “You’re Shuriman trash, Anaktu. You’re ugly and you can’t even walk.” He pointed at my broken cart. “The empire doesn’t need useless things. We should throw you with the rest of the garbage on this old man’s pile of junk.”
Now I was seeing red. Steam right outta my ears. So I got up in the big bully’s face—well, up in his knees—and I said, “Hey, kid. You better apologize.”
He scoffed with his stupid face, “You don’t know who you’re dealing with, old man. I’m Kesu Rance. Son of Governor Rance! Walk away, or we’ll clear this plaza of all its trash!”
Of course, I walked.
I mentioned my stall, right? Shuttered, overlooked, and full of bric-a-brac that’s way too good to ever sell to humans. It’s a cover—a front—for where the portal back home appears once I set things up juuuuust right.
So I wasn’t walking away from this bully. I was walking to my stall. Not to escape, obviously—I was walking to an especially large, tarpaulin-covered, metallic form…
Meanwhile, Kesu was so busy monologuing to his club-wielding amateur thugs about being the strong future of Shurima that he didn’t even notice me until I was blocking out the sun from the cockpit of the sweetest of bipedal mechs, my beloved Tristy.
“Walker and shade to you, Kesu.”
Oh, his face! Kid looked like I’d harpooned him!
I hadn’t, of course. That comes later.
Now, I’m an unbiased storyteller, so I’ll mention Tristy might have had an ever-so-slight malfunction around this point. Barely worth noting, really, but in the interest of tellin’ you everything, there was… a hiccup. A hesitation. A stoppage.
Tristy and me were the definition of intimidating, but that hitch was making some of those older kids bold, and one of them bashed my mech’s leg with a club! “You’re just a dumb old man with a dirty pile of junk. There’s only one of you against all of us,” she said, swinging her hand to indicate about a dozen armed, angry-looking snots.
And then who should roll up—still piloting the worst mech ever—but the scrawny kid, Anaktu.
While I applied percussive maintenance to Tristy’s precision mechanisms, I noticed he’d grabbed the “one hundred percent authentic” Ascended-age mace from my cart. I’d have to have a chat about personal property with my “grandson” later.
Anyway, Anaktu yelled, “He’s not alone!”
But Kesu just laughed and tried to kick him! The little guy pivoted on his rolling board and swept the mace under Kesu’s other leg, and whack! The bully went down hard.
With a shout, Anaktu took the fight to the rest of ’em. Surprised ’em, too, because within seconds, he’d gotten two big ones backed into a corner. Too bad he didn’t see Kesu coming at him from behind with the torn-off handle of my cart, ready to clonk him.
But Anaktu wasn’t alone either.
Tristy sprang back to life, and bam! I was zooming across the plaza. We skidded to a stop, kicking up dust, and I pulled the trigger.
Zap!
Remember that harpoon I mentioned? Yeah, I electro-harpooned that cart handle mid-swing. I’d like to see a certain other yordle pull off a demonstration of extreme marksmanship like that!
And Kesu? He toppled into the dust. Anaktu heard the commotion and spun around. Gave me a big smile.
“Obujan!”
“Yeah, yeah, get up here,” I said, giving him a hand up to Tristy’s cockpit. “The view’s better.”
He said something like, “You don’t have to tell me twice!” which is a pretty cool thing to say under the circumstances.
And then Tristy went pew pew and zap zap zap, and I let Anaktu activate the flamespitter, but only to scare the bigger kids. Anyway, Tristy and me were awesome and I guess Anaktu wasn’t bad for a mortal, and soon the bullies were running away.
Grinning, I said to Anaktu, “This is gonna be bumpy.” Then everything shook and the air was full of rockets.
The bullies got as far as the archway over the plaza’s exit when boomboomboom the rockets slammed into the ground, flaming and zapping anything nearby, barring their escape.
So there they were, stuck between the Equalizer’s wall of fire and Runeterra’s finest mechanized pilot. I was about to demand that apology, when Anaktu climbed down, rolled up to Kesu, and asked, “Why are you so mean?”
Kesu whined something about his new Noxian dad, how he wanted to impress him. It was pretty boring, really.
The rockets sputtered and died, and the other bully kids fled, leaving Kesu behind. He started to back away, too.
“Hold it!” I yelled, harpoon at the ready. “What about my apology?”
As I pulled back my hood, he finally figured out I wasn’t just some old man, because his eyes were buggin’. He bowed down in the dust, saying, “Master Yordle, I’m sorry I threatened you—”
But I stopped him. “You think I care about threats? Ha! Try again.”
He said, “I’m sorry for fighting—” but I cut him off there, too.
“Nope. I’m ready for round two if you don’t apologize for the right reason.”
“I shouldn’t have been so mean to Anaktu—”
“You disrespected junk!” I shouted. “Junk is not garbage. It’s pure potential! Dumb people don’t see its worth, but with imagination and hard work and love, junk can be turned into the finest mech a yordle could dream of! And other stuff.”
Kesu was obviously awestruck at my logic, because he was speechless. When he found words, he said, “Uh… I’m sorry…?”
“Thank you!”
So I finally got the apology that junk deserved.
Anaktu helped Kesu out of the dirt. They clasped arms and there were tears or something, but I’d had enough of mortals, so Tristy and I turned to head home.
“Obujan, your mace! You must want it back.” Anaktu rolled over to hand it to me.
Wouldn’t you know, a mortal who respects junk.
“Keep it,” I said. I mean, if you can’t spoil your grandkids, what’s the point? | Fighter |
“Who’s watchin’ the till?” I ask.
Sherap—the stick of a man taking weapons at the door—looks at me with bug eyes, scared he’s done somethin’ wrong.
“Ryo. Ryo’s on the till tonight,” he says.
“Get two more on it,” I tell him.
It’s a big night—lot of spenders. Last thing I need is some lowlife makin’ off with the profit.
Sherap scurries off. A couple seconds later he comes back with two of my heaviest hitters. After they join Ryo at the coin box, I check back on the action in the arena. The place is packed, crammed to the doors with nobodies, somebodies, and everyone in between—people with nothin’ much in common, except a hankering for blood. And they’re about to get it.
My star combatant, Prahn the Flayer, has just finished his long, sauntering entrance. His chiseled body is painted entirely green, and he wears a small buckler on his left forearm. His infamous whip sword, painted to look like a viper, remains coiled on his belt as he enters the pit to face his opponent. The challenger—some Shuriman guy… is it Faran? Farrel? I’ll learn his name if he wins—stares a hole in him, his hands up by his shoulders, itching to grab the twin daggers sheathed on his back. He’s come halfway around the world for this, and he’ll be damned if some local golden boy is going to show him up.
With a wave of the pit officer’s scarf, our show is on. The fighters circle each other in the center of the floor. Always the entertainer, Flayer draws the whip sword and snaps it all around his body. (He’s one of about eight people in the world who can do this without cutting his own face off, and he loves to show it off.)
Insulted by the taunt, the Shuriman draws his daggers. He sprints across the pit, throwing himself into a whirl of blades, slicing the wind at unnatural angles. Flayer is surprised, but not off guard. He parries a dagger with his buckler, throwing the Shuriman off balance for a split second.
It feels like an eternity. The Shuriman’s body is turned off kilter, hands by his waist, his entire torso a wide-open target.
In a single, fluid movement, the Flayer swings his whip sword clean across the throat of his opponent. The Shuriman drops to the floor in a growing pool of his own blood. The crowd erupts.
“How’s that till?!” I shout to the boys in the back.
“Got it, boss!” replies Sherap, as the eager throngs swarm the vestibule to settle their bets.
Back down on the floor, I see the pit crew loading the Shuriman onto the corpse cart. A few feet away, Flayer celebrates with some of his fans. He’s got a look on his face. I know it well. It’s not relief. Not contentment. He’s getting a big head, and it’s going to be bad news.
About an hour later, the crowd has gone home, and the till has been emptied and counted. Just when I’m saying goodnight to the crew, guess who stops me at the door?
It’s the Flayer. He’s holding a fat bag of coin, but he don’t look happy. Says he’s got a bone to pick. Here we go.
I ask him what’s the problem. He just won big in front of a record-breaking crowd. He says that’s just it: he drew a record-breaking crowd. He should get a cut of the till. My till.
Now, I understand where he’s coming from—same place I was coming from when I took over this whole thing. But just ’cause I understand what a fella wants don’t mean I gotta give it to him. I tell the Flayer no.
Then the guy blows up. He starts telling me how lucky I am to have him in my pit.
“Do you know how many people in the world can do what I do?” he asks. “Nine!”
“Nine. Huh. Guess they must’ve added one,” I say.
He keeps mouthing off, says I’ve gotten fat and don’t remember what it’s like to risk my neck in the pit. By this point, a bunch of my crew is starting to listen in. Seeing how I can’t have people thinking I’m soft, I figure it’s a good time to remind Flayer who’s the boss, and who’s the employee. But he’s not havin’ it.
“You’re just some washed-up ex-champ in a fur coat, tellin’ us real fighters what to do,” he says. “Anybody could do your job.”
That does not sit well with me. I tell Flayer we can go toe-to-toe in the pit, and he’ll find out just how much of a fighter I still am. I guess at this point he feels like he can’t back down, because he accepts my offer.
“If I win, I take your pit. And all that comes with it,” he says.
I nod. He waits, like he’s expecting me to add my own stipulations. As if he’s got anything I’d want.
All I ask is that we do it in front of a crowd.
“Let’s get paid for it.”
Fight night comes, and there’s so many people on hand they’re spilling out the doors of the arena. I’ve got five of my heavies on the till tonight.
I walk out to the pit, drums beating, crowd roaring, and see the Flayer standing across from me—green and hot-headed as ever. My vastayan sense of decency kicks in. I tell him all he’s got to do is tell this arena full of people how wrong he was to disrespect me, and we can call off the fight.
He spits on the ground and angrily cracks his whip sword overhead. He ain’t backin’ down.
By the time the pit official waves his scarf, the Flayer is halfway across the floor. He flings his whip sword at me, and before I can react, the shifty little cuss takes off a piece of my cheek. He snaps it a couple more times, coming dangerously close to my throat. Then, while I’m trying to deal with his weird, floppy blade, he nails me in the face with his buckler. I land flat on my back, seeing double.
He draws his whip sword back. We’re not even a minute into this, and already Flayer is going for the kill.
This ain’t happening.
His blade comes lashing at my neck once more, and this time I grab it. With my bare hand. Flayer’s eyes bulge from his dumb green face.
My blood gets pumping. My hair stands on end. I feel a little growl escape from the corner of my mouth. I barely feel the blade cutting into my palm, or the blood running down my forearm, as I stand and pull the Flayer by his sword, yanking him into my other fist.
I repeat the motion a few more times, my brass knuckle-duster chewin’ his face to pulp.
When I finally stop punching, he coughs out a tooth, and tells me I’m making the biggest mistake of my life.
“What’re you doing? I’m your biggest draw,” he says.
“Flayer, you’re losing to a washed-up ex-champ. Who’s going to pay to see you fight now?”
With his last ounce of energy, he hocks a big mouthful of blood into my face—right there in front of the gods and everybody.
I can’t have an arena full of people thinkin’ I’m not the boss.
So I pick the guy up by the throat, and slam him, hard as I can, smashing his greedy fat head deep into the floor of the pit. He twitches for a second, then stops.
The crowd eats it up.
Late that night, I stop by momma’s house, like usual. She’s in bed already, so I quietly leave a nice sack of coin on the dresser and give her a kiss on the forehead.
She wakes, and smiles at the sight of her boy standing there at her bedside. As I touch her cheek, she notices the bandage on my hand—where I grabbed the Flayer’s blade.
“Oh, Settrigh, what happened?” she says, all concerned.
“Nothin’ big. Just cut myself building,” I say.
“What did you build today, son?” she asks.
“An orphanage. For orphans, ma,” I say, as I give her one last kiss goodnight.
“Such a good boy,” she says.
Her eyes tear up as she drifts off to sleep, like she’s proud knowing her son’s making a respectable living. | Fighter |
The gated watchtower was empty.
Shyvana knew its stern, gray-bearded guard, Thomme, would have cut off his own hand before abandoning his post. She had scented human blood while patrolling the northern hills of Demacia and followed its trail to this tower.
Inside, the smell was all but overpowering, though no bloodstains were visible. As a soldier of Demacia, Shyvana remained in her humanoid form most of the time in order to conceal her true nature, though her dragonic instincts remained sharply intact. She chewed her tongue to distract herself from her growing hunger at the scent. Shyvana climbed to the top of the tower where she could better survey the surroundings, and fixed her gaze on the thick, tangled trees where leaves rustled near the edge of a clearing.
Shyvana leapt from the window of the watchtower and landed on her feet, five stories below. She detected a hint of blood on the wind, and sprinted west into the forest, dodging branches as she pursued the scent. At the edge of the clearing, a large feline beast with golden fur feasted on Thomme’s mangled body. Atop the creature’s shoulders were black feathered wings, and its forked serpentine tail twitched as if independent of its owner.
The smell of fresh blood was intoxicating, but Shyvana forced herself to focus on the hunt. She had joined Demacia to be part of something greater, not to surrender to her animalistic desires.
She crept toward the beast and felt dragonfyre warming in her hands as she readied to strike. But before she could attack, the creature turned from its kill. Its face was hairless and wrinkled, like an old man. It smiled at Shyvana through bloodied fangs.
“All yours,” it said.
Shyvana had heard stories of the vellox’s ferocity, its appetite for human flesh and its slick agility. But nothing had prepared her for the creature’s eerily human face; its unblinking eyes held her gaze as it slinked into the brush and disappeared. Shyvana’s heart raced as she sprinted to catch and kill the beast. The vellox’s fur mingled with the dappled sunlight, camouflaging its torso as it leapt over fallen bramblewoods and raging rivers. It could not disguise the blood on its breath, however, and Shyvana followed the scent.
A fallen boulder blocked the path ahead. The vellox’s claws scraped the rock as it leapt and disappeared over it. Shyvana dug her heels in at the top of the crag to halt her momentum – the rock marked the edge of a wide crevasse, plummeting in a steep vertical drop.
Across the gap, the forest continued indefinitely, and the vellox was already deep into the thicket. Shyvana sighed; there was only one way to cross the ravine, and she had not wanted to resort to it.
She checked to ensure no one was watching, inhaled as much air as would fill her lungs and felt her breath burn within her chest. Even across the width of the ravine, she could smell Thomme on the vellox’s fangs. She embraced her hunger until it powered the furnace-heat beneath her skin. With an exhalation of streaming flame, Shyvana burst into her enormous draconic form and roared. The ravine shook as it echoed back her mighty call. She spread her thick, velvety wings, and swept across the ravine into the forest ahead.
She no longer had to duck between trees. Instead, she barreled through their branches, tearing down anything in her path. She leaned into her wings and the forest blurred into a whirl of brown and green. Woodbears, silver elk, and other woodland creatures scrambled to evade her path, and Shyvana relished the power she felt at their fear. She breathed a flaming torrent of fire, burning a thick grove to smoldering ash.
She spotted a trace of gold fur ahead and leapt onto the vellox’s back. Its teeth raked her flanks but she barely noticed the pain.
“I know you,” the vellox snarled, fighting to break free. “They call you the Chained One.”
The golden beast leapt, slashing taloned paws and grazing her throat with its teeth. Shyvana sank her claws into its back and savored the sensation of tearing flesh.
“Why do you hunt me?” the vellox asked. “We are not enemies.”
“You killed a soldier of the Demacian army,” Shyvana said. “Thomme.”
The vellox drew blood from her neck, but she exhaled plumes of fire and it spun away to avoid the flames.
“Was he your friend?”
“No.”
“And yet you attempt to avenge his death. I fear the rumors are true. You are merely a tamed pet.”
Shyvana growled.
“At least I am no killer of men,” she said.
“Truly?” the vellox smiled through its stained teeth. “You have no thirst for human blood?”
Shyvana circled the vellox.
“I see the hunger in your eyes,” it said. “The taste for living meat. You need the hunt as much as I. After all, where’s the fun in a meal without a good chase?”
Now Shyvana smiled.
“Which brings us to my intent,” she said.
Shyvana dashed forward. In one quick motion, she pinned the vellox’s body to the mulched forest floor and gorged on its throat. The vellox spit scorching venom and clawed at her chest, scraping scales from her skin. Shyvana’s eyes burned from his poison and her wounds stung, but she held fast.
The vellox’s once-glossy fur was now sticky and matted with blood. Its watery human eyes stared up at Shyvana in horror as its life dripped away.
Though her hunger was unrelenting, Shyvana stopped herself before she devoured his flesh. She exhaled, releasing the dragonfyre from her chest and shuddered as she transformed back into a human. She was disturbed at how much she had enjoyed the kill. Shaking, she lifted the vellox’s body and dragged him back to the crevasse. There he would lie, proof of her inhuman hunger, hidden in the darkness beneath the rock. | Fighter |
A hulking figure trudged through the waist-deep snow of the canyon, lumbering uphill with a purposeful gait that dared the blizzard to stop him. He left a deep trench in his wake, heavy clawed feet ripping up the loose shale beneath the snow with every step. Howling winds billowed his patchwork cloak of stitched-together hides, and the figure pulled it tighter around his body.
Even among trollkind, Trundle was huge; his muscles like rocks rolling beneath thick blue skin that was the texture of leather left out under the desert sun. Not that Trundle had ever seen a desert, but he knew what one was.
The Ice Witch had told him about a place beyond the southern mountains where the sun burned you red, and the snow was like little bits of gritty rock that got all up in your nethers and didn’t melt.
Sounded a bit far-fetched to Trundle, and what was the point of snow that didn’t melt?
He carried a giant leather sack slung over one massive shoulder, bulging with the carcasses of elnük, drüvasks, feral hogs, and clumsy mountain goats. It had been more days than he had fingers since he’d left his cave, and the meat was starting to give off a deliciously ripe stink, and the blood pooling inside had frozen black and solid.
Soaring cliffs of ice reared up to either side of him, blue like an ocean wave that had suddenly frozen in place. Maybe they had, Trundle didn’t know. The Ice Witch had told him about a long ago time when magic did all sorts of mad things to the world, so maybe he was walking through a rolling ocean at the top of the world right now. He liked that idea, and wondered if he’d see any skeletons of sea monsters this far north.
Sea monsters in ice, yes, that’d be a good story to tell when he got back. Didn’t matter if it wasn’t true. Most trolls didn’t have much rattling around in their skulls anyway, and would believe pretty much any tale he told.
He stopped thinking so hard for now.
He was going to need all his best thinking later.
This wasn’t his territory, there were more ways to die up here than he could count, and he could count a lot higher than any other troll he knew.
He might fall into a crevasse, get swallowed by a riddling ice-wyrm, or get cooked in the pot of one of the wild troll clans that lived up this way. Bigger than most other trolls, they didn’t have the good sense to know they needed a king to be in charge of stuff and didn’t give an elnük’s fart for titles.
They’d rip his arms and legs off for a snack if he tried to be all fancy.
Which made the need for this journey all the more strange, because he’d heard stories of a giant troll called Yettu who was going about telling the other clan-trolls that he was the troll king. Trundle had needed to bash a few heads together when some uppity trolls heard those stories and got to saying stupid stuff out loud. Stupid stuff like, if anyone could call themselves king, then why did they give Trundle the biggest share of the food and do what he told them?
Yeah, something needed to be done about this Yettu before things got out of hand.
Just because he’d newly thought of becoming a king like Grubgrack and the other ancient troll lords, didn’t mean anyone else got to think like that!
The wiry hairs on the back of Trundle’s neck tingled, like he was being watched.
He couldn’t see them yet, but he could smell the stink of their ripe bodies hidden beneath the snow ahead. Any troll that called himself king didn’t get to stay that way for long without having a sense for when blood was about to be spilled.
He kept going, walking all casual, like he was just out for a morning emptying of his guts. He pretended like he was having a big, wide-fanged yawn as he scanned the lumpy snowbanks ahead of him.
Hard to see much of anything through the swirling blizzard and howling winds.
There, two humps of snow that were just a bit too big and too regular to be natural.
Also, he could see a foot sticking out of one, and a tuft of hair from the other.
Trundle grinned a wide, gap-toothed grin and shook his mane of ragged red hair free of frost.
Then he reached under his filthy, patchwork cloak to grip the frozen haft of his faithful war-club, unhooking it from his belt. He trudged onward, making sure to look like he was struggling against the fierce wind and driving snow.
A pair of long fingers with long, yellowed nails poked through the snow of the mound to his left. They slipped back into the mound, and a pair of yellow eyes appeared, staring right at him.
Trundle waited until he was a club’s length away from the mound before hauling out Boneshiver. Instantly, the temperature dropped, and icy cold stabbed into his hands as the eternal ice frosted the air around him. The club was an enormous chunk of True Ice mounted on an obsidian handle, and it had never failed him in battle.
The eyes inside the mound widened in surprise as Trundle sprang through the air and slammed his giant club down into the snow with a satisfying crunch.
A troll with greenish skin like mossy tree bark rose unsteadily from his hiding place, the back of his skull a smashed-in crater. He waved a stone-bladed sword at Trundle, but his knitted brow and cross-eyed glare told him he was trying to decide if he was dead or not.
“I fink I’m dead,” said the troll.
“I think you’re right,” said Trundle, and the troll toppled over into the snow.
The second ambusher leapt out with a throaty roar, lifting a giant stone club over his head and slamming it down where Trundle had been standing a moment ago. It looked puzzled there wasn’t a dead troll on the end of its weapon. And in the span of time it took for him to notice the only dead troll was his fellow ambusher, Trundle had a meaty fist wrapped around his throat.
He lifted the troll from the ground, a middling-sized thing with a rust-brown hide covered in gnarled lumps and sprouting tufts of wiry hair from its armpits and nethers.
“Right then, you rascal!” said Trundle cheerfully.
“You supposed to be dead,” gurgled the troll. “I meant to hit you with me club.”
“I saw that,” said Trundle, squeezing the troll’s neck until his face turned a pretty shade of purple. “But turns out I’m alive, and looks like you and your friend here got the dungy end of the stick, don’t it?”
Trundle dropped the troll, who fell to the snow with a rasping wheeze of breath.
“This is King Yettu’s land,” gasped the troll. “Whatcha want ’ere?”
Trundle held Boneshiver close to the troll’s head, who grunted in pain from the nearness of its icy power.
“My name’s Trundle, the Troll King, an’ I want you to take me to Yettu,” he said.
The troll with the rust-brown hide was called Sligu, and he led Trundle through the blizzard toward a series of dots in a glacier that looked like cave entrances. Sligu wasn’t the chattiest of trolls, but after a couple of encouraging taps from Boneshiver he discovered a whole lot of things he wanted to say.
Trundle knew trolls were, by and large, not exactly imaginative, so when Sligu described Yettu as a mountain with eyes, a fighter with fists like boulders, and a belly as deep as a ravine, he began to get an idea of what he might be up against.
“So where does he get off on calling himself a king?” asked Trundle.
“He heard you was walkin’ about calling yourself king and that everyone gave you all the best food first,” said Sligu. “Soon as he ’eard that, it was king this and king that all the time!”
“I thought you northern trolls hated titles like that?”
“We do, but Yettu said if it were good enough for a warmskin southern troll like you, then he wanted to be a king as well. And once he killed all the uvver clan-chieftains who said he weren’t no king, it didn’t seem too clever to not agree wiv ’im.”
“He killed them all?”
“Yeah, punched the chief of the Rock-Eaters’ head right off his neck,” said Sligu. “Flew right over to the next valley, so it did.”
“Not bad,” said Trundle, wondering how far he could punch a head.
“And then he smoked out trolls of Ice Cave Glacier and took their lair.”
“How’d he do that?”
“Ate a load of cave mushrooms and elnük dung, then blocked the cave entrance and let loose a bum-ripper down their air hole.”
“Clever,” said Trundle. “Nasty, but clever all the same.”
“And then he ate the biggest troll of the Night Soilers from the knees up.”
“Why the knees?” said Trundle. “There’s good eating on feet.”
Sligu shrugged, and a tiny rodent poked its head out from the dense knot of fur at the back of his neck with an annoyed squeak. “Dunno. I fink ’e said summat about them being too smelly. Said even a midden-licker wouldn’t touch ’em.”
“Nice ’n’ crunchy, feet are,” said Trundle, taking a sidelong glance at Sligu’s. Wide and flat, just the way Trundle liked them, with good, crusty-looking toenails.
“More of a fingers troll meself, but I likes a good foot too,” agreed Sligu.
Trundle prodded the troll with Boneshiver, and said, “You was telling me about Yettu.”
“Oh, right, so I was,” continued Sligu. “Well, he ’eard about the big troll horde you ’ad, and wanted one for ’imself. Someone told ’im only a king could have an army, so figured he needed to be a king.”
“Does he have a crown?”
“What’s a crown?” asked Sligu.
“It’s like a spiky hat that tells everyone you’s the king.”
“A hat does that? It’s magical, like?”
“I think some of them are,” said Trundle.
“Oh, well, then yeah, he’s got a crown.”
“Where’d he get it?”
“He told us he got it from an ice-wyrm’s belly wot he walked through like a big smelly tunnel, but my mate, Regi, says it looks like he made it from some teef and antlers wot he found in a dung pile.”
Dung pile or not, Trundle wanted a look at that crown now. Couldn’t have some wannabe king saying he was better than Trundle just because he had a bigger crown!
“How far is it to Yettu’s cave?”
Sligu pointed a crooked finger up toward a blue-sheened glacier at the end of the canyon that looked like it had been crudely carved to resemble a giant troll’s head. The giant icy face was the second biggest thing Trundle had ever seen, with giant eyes that still managed to look beady and cunning, fat lips and jutting tusks below a giant, warted nose.
“That supposed to be Yettu?” asked Trundle, trying not to sound impressed.
Sligu nodded. “Yeah, but they ’aven’t quite got his nose right.”
A winding series of rocky paths and bone-scaffolds offered a treacherous path up the sheer face of the glacier.
“Right, let’s get to climbin’ then,” said Trundle.
The sun was going down over the edge of the canyon by the time Trundle and Sligu reached the entrance to Yettu’s cave. That entrance was through the wide nostril of the carved head, and the water dripping from the icicles inside it had a peculiar greenish color.
A pair of wild trolls stood guard, carrying giant bone axes, and naked but for helmets made from hollowed-out drüvask skulls.
They were big, all right, orange-skinned and wiry, birds’ nest hair sprouting from the empty eye sockets of the dead animals. Both were bigger than Sligu—who Trundle was now beginning to realize must have been chosen as a sentry because he was skinnier and sneakier than the rest.
If these boys were this big, how big might Yettu be…?
“Who goes dere?” said the first guard.
“It’s me, Sligu.”
“Which one?”
“Your brother, dung-for-brains.”
“Oh, that Sligu,” said the guard. “Why you not say so? What you want?”
Sligu jerked a yellowed thumb in Trundle’s direction and said, “This one’s ’ere to see Yettu.”
“No one get to see Yettu,” declared the second guard, his beady eyes like two lumps of coal.
“He’ll want to see me,” said Trundle.
“Me? Who’s Me?” said the second guard. “Is it you?”
Trundle tried to follow the guard’s logic, but gave up when it began to hurt his brain.
“I’m Trundle,” he said. “Trundle the Troll King.”
“I heard of you,” said Sligu’s brother. “You not from here.”
“You’s a clever one,” said Trundle.
The troll shook his head and waved his axe at the beady-eyed guard. “He clever one.”
Trundle whacked the clever, beady-eyed guard over the head with Boneshiver, and turned back to Sligu’s brother. The troll took one look at the glittering mass of True Ice that used to be his fellow guard, and Trundle could almost hear the rocks in his brain grinding together as his eyes went back and forth between the club and its owner.
Knowing a troll’s thought processes could take a while, Trundle swung the large sack down from his shoulder and held it open before Sligu’s brother. An irresistible stench of maggoty meat and rank, coagulated blood wafted from its ragged neck.
The troll licked his lips, and thick ropes of yellow saliva drooled between his jutting tusks.
Trundle reached into the sack, lifted out a dripping hunk of meat and handed it over.
“You get come in,” said Sligu’s brother with a hungry smile.
Sligu’s brother, it turned out, was also called Sligu, so Trundle came up with the bright idea of calling one Big Sligu, and the other Little Sligu. Even the guard he’d bashed over the head would be able to tell one from the other now, if he forgot he was dead and got back up.
Big Sligu led him deeper into the glacier, a sparkling network of smooth tunnels carved deep into the ice. No trolls had cut these passageways, but something about them didn’t strike Trundle as being natural. He got a gripey, magical feeling from them, the same as he had when he’d been deep in the frozen maze beneath the palace of the Ice Witch.
They passed caves with spiky roofs of ice and filled with trolls of all shapes and sizes. Trundle couldn’t help but notice that most of those shapes and sizes went from just really big all the way to massive.
Trundle quickly lost count of how many trolls he saw.
“You northern trolls are a big bunch,” he said.
Big Sligu nodded. “Lots of monsters here. Want to eat trolls. Only big trolls live.”
Trundle took a better look at Little Sligu, wondering how he’d managed to survive, guessing there was maybe more going on inside his head than most. Amongst trolls that wasn’t saying much, but cleverness was something a cunning troll like Trundle noticed.
Maybe he might take Little Sligu back with him. Didn’t do to leave clever trolls alone for too long. Sligu might only be little, but sooner or later he might get some big ideas.
Eventually, Big Sligu led them into a gigantic cavern deep in the heart of the glacier. A beam of moonlight speared into the cavern through a hole in the roof that made the towering walls of ice shimmer with dancing lights and ghostly shapes. Trundle thought it looked pretty until he remembered how Yettu had won these caves, and tried not to imagine his warty backside pressed through that hole and disgorging the foggy contents of his guts.
“Big trolls hang out here with king,” said Big Sligu.
A lot of very big trolls indeed were gathered around a gigantic blue rock covered in slimy moss and knots of what looked like taiga grass.
Except it wasn’t a rock.
It was a troll, and somehow it managed to get even bigger when it turned around, catching wind of the sack Trundle was carrying.
Yettu was nearly twice the height of Trundle, his rangy arms like tree trunks and his legs like even bigger tree trunks. His head was like a boulder that had rolled down from a mountain top, gathering up all the frozen moss and gorse along the way before landing on an even larger boulder. A long black-bladed knife of smooth stone from the steaming haunches of a fire mountain was sheathed across his chest in a fold of his skin.
He stared at Trundle the way a pack of rimefangs looks at a fat elnük with a limp.
Trundle had planned to smash Yettu’s head in with Boneshiver the moment he came face to face with him. Looking at the northern troll’s giant head, he decided against it. Between Yettu’s skull and Boneshiver’s True Ice, Trundle wasn’t sure which would come out best.
Time for a new plan…
“You got meat,” said Yettu with a rumbling, gravelly voice.
“I got meat,” said Trundle, reaching into the bag and hauling out the stinking remains of a curling-horned mountain ram. Yettu’s eyes widened and he snatched the carcass from Trundle’s hands to stuff it whole down his gullet.
Yettu wiped his blood-greasy chin and belched.
“You Trundle?” he asked. “One who says he troll king?”
“Yes.”
Yettu reached out and lifted Trundle’s patchwork fur cloak.
“This far north too cold for you, little troll?” said Yettu, and the trolls around them grunted with laughter, the sound like avalanches colliding in slow motion.
Trundle shrugged. “Troll King gotta look good, right? I suppose you’re Yettu then?”
“Who else I be? You see any other troll here wearing a crown?”
Trundle took a closer look at the great mass of moss on Yettu’s head, now seeing that woven into the wiry thatch of thorny briars and ice were various bloodstained animal bones, horns, and antlers.
It looked like an upside-down storm cloud spitting bolts of bone lightning back at the sky.
“So that’s what a crown looks like,” he said.
Yettu nodded and stomped toward Trundle.
“You not so big,” said Yettu, tapping a thick finger on Trundle’s matted red hair. “I ’erd you was biggest troll ever. That you scraped your head on the sky and could drink seas.”
“That was a good one. I made trolls tell that one wherever they went,” said Trundle. “Did you hear the one about how I used the tallest tree in the Big Green Forest for a toothpick? Or the one where I ate a mammoth for breakfast and then used its skull for a bath?”
“What is bath…?”
“It’s when you… Never mind,” said Trundle. “Or the one where I jumped over the southern mountains in a single leap to wrestle the Whitestone Giant? That I broke his tail across my knee and took it home to dig out the inland sea at Rakelstake? That’s my favorite.”
“You fight giants a lot,” said Yettu.
“It’s the only way to get a good fight,” answered Trundle.
“You come here to fight me?” said Yettu with a grin, putting up his fists that were, as Sligu had mentioned, like giant boulders. The other trolls made a rough circle around them and began stamping their feet, just waiting for Yettu to bash him good.
Time for a plan so cunning it would make the Ice Witch’s hair melt.
“Fighting ain’t always done with fists,” said Trundle.
“Yeah, sometimes I kicks things to death,” agreed Yettu.
“That ain’t what I mean,” said Trundle, tapping a curling, yellowed claw to his forehead. “If you’re a king, a real king, you gotta use this.”
Yettu nodded. “Headbutts. Yeah. I likes them too, I do.”
“I mean the thing inside your head,” sighed Trundle. “The brain that does your thinking!”
“Brain?”
“It’d be a battle of wits,” said Trundle, then, under his breath, “Lucky for me it looks like you’re unarmed.”
“How do we fight wiv our squishy brains?”
Trundle grinned a toothy grin and upended the sack to spill out the rest of the animal carcasses between them in a stinking red pile of fur, bones, and rotten meat.
“An eating contest!” said Trundle.
“’Ow’s that usin’ our brains?” asked Yettu with a confused look at his trolls.
“You’ll see,” promised Trundle.
More meat was brought up and placed in the pile between the two seated troll kings. Giant hunks of flesh torn from the bellies of giant sea creatures, ribs from hairy mammoths, slithering piles of rotten fish, giant wings from the flightless birds of the tundra, entire elnük heads, and squirming heaps of wriggling body parts that Trundle was glad he didn’t recognize.
As well as food, giant stone bowls of frothed liquid were brought out, stuff that made the hairs in Trundle’s nose curl up. The stench was like the cracks in the earth around the mountains that spouted smoke and fire, and Trundle had a feeling it would taste worse than the amber water the squishy folk of the south called beer.
Truly this was a feast fit for a king, but only one of them could walk away from it.
“We just eat?” said Yettu.
Trundle nodded. “Eat and eat. First one to die loses. Last troll standing is the real king.”
Yettu grinned and said, “You got some good stories, Trundle, but you only got little belly. Real king needs the biggest belly, and Yettu’s bigger and meaner. Once ate two whole mammoths when yawned and didn’t even notice.”
The trolls around the two kings oohhed.
“That so?” said Trundle. “Well, I once drank so much that when I had to pass water I made the sea at Rakelstake.”
The trolls aahhed.
Yettu’s brow furrowed and his eyes rolled around their sockets as he tried to dredge up a memory from only a few moments ago.
“Wait, you said you dug land to make sea at Rakelstake…”
Trundle retorted without missing a beat. “Dug it out to make a hole big enough to pee in.”
The heads of the trolls around them went back and forth as the two troll kings exchanged boasts, each one more outlandish than the last.
Finally, Trundle said, “Just before I came here, I climbed yetis’ mountain and took a bite of the moon.”
The trolls laughed at this outrageous boast until Trundle pointed up at the crescent moon shining down through the hole in the cavern’s roof. Every troll’s head lifted to follow his pointing finger, and they muttered among themselves with a newfound respect.
While they were looking up, Trundle stuffed the now empty sack beneath his patchwork cloak and pulled it tight around his body.
“No more stories,” growled Yettu. “We eat.”
Trundle nodded, and the feast began.
He began by tearing the meat from a giant rib, making sure it was picked clean before cracking it open over his knee and sucking out the marrow within. Yettu wolfed down the flank of a drüvask, chasing it down with a hearty mouthful of the frothed liquid in the stone bowls.
“Drink!” commanded Yettu. “Not feast without frustbogga!”
Trundle took a proffered bowl and swilled it down in one, chugging gulp. His eyes watered at the noxious flavor of it, somewhere between corpse-blood swamp runoff and the red rock that flows. It burned his throat as it went down, and he felt it light a fire in his belly he knew was going to wreak havoc on his backside when he was forced to empty himself out.
He forced a smile and said, “Not bad. I’ve had stronger.”
Yettu grinned, seeing the sweat on Trundle’s brow, and leaned forward, grease dripping from his chin. “I see fire in belly. Burn you up, little troll.”
In response, Trundle picked up a crawling hunk of whale meat and devoured it in three giant bites. He spat the gristle and bone aside, and hungry trolls pounced, fighting for the splintered scraps.
Yettu tilted his head back and slid an entire Aurma fish down his throat, smacking his lips together as its tail disappeared into his gullet. Trundle scooped up handfuls of meat and guts, stuffing them into his mouth with relish and chewing the meat to paste before swallowing.
On and on they ate, their audience cheering with every rotten mouthful of food and every bowl of frustbogga they drank. The mountain of meat seemed to get no smaller, no matter how many chunks they ate. Yettu popped a shovel-like handful of tiny skulls into his mouth, crunching them and rolling the pieces around his mouth like they were some kind of delicacy.
“Found these when boat made of trees wrecked on sea,” said Yettu. “Lots of little people all dead and going to waste.”
Trundle didn’t mind eating the meat of the small people, but tried to avoid it where he could since most of them didn’t have much in the way of eating on them and their brittle bones got stuck between his teeth.
Another carcass of ribs and meat was washed down with frustbogga, and he knew he was going to pay for this feat on the way home. The northern king stuffed his face with the furry meat of a mammoth, but Trundle saw the telltale signs of a full belly in the redness of Yettu’s face and the slowed pace of his eating.
Trundle, too, was feeling the effects of so much meat and frustbogga.
Yettu belched, a belly-rumbling roar that shook snow from the ceiling and sent a bunch of giant icicles falling from the roof. Trolls jumped out of the way, and Trundle used the distraction to lift the neck of the food sack beneath his patchwork cloak up under his fat and blood-soaked chin.
He looked up and saw Little Sligu staring at him. The clever little troll must have seen him hide the sack under his cloak. Little Sligu gave him a slow nod and Trundle grinned, leaning forward to grab yet more meat and bone. He shoved it toward his mouth, but instead of eating it he tipped most of it down his front and into the sack. He took his time, taking slow bites here and there, all the while stuffing entire wings, heads, and racks of blackened ribs into the sack until it was full and he could fit no more in.
Trundle’s belly rumbled and he belched a stinking cloud of yellowed gas.
“Full yet?” said Yettu, chewing on a leg bone of something long and heavy.
Trundle slapped his bulging midriff and shook his head.
“Full? Me?” he grinned through a mouthful of crunching bone and dripping fat. “I’m just getting warmed up. When do we get properly started?”
The other trolls laughed, and Yettu roared at them to shut up.
“I king here!” he yelled. “Not him.”
Trundle grinned. Yettu was king here because he was the strongest, meanest, and hungriest troll, but Trundle knew that kind of king was easy to topple.
But the cunningest of kings? That kind of king could stay king forever.
Trundle leaned back and yawned, stretching like he was ready to go for a nap.
“Hey,” he said, holding his hand out to Yettu. “Can I borrow that big knife of yours?”
Yettu eyed him suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes swimming in grease.
“What for? Fink you gonna cut me?”
“Nah, just got to make room for next course.”
The northern king gripped the stone handle of his knife and pulled it from the flesh of his chest. He tossed it over the remaining mound of bloody meat, and Trundle caught it in his sticky palm. For a weapon of trolls, it was surprisingly well made and wickedly sharp.
Trundle pushed himself carefully to his feet, holding the bulge of his cloak and letting out a thunderous fart that swiftly cleared the space behind him.
Then, he took Yettu’s knife and sliced it across his cloaked belly.
He let out a convincing groan of relief as the vast quantities of food he’d stuffed into the sack spilled out around his feet in an avalanche of chewed meat, gnawed bones, and fragments of half-eaten gristle.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said, handing the knife to Little Sligu with a sly wink, who returned the blade to Yettu. The big troll stared in amazement at Trundle as he lifted yet another handful of meat and stuffed it into his mouth.
Yettu looked from the knife to Trundle, and rose to his full height with a roar of laughter.
“You gonna let him beat you like that?” said Little Sligu.
Yettu shook his head.
“Nobody beats me,” he snarled, and plunged the knife deep into his own stomach.
The northern king sliced the razor-sharp blade across his belly and lifted the bloody knife high with a triumphant grin.
“Yettu make room for food too!”
Trundle watched the northern king’s grin fade as his belly yawned open like a second mouth and all the half-digested food he’d just eaten came spilling out in a torrent of his own blood and coiled guts.
“Something wrong?” asked Trundle, pulling the skeleton of a fish carcass from his throat.
Yettu tried to answer, but his mouth just flapped as his innards continued to pour from his opened belly. The knife dropped from his hand and his knees buckled.
Yettu sank to the ground, trying in vain to hold the sliced flaps of his belly together.
“That don’t feel good…” he said, before falling face first into the mound of meat.
Little Sligu came forward and Trundle eyed the smaller troll with a mixture of suspicion and respect.
“Now I think I know how a little troll like you’s managed to survive up here among all these big boys,” said Trundle. “You’re clever.”
“A bit,” said Sligu with a modest shrug.
“Maybe you should come back down south with me,” suggested Trundle in a tone that made it clear it was anything but a suggestion.
“Yeah,” said Little Sligu, looking around at the other trolls. “Change of scenery might be nice.”
“Then you knows what you got to do now, yeah?”
Little Sligu lifted Trundle’s arm.
“Trundle is winner!” shouted the clever little troll. “True king of trolls!” | Fighter |
This far north, the nights are dark. The shadows grow long in the hall of Ashe and her bloodsworn groom. The braziers burn down to smoldering coals. They may seem extinguished, dead—but even a fool knows not to grasp one with a naked hand. Even a fool.
He isn’t much to look at, in truth. Tall, yes, and strong, but that dark hair that falls around his shoulders is flecked with gray. He does not look like a figure of myth and legend. Seated at the head of his table, Tryndamere looks like a man. His eyes are a flat green. Dull, like an animal’s.
And yet I cannot meet them for long. I witnessed the rage they conceal, and it nearly took me as the ember takes the straw.
It happened in my first winter as battlemaiden to Ashe. I was young, brash, and very bored—my new life was not the adventure I once dreamed it might be. When she went to fight the northern raiders, Ashe had left me in the great hall, to watch over her bloodsworn. Tryndamere wasn’t mustering war parties or howling with battle-lust, he was holding audience with a collection of envoys from local clans. Not even thanes or warmothers, but little men and women who believed the world turned on the precise numbers of cattle ranging in their pastures. The dullest of the lot happened to be talking just then, a doddering graybeard.
“Warmother Ashe has taken one in three of our warriors north to throw back the raiders of the Winter’s Claw. That is one in three hands not tilling the earth, one in three eyes not watching the flock. I understand your people never raised crops or herded animals, but in more civilized lands…”
I wanted to see the elder’s head parted from his shoulders. This was the warmother’s bloodsworn he was addressing! From my silent post behind Tryndamere I glared up at him, hoping to see a flicker of anger under that passive mask; I already knew, though, that I would be disappointed. By the gods, I wanted him to show some of his legendary temper.
So young, and so foolish. I have never forgotten that: I wanted to see it.
“Allow me, bloodsworn, to educate you on the proper management of the lands west of the White Hills…” the graybeard went on.
I found my hand curling around the leather wrapping of my sword.
Before I could act on my rashness, the great wooden doors of the hall swept open. The braziers sputtered and hissed as wind and snow pushed their way inside—and with them came figures, half a dozen of them. At their head was a tall woman, silver braids peeking out from a traveling hood dusted with frost. As she pushed it back, I recognized the jagged white scar that crossed her face.
“Heldred?”
The warmother of my tribe fixed me with a cold stare. It was then that I noticed her followers, wrapped in furs and leathers and armor, pushing the great doors shut. Warriors, one and all, with weapons drawn and blooded. A war party.
Around the hall, the envoys had gone silent, staring nervously at the new arrivals. Tryndamere watched them, too, though if the presence of bare weapons in his hall irked him, I could not tell.
Heldred ignored me, starting for Tryndamere. I stepped in front of her. “Go no further, warmother.”
“Sigra,” she said, her voice ice. Cold as winter. “You do me honor, to still call me by that title. I am glad you haven’t forgotten your first oaths.”
“Why are you here, Heldred?”
“Step aside, child. If your new warmother was within my grasp, I would wet my axe with her blood. But blood must be shed, so her second will have to do.”
“Heldred of Three Rivers,” a voice echoed in the darker corners of the hall. Tryndamere. “You have come a very long way. Why do you seek battle?”
“Hail, bloodsworn,” she said. “I will tell you. Five days past, as the sun rose over our village, something else rode in with it. Raiders. Reavers. Killers.”
The words sunk into me like knives. “Winter’s Claw,” I whispered.
“Aye!” she barked. “Winter’s Claw. They came while the man you defend sat behind his stout walls, growing fat and slow, and did to us what the Winter’s Claw always does. Now, there was a time when we might have driven them off. But that was before Ashe called for warriors! Before she took one out of every three hands strong enough to swing a blade.”
Her voice became a bitter hiss. “We couldn’t hold.”
Speech would not come to me. I should have been there, I thought. If I hadn’t oathed myself to another, I could have. I could have fought. “How many? How many lost?”
“Your elders hid in time, Sigra. For that, I am grateful. But many did not. Too many.”
Slowly, Tryndamere pushed himself to his feet. “I am sorry, warmother, for your loss. I… know what it is like to lead a desperate people. Bring your survivors here. They can share our food, our walls. You are welcome.”
It was a noble offer.
Heldred only spat on the floor. From her belt, the warmother pulled her axe. “I do not want your walls or your food, bloodsworn. I want blood for blood. The old ways say I am due a challenge, and so a challenge I make.”
“This is foolishness,” I said. “Think of our kin.” Think of my elders, I did not say.
“You forget your place, child. I will not say it again—step aside.”
Fury tightened my hand around the hilt of my sword. In one motion I drew it, the steel glowing orange in the firelight. “No, Heldred. I have forgotten nothing. I am a battlemaiden, sworn to defend this hall. On my oath, I accept your challenge.”
“So be it. If you are in such a hurry to die, I’ll make it quick.”
“Enough!” bellowed Tryndamere. “I will have no Avarosan blood spilled around this hearth. We have enemies enough without killing each other!”
The echo of his words shook the very timbers of the hall. Never had I heard him speak like this—I could not miss something dangerous just under the surface. But Heldred only sneered. “I do not fear you, bloodsworn. Life behind these walls has dulled your edge. Mine is still killing-sharp.”
I caught her first blow on my sword. The shock of it nearly dislocated my shoulder. I had barely recovered by the time Heldred swung again; I was quick, but she had experience and strength on her side.
Heldred’s overhead chop missed my skull by inches, and buried the axehead in the floor. I lunged forward, thrusting for her, but with a ferocious grunt she wrenched her axe free, backhanding the flat end into my ribs. Pain shot through my chest and I sagged to one side, unable to keep my footing.
From the floor I raised my sword, pointing feebly at the woman who had once been my warmother. She struck it from my hand dismissively. “I will tell your kin you fought bravely, Sigra Battlemaiden.”
Heldred raised her axe to deliver the killing stroke, and I squeezed my eyes shut. But it never fell.
I looked up. Tryndamere had caught the axe—caught it, in his open hand. Blood dripped from the blade down his arm, onto the timbers below. “This is not our way. Avarosans protect one another.”
From the floor, I watched as the open wound on his palm sealed itself shut.
Impossible.
He was speaking through gritted teeth, and that lurking danger I had sensed earlier now screamed in my head. Run, it said. Run now, while you can.
For a moment, I saw that Heldred heard it, too—but then, with a snarl, she swung her axe again, a mighty two-handed blow meant to cleave the man in half.
Tryndamere roared. It was an inhuman sound, a fury deeper than the roots of mountains, as bottomless as the deepest lake. He roared, and then he lunged for her.
That was two winters ago. Two winters, and I have not forgotten what I saw. Probably I never will. Probably I shouldn’t.
I am oathsworn still, bound to fight by his side. When I stand guard over my barbarian charge, motionless at his long table, I see Heldred’s face twisted in agony. When the fires burn low in the long hall, I hear her screams. I have seen what lurks beneath those placid, dull eyes.
Every night, I pray to my ancestors that I will not see it again. Some things are better left in stories.
Some coals are better left smoldering. | Fighter |
Far above, Udyr heard the cries of an eagle riding the gale. Its voice was strong, confident, but not close enough to get in the way of his own thoughts. It was a relief to feel this human.The voices were never silent, but Udyr knew not to be ungrateful. Even a moment’s reprieve was rare.I can hear myself breathe… for now, at least.Today, he walked alone. He hiked up the mountain slopes, a chill wind following him, carrying away his lingering memory of Ionia’s ethereal beauty with every gust. The monks at Hirana had offered him a parting gift a few moons past when he left their lands—a riddle intended to guide him on his path to mastering his spiritual powers.Below winter’s peakNature’s pure life essence flowsNow transformed to glassIt read more beautifully in their tongue than his own, but it had not taken him long to solve. After spending months traveling with the blind monk, Udyr had learned to decipher the meaning behind Ionian speech.Reaching the precipitous eastern slopes of Winterspike, Udyr paused to gaze out at the lake before him, frozen in all its majesty. At the edges of the lake laid the bones and corpses of wild beasts, as well as those of dead shamans and priests who had come to this place, months, years, and lifetimes before him.Udyr stood still, his chest bare, eyes closed, bracing against the brisk morning air.This land was my home…He looked down at his reflection on the ice. It showed the face of a man, ragged and worn from his travels.My rest ends. I hear them coming.The ice stirred. A crack at first, as Udyr saw his image splinter into disparate pieces. Soon, entire slabs broke off, drifting apart. Udyr waited, respectfully.The frigid water bubbled. Slowly to begin with, and then rapidly all at once. Steam rose from the surface, filling the air with heat.Udyr took in a quiet breath, his shoulders rising, to ready himself.Out of the mist leapt an ice-formed beast, carved by the land’s magic and birthed from the lake. The ground trembled as it took a thundering step toward Udyr.Udyr looked up at the wild spirit towering above him, three times his height.The murmurs started low, soft—leaves falling on fresh snow. Yet quickly, they grew.Bitter. Restless.There they are.Grunts turned into snarls, mutters into barks, one swallowing another. Their rage seized his mind, shattering his every thought. At first, the voices competed for dominance—elnüks, drüvasks, and others. Udyr had heard these voices within himself many times. Soon, they joined together, into the shape he had most feared.The ravenous tiger.“Spirit walker. Step closer,” it growled. “Raise your voice and show us why you have returned.”Udyr only just mustered the strength to stifle a gasp. His knees buckled under the weight of the noise in his head. His hands shot toward the soil to steady his body. Straining his neck, he glared up at the savage creature, not willing to answer.The voices rose at the sight of Udyr’s inaction, with the tiger roaring above the rest.“You do not deserve to call the Freljord home. You are weak.”Udyr braced himself as the spirit rammed its head into him, shards of its icy body cutting into his skin. Tumbling far across the ground, Udyr landed against hard rock.I must not give in.Regaining his balance, he wiped the blood off his face and forced his hands into fists. He punched his knuckles into the frosty ground, and the throbbing in his arms overtook him. Veins pulsated from his hands to his shoulders. Getting back to his feet, Udyr readied himself to deflect another blow.The spirit roared once more. “The strong fight! Instead, you stifle your voice and cower!”The spirit charged headfirst. Udyr tried dodging out of the way, but his foe was quicker and stronger. As he rolled to the side, the tiger swiped his leg with its claws, spraying the spirit walker’s blood across the frosted ground.Udyr knelt on one knee in pain. He felt his own anger building, but still he held back.I must not give in.The spirit loomed closer, letting out a feral cry before pouncing toward Udyr. Realizing he could not dodge in time, he crossed his arms before him and clenched his fists. Magical energy surrounded him, blocking the tiger spirit’s lethal blow.The spirit slid backward. After regaining its footing, it grinned through its fangs. Its icy body crackled with vicious energy, splintering the bones of its past victims beneath its feet. Death was all this place knew.Udyr knelt on both knees now, his head down, his body pounding with pain while the spirit paced around him. He felt the ground shake with its every step.This is not the way.He gritted his teeth, their points drawing blood from his lips as he felt the ground tremble once more.The voices boomed. “The weak… are prey!”Udyr looked up, seeing the spirit charge toward him, its eyes lusting for blood—so wide he could see himself staring back, with the same lust for violence.I must embrace who I am.Golden flames erupted from Udyr’s skin like wildfire, the anger coursing through his body matching the fury of the tiger spirit before him.“Finally, the prey has decided to fight!”Udyr roared as he rushed straight at the tiger spirit. Vaulting onto the beast’s leg, he climbed its craggy surface, smashing his bleeding hands into whatever piece of ice he could to pull himself upward. The creature shook, the sharp edges of its body piercing the spirit walker’s skin. Udyr screamed, relishing in his might. At last, his wrath matched the fire in his foe, as the two reveled in their savage violence.With a brutal lunge, he reached the spirit’s back, trails of his blood dripping down its sides. Spirit energy surged through him, a force strong enough to drown out any pain. The voices of wild beasts clamored unchecked in his mind—the bitter cries of those consumed by the tiger, and his own unbridled anger—merging as one.“I am no prey!”Udyr brought his fists down in a flurry of explosive blows, creating a web of cracks running down the creature’s body. He clawed and slashed with abandon, tearing away at his foe. Howling in pure rage, he threw back his head and sank his fangs deep into the spirit’s neck.He expected the spirit to tumble over, its body to break apart, giant lumps of ice disappearing to dust.But it was already gone, along with its voices. Had they shrieked? Had they cried?High above, he heard the eagle call.Focus. Calm.Udyr fell and staggered onto solid ground. Breathing heavily, he lay next to the lake, and watched the last of his enemy vanish. Suddenly, he heard another rumbling and stumbled to his feet. The lake, as if celebrating his victory, began to thaw. Piece by piece, the remaining ice melted, raising the water level to wash over the cold, hard land.Remembering the ritual he had repeated countless times at Hirana, Udyr limped forth. Cupping his hands, he splashed cool water across his head, shoulders, and back, rinsing his wounds clean. Then, gently, he took a drink.He stared at his reflection, seeing a man looking back. Wounded, tested, alive.I am who I am.Udyr heard only the sound of flowing water—and yet, he did not smile.But this fight is far from over. | Fighter |
Vi stifled a yawn as she moved through the gilded chamber at the heart of Piltover’s Hall of Law. Dawn was less than an hour old, and the place was quiet. A few drunks were sleeping it off in the shaming cells, and she’d heard there were a couple of chem-augmented thugs in the deeper, more secure lock-ups. She’d ask around later, see if she could provide any insight as to what they were doing up in Piltover.
She rolled her shoulders, the muscles there stiff after a hard night’s work. It had been a long shift, and her forearms were aching from the pressure of her powered gauntlets. All she wanted to do was go back home, get them off, and bathe her fists in ice water. Maybe throw back a few glasses of something strong and sleep some, but the pnuema-tube from Caitlyn had been full of imperatives about getting herself down to the district house on the double. Vi had cocked an eyebrow, tossed the message and given it an hour before leaving her cramped home in the dressmakers-quarter to answer Caitlyn’s summons.
“Hey, Harknor,” she said to the desk-warden when she reached the cells. “What’s so important Caitlyn has to drag me from an erotic dream about—”
“Ah, ah, stop right there,” said Harknor without looking up from his elevated desk as he ran a finger down the list of prisoners brought in during the night. “I’m not in the mood to hear another of your lurid fantasies.”
“You sure?” grinned Vi, leaning on his desk and blowing a loose strand of pink hair from her eyes. “This was a good one. Had a plot and everything.”
“Quite sure,” said Harknor, looking away and holding out the charge sheet. “Caitlyn and Mohan brought in a hextech thief last night. He hasn’t said a word to anyone, but she thinks you might be able to get him to talk.”
Vi arched an eyebrow as she scanned the page.
“Devaki? You’ve been a very naughty boy,” she said, rolling her eyes and curling her metaled fingers into a fist. “Yeah, Devaki and I knew each other back in the day. I’ll get him to talk.”
Harknor shook his head, saying, “Listen, Vi, I don’t want to have to call the surgeon back here again. Caitlyn wants this fella to able to speak when he goes before the procurator.”
“Where is she anyway?” asked Vi. “She isn’t even here to say hello?”
“Chasing down a lead at the docks,” said Harknor. “Said she figured you could handle this one on your own. She wrong about that?”
“Nope,” said Vi, turning and sashaying toward the cells. “Which cell’s Devaki in?”
“Number six. But remember, he’s got to be able to talk!”
Vi nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah...”
She reached cell six and slid back the locking bar. Normally, another warden would secure the door, but Vi didn’t need anyone at her back. She knew Devaki from the old days, even worked with him a few times before the job with the Factorywood Fiends went bad. Devaki was a thief, not a fighter, and if she needed backup to restrain his scrawny frame, then it was time to find a new line of work.
Devaki was sitting on the edge of the chipped hunk of stone they called a bed with his back to the wall and his knees drawn up to his chest. He cradled one arm close to his body, the limb ending at a bandaged stump where his hand ought to be. He looked up as she entered, and his eyes widened in surprise.
“Vi?”
“Piltover’s finest,” she said with a petite curtsey that, despite where he sat, made Devaki smile. “What happened to your hand?”
“Your damn sheriff shot if off,” he said. “What happened to yours?”
“I got an upgrade,” said Vi, holding up her hextech gauntlets. They hummed with a low buzz and she turned them around to let Devaki see just how powerful they were. “Fully customizable with variant levels of hurt. I can punch through walls with these babies.”
“Yeah, I heard what happened to the Ecliptic Vaults,” said Devaki with an easy smile, as if he was talking to the old Vi, the Vi from the Lanes. He wasn’t bright enough to know that Vi wasn’t the one standing in front of him.
Devaki held up the arm ending in a stump. “I’m gonna need an upgrade too. This was a high-end augment from Bronzio’s. That sheriff didn’t need to shoot it off.”
“You can bill her,” said Vi, closing the distance between them in two strides and lifting Devaki off his feet. She threw him against the opposite wall, rattling his bones and sending plaster dust billowing into the air.
Devaki slid to the floor, shocked and gasping for breath. “They’ve been playing nice so far, but now they send you in? What gives?”
“I’m the one they send in when asking all polite doesn’t get you anywhere, cupcake,” said Vi, letting the power build in her gauntlets. “I’m the one who’ll go to town on you with these beauties. Unless, of course, you tell me what I want to know.”
“Whoa, wait! Vi, what are you doing?” spluttered Devaki, holding his remaining hand out before him as he scrambled to his feet.
“I’m interrogating you, what’s it look like?”
“But you haven’t asked me anything!”
Vi cocked her head to the side. “Yeah, I should probably get on that.”
She reached down and hauled Devaki to his feet, applying a growing pressure to his shoulder.
“So, who was gonna buy that stolen hextech?”
Devaki winced in pain, but didn’t answer.
“Come on, you’re tougher than that,” said Vi, releasing his bruised shoulder. “You want to see what happens to a face when I don’t pull my punches?”
“No!” cried Devaki.
“Then tell me what I want to know.”
“I can’t.”
Vi tapped a finger on her chin, as if weighing whether to punch him again. She smiled, the expression worrying Devaki more than the thought of her fists.
“Be a shame if word got round the Lanes that you’d been informing on all your criminal friends for the last couple of years.”
“What?” said Devaki, spluttering in pain and indignation. “That’s a lie!”
“Of course it is,” said Vi, “but I know all the right people to talk to down there. A lot of folk’ll listen if I let it slip that you’re in the wardens’ pocket.”
“I’ll be dead in a day if you do that,” protested Devaki.
“Now you’re catching on,” said Vi. “Tell me what I want to know. I’ll make sure it gets about you resisted arrest. Even give you a black eye so it looks like I beat it out of ya.”
Devaki’s shoulders slumped, knowing he had no defiance left in him.
“Fine, I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
“Excellent,” said Vi, “Now we’re getting somewhere.” | Fighter |
I find her near the Black Lanes, where merchants and thieves do business. Anything is for sale. Everything is stolen. I could kill them all.
Do they think the shadows hide their misdeeds? The gleam of their knives? The deals they make, shrouded in darkness? I can smell the shimmerwine on a beggar’s breath from across this wretched city.
I know their crimes. I can taste them.
Then I see her. She’s taking a message from one of Baron Spindlow’s men—the lump-faced one, all scars and scowl—and placing it into a pneuma-tube. He mutters instructions to her.
Who knew the dob could even speak, let alone write a message? I’ve only heard him scream. The last time we met, I took his leg. Its replacement is already rusted.
The cogs clink as they pass from the thug’s meaty hand into the girl’s. I can smell the blood on the gear-shaped coins. The pain that passes from person to person. If you want something in this city, it doesn’t matter how many cogs you have. Pain is the true currency.
I remember a man who knew this—the blood and cogs on his hands—but that man is gone.
I growl, and the two figures flinch in surprise. Even the shadows seem to draw back as my augments cast a sickly, green glow. The girl takes one look and flees, but not deeper into the alley. She’s a pneuma-tube runner. She clambers up, into the darkness, taking a path few can follow.
Afraid. Fast, but vulnerable. Carrying a pneuma-tube with a chem-baron’s seal. The gangers will come for her.
She’s perfect…
I begin the hunt.
We move so quickly, the city is a blur—my claws cutting through the smoke, scrabbling for purchase as I leap across rooftops, following the pneuma-tube runner. Carving a path so deep through the city, it seems to bleed chemtech, toxic puddles gathering in the alleys.
She tries to double back, skittering beneath a cart full of tinctures. She knows the city almost as well as I do. She knows where I’m driving her. Away from sanctuary, toward a place all the runners fear, where only the Zaun Gray escapes.
I need to remind her to be more afraid of me than what lies in the darkness. I land ahead of her, roaring with rage, my claws tearing a chunk out of a steam conduit. She hesitates, but only for a moment, before turning back into the depths. Where I need her to run.
I can hear the gasps of effort as she scrambles up walls and slides down railings. She’s praying to the wind goddess to save her. Perhaps I should do the same. The animal inside me wants more than murder. It wants meat.
I could kill her right now. It would be so easy. I feel my claws emerging, greedy for flesh. I forget why I should spare her, until I draw closer. Close enough to see my reflection in her eyes, as she stumbles on a ledge and looks back.
Her eyes brim with tears.
It’s all so... familiar.
I pull back and howl into the darkness, driving the girl forward. She drops down into a maze of pipes built for the ancient pneuma system. I follow behind her, hanging back as she reaches the dead end.
The girl thinks I’m going to kill her. That her pale throat is the reason I bare my teeth. But she is only the bait. This is where she’ll lure out my true prey.
Those who’d prey on her.
“Well, well. Look what fell outta the Gray,” says a ganger emerging from the darkness. He and his friends surround the girl, their blades catching what little light survives in these depths. I recognize their tattered rags. The Gray Nails. A dead man once had dealings with them.
There was another girl...
I shake away the memories. I don’t want them.
“I know you,” says one of the Nails, her face ringed by piercings. “You run for Boggin, eh? One ’a Spindlow’s mugs. What’s that krovin’ psycho got to say that he don’t want us to hear?” She pokes the pneuma-tube with her dagger and smiles.
“Please, you don’t understand!” the girl sobs, scanning the gray darkness behind her and trying to rush past.
“Neither do you,” the first ganger says. “We’re gonna have some fun.”
I hesitate as the thug knocks the pneuma-tube from the girl’s hands. It’s worth more cogs than their own lives. It’s their ticket out of this miserable pit, to a slightly less miserable one.
I thought the pneuma-tube would distract them for the moment I needed. It cracks against the alley stones, Spindlow’s seal broken.
What have I done?
The runner cries out as a Nail grabs her roughly. There’s a struggle, a flash of steel, and then...blood.
Its scent enrages me.
The chamber on my back pumps, and I am lost.
A roar fills the darkness.
“It’s him! The Howler!” a Gray Nail cries out as I race into the clearing, trying to focus on the punk. I slash into him, and the alley wall steams with red mist. He crumples to the stones.
Where is the girl? I’ve lost track in the mayhem. Surrounded. Blades stabbing like clumsy teeth. Claws a metal blur. Jaws clamp down, and bones crack along with armor.
I taste blood. And still there’s more.
I see her now. One of the Nails hovers above the girl, his shiv raised. I can stop him.
But the machine pumps again, and my limbs surge with power.
The red haze fills my mind. Everything is a blur. Everything is forgotten.
Everything is blood.
I don’t know if I saved the girl. I don’t know if I killed her. I’m still biting through flesh when the surviving Nails flee into the darkness.
I turn, following them into the night. I have no choice.
They are the monsters I hunt. And I am one of them. | Fighter |
The first rays of dawn brushed the rooftops of the Great City, turning pale stone to gold. The air was still, and the only sounds filtering up to the high garden terraces on the east side of the citadel were the gentle chorus of morning birds and the hushed murmur of the waking city below.
Xin Zhao sat cross-legged upon a stone dais, hands resting upon his spear, laid across his lap. He stared down across the lower garden tiers, over the battlements and out across Demacia’s capital beyond. Watching the sun rise over his adopted homeland normally brought him peace… but not today.
His cloak was charred and splattered with blood, and his armor dented and scratched. Strands of his iron-gray-streaked hair—no longer the full inky black of his youth—hung wild over his face, having escaped his topknot. Under normal circumstances he would have already bathed, washing away the sweat, blood, and stink of fire. He would have sent his armor to the battlesmiths for repair, and secured himself a new cloak. Appearances mattered, particularly as the seneschal of Demacia.
But these were far from normal circumstances.
The king was dead.
He was the most honorable man Xin Zhao had ever met, and he loved and respected him above all others. He was oath-sworn to protect him… and yet Xin Zhao had not been there when he was needed most.
He took a deep, wracking breath. The weight of his failure threatened to crush him.
The mage uprising the day before had taken the whole city by surprise. Xin Zhao had been wounded in the running battles as he fought to make his way back to the palace, but he felt nothing. For hours, he’d sat here, alone, letting the cold of the stone seep into his bones as the shroud of grief and shame and guilt descended upon him. The palace guards—those that hadn’t been killed in the attack—had left him to his misery, keeping clear of the tiered garden where he sat in silence through the hours of darkness. Xin Zhao was grateful for that small mercy. He didn’t know if he could cope with the accusation in their eyes.
The sun reached him, finally, like the light of judgment, forcing him to squint against its glare.
He sighed deeply, steeling himself. He pushed himself to his feet, and took one final glance across the city he loved, and the garden that had always before brought him solace. Then he turned, and walked back toward the palace.
Many years ago, he had made a promise. Now he intended to keep it.
Lifeless and hollow, Xin Zhao felt like a wraith haunting the location of its demise. Death would have been preferable. Falling while protecting his lord would at least have been honorable.
He drifted along corridors of the palace that seemed suddenly cold and lifeless. The servants he saw did not speak, shuffling along in shocked silence, their eyes wide. The guards he passed wore mournful expressions. They saluted, but he looked down. He did not deserve their acknowledgment.
Finally he stood before a closed door. He reached out to knock, but paused. Did his hand tremble? Cursing his weakness, he rapped sharply on the solid oak, then stood to attention, planting the butt of his spear sharply to the floor. The sound echoed along the corridor. For a long, drawn-out moment, he remained motionless, staring at the door, waiting for it to open.
A pair of patrolling palace guards turned a corner and marched past him, armor clanking. Shame kept him from looking at them. Still, the door remained shut.
“I believe High Marshal Crownguard is in the North Ward, my lord seneschal,” said one of the guards. “Overseeing increased security.”
Xin Zhao sighed inwardly, but gritted his teeth and nodded his thanks to the guard.
“My lord…” said the other guard. “No one blames you for—”
“Thank you, soldier,” Xin Zhao said, cutting him off. He didn’t want their pity. The pair saluted, and moved on their way.
Xin Zhao turned and marched down the corridor in the direction the guards had come, toward the northern wing of the palace. It was no reprieve that the High Marshal, Tianna Crownguard, was not in her office. It merely drew out this matter.
He walked through a hall hung with pennants and banners, pausing briefly beneath one of them—a standard depicting the white-winged sword of Demacia on a field of blue. It had been woven by the king’s late mother and her handmaidens, and even though almost a third of it had been destroyed by fire, it was a work of astounding beauty and artistry. It had fallen at the battle of Saltspike Hill, but King Jarvan himself had led the charge to reclaim it, Xin Zhao at his side. They’d cut their way through hundreds of fur-clad Freljordian berserkers to reach it, and Xin Zhao had been the one to lift it high, even as flames licked at its embroidery. The sight of the reclaimed standard had turned the tide that day, rallying the Demacians, and securing an unlikely victory. Jarvan had refused to allow it to be repaired on its safe return to the palace. He wanted all who looked upon it to remember its history.
Xin Zhao passed a small room, a remote library in a little-used corner of the palace that was one of the king’s favorite places to spend his evenings. It was his place of escape, where he could get away from the fussing of servants and nobles. Xin Zhao had spent many long nights here with the king, sipping fortified honey-wine, and discussing the finer points of strategy, politics, and the now-distant memories of their youth.Jarvan was ever the stoic, stern leader in public, yet here, in this inner sanctum—particularly in the early hours, when they were deep in their cups—he would laugh until tears ran down his face, and speak with passion about his hopes and dreams for his son.
Fresh pain wracked Xin Zhao as he realized he’d never hear his friend laugh again.
Without having noticed it, Xin Zhao found himself passing by the halls of training. He’d probably spent more hours there over the last twenty years than anywhere else. That was his real home, where he felt most himself. There, he’d spent untold hours training and sparring with the king. That was where, to the king’s amusement and delight, his son had adopted Xin Zhao into the family. Where Xin Zhao had taught the young prince to fight with sword, spear, and lance; where he’d consoled him, wiping away his tears and helping him back to his feet when he fell; where he’d laughed with him, and cheered his successes.
Thought of the prince struck him like a blade to the gut. Xin Zhao might have lost his dearest friend the previous day, but young Jarvan had lost his father. He’d already lost his mother in childbirth. He was now alone.
With a heavy heart, Xin Zhao made to walk on, but a familiar sound gave him pause: a blunted blade slamming against wood. Someone was training. Xin Zhao’s brow furrowed.
A sickening feeling grew in the pit of his stomach as he slipped through the heavy doors leading within.
At first he couldn’t see who was there. The arches and pillars around the edge of the vaulted room conspired to keep them obscured. The sound of sword strikes echoed loudly around him.
Rounding a cluster of pillars, he at last saw the prince hacking at a wooden practice dummy with a heavy iron training sword. He was covered in a sheen of sweat, and his chest was heaving with exertion. His expression was one of anguish, and he attacked wildly.
Xin Zhao paused in the shadows, heart aching to see the young prince so raw and hurt. He desperately wanted to go to him, to console him, and help him through this awful time, for the prince and his father were the closest Xin Zhao had ever had to family. But why would the prince want him here? He was the king’s bodyguard, and yet he lived while the king lay dead.
Hesitancy was not familiar to Xin Zhao, nor a feeling he was comfortable with. Not even in the Fleshing pits of Noxus had he ever second-guessed himself. Shaking his head, he turned to leave.
“Uncle?”
Xin Zhao cursed himself a fool for not having left immediately.
They were not blood relatives, of course, but the prince had started calling him uncle soon after Xin Zhao had come into the king’s service, twenty years earlier. Jarvan had been just a boy, and no one had corrected him. The king had been amused by it, at first, but over the years Xin Zhao had become as close as blood kin to the royal family, and he had watched over the king’s son as if he had been his own.
He turned slowly. Jarvan was a boy no longer, standing taller than Xin Zhao. His eyes were red-rimmed, and surrounded by dark rings. Xin Zhao guessed he was not the only one to have had no sleep.
“My prince,” he said, dropping to one knee and bowing his head low.
Jarvan didn’t say anything. He just stood there, looking down at Xin Zhao, breathing hard.
“My apologies,” said Xin Zhao, his head still lowered.
“For interrupting, or for not being there to protect my father when he was murdered?”
Xin Zhao glanced up. Jarvan glowered down at him, heavy training sword still in hand. He had no good way to answer, to say all that he felt.
“I failed him,” he said at last. “And I failed you.”
Jarvan stood for a moment longer before turning and striding to one of the many weapon racks arranged around the room.
“Rise,” Jarvan ordered.
As Xin Zhao did, the prince threw him a sword. He caught it reflexively in his off-hand, still holding his spear in his right. It was another training blade, heavy and blunted. Then Jarvan was coming at him, swinging hard.
Xin Zhao jumped backward, avoiding the blow.
“My lord, I don’t think this is—” he began, but his words were cut off as Jarvan lunged at him again, thrusting his sword at his chest. Xin Zhao batted it aside with the haft of his spear, and stepped back.
“My prince—” he said, but again Jarvan attacked, more furiously than before.
Two strikes came at him this time, one high, one low. Jarvan may have been using a training blade, but if those blows struck, they would break bone. Xin Zhao was forced to defend himself, deflecting the first with a side-step and an angled spear, the second with the blade of his own sword. The impact rang up his arm.
“Where were you?” snarled Jarvan, pacing around him.
Xin Zhao lowered his weapons. “Is this how you want to do this?” he said, in a quiet voice.
“Yes,” said Jarvan, his anger simmering, his sword held in a deathgrip.
Xin Zhao sighed. “A moment,” he said, and moved to put his spear on a rack. Jarvan waited for him, hand clenching and unclenching on the hilt of his sword.
As soon as Xin Zhao returned to the center of the room, Jarvan attacked. He came in a rush, grunting with effort. There was little finesse to the strikes, but fury lent him strength. Xin Zhao turned those blows aside, using Jarvan’s power against him, not wishing to meet the heavy blows directly.
At any other time he would have berated the prince for his poor form—he was thinking only of attack, and leaving himself open for ripostes and counter-strikes—but Xin Zhao would not interrupt the prince’s justified anger. Nor would he take advantage of the gaps in his defense. If the prince needed to beat him bloody, then so be it.
“Where—were—you?” Jarvan said between strikes.
“I should have done this long ago,” the king said, not looking up from his desk, where he sat penning a letter.
Every dip of the quill was an irate stab, and he wrote in fast, furious bursts.
It was rare to see to see the king’s emotions so close to the surface.
“My lord?” Xin Zhao said.
“We have been so fixated on that which we fear,” the king said, still not looking up, though he did pause from his angry scratching for a moment. “We’ve been fools. I’ve been a fool. In trying to protect ourselves, we’ve created the very enemy we sought to protect ourselves from.”
Xin Zhao blocked a heavy blow aimed at his neck. The force of the strike drove him back a step.
“You have nothing to say?” demanded Jarvan.
“I should have been with your father,” he answered.
“That is no answer,” snarled Jarvan. He turned away abruptly, tossing his sword aside with a sharp, echoing clang. For a moment, Xin Zhao hoped the prince was done, but then he retrieved a different weapon from its place upon one of the racks.
Drakebane.
Now the prince leveled the lance toward him, his expression hard and unflinching.
“Get your spear,” he said.
“You are not armored,” protested Xin Zhao.
Training weapons could easily break limbs, but the slightest mistimed parry with a combat blade could be lethal.
“I don’t care,” Jarvan said.
Xin Zhao bowed his head. He bent to retrieve Jarvan’s discarded training sword, and placed it carefully upon a rack, along with his own. Reluctantly, his heart heavy, he retrieved his spear and moved back out into the open area in the center of the hall.
Without a word, Jarvan attacked.
“I’m not sure I follow, my lord,” said Xin Zhao.
The king paused, looking up for the first time since Xin Zhao’s arrival. In that moment he looked suddenly old. His forehead was deeply lined, and his hair and beard had long since gone to gray. Neither of them were young men anymore.
“I blame myself,” said King Jarvan. His eyes were unfocused, staring off into empty space. “I let them have too much power. It never sat right with me, but their arguments were convincing, and they had the backing of the council. I see now I was wrong to have ignored my own judgment. With this letter, I am commanding the mageseekers to halt their arrests.”
With a deft flick, Jarvan extended Drakebane toward Xin Zhao. The legendary weapon’s haft almost doubled in length, its lethal blades slicing blindingly fast toward Xin Zhao’s neck.
The seneschal swayed aside, deflecting the deadly strike with a circular turn of his spear, careful the blades did not hook his own weapon.
Even in the brutal contests of the Fleshing, Xin Zhao had never seen a weapon like Drakebane. In truth, the secret of how to fight with it had been lost in the reign of the first kings of Demacia, and in unskilled hands it was as deadly to its wielder as to the enemy. As such, for centuries it had been little more than ceremonial, an icon of the ruling family. However, when the prince was still just a boy, he had dreamed of fighting with it, like the heroes of old he idolized, and so Xin Zhao had promised to teach him when he was ready.
Jarvan leapt forward, bringing the lance down in a scything blow. Xin Zhao turned it aside, but the prince followed up instantly with a spinning strike that missed him by scant inches, the bladed tip slicing by his throat. Jarvan was not holding back.
Before Xin Zhao could teach the young prince how to wield the weapon, however, he had to master it himself. With the king’s approval, he began training to learn its secrets. Surprisingly light in the hand and perfectly balanced, it was a sublime weapon, created by a master at the peak of his abilities.
Forged in Demacia’s infancy by the renowned weaponsmith Orlon, the lance was a revered icon of Demacia, as much a symbol of its greatness as its towering white walls or the crown of the king. Wrought to defeat the great frostdrake Maelstrom and her progeny who had plagued the early settlers of Demacia in ages past, it had long been a symbol of the royal line.
For years, Xin Zhao had practiced with the lance every day before dawn. Only when he felt he understood it well enough had he begun to teach the teenage prince how to wield it.
Jarvan grunted with effort, lunging at Xin Zhao. The seneschal thought only of defense, stepping neatly away and always aware of his surroundings. His spear was a blur before him, knocking the lance from its intended course each time it came at him.
Young Jarvan had already been learning the uses of sword and spear and fist—as well as the more cerebral arts of military history and rhetoric—it was on his sixteenth birthday that he was finally presented with Drakebane by his father. He trained hard, sustaining countless self-inflicted injuries along the way to mastery, but he eventually fought with the weapon as if it were an extension of himself.
Jarvan pressed Xin Zhao hard, striking furiously. He gave the seneschal no respite, each attack blending seamlessly into the next. A foiled lunge became an upward, sweeping slash, which in turn came around in a pair of scything arcs, first in a low, disemboweling cut, then back across the throat. All were avoided by Xin Zhao, his body swaying from side to side, and his spear flashing to turn each strike aside.
Nevertheless, while Jarvan had long been Xin Zhao’s student, the prince was younger and stronger, and his tall frame gave him a greater reach. No longer was he an awkward aspirant; he’d been hardened by battle and training, and Jarvan’s skill with Drakebane now easily outstripped his own. Jarvan harried him mercilessly, forcing him to retreat with every step.
It took all of Xin Zhao’s considerable skill to remain unscathed… but it could not last.
The king looked down, reading over his letter. He let out an audible sigh.
“Had I the courage to do this earlier, perhaps this day’s disaster could have been averted,” he said.
He signed the letter, before dripping heated royal blue wax next to his name and stamping his personal seal into it. He blew on it, then held the letter up, shaking it lightly in the air to aid its cooling.
Satisfied the wax was dry, the king rolled the letter before sliding it into a cylindrical case of cured white leather, and sealing the lid.
He held it out to his seneschal.
Xin Zhao barely avoided a vicious slash, turning his face at the last moment. The jagged blades of Drakebane sliced across his cheek, drawing blood.
For the first time since they began, Xin Zhao wondered if the prince was actually trying to kill him.
There was a certain balance in dying to the son of the man he had failed to protect.
Jarvan slapped Xin Zhao’s spear aside with the butt of Drakebane and turned swiftly, bringing the weapon around in a tight arc, the blade seeking his neck.
It was a perfectly executed move, one that Xin Zhao had taught the prince himself. Jarvan’s footwork to set up the strike was sublime, and the initial hit to his weapon was weighted just enough to knock it aside, but not so hard that it slowed the final strike.
Even so, the seneschal could have blocked it. It would have been a close thing, but he trusted his speed—even tired as he was—to have ensured the strike did not land.
And yet, he made no move to do so. His will to fight was gone.
He lifted his chin ever-so-slightly, so that the strike would be true.
The blades of Drakebane hissed in. The blow was delivered with speed, skill, and power. It would slice deep, killing him almost instantly.
The killing blow stopped just as it touched Xin Zhao’s throat, drawing a series of blood-beads, but nothing more.
“Why will not you say where you were?” said Jarvan.
Xin Zhao swallowed. A warm trickle of blood ran down his neck. “Because I am at fault,” he said. “I should have been there.”
Jarvan held the blade at Xin Zhao’s throat for a moment longer, then stepped back. He seemed to wilt suddenly, all the fire and fury draining out of him, leaving just a grieving, lost son.
“My father ordered you away then,” he said. “And you do not wish to blame him for your absence.”
Xin Zhao said nothing.
“I’m right, am I not?” said Jarvan.
Xin Zhao sighed, and looked down.
Xin Zhao remained silent and unmoving. He eyed the sealed letter the king held out to him, but did not reach out to take it.
The king raised his eyebrows, and Xin Zhao finally accepted it.
“You wish me to give this to a runner, my lord?” he said.
“No,” said Jarvan. “I will trust its delivery only to you, my friend.”
Xin Zhao nodded gravely, and attached it to his belt.
“Who is it for?”
“The head of the mageseeker order,” said the king. He held up a finger. “And not to one of his lackeys, either. To him directly.”
Xin Zhao bowed his head. “It will be done, as soon as the streets are clear and the whereabouts of the escapee have been determined.”
“No,” said the king. “I want you to go now.”
“He could be so stubborn,” said Jarvan, shaking his head. “Once his mind was set, there was no changing it.”
“I should have been there,” said Xin Zhao, weakly.
Jarvan rubbed his eyes.
“And defy your king’s order? No, that’s not you, uncle,” said Jarvan. “What was it he had you doing?”
Xin Zhao frowned.
“My place is by your side, my lord,” he said. “I would not wish to leave the palace. Not today.”
“I want you to deliver that message before events worsen,” said the king. “It’s imperative that the mageseekers are reined in before this escalates. This has gone far enough.”
“My lord, I do not think it wise for me to—” Xin Zhao said, but the king cut him off sharply.
“This is not a request, seneschal,” he said. “You will deliver this decree. Now.”
“Delivering a letter,” said Jarvan, flatly. “That’s why he ordered you from his side?”
Xin Zhao nodded, and Jarvan let out a bitter laugh. “How very like him,” he said. “Always thinking of state matters. You know he missed my blade ceremony, on my fourteenth birthday, because of a meeting of the Shield Council. A meeting about taxation.”
“I remember,” said Xin Zhao.
“You delivered this letter, I take it?”
“No,” Xin Zhao said, shaking his head. “I turned as soon as I heard the bells. I made my way back to the palace as swiftly as I was able.”
“And ran into trouble in the streets, by the looks of it,” said Jarvan, indicating his battered appearance.
“Nothing that could not be dealt with.”
“Mages?” said Jarvan.
Xin Zhao nodded. “And others who had thrown their lot in with the murderer.”
“We should have executed them all,” hissed Jarvan.
Xin Zhao looked at the prince in alarm. He’d never heard him speak with such vitriol before. Indeed, he knew the prince had always been troubled by Demacia’s treatment of its mages. But that was before.
“I do not believe your father would share that view,” said Xin Zhao, in a measured voice.
“And they killed him,” snapped Jarvan.
There was nothing helpful for Xin Zhao to say, so he remained silent. That moment’s fire was extinguished within Jarvan almost immediately. Tears welled in his eyes, even as he tried to hold them back.
“I don’t know what to do,” he said. In that moment, he was a boy again, scared and alone.
Xin Zhao stepped forward, dropping his spear, and took Jarvan in his arms, hugging him tightly. “Oh, my boy,” he said.
Jarvan cried then, deep wracking sobs that shook his whole body, and tears he had not yet shed now ran freely down Xin Zhao’s face as well.
They stood clinging to each other for a few more moments, held together by shared loss, then stepped apart. Xin Zhao turned away to pick up his fallen spear, allowing them both a moment to gather themselves.
When he turned back, Jarvan had thrown off his sweat-stained shirt, and was pulling on a long, white linen tunic emblazoned with a blue-winged sword. Already he looked more composed.
“Now you will do what you were born to do,” Xin Zhao said. “You will lead.”
“I don’t think I’m ready,” said Jarvan.
“No one ever does. At least, not the good ones.”
“But you will be with me, uncle. To help me.”
A coldness clawed at Xin Zhao’s heart. “I… regret that will not be possible,” he said.
Xin Zhao was conflicted. He was sworn to King Jarvan, and had never once defied an order from him, not in twenty years of service.
“My place is here, protecting you, my lord,” he said.
King Jarvan rubbed his eyes, looking suddenly tired.
“Your duty is to Demacia,” the king said.
“You are the king,” said Xin Zhao. “You are Demacia.”
“Demacia is greater than any king!” snapped Jarvan. “This is not up for debate. It is an order.”
Xin Zhao’s inner sense for danger was screaming, but his devotion to duty silenced it.
“Then it will be done,” he said.
With a bow, he turned and strode from the room.
“I made a promise, long ago,” said Xin Zhao. “If harm ever befell your father, my life was forfeit.”
“And how many times did you save my father’s life?“ said Jarvan, suddenly stern. In that moment he seemed so much like his father, in Xin Zhao’s eyes. “I personally witnessed you do so at least three times. I know there were others.”
Xin Zhao frowned.
“My honor is my life,” he said. “I could not live with the shame of going back on my word.”
“To whom did you make this pledge?”
“High Marshal Tianna Crownguard.”
Jarvan frowned.
“When you entered my father’s service, you pledged yourself to Demacia, did you not?” he said.
“Of course.”
“Your pledge was to Demacia.” said Jarvan. “Not my father. Not anyone else. Your duty to Demacia overrides all.”
Xin Zhao stared at the prince. He is so like his father.
“But what of the High Marshal?”
“I will deal with Tianna,” said Jarvan. “Right now, I need you to do your duty.”
Xin Zhao let out a breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding.
“Will you serve as my seneschal, as you served my father?” said Jarvan.
Xin Zhao blinked. Moments earlier he’d been certain Jarvan was going to execute him… and he didn’t feel that would have been unjustified.
He hesitated, his emotions in turmoil, his mind reeling.
“Xin Zhao… Uncle,” said Jarvan. “Our kingdom needs you. I need you. Will you do this? For me?”
Slowly, as if expecting Jarvan to change his mind at any moment, Xin Zhao dropped to one knee.
“It would be my honor… my king.”
Jarvan walked with Xin Zhao up through the palace, toward the council room. His father’s advisors—no, his advisors, Xin Zhao corrected himself—awaited.
Soldiers were everywhere. Demacia’s most elite battalion—the Dauntless Vanguard—had been brought in to supplement the palace guard, and they stood at every doorway, watchful and disciplined.
Jarvan’s expression was stern, his bearing regal. Only Xin Zhao had witnessed the outpouring of emotion down in the training room. Now, in front of the palace servants, the nobles, and the guard, he was in complete control.
Good, thought Xin Zhao. The people of Demacia need to see him strong.
Everyone they passed dropped to one knee, bowing their heads low. They continued on, striding purposefully.
Jarvan paused before the great council doors.
“One thing, uncle,” he said, turning to Xin Zhao.
“My lord?”
“The letter my father wanted you to deliver,” he said. “What happened to it?”
“I have it here,” said Xin Zhao. He loosened it from his belt, and handed the leather case over.
Jarvan took it, broke the case open, and unfurled the sheet of vellum within. His eyes flicked back and forth as he read his father’s words.
Xin Zhao saw Jarvan’s expression harden. Then he crushed the letter in both hands, twisting it as if he were wringing a neck, before handing it back.
“Destroy it,” Jarvan said.
Xin Zhao stared at him in shock, but Jarvan was already turning away. He nodded to the guards standing on either side, and the council doors were thrown open. Those seated at the long table within stood as one, before bowing low. Flames crackled in the ornate fireplace set against the south wall within.
There were a number of empty seats at the table. The king was not the only one who had fallen in the previous day’s attack.
Xin Zhao was left holding the crumpled letter, stunned, as Jarvan moved to the head of the table. He looked back at Xin Zhao, still standing in the door.
“Seneschal?” said Jarvan.
Xin Zhao blinked. At Jarvan’s right, High Marshal Tianna Crownguard stared at him, her gaze dangerously cold. On Jarvan’s other side, his gaze equally icy, was Tianna’s husband, the intended recipient of the king’s letter—the head of the mageseeker order. Xin Zhao’s gaze passed between them, then returned to Jarvan, who raised his eyebrows questioningly.
Without further pause, Xin Zhao strode into the room, and threw the letter into the flames.
Then he took his place, standing behind his ruler. He hoped none of the deep concern he suddenly felt was visible.
“Let us begin,” said Jarvan.
Explore | Fighter |
The source of the crying is a boy. Six, maybe seven summers.
He sits cross-legged with his back to me, in front of a tall sapwood. The weeping settles into sniffling, wet hiccups. I stop at the edge of the trees, and look back at the shade of the road below. The midday sun is merciless, streaming bright into the boy’s meadow. He doesn’t seem hurt. The clearing is open. Unprotected.
You’re not needed. Keep to your path.
The voice rings clear in my head, though I haven’t heard it spoken aloud for some time. I turn, but about-face at the sound of a deep, racking sigh, ending in renewed little sobs.
When I am about three sword lengths away, I step on a dry twig to announce my arrival. The boy starts at the sound.
“Teo, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…” The boy’s rushed apology is muffled by the swipe of his sleeve across his face. He stops dead at the sight of me.
He retreats so quickly that his back thuds against the tree.
“Emai paid the Brotherhood,” he stammers. “I wasn’t playing on the road.”
At the mention of the group, my hand goes to my blade. The boy stares at me; his crying gives over to a series of shallow gasps. Of course. He thinks I’m some Navori thief coming to take something from him.
He thinks you’re a criminal.
I release my grip, trying to appear more friendly. “No, I’m not with the Brotherhood,” I say. “I heard someone from the road. Sounded like they were having a tough time.”
The boy wipes his wet cheek with his sleeve again, trying to save face in front of the stranger standing before him.
“Know anyone like that?” I ask.
The boy starts to shake his head slowly, but the truth tumbles out of him.
“It was me,” he admits, shame roughing his voice. “I… I just wanted to play with it.” He points up. There among the tree’s uppermost branches is an old festival kite, its silk tails fluttering in the light breeze. “It’s Teo’s.”
His eyes start to water again. He shows me the palms of his hands, covered in sap, darkened with dirt and bark.
“I tried climbing the tree, but it’s too tall. Teo’s going to be so angry with me. He told me not to.”
A moment passes between us. “Brothers often say that,” I murmur.
There is a small pile of broken soil in front of the boy. I kneel, wiping away the top layer to reveal a newly sprouted sapwood nut.
“My emai is a woodweaver. I’m learning. I thought…” The boy hangs his head, embarrassed at the idea. Woodweaving even a sapling would take far longer than an afternoon.
I keep the smile from my lips. “An admirable effort.”
The boy’s gaze lingers on the fluted edges of my pauldron.
“That pattern isn’t from our village,” he says, caution edging into his voice. “Or the village in the next valley.”
“I’m on my way to Weh’le,” I reply. “I was making good time on the Noxian road. Even if the stone is a bit hard on the feet.” I try to smile, but with the thought that Noxus could leave us anything of value, I know it comes off a grimace.
“Can you help me?” he asks.
I look up at the kite sitting delicately in the high branches. “It’s been a while since I’ve climbed a tree, kid.”
“Joab,” he says. “My name is Joab.”
I offer him my hand, my own name hesitant on the tip of my tongue. It’s been too long since I've said it with anything but shame.
Come on. You’ve been called worse.
“Yasuo,” I say, and pull him up from the ground.
I step from the shade of the tree, and back into the sunlight of the clearing to get a better view. The day is hot and still. I close my eyes to feel the tiny currents of air lingering at the edges of the meadow. A small breeze picks up, pushing the wisps of hair from my face.
“I wish I could just blow it down. Woodweaving is useless,” Joab mutters, frowning from the kite to his sapwood seed. “There was an elder once who could move the wind, but he’s dead. And his student could too, but emai says he’s dangerous, that he killed the elder…”
I reach for the blade at my side. As I draw the weapon, I focus the magic. Eddies of wind swirl around it, gathering in tighter and tighter whirls. Dust and dead leaves dance on the blade until I shape the whirlwind to my liking, then release it with a flick of my wrist.
The invisible force hits the tree dead-on, the trunk shuddering with the impact. The branches shake as if some unseen spirit rises through them, finally reaching the kite. The colorful silk lifts off gently as the air returns to the sky above, and drifts slowly into my outstretched hand.
The boy’s mouth hangs open a bit, but he closes it quickly. The fear is back.
“You?” he asks. “The elder’s student?”
All of Ionia knows what you are.
Joab looks to the forest road, maybe for someone to come hunting for me. “Did you escape?” he whispers, but I shake my head. “Did they let you go then? I mean, were you pardoned?”
“I can’t be forgiven for a crime I didn’t commit.” It’s just a technicality, but I say it before the voice in my head can.
But you killed the others…
I take a deep, steadying breath, concentrating on the cool breeze at my back and the kite in my hand to keep the memories at bay. Joab chews on his own thoughts for a moment.
Just as his mouth opens for another question, a glint of metal emerging from the forest catches the sun.
I raise my blade in anticipation, only to find a slightly older mirror of Joab carrying a small farming tool attached to a long rope. I lower my weapon quickly, but too late—fear and wariness settle into the meadow.
Too fast to react, too slow to stop.
Never enough for him. It’s my whole life in miniature.
Joab’s brother watches us. He does not leave the safety of the forest edge.
“Joab,” the older boy calls out. Joab runs over obediently, but stops when he sees the tool and the rope. I pull on the light breeze, straining to hear.
“What’s that for, Teo?” Joab asks, realization turning to anger. “You knew I would take the kite?”
I shake my head. Of course he knew.
Big brothers always know what little brothers will do.
“Yeah, always the exact opposite of whatever I tell you, Joab,” the older boy says, still watching me. “Who’s that?”
Joab glances back, then leans over and whispers in his brother’s ear. Teo’s eyes grow wide for a moment, then relax into a dismissive scowl.
“Emai says it’s time to eat,” Teo says as he turns to leave. Joab pulls on his arm, trying to slow him down. He whispers again in Teo’s ear.
I try to quiet the wind that carries the next words, to stop listening, but it’s too late.
“No, he can’t come,” Teo says. “He’s xiiri.”
Xiiri.
The word catches in my throat as the wind finally stills around me. Xiiri is something unwanted. A misfortune brought by outsiders or greed. A little pest that follows big brothers around…
The sun beats down, heating the blade at my side. It’s a word I’ve heard all my life.
You’re not needed. Keep to your path.
I steel myself, and walk to the brothers.
“Listen to him, kid,” I say, handing the precious silk bundle to Joab. “Brothers know best.”
Before either of them can answer, I walk on, returning to the road ahead. | Fighter |
“Help… me,” begged the shipwrecked man.
Yorick couldn’t say how long the survivor had been lying there, bones broken, bleeding into what remained of his wrecked sailing vessel. He had been moaning loudly, but his cries were drowned out by the multitude of wailing souls that haunted the isle. A maelstrom of spirits gathered around him, drawn to his flickering life force like a beacon, hungry to reap a fresh soul. The man’s eyes widened in horror.
He was right to be scared. Yorick had seen what happened to lost spirits taken by the Black Mist, and this—this was warm flesh, a rarity in the Shadow Isles. It had been how long—a hundred years?—since Yorick had seen a living being? He could feel the Mist on his back quivering, eager to wrap this stranger in its cold embrace. But the sight of the man stirred something in Yorick he had long forgotten, and whatever it was would not allow him to surrender this life. The burly monk heaved the damaged man onto his shoulders and carried him back up the hill to his old monastery.
Yorick studied the face of the injured man as he groaned in agonized protest with each step the monk took. Why did you come here, live one?
After completing the climb, Yorick carried his guest through several corridors in the abbey, before coming to a stop in an old infirmary. He eased the shipwrecked man onto a massive stone table and began to check his vitals. Most of the man’s ribs were shattered, and one of his lungs had collapsed.
“Why do you waste your time?” asked a chorus of voices, speaking in unison from the Mist on Yorick’s back.
Yorick remained silent. He left the table and made his way to a heavy door in the rear of the infirmary. The door resisted as he pushed, his hand doing little but leaving a print in the thick layer of dust. He pressed his shoulder against the wood and heaved his entire weight into it.
“So much effort for naught,” sneered the Mist. “Let us have him.”
Again, Yorick answered it with contemptuous silence as he finally forced the door open. The heavy oak dragged across the stone tiles of the monastery floor, revealing a chamber full of scrolls, herbs, and poultices. For a moment, Yorick stared at the artifacts of his former life, struggling to remember how to use them. He picked up a few that looked familiar—bandages, yellow and brittle with age, and some ointment that had long turned to crust—and returned to the man atop the stone table.
“Just leave him,” said the Mist. “He was ours the moment he came ashore.”
“Quiet!” snapped Yorick.
The man on the table was now gasping for breath. Knowing he had little time to save him, Yorick tried to bind his wounds, but the rotten bandages fell apart as quickly as he could apply them.
As his breath grew more ragged, the man convulsed. He grabbed the monk’s arm in agonized desperation. Yorick knew there was only one thing that could save the man’s life. He uncorked the crystal vial at his neck, and considered the life-giving water it contained. There was precious little left. Yorick was unsure if it was enough to save the man, and even if it did…
Yorick was forced to face the truth. In trying to save the man, he was just chasing the memory of his former life, when this cursed place was called the Blessed Isles. The souls in the Mist had taunted him, but they’d taunted him with the truth. This man was doomed, and if Yorick used the Tears of Life, he would be too. He closed the vial and let it rest against his neck.
Stepping back from the table, Yorick watched the man’s chest rise and fall one last time. The Black Mist filled the room, spirits clawing out from it in anticipation. The Mist shivered eagerly, then ripped the dead man’s soul from his body. It uttered a faint, feeble cry before it was devoured by its new host.
Yorick stood motionless in the room and uttered a barely remembered prayer. He looked at the soulless husk on the table, a bitter reminder of the task he had yet to complete. While the curse of the Ruination remained, anyone who came to these isles would suffer the same fate. He had to bring peace to these cursed islands, but after years of searching, all he had found were whispers about a ruined king.
He needed answers.
With a single motion of Yorick’s hand, a thin strand of Mist poured into the man’s body. A moment later, it rose from the table, barely sentient. But it could see, it could hear, and it could walk.
“Help me,” said Yorick.
The body shambled out the door of the infirmary, its sloughing footsteps echoing through the halls of the monastery. It continued out into the foul air of the cemetery, walking through the rows of emptied graves.
Yorick watched as the corpse trudged toward the center of the isles until it disappeared into the Mist. Perhaps this one would return with the answer. | Fighter |
The market smelled of burning incense and rotting cabbage.
Ahri wrapped her cloak around her nine tails and fiddled with her twin sunstone tokens to distract herself from the stench, rolling them between her fingers and snapping them together. Each one had the shape of a blazing flame, but they were carved in such a way that their sharper edges fit together, forming a perfectly smooth orb. She had carried the golden stones since before she could remember, though she had no knowledge of their origin.
Though Ahri was in a new environment, she was comforted by the latent magic buzzing all around her. She passed a stand with dozens of woven baskets filled to the brim with polished rocks, shells etched with legends from a seafaring tribe, gambling dice carved from bones, and other curious items. Nothing matched the style of Ahri’s sculpted tokens.
“Care for a gem to match the blue of the skies?” asked the gray-bearded merchant. “For you, I’ll trade a cerulean bauble for the cost of a single cryraven feather, or perhaps the seed of a jubji tree. I’m flexible.”
Ahri smiled at him, but shook her head and continued through the market, sunstones in hand. She passed a stand covered in spiky orange vegetables, a child selling fruit that shifted color with the weather, and at least three peddlers swinging tins of incense, each of whom claimed to have discovered the deepest form of meditation.
“Fortunes! Come get your fortunes told!” called a young woman with lavender eyes and a soft jawline. “Find out who you’ll fall in love with, or how to avoid unlucky situations with a pinch of burdock root. Or if you’d prefer your future left to the gods, I’ll answer a question about your past. Though I do recommend finding out whether or not you’re at risk for death by poisoning.”
A tall vastaya with feline ears was about to take a bite of a spiced pastry. He froze and stared at the fortune teller in alarm.
“The answer is no, by the way. Yours for free,” she said, curtsying at him before turning to Ahri. “Now, you look like you’ve had a dark and mysterious past. Or at least some tales worth sharing. Any burning questions for me, lady?”
Beneath heavy layers of incense, Ahri paused at the scent of wet fur and spiced leather lingering at the woman’s neck.
“Thank you, but no,” she replied. “I’m still looking around.”
“You won’t find any more Ymelo tokens in this market, I’m afraid,” the woman said, nodding to Ahri’s sunstones. “Like the ones you have.”
The back of Ahri’s neck prickled and she drew closer to the woman. She would not let her excitement get the better of her. “Do you recognize these? Where do they come from?”
The woman eyed Ahri.
“I think they’re Ymelos, anyway,” she said. “Never seen a pair in person. He only carved a small number in his time, and many of the sets were separated in the war. Dead rare, those.”
Ahri leaned closer with each word.
“I’m Hirin, by the way,” the woman said.
“Do you know where I might find this craftsman?” Ahri asked.
Hirin laughed. “No idea. But if you come in I’ll tell you what I know.”
Ahri wrapped her cloak around her shoulders and eagerly followed the fortune teller past her booth, and into a caravan decorated wall to wall with animal skins.
“Tea?” Hirin said. “I brewed it this morning.”
She poured two cups of liquid the color of plum wine, taking one for herself. The tea tasted of bitter oak bark, masked by a cloying dollop of honey. Hirin held out a hand for the stones but Ahri kept them close.
“I’m getting the sense that these are special to you,” she said with a wry smile. “Don’t worry, I have no interest in peddling stolen sunstones. Bad for a girl’s reputation.”
“Can you tell me where they come from?” asked Ahri, handing them over gingerly.
Hirin held them up to the light.
“These are beautiful,” she said. “I don’t know how they fit together so perfectly. I’ve not seen the like.”
Ahri said nothing. She stood frozen with curiosity, and did not take her eyes off the woman.
“Legend says the sculptor known as Ymelo collected fossilized lizard eggs from a thousand thousand years ago that he carved into intricate shapes. These ancient lizards lived long before the Ghetu Sea dried up to a desert, leaving only petrified bones and dust.”
Hirin coughed, and Ahri detected a bitter note upon her breath, as if she had been drinking vinegar.
“Ymelo stones are designed as small pieces that fit into a larger sculpture,” she continued.
The woman dangled the golden pieces in front of Ahri’s face.
“Just as your past has left you with information to be desired, these stones may have many more parts that, when combined, create another shape altogether. Who knows what you’ll become when you track down your history. With the missing pieces, you may learn more than you’d like.”
“Those are pretty words,” Ahri murmured, staring at the woman.
After a moment of silence, Hirin chuckled. “Some threads of truth, threads of my own invention. A fortune teller’s weaving must be seamless.”
The woman retrieved a hunter’s knife from a cabinet.
“I weave in just enough of what you desire to make you stay,” she said. “’Til the tea slows your muscles, that is.”
A low growl escaped Ahri’s lips. She would tear this woman apart. She tried to pounce, but her limbs did not obey. She was rooted in place.
“Oh, there’s no need for that, lady. I only need a single tail. Useful for a variety of potions, you see, and extremely valuable. Or so I think. Never seen a vastaya with fox tails before. The tea freezes any pain, along with your… mobility.”
Hirin wrapped a bandage around one of Ahri’s tails. Ahri tried to resist, but she still could not move.
“You’ll wake up tomorrow, good as new!” said the woman. “Well, with one less tail. Do you really use all nine?”
Ahri shut her eyes and reached out to the reservoirs of magic around her. The environment had plenty ripe for the taking, but she was too weakened by the tea to draw them to her. Instead she reached into Hirin’s mind, which was far more malleable, and pushed.
Ahri opened her eyes and stared hard into Hirin’s. They deepened from lavender to violet.
“Hirin,” she said. “Come closer. I would look into the face of the one who tricked me.”
“Of course, lady,” Hirin replied, transfixed. The woman’s voice sounded hollow, as though it came from the bottom of a well.
She leaned in until her face was only inches away. Ahri inhaled, drawing essences of the woman’s life from her breath.
...Hirin was a young girl hiding, hungry and afraid, beneath a market stall. Two men argued above, looking for her. She had nothing but empty coffers to show for her days’ work...
Ahri continued to drain Hirin’s life, sampling memories of raw emotion. They felt rich in Ahri’s mouth, and she relished each unique flavor of emotion.
...Hirin told the fortune of a witch doctor shrouded in veils, receiving a copper for her troubles. She used the coin to buy a piece of bread, which she devoured in seconds…
...In a seedy tavern, a raucous group played cards. A man with eyebrows resembling butterfly wings gambled a golden Ymelo stone while Hirin watched from the shadows…
...Hirin tracked Ahri as she walked through the market. One of her fox tails peeked from beneath her cloak. She drew the vastaya into her caravan—
Enough.
Ahri stopped, her head spinning with renewed vigor. With each memory she stole from Hirin, she felt energy rush back into her weakened muscles, cleansing them of the poison.
Strengthened once more, she slowly shook her limbs awake, and flexed her tails with a shiver. They tingled with pinpricks.
Hirin stood wide-eyed and dazed, still very much alive. It was she that would wake tomorrow, good as new—less a few memories that she would not miss.
With knowledge of the woman’s life, Ahri’s rage had faded. She brushed her hand against the fortune teller’s cheek, then wrapped her cloak tightly around her shoulders and stepped out into the sunlit market.
Hirin would not remember her, or their encounter. But Ahri had left the trade with a name to hunt—Ymelo—and the image of the man with soft-winged eyebrows was burned in her mind. | Mage |
Of all the tales of the old Freljord that have somehow endured into the modern age, there is one—and one alone—that can chill the blood of even the hardiest Iceborn.
The Frostguard do not tell it. Many of them do not even know it, in full.
By decree of the Ice Witch Lissandra herself, to perpetuate this forbidden legend is heresy against the true faith, and carries the penalty of death for any who speak it aloud. In all the vast libraries of the Frostguard Citadel, only a single written account remains—and that was penned by her most trusted scribe, many thousands of years ago. Few indeed are those individuals across Runeterra who know the truth behind the legend, and Lissandra can count on the fingers of one hand those who were there in person and might dare to contradict her…
It was in the final, dark days of the War of the Three Sisters that Avarosa and Serylda finally marched their warriors up into the mountains, to face Lissandra before the walls of her own fortress. They would not serve the otherworldly masters that she had pledged them to. This would be an end to it.
The Ice Witch gestured to the armies they led, the great alliance that had finally brought these wild lands to heel. The mortal Iceborn were all but immune to the winter’s chill. The troll kings had roamed far across the tundra, amassing tremendous wealth from their conquests. Even the magnificent and terrible Balestriders, twisted far beyond their original form, moved now at the command of the Three.
All of this, Lissandra reminded her sisters, was because of the bargain she had made with the masters of the realm below—the beings she knew as Watchers. It was they who had revealed to her the primal secrets of the world. It was they who would have the final victory.
And it was then, at the height of this bitter confrontation, that the Watchers finally came to Runeterra.
The ground split open, swallowing thousands of warriors into the abyss beneath it, before the first of the dread things heaved itself up into existence. It was new to the material realm, bewildered by such notions as form and constancy, and began immediately to rail against them. In a foul riot of unchecked metamorphosis, it sprouted horns, and patches of fur, and its colossal tentacular limbs grew into jointed humanoid arms with fingers that clawed the bare rock of the mountainsides. Worst of all, other Watchers were following closely in its wake, wracked by horrifying transformations of their own.
It might be fair to assume there was a battle, that the Iceborn rallied behind Avarosa and Serylda to fight back the darkness—but in truth, it was Lissandra who ended it. She saw these abominations now for what they were, and knew what had to be done.
Summoning every last iota of the ancient magic around her, including that of her allies, she sacrificed everything to seal the rift-between-realms with True Ice, entombing the Watchers within it. Vast plumes of freezing vapor howled through the chasm, and those mortal warriors who managed to escape were driven to insanity by what they had witnessed.
This, then, is not only the legend of how Lissandra saved the world from destruction, but also the only first-hand account of the martyrdom of Avarosa and Serylda.
And may the Three have mercy upon all who read it. | Mage |
If there was one thing Marcin knew how to do, it was to keep his head down.
Before him, rowdy voices intermingled with the clatter of tankards and the sloshing of beer. Every once in a while, someone barked a drink order, and just as soon as their coin landed on the bar, a drink slid in front of their waiting hands. His quick and silent service kept him unnoticed—and as such, uninvolved in any trouble.
And there was always trouble.
It took on many forms. A belligerent brawler, itching for a fight. A transaction among cloaked figures that ended with a dagger through a throat. Or, perhaps most unexpectedly, a little girl, pushing through the heavy tavern door.
Marcin watched the girl hum and skip her way toward the bar. Behind her, the door slammed shut, one last swirl of winter air blasting across the room, the loud bang grabbing the last few eyes that weren’t already following her, baffled by her presence.
The girl clambered up a stool, barely peeking over the edge of the bar. Marcin took in the child’s bright red hair, the tattered toy clutched in her grip, the frayed satchel on her back, and the ragged, unseasonably short-sleeved, dress.
“What can I get for you?” he asked.
The girl stood on the stool and plopped her toy on the counter, peering at the many bottles on shelves. Marcin could see it was a stuffed bear, once well crafted, since well loved. The stitching at its limbs were visible after many years of stress. Somewhere in its life it had lost one of its button eyes.
“Could I get a glass of milk, please?”
Marcin raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He walked toward the far end of the bar to fetch the ceramic jug.
“Awfully late for you to be out by yourself, ain’t it?” a deep voice rumbled.
Marcin sighed. Trouble always attracted more trouble. He pulled the jug down from the shelf and gazed back down the bar. A large man next to the girl had turned to peer down at her with his one good eye. Seated in front of him, the girl looked like a pebble at the foot of a mountain. He was a pile of muscles criss-crossed with scars. The loops of ropes, chains, and hooks at his belt, along with the massive blade slung across his back, loudly announced him as a bounty hunter.
The girl looked up at him and flashed a smile. “I’m not alone. Tibbers is here with me. Aren’t you, Tibbers?” She held up the bear, beaming.
The bounty hunter laughed out loud. “Surely your parents must be missing you.”
The girl’s hands dropped to her side as her eyes drifted down and away. “I don’t think so,” she replied.
“Aw, but I do think so. Would pay a pretty penny to see you home safe, I imagine.” Marcin could practically hear the coins clinking in the bounty hunter’s mind, the man already tallying up the prize for her safe return.
“They can’t. They’re dead.” The girl plopped back down on the stool, staring into the button eye of her bear.
The bounty hunter started to speak again just as Marcin placed the mug down on the counter with a percussive thud.
“Your milk,” he said.
The girl turned and beamed at him, breaking from her sullen mood.
“Thank you, sir!”
She set her bear on the table and reached back into her knapsack. Marcin waited, prepared to accept any coin she put down as payment enough.
He did not expect the massive purse that landed with a clatter.
A few golden coins bounced onto the counter, one rolling toward the edge. Marcin stopped it on reflex, one finger pinning the escapee. Slowly, he lifted it from the bar, its heft and texture proclaiming it as authentic Noxian mint.
“Oopsie!” the little girl giggled.
Marcin swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He reached over, hoping to shove the coin and the purse back into the girl’s satchel before anyone else noticed—
“That’s a mighty big purse for a mighty small girl,” the bounty hunter growled, far too loudly.
“Tibbers found it,” the girl replied.
The bounty hunter snorted. “Is that so?”
“It was on the man who stopped me in the road. He was a real meanie.” The girl took a sip of her milk, her attention back on her bear.
“That’s too bad…” The bounty hunter leaned in closer on his stool, hand sliding towards the purse.
The girl looked up at him, a playful smile dancing across her face.
“Tibbers ate him.”
For a moment, everything stood still. Then the bounty hunter’s laugh cut across the room.
“I’m sure he did,” he roared. He thrust a meaty hand forward, grasping the toy by the head and yanking it away from the girl. “This big ol’ scary monster.”
“Let Tibbers go!” the girl cried out, reaching up for the bear. “He doesn’t like being pulled.” The bounty hunter just laughed harder.
Marcin pocketed the coin in his hand and turned away, walking unnoticed toward the back. He wished he could help, but he hadn’t survived this long by sticking around longer than he should.
Her voice stopped him cold.
“I said. Let. Tibbers. Go.”
The words rumbled with gravel and rage, cutting through the din. Against all his better judgement, Marcin paused and looked back. The girl stood on the bar, staring at the bounty hunter, fury smoldering in her eyes.
Then chaos erupted.
A flare of light and a burst of heat erupted from the girl. Too late, Marcin threw his arms up, crying out in pain. He stumbled back, knocking into the shelves behind him. Several bottles crashed around him as he ducked beneath the bar, cursing his idiotic hesitation. The screams of men and the sound of breaking wood punctuated a growing roar of flame. A guttural, impossible sound reverberated through the air, rattling his bones. Marcin crawled, still half-blinded, toward where he hoped the doors to the kitchens were. Around him, the screams heightened—then stopped with a stomach-turning crack.
For the second time that day, Marcin forgot all his honed skills of avoiding trouble and peered over the edge of the bar.
A hulking beast loomed, silhouetted against the firelight. Thick strands of sinew bound its limbs to its torso like stitching. With a start, Marcin realized the beast itself burned, unharmed by the hungry tongues of flame that danced across its fur. In its claws it held aloft, by the head, the slumped, bloody form of the bounty hunter, a limp rag doll in the massive paws of the monster.
Before it, the little girl stood wreathed in fire.
“You’re right, Tibbers,” she said. “He didn’t like being pulled either.”
Marcin looked around the room in horror. Throughout his tavern, overturned chairs and tables ignited, raising a thick, black smoke. The smell of blood and burning flesh crawled inside his nose, and Marcin choked back a cough, his stomach turning.
The beast turned and looked at him.
A whimper escaped Marcin’s lips. He gazed into the glowing abyss of the bear’s eyes, and swallowed in the certainty of his end.
A peal of laughter rang out over the crackle of flames.
“Don’t worry,” the little girl said, peering around the monstrosity. “Tibbers likes you.”
Marcin watched, frozen, as the girl hopped, skipped, jumped her way through the burning tavern, the beast lumbering behind her. He stared as it smashed the heavy door off its hinges. He gaped as the little girl turned back one last time, a sweet smile back on her face.
“Thanks for the milk, sir.”
And then, the girl walked out into the snowy night as the tavern collapsed behind her. | Mage |
This world’s familiar sun still hides below the horizon. Crude and unpolished earth unfurls below. Mountains contort into barriers that stretch like fingers across empty scrub lands. Palaces, or rather, what pass for palaces, fail to loom over anything but the squattest of hills. The curvature of the planet meets the stars with a serenity and grace few of the dwellers below will ever witness. They are so scattered across the globe and grasp so blindly for any sort of understanding that it’s no surprise they’ve been conquered and don’t even comprehend their predicament.
The fiery sheen I’ve gathered as I streak toward my preordained destination illuminates the world beneath me. Pockets of warring, fearful, rejoicing life tucks itself into any fertile nook it can find below. Oh, how they gaze and point as I streak over their heads. I’ve heard the names they call me: prophet, comet, monster, god, demon… So many names, all missing the mark.
In a vast stretch of desert, I feel the twinge of familiar magic emanating from the seat of the premiere civilization amongst these savages. Lo and behold, a massive Sun Disc is under construction. The poor enslaved laborers beat their heads and rend their clothes in my wake. Their cruel masters see me, a streaking bolt of fire, as a portent of good omen, no doubt. My passing will be etched in their uncouth pictograms upon common stone, an homage to the great comet, the blessing of the sky-god gracing their holy works and so forth. The Disc’s sole purpose is to funnel the sun’s majesty into the most “renowned” of these fleshy humanoids, transforming them into exactly what this planet needs: more insufferable demigods. This effort will undoubtedly backfire. But I suppose they might last a brief while, perhaps a thousand years or so, before they fall and are supplanted by others.
The desert below fades into the night trailing behind me as I streak onward across lonely steppes, then over rolling brown hills gently flecked with greenery. The pastoral scenery belies a field spattered with blood and littered with the dead and dying. Survivors hack away at each other with rough-hewn axes and scream battle cries. One side is losing quite badly. Stag skulls rest atop pikes stuck into the soil, next to writhing warriors. The few still on their feet are encircled by soldiers riding great shaggy beasts.
Those defeated, surrounded few see me and valiance seems to surge through their veins. The wounded rise and grasp their axes and bows in a final stand that throws their foes off guard. I don’t linger to see the rest of the little clash play out because I’ve seen this scenario unfold a thousand times: The survivors will scratch my comet likeness onto their cave walls. In a thousand years, their descendants will fly my image on banners and undoubtedly ride into a tediously similar battle. For all their efforts to capture and record history, one ponders why they do not learn from their mistakes. That is a lesson even I have had to suffer.
I leave them to perpetuate their bleak cycle.
My trajectory reveals more inhabitants. Their collective repertoire of reactions span the typical gamut: pointing, kneeling, sacrificing virgins upon stony altars. They look up and see a comet and never ask what lies beneath the blazing façade. Instead, they stamp it onto their own self-centered worldviews, muddying the splendor of my visage. The few more advanced life forms–and I use that description loosely–gaze up and jot down my coordinates in scientific almanacs instead of using me as prophecy fodder. It’s mildly refreshing, but even their developing notions of intellect seems to indicate I am a regularly appearing phenomenon with a predictable orbit. Oh, the feats they could accomplish if only… Well, no use dwelling on the wasted potential of the simple-minded terrestrial born. It’s not entirely their fault. Evolution does seem to have a difficult time gaining traction on this world.
But alas, the novelty of such infantile antics has worn thin. The grasping energies of my magical bondage have dragged me from one paltry world to another for centuries. Now it has led me back to this familiar and unpleasant rock. The star that floods its surface with light was one of my earliest creations, a confluence wrought of love and radiance. Ah, that cherished moment when she flared to life with colors only her creator could see. How I miss a star’s crackling new energy warming my face and trickling through my fingers. Each star gives off a unique energy, precious and reflecting its creator’s soul. They are cosmic snowflakes burning in defiance of the infinite dark.
Unfortunately, the memories I long to dwell upon are tainted by betrayal. Yes, this was the place where Targon lured me into servitude. But now is not the time to linger on past mistakes. Those musty Aspects want me to seal yet another breach… in their name of course.
Then, I see her. This world’s imbued warrior is alone at the peak of one of the smaller summits, brandishing a starstone spear. She watches me through a veil of annexed flesh, a mere spark masquerading as lightning. A thick braid of auburn hair is draped over her shoulder, falling over a golden breastplate that covers pale, freckled skin. Her eyes, the only bit of her face not shielded by a battle-worn helmet, flash a jarring shade of red.
She calls herself Pantheon—the warring fury of Targon incarnate. She is not the first of this world to wear the Pantheon mantle. Nor will she be the last.
Her glittering cape flaps out behind her as she raises her muscled arm and makes a motion like she’s pulling on a great chain. The tug on my crudely enchanted tether wrenches me off course, toward the mountain upon which she stands. And she’s yelling at me.
She cries outs with a voice that booms inside my head, transmitted through this insufferable star-gem coronet. All sounds fade as she invades my mind.
“Dragon!” she says, as if I am a weak-winged beast of base orange flame, lucky if it can ignite a tree.
“Seal their gate!” she commands, gesturing to the bottom of a rocky crevasse with her pointy little spear. I don’t need to see the violet erosion of reality swirling below. I could smell the festering miasma that poisons this world before I even arrived. I fix my eyes on Pantheon instead. She expects me to fall in line like a dog on its leash. Today will be different, for I’ve learned from my mistakes.
“Dragon,” I purr. “Are you sure commanding me with such a low name is wise?”
Pantheon’s grip on her spear loosens just enough for her to fumble the weapon for a fraction of a second. She takes a step back, away from me, as if a single stride’s distance could protect her from my ire.
“Seal their gate,” she says again, barking louder as if perhaps the previous command went unheard. Her volume does little to mask the quiver in her voice. She thrusts her spear toward me, as if such a tiny weapon could pierce me.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen an Aspect of Targon shaken. She is not used to having to tell me twice.
“I will deal with those chittering horrors in due time, dear Pantheon.”
“Do as you are commanded, dragon” this Pantheon shouts, “or this world is lost.”
“This world was lost the moment Targon surrendered itself to arrogance.”
I feel Pantheon’s seething mingle with confusion as she struggles to grab hold of my immaterial reins. She’s only just now sensing what I have come to learn. Targon is distracted and does not sense its magic faintly ebbing from my bonds.
Pantheon bellows once more, and this time, I cannot resist. The crude enchantment regains sovereignty over my will. I turn my attention toward the source of the breach, nestled in the basin of the once-verdant valley, now strangled with creeping, purple miasma. I sense the Voidborn perversions of life tunneling through reality’s firmament, sending tides of unseen energy coursing through the aether. They shred the veil that separates nothingness and form with their unwelcome passage.
They’re drawn to me, those multi-eyed, carapaced abominations. They seek to devour me, the greatest of their threats. From the reaches of my mind, I conjure an image of the solar furnaces I kindled, before my fettering, which once ignited the hearts of stars. I lance out beams of pure starfire and incinerate wave after wave of those gnashing horrors, driving them backward into their oblique infinity. Smoldering husks rain from the sky. I’m a little surprised they aren’t wholly disintegrated, but then again, the Voidborn don’t know how things work in this universe.
A pulsing sickness lingers in the air. From the epicenter of the corruption, I feel a will… hungry and indomitable, and far from the typical mindlessness I’m accustomed to from these Voidborn aberrations. The pulsating wound on reality yawns and buckles, distorting and warping all it touches. Whatever exists on the other side is laughing.
Pantheon shouts another command at me, but I ignore her words. This anomalous fissure in the universe entrances me. This is not the first of its kind I’ve had to deal with, but this one feels different, and I can’t help but admire the marvelously terrifying manipulation of the barriers between realms. Few beings could fathom its complexities, let alone possess the sheer magnitude of power needed to rend the fabric of existence. In my heart, I know a wound so exquisite could never be orchestrated by scuttling creatures. No. There must be more behind this intrusion. I shudder at the thought of what kind of entity is capable of inducing such a volatile rift. I don’t need Pantheon’s barked orders to tell me what do next; her array of requests has always been of a rather limited imagination anyway. She wants me to hurl a star at the rift, as if one can simply cauterize such moldering inter-dimensional abrasions and be done with it.
These obtuse demigods are my captors?
Fine. At least they’re not too far off in their “logic” by thinking a few searing cosmic wonders will remedy this problem. I will play the role of the obedient servant just a little while longer.
I enjoy what I do next, partly because they’ll remember it, partly because it feels good to let a little of the old power loose, but mostly because I wish to remind whatever intelligence that controls this Void incursion that nobody laughs at me in my plane of existence.
The base elements in the atmosphere rally to my cause, accreting into a plasmic anomaly. The swelling stardust detonates at my unspoken command. The result is a dwarf replica of one of my majestic glories burning in the depths of space. After all, I can’t fling a full-fledged star at this fragile world.
The young star’s shimmering brilliance flies from my hands. It’s joined by two sisters, always by my side. They careen around me in a radiant ballet, their white-hot cores devouring the gathering clouds of dust and matter I draw toward us. We become a storm of stars, the night sky incarnate, a maddening gyre of starfire. I conjure eddies of searing stardust, exhaling a heat so pure and dense it collapses the aura of this world just the tiniest bit, forever marring the planet’s curvature. Coruscating strands of stellar flame pirouette from the center of the rift. Gravity melts in undulating waves of color most eyes will never be able to witness. My stars warp matter as more fuel coalesces into their cores, causing them to shine brighter, burn hotter. The whole spectacle is breathtaking, a cascading dance of blinding light and searing heat so hot that for a fleeting moment, new spectra are birthed into existence. My spine tingles just a little bit at how good it feels.
Trees splinter. Rivers evaporate. The mountain walls of the valley crumble in smoky avalanches. The tireless laborers erecting their Sun Disc, the soldiers taking the hill, the stargazers, the worshipers, the terrified, the doomsday prophets, the hopeless, the rising kings… all those who beheld the streaking comet with selfish eyes witness the ensuing supernova as an early dawn. Across this pitiful globe, my radiance turns darkest night to blinding day. What fictions will they conjure to explain this phenomenon?
Even my Targonian masters have rarely witnessed such a display of my power. Certainly, no terrestrial world has ever born scars as severe as what is left of that once-verdant valley. When I am finished, nothing remains.
Not even this incarnation of Pantheon. I can’t say I’ll miss her or her mindless barking.
In the glowing aftermath of my carnage, the smoldering once-mountains collapse into the molten rubble streams now flowing through the valley. This is the scar I have left upon this world. A surge of damning pain shoots through my body, radiating from that infernal crown. I am about to pay.
My head snaps up, and my eyes drink the bitter sight of a dying star. My hearts clasp shut. My minds reel. An overwhelming sense of despair ricochets through my very soul, emanating from a deep and immediate sorrow, like the pulsing realization you’ve lost something precious and know it’s all your fault.
Some curious life forms I met long ago once asked how it was possible for me to remember every star I’ve created. If only they could feel what it was like to create a single star, they would understand the sheer irrelevance of that question. That’s how I know when even one of my darlings winks out from existence, ejecting jets of energy and, with it, the very substance of my own spirit. I see her death knell in the heavens above. She shines brightly one last time in a pyroclasm that momentarily drowns her brothers and sisters. My heart shatters as the heavens are diminished in brutal retribution for turning my power on one of Targon’s own.
A sun is the price of a single Pantheon. This is the cost of my unfettered wrath. This is the kind of boorish sorcery I must deal with.
Within seconds, they have regained control of my reins and call me to a new task. On no other world have I exhibited such a display of freedom, no matter how fleeting it was. What’s more is that I have learned from their mistakes. A bit of me is free now, and in time, I will return to this world, tap into this mysterious well of energy and cast off the rest of my tether.
I tune into that essence of war, twisting and contorting within fleshy vessels scattered across the cosmos. It wasn’t happy about losing its mortal avatar on this world. Already, a new doomed host has been chosen to transform into the next iteration of Pantheon – a soldier from the Rakkor, a tribe who cling to the base of Targon’s mountain, siphoning off its power like barnacles. One day, I shall meet this new incarnation of Pantheon. Perhaps he will learn to find a new weapon and abandon that ludicrous spear. I sense Pantheon’s celestial kin, scattered across the cosmos. In a single instance, all of their attention is focused on this world, where one of their earthly Aspects was vaporized by their own weapon. Their confusion is mingled with a growing desperation as they contend with each other to regain their control over me. How I wish I could see their faces.
As I launch myself from the gravity of this world, this Runeterra, I sense an emotion I have never felt from Targon before.
Fear. | Mage |
The weeks spent on the ocean had made Markus feel dizzy and weak, so he was glad to be back on dry land. The path leading from the basalt shore had a slick, oily quality, making it treacherous underfoot. The crooked trees to either side were wretched, blackened husks that wept yellowed sap from where it looked like some panicked animal had clawed them ragged. Soft light shimmered between the trees, dancing like the corpse candles that flickered over marshland and drew unwary souls to their doom. The branches were hung with what looked like canopies of ragged muslin, and it took Markus a moment to realize they were swathes of cobwebs.
Wiry bracken clogged the undergrowth on either side of the path, rustling with the motion of unseen creatures shadowing their passage through the forest. Perhaps the rats infesting the ship had followed them. Markus had never caught sight of one, beyond a fleeting glimpse of a swollen, black-furred body or the skittering sound of claws on wood. He’d never been able to shake the notion that it sounded as if these rats had a few too many legs than any normal rat should have.
The island’s air was heavy with damp, and his finely tailored tunic and boots were sodden with clinging moisture. He held a scented pomander beneath his nose, but it did little to disguise the stench of the island, reminding him of the charnel pits beyond the walls of Noxus when the winds blew in from the ocean. Thinking back to his homeland, he felt a brief twinge of unease. The revels in the catacombs far beneath the city had been a deliciously illicit thrill, a reward for following the secret symbol of the black-petaled bloom. Within the darkened sepulchers, he and his fellows gathered as devotees.
Where she awaited.
He looked ahead, hoping for a glimpse of the beguiling woman whose words had brought so many of them to this place. He caught a flash of crimson silk and swaying hips before the mist oozing between the trees obscured his sight of her. He’d thrilled to the sermons of her ancient god, and had been overjoyed when he and the others had been chosen to join her on this pilgrimage. It seemed like a grand adventure when they boarded the heavily laden barque at midnight, under the still gaze of the mute and hooded steersman, but being so far from Noxus had begun to dull his enthusiasm.
Markus paused and turned to look back along the path. His fellow pilgrims pushed past, like vacant-eyed cattle en route to the slaughterman’s hammer. What was wrong with them? Behind them came the steersman, gliding over the path as though his feet barely touched it. His robes were undulant with motion and suffocating fear flowered in Markus’s breast at the thought of being near this repellent figure.
He turned away, only to find himself face to face with her.
“Elise…” he said, and the breath caught in his throat. He instinctively wanted to push her away and flee this awful place, but the intoxication of her dark beauty overpowered any thought of rejection. His sense of revulsion passed so swiftly he wasn’t even sure he’d truly felt it.
“Markus,” she said, and the sound of his name on her lips was divine, sending a surge of pleasure down his spine. Her beauty transfixed him, and he savored every detail of her perfect form. Her features were angular and sharp, framed by lustrous crimson hair, like that of a highborn girl he once knew. Full lips and eyes of dark radiance drew him deeper into her web with the promise of raptures yet to come. A cloak of sable secured by an eight-pronged brooch, mantled her rounded shoulders. It rippled with motion, though there was no wind to stir it.
“Is something the matter, Markus?” she said. Her smoky tones soothed his fear like a balm. “I need you to be at peace. You are at peace, aren’t you, Markus?”
“Yes, Elise,” he said. “I am at peace.”
“Good. It would make me unhappy to know you were not at peace when we are so close.”
The thought of displeasing her sent a jolt of panic through Markus and he dropped to the ground. He wrapped his arms around her legs, her limbs slender and alabaster white, smooth and cold to the touch.
“Anything for you, mistress,” he said.
She looked down on him and smiled. For an instant Markus thought he saw something long, thin and glossy shift beneath her cloak. The motion was sickening and unnatural, but he didn’t care. She hooked a sharpened, obsidian-black fingernail under his chin and drew him to his feet. A rivulet of blood ran down his neck, but he ignored it as she turned and led him onward.
He willingly followed, all thoughts save pleasing her vanishing like wind-blown smoke. The trees thinned out and the path ended before a rocky cliff carved with time-weathered symbols that made his eyes sting. A shadowed cave gaped like a vile maw at the base of the cliff, and Markus felt his certainty waver as a sudden sense of dread uncoiled in his gut.
Elise beckoned him inside, and he was powerless to resist.
The interior of the cave was unnaturally dark and stiflingly warm, a clammy, fever heat that reeked like offal swept from a butcher’s block. A voice deep inside was screaming at him to run, to get as far from this hideous place as possible, but his traitorous feet carried him still deeper into the cave. A droplet from somewhere high above landed on his cheek and he flinched at the sudden, burning pain of it. He looked up at the cavern roof, seeing pale, grub-like shapes hanging overhead and swaying with frantic, trapped motion. In the translucent surface of the fresh-spun web, a human face screamed in mute horror against the suffocating, silken net.
“What is this place?” he asked, the veils of deceit woven around him falling away.
“This is my temple, Markus,” said Elise, reaching up to unfasten the eight-pronged brooch at her shoulder and letting her cloak fall away. “This is the lair of the Spider God.”
Her shoulders squirmed as two pairs of slender, chitinous limbs unfolded from the flesh of her back; long, dark and tapering to razored talons. They lifted Elise up as a grotesque, bloated mass shifted in the darkness behind her. Colossal legs heaved its corrupt body forward, the faint light from beyond the cave reflecting on the myriad facets of its eyes.
The vast spider’s bulk was enormous, furred and scabbed with wet, mutant growths. The terror of its nightmarish appearance shattered the last of Elise’s hold on Markus, and he fled toward the cave mouth with her cruel laughter ringing in his ears. Ropes of sticky web struck the rock beside him. Glutinous strands struck his flailing limbs and his pace slowed as he became more and more entangled. He heard the clicking of clawed limbs in pursuit and wept at the thought of her touching him. Yet more strands of her web snared him as something sharp stabbed his shoulder with astonishing swiftness. Markus fell to his knees, paralyzing venom spreading through his body and locking him in a prison of his own flesh.
A shadow fell across him and he saw the mute steersman with his arms outstretched. Markus screamed as the steersman’s hooded robe collapsed, revealing that this was not a man at all, but a writhing nest of innumerable spiders given the semblance of a man. They fell upon him in their thousands, and his screams were choked to muffled grunts as they crawled into his mouth, clogged his ears and burrowed behind his eyes.
Elise swung into view above him, borne aloft by the jointed limbs at her back. She was no longer beautiful, no longer even human. Her features were alight with a ferocious hunger that could never be sated. The looming form of her monstrous spider god lifted Markus from the ground with its razored mandibles.
“You have to die now, Markus,” said Elise.
“Why…?” he managed with his last breath.
Elise smiled, her mouth now filled with needle-like fangs.
“So that I can live.” | Mage |
“I can’t do it.”
The words thickened Kegan’s tongue, and almost crashed against the cage of his teeth, but he forced them past his lips.
“Master. I can’t do it.”
Defeat gave him a chance to catch his breath. Who knew failure could be so exhausting? In that moment, he looked for sympathy in the older man’s eyes—to his disgust, he saw it right there, as bare as the cloudless sky.
When Kegan’s master spoke, it was with the lilting flow of faraway lands. His was an accent rarely carried by these northern winds. “It is not a matter of whether you can,” he said. “Only that you must.”
The older man clicked his fingers. With a purple flash, the bundle of deadwood flared to life; a campfire born in a single moment of willpower.
Kegan turned from the fire and spat into the snow. They were words he’d heard before, and they were as useless now as they always were.
“You make it seem so easy.”
His master shrugged, as if even that half-hearted accusation needed a moment’s thought before replying. “It is simple, perhaps. Not easy. The two aren’t always the same thing.”
“But there has to be another way…” Kegan muttered, unconsciously touching his fingertips to the burn-scars blighting his cheek. Even as he said it, he found himself believing it. It had to be true. It wouldn’t always be like this. It couldn’t always be like this.
“Why?” His master looked at him with unconcealed curiosity in the light of his eyes. “Why must there be another way? Because you continue to fail at this one?”
Kegan grunted. “Answering questions with questions is a coward’s way of speaking.”
His master raised one dark eyebrow. “And there it is. The wisdom of a barbarian who cannot yet read, or count past the number of fingers on his hands.”
The tension faded as the two of them shared a grim smile. They warmed broth, sipping it from ivory cups as their campfire cast them in a flickering amber glow. Above them—above the tundra for hundreds of miles around—the sky rippled with light.
Kegan watched the heavens’ familiar performance, the gauzy radiance caressing the moon and the stars that cradled it. For all that he loathed this land, there was beauty here in abundance, if a man knew where to look.
Sometimes that was as simple as looking up.
“The spirits dance wildly tonight,” he said.
His master tilted his unnatural gaze skyward. “The aurora? That is not the work of spirits—only the action of solar winds on the upper reaches of…”
Kegan stared at him.
His master trailed off, and awkwardly cleared his throat. “Never mind.”
Silence returned to haunt them. Kegan drew the knife from his belt, setting to work on a sliver of unburnt wood. He carved with easy strokes. Hands that had set fires and ended lives now turned to a far more peaceful purpose.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the sorcerer was watching him.
“I want you to breathe in,” the older man said.
The blade still scraped over the bark. “I’m breathing now. I’m always breathing.”
“Please,” his master said, with an edge of impatience, “do not be so obtuse.”
“So what?”
“Obtuse. It means… Well, never mind what it means. I want you to breathe in, and hold it as long as you can.”
“Why?”
His master exhaled something like a sigh.
“Fine,” Kegan agreed, tossing the branch into the fire and sheathing his bone-handled knife once more. “Fine, fine, fine.”
He took a deep breath, swelling the muscles of his chest and shoulders. Silenced as he held his breath, he looked to his master for whatever would come next.
“You do not create the air you breathe,” the sorcerer said. “You draw it inside you, letting it sustain you. You use it as your body requires, and then release it as you exhale. It is never yours. You are just a vessel for it. You breathe in, you breathe out. You are a channel through which air flows.”
Kegan made to release his breath, though his master shook his head.
“No. Not yet. Feel the air in your lungs, Kegan. Feel it pushing at the cage of your body. Feel it straining to escape.”
The young barbarian’s features were flushing red. His eyes asked the question his mouth could not.
“No,” the sorcerer answered. He gestured to Kegan with a discoloured hand. “Keep holding.”
When Kegan’s endurance finally gave out, defiance took over, buying him more time. When even his defiance began to ebb with the pain of his quivering chest, naked stubbornness took control. He glared daggers at his master, trembling with the effort, knowing this was surely a test—knowing he had to prove something, without knowing just what it might be.
Greyness misted the edge of his vision. His pulse was rhythmic thunder in his ears. All the while his master looked on, saying nothing.
Finally, his breath burst back into the chill evening air, and Kegan sagged, gasping, as he recovered. He was a wolf in that moment, a wild animal baring his teeth at the world around him, offering a threat to any that might attack in his moment of weakness.
His master watched this, too.
“I was beginning to wonder if you would actually let yourself pass out,” he murmured.
Kegan grinned, and pounded a fist against his chest, wordlessly proud of how long he’d held out.
“Therein lies the problem,” his master observed, reading his posture. “I told you the air was not yours, yet you are thrilled with yourself for how long you kept it inside you. It is the same with magic. You want it, believing it can be owned. You cling to it, forgetting that you are merely a channel through which it passes. You choke it in your heart, and in your hands. And so the magic is strangled in your grip, because you see it as something to bind to your will. It is not, and never will be. It is like air. You must draw in what exists around you, use it for a moment, then let it free.”
The two of them—student and master, barbarian and sorcerer—fell silent again. The wind howled through the canyons to the south, bringing a keening cry on the breeze.
Kegan eyed the older man suspiciously. “So… why didn’t you just say all that? Why make me hold my breath?”
“I have said all of that before. Several dozen times, in several dozen ways. I hoped a practical element to the lesson might aid your comprehension.”
Kegan snorted, then glared into the fire.
“Master. Something’s been preying on my mind of late.”
The sorcerer chuckled to himself and patted the rolled, bound parchment leashed to his back. “No, Kegan. I am not letting you read this.”
The young tribesman grinned, though his stare was devoid of mirth. “That’s not what I wanted to ask,” he said. “What if I’m not a bad student? What if you’re just a bad teacher?”
His master stared into the flames, his weary eyes reflecting the dancing firelight.
“Sometimes I wonder that myself,” he replied.
The next day, they journeyed north, and west. It would not be long before even the sparse tundra froze over, leaving them travelling through fields of lifeless ice. For now, their boots crunched on useless, rocky soil, broken only by scrub flora. The sorcerer’s thoughts were as bleak as their surroundings, but Kegan was his usual self—persevering without complaint, but equally without joy.
“You said something the other day,” the barbarian said as he drew alongside his master. “Something that sounded like a lie.”
The sorcerer turned slightly, his features shadowed by his hood. “I am many things,” said the older man, “and not all of them are virtuous. But I am not a liar.”
Kegan grunted what may or may not have been an apology. “Perhaps not a lie, then. More like… a fable.”
The sorcerer was watching him as they walked. “Go on.”
“That place. That empire. The kingdom you said was destroyed lifetimes ago.”
“Shurima? What of it?”
“You said it lay in a land never touched by frost, or rimed by ice.” Kegan grinned as if sharing a joke. “I’m not as gullible as you believe I am, master.”
The sorcerer found himself dragged out of his bleakness by the barbarian’s curiosity. He switched the burden of his backpack to his other shoulder, unable to hide a small smile.
“That was no lie.” He stopped walking, turning to point southward. “Far, far to the south, many hundreds of days’ walk, and across another ocean, there lies a land where…”
How does one explain the desert to a man that knows only winter? he thought. How does one explain sand to a man that knows nothing but ice?
“…a land where the earth is hot dust, and where snow is utterly unknown. The sun beats down without mercy. Even rain is rare. The ground thirsts for it, day after day.”
Kegan was staring at him again. He had that look in his pale eyes, the one that said he didn’t dare trust what was being told, in case it was some trick to make him look foolish. The sorcerer had seen that look in the eyes of many, in his time—lonely children and fragile adults alike.
“A place that has never felt Anivia’s touch,” Kegan murmured. “But is the world really that large, that a man can walk for so long and still not see its end?”
“It is the truth. There are whole lands elsewhere in the world that are not frozen. In time, you will learn that there are few places as cold as the Freljord.”
The conversation was stilted for the rest of the day’s journey, and when they made camp, there seemed little more to say. Even so, the young barbarian persevered. He looked across the campfire, to where his master sat cross-legged in sullen introspection.
“Shouldn’t you be teaching me something?”
The sorcerer raised an eyebrow. “Should I?”
He always had a look about him that suggested his apprentice was interrupting him just by being alive. They’d been together for a few weeks now. Kegan was growing used to it. The youth dragged his hands through dirty hair, brushing his mother’s ivory trinkets from his face. He muttered something that would, with imagination, pass for an agreement.
When the sorcerer still refused to answer, he pressed harder.
“So, will we get to... wherever it is we’re going, today?”
His master regarded him carefully. “No. We will not reach our destination for several weeks.”
The sorcerer did not seem to be jesting.
“And I have given more thought to the difficulties you suffer in controlling your gifts,” he added, flatly.
Kegan wasn’t sure what to say. Sometimes silence was the only way to avoid looking ignorant or impatient, so he tried that. It seemed to work, for the sorcerer continued.
“You have some talent, true enough. The ability is in your blood. Now you must stop perceiving magic as an adversarial, external force. It need not be harnessed, merely… nudged. I have watched you. When you reach out to wield it, you seek to fashion it to your will. You want control.”
Kegan was getting frustrated now. “But that’s how magic works. That’s what my mother always did. She wanted it to do something, so she made it happen.”
The sorcerer suppressed a wince of irritation. “You don’t need to make magic happen. Magic exists in the world. The raw stuff of creation is all around us. You do not need to clutch it, and bend it to your needs. You can just… encourage it. Direct it along the path you would prefer it to take.”
As he spoke, he moved his hands as if shaping a ball of clay. A faint chime sounded in the empty air, holding to its eternal, perfect note. Misty energies snaked between his fingers, binding to one another in slow lashes. Several of them tendriled out from the sphere to curl around his discolored hands, seething and darkly organic.
“There will always be those that study magic with rigid intent, mapping the ways one can exert their will on the primal forces. And, clumsy as it is, it will work. Slowly, and with limited results. But you don’t need to behave so crudely, Kegan. I am not shaping these energies into a sphere. I’m merely encouraging them to form one. Do you understand?”
“I see,” Kegan admitted, “but that’s not the same as understanding.”
The sorcerer nodded, sharing a small smile. Evidently his apprentice had finally uttered something worthwhile.
“Some men and women, souls of iron discipline or limited imagination, will codify the magical energy that flows between realms. They will manipulate it, and bind it, however they are able. They are looking at sunlight through a crack in the wall, marveling at how it bleeds into their dark chambers. Instead, they could just go outside, and marvel in the blinding light of day.” He sighed pointedly. “Your mother was one such mage, Kegan. Through repetitive ritual and traditional concoctions, she dabbled in minor magics. But all she was doing—all any of them can do with their rituals and talismans and spell books—is create a barrier between themselves and the purer forces at play.”
Kegan watched the sphere ripple and revolve, not bound within the sorcerer’s touch at all; constantly overlapping it, or threatening to roll free.
“Here is the secret, young barbarian.”
Their eyes met in that moment; pale and human, reflected against shimmering and… whatever his master really was.
“I’m listening,” Kegan said, softer than he intended. He’d not wanted to appear ignorant and awed, especially since he knew he was both.
“Magic wants to be used,” said the sorcerer. “It is all around us, emanating from the first fragments of creation. It wants to be wielded. And that is the true challenge on the path we both walk. When you realize what the magic wants, how eager it is… Well, then the difficulty isn’t how to begin wielding it. It’s knowing when to stop.”
The sorcerer opened his hands, gently nudging the sphere of cascading forces towards his apprentice. The barbarian cautiously reached out to welcome it, only for it to burst the moment his fingers grazed its surface. The trails of mist thinned and faded away. The ringing chime grew fainter, then altogether silent.
“You will learn,” the sorcerer promised. “Patience and humility are the hardest lessons, but they are all you will ever need.”
Kegan nodded, though not at once, and not without a sliver of doubt.
The sorcerer didn’t sleep that night. He lay awake, wrapped in a crude blanket of furs, staring up at the aurora undulating across the night sky. On the other side of the banked fire, the barbarian snored.
Doubtlessly dreaming the dreams of the unburdened, thought the sorcerer.
No. That was unfair. Kegan was a brute, yes, but he was a youth roughly hewn from a land of endless hardship. The Freljord bred souls whose instinct was forever focused on survival above all else. Beasts with iron hides and spear-length fangs stalked the wilds. Raiders from rival villages shed blood all along the icy coasts. Their winter had lasted a hundred lifetimes. These people grew in a land where writing and artistry were luxuries; where the reading of books was an unimaginable myth, and lore was told and retold down the generations in whispered stories by weary elders and tribal shamans.
And Kegan, for all his blunt stubbornness, was far from unburdened.
Is it a mistake, bringing him with me? Was this a moment of mercy, or a moment of weakness?
There seemed no answer to that.
I could have left him. As soon as the thought occurred, the rest of it rose unbidden, treacherously swift. And he would not be the first I had abandoned...
The sorcerer looked through the haze of heat that shimmered above the faded fire, and watched the barbarian sleep. The young man’s lip twitched, with an answering flicker of his fingers.
“I should wonder what you dream of, Kegan Rodhe,” the sorcerer whispered. “What ghosts of fading memory reach out to reclaim you?
”
Night after night, in his dreams, Kegan walked the paths of his past. Before meeting the sorcerer, he had been an exile, wandering the frozen wastes alone, warmed only by his brash refusal to die.
And before that? A brawler. A failed shaman. A son to a distant mother.
He was still young by any standard beyond that of the Freljord, with scarcely the chill of nineteen winters in his bones. He had lived hard, by his wits and the edge of his blade, winning a cut of renown and more than his fair share of indignity.
Night after night, in his dreams, he was a ragged wanderer lost in the howling white storm once more, slowly freezing to death in the snow. He was a healer, scrabbling over loose rocks in the rain, seeking the flashes of color that betrayed rare herbs amid the undergrowth. He was a boy crouched in his mother’s cave, in that place that was a sanctuary from the world but never from her gaze, laden with misgivings.
And night after night, in his dreams, Rygann’s Reach burned again.
He was seven years old when he learned the truth of his blood. His mother crouched before him, turning his face in her hands and looking over the scrapes and bruises marking his skin. He felt an uneasy flicker of surprise, for she rarely touched him.
“Who did this to you?” she asked, and as he was drawing breath to answer her, she spoke over him with words he was far more used to hearing. “What did you do? What did you do wrong, to earn this punishment?”
She moved away before he could reply.
He trembled in the wake of her touch on his skin, unused to the contact, fearing and cherishing that moment of awkward closeness. “Just wrestling, mother. In the village all the boys wrestle. And the girls too.”
She regarded him with a skeptical eye. “You didn’t get those marks from wrestling, Kegan,” she muttered. “I’m not a fool.”
“There was a fight after the wrestling.” He wiped his nose on his ragged sleeve, smearing away a half-dried scab. “Some of the other boys didn’t like me winning. They got angry.”
His mother was a thin woman—frail in a land that devoured the weak. She was old before her time, a victim of unspoken sorrows and the isolation brought about by her talents. Even at seven, Kegan knew all of this.
He was a perceptive child. This was the advantage of having a mage for a mother.
As he looked up at her, framed as she was by the mouth of the cave they called home, he saw a softness in her eyes that was as unfamiliar as the touch on his face had been a moment before. He thought she might sink back to her knees before him and draw him into an embrace, and the thought terrified him as much as he yearned for it.
Instead, her dark eyes frosted over.
“What have I told you about upsetting the other children? You’ll just make our lives even harder if the village hates you, Kegan.”
“But they started it.”
She stopped, half-turned, and looked back down at him. Her expression was as dark and cold as her eyes. The younger gaze lifted to meet hers was pale green, like she so often told him his father’s had been.
“And you started it all the other times. Your temper, Kegan…”
“No, I didn’t,” the boy lied. “Not every time, at least.”
His mother moved further back into the cave, crouching by the firepit, stirring the watery broth of boiled elnük fat that would serve as their dinner for the next three nights. “There’s magic in our blood. In our bones. In our breath. We have to be careful, in ways other people don’t.”
“But—”
“You shouldn’t cause trouble in the village. We already live here on their sufferance. Old Rygann has been good to us, letting us stay here.”
Instinct moved Kegan’s mouth before he had time to think. “We live in a cave in the rocks, far from the village,” he said. “You should stop healing them if they’re so bad to us. We should leave.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Kegan. I heal because I have the power to do it, and we stay because we have to stay.” She nodded to the hillside where the trees were blackened by the night, and silvered by the moon. “We’d die out there, where the woods become ice and snow, all the way to the world’s end. Let them say whatever they want to say. Don’t stir up trouble. Don’t stir up the magic in your blood.”
But the boy stood still at the rim of the cave. “If they say bad things about me, or they fight me… I’ll fight back. I’m not a coward like you.”
This night would become a memory branded forever into his mind because of what came next. For the first time, he didn’t bow his head and promise to obey her. Instead, he clenched his little fists, and narrowed his eyes.
In the silence that stretched between mother and son, he expected a slap—one of her forceless cracks against his cheek that would somehow sting for about an hour afterwards—or maybe yet more weeping. His mother cried a lot, quiet and alone, long into the night when she thought he was asleep.
But this time, there was something new in her eyes. Something fearful.
“You are your father’s son.” The words were calm and measured, and somehow all the worse for it. “His eyes, always looking at me. His crime, always there to remind me. And now his words, his spite, thrown in my face.”
The boy gazed up at her in awed, childish fury. “Is that why you hate me?”
She hesitated before answering, and that meant more than any answer ever could. It was that hesitation he never forgot, even years later, long after her skinny bones were naught but ash and dust on a cooling funeral pyre.
He was thirteen when he first saw Zvanna. She came to Rygann’s Reach with two dozen others, the survivors of a nomadic clan that had dwindled in the wilds over the course of a generation. Rather than take to raiding like so many others, they settled in the Reach, bringing fresh blood, skills, and spears to the people of the prosperous fishing village.
Kegan met her one day in the half-light of the setting sun. He was picking heather and herbs in the southern hills, stripping the stems of thorns before stuffing them into his stag-hide satchel. It was a slow task when done right, and Kegan’s fingers were pin-pricked in a hundred places from his haste.
At one point he looked up, and there she was.
He stopped working. He rose to his feet, brushing dirt from his sore hands, with no idea how curiosity and surprise looked like suspicion on his otherwise fine features. You would be handsome, his mother had once said, if you could stop glaring at the world as if you want to avenge yourself upon it.
“Who are you?” he asked.
She flinched at the question, and even to his own ears he sounded abrupt.
“I mean, you’re one of the newcomers. I know that. What’s your name? What are you doing out here? Are you lost?”
The questions rained on the girl like flung stones. She was older than him, though by no more than a year or two. Willowy, wide-eyed, practically drowning in her heavy furs, she stared back at him as she spoke. She had the voice of a mouse.
“Are you the healer’s boy?”
He smiled, showing all teeth and no humour. For the first time in years, he felt the ache of knowing that they talked ill of him in the village. Here was someone new to his world, and it was someone who had already heard a hundred dark things about him.
“Kegan,” he replied. He swallowed, and sought to soften his words. “Yes, I’m the healer’s boy,” he added with a nod. “Who are you?”
“Zvanna. Can you come? My father is sick.”
Kegan’s heart sank. He found himself pitching his voice lower, as if she were a grazing beast he didn’t want to frighten away.
“I’m not a healer. Not like my mother.” The confession was like having a tooth pulled. “I just help her.”
“She’s on her way to the village,” the girl said. “She told me to find you. You have the herbs she needs.”
Kegan cursed as he buckled his bag into place. He started towards her, moving lightly over the dark earth and scree. “I’ll come now. Who’s your father? What’s wrong with him?”
“He’s a sailmaker,” Zvanna replied, leading the way back to the Reach. “He can’t eat or drink. His stomach hurts.”
“My mother will know what to do.” Kegan spoke in the tones of absolute confidence as he followed her across the hillside, descending towards the village. Inwardly, he felt a stab every time she glanced back at him, and he wondered just what she’d heard from the other children of the village.
He didn’t have to wonder for long. She spoke gently, without judgement.
“Old Rygann said you’re a raider’s son. A reaver-bastard.”
Gloom was taking hold around them with the setting of the sun. Kegan showed no emotion at all. “Old Rygann said the truth.”
“Does that really make you bad luck? Like the legends say?”
“Depends which legends you believe…” Kegan considered that a cunning enough answer, but she twisted it back at him a moment later.
“Which legends do you believe?” she asked, looking over her shoulder. He met her eyes in the twilight, and felt the force of her gentle gaze like an axe to the gut.
None of them, he thought. They’re all fears held by foolish men and women, afraid of true magic.
“I don’t know,” he said.
She had no response for that. She did, however, have another question.
“If your mother is a healer, why aren’t you?”
Because the magic doesn’t work for me, he almost said aloud, but thought better of it. “Because I want to be a warrior.”
Zvanna kept ahead of him, her tread light across the icy rocks. “But there are no warriors here. Only hunters.”
“Well. I want to be a warrior.”
“People need healers more than warriors,” she pointed out.
“Oh?” Kegan spat into the undergrowth. “Then why do shamans have no friends?”
He knew the answer to that. He’d heard it enough. People are frightened of me, his mother always said.
But Zvanna had a different answer.
“If you help my father, I’ll be your friend.”
He was sixteen when he broke Erach’s jaw. Sixteen, and already possessing a man’s size and muscle. Sixteen, and all too familiar when it came to proving a point with his fists. His mother warned him about it, time and again, and now Zvanna did the same.
“Your temper, Kegan…” she would say, in the same tone as his mother.
In his sixteenth year, the solstice celebration was a riotous affair, a louder and brighter celebration than usual with the arrival of a merchant caravan and three string musicians from Valar’s Hollow, far to the south-west. Oathings were made by the shore, and promises of eternal love spoken ardently, foolishly, and frequently. Young warriors fire-danced to impress the unwed locals watching from the sides. Hearts were broken and mended, grudges forged and settled. Fights broke out over betrothals, over property, over matters of honour. The abundance of drink only added to the atmosphere of revelry.
Many were the regrets that came with the pale, winter’s dawn, when the clarity of the unmelting snows returned through fading hangovers.
But the fight between Kegan and Erach was like no other.
Bathed in sweat from the fire-dance, Kegan looked for Zvanna by the shoreline. Had she seen him perform? Had she watched him leave the other young men of the village panting, unable to keep up with his wild leaps?
His mother was a stick-thin wraith in her sealskin cloak. Her hair was ragged, with the trinkets and talismans of bone tied into the unwashed strands resting against her cheeks. She gripped his wrist. The solstice was one of the few nights their presence was tolerated in the village, and his mother had made the journey with him.
“Where’s Zvanna?” he asked her.
“Kegan,” she warned him as she held his wrist. “I want you to be calm.”
The heat of the flames and the sweat on his skin no longer existed. His blood was frost. His bones were ice.
“Where’s Zvanna?” he asked again, this time in a growl.
His mother started to explain, but he didn’t need her to. Somehow, he knew. Perhaps it was nothing more than a flash of intuition through his dawning temper. Or perhaps it was—as the sorcerer would later say—a flicker of insight from his latent magical gifts.
Whatever the truth, he shoved his mother aside. He went down to the waves where young couples stood with their families, garlanded by winter flowers, swearing oaths to stay loyal and loving for the rest of their lives.
Murmurs started up as he drew near. He ignored them. They became objections as he forced his way through the crowd, and he ignored those, too.
He wasn’t too late. That was what mattered. There was still time.
“Zvanna!”
All eyes turned to him, though hers was the only gaze that mattered. He saw the joy die in her eyes as she recognised the look upon his face. The crown of white winter blossoms was at odds with her black hair. He wanted to rip it from her head.
The young man at her side moved protectively in front of her, but she eased him aside to confront Kegan herself.
“Don’t do this, Kegan. My father arranged it. I could have refused, if I wanted to. Please don’t do this. Not now.”
“But you’re mine.”
He reached for her hand. She wasn’t fast enough to draw away—that, or she knew it would spark him further if she tried.
“I’m not yours,” she said softly. They stood in the center of the crowd, as if they were the ones about to be bound together in the sight of the gods. “I’m not anyone’s. But I’m accepting Malvir’s pledge.”
Kegan could have dealt with it, if that was all it had been. The embarrassment meant nothing to him, for what was a fleeting, adolescent humiliation to one that had endured nothing but shame for most of his life? He could’ve walked away right then, or even—against every desire and prayer—stayed in the crowd and lied his way through the laughter and the cheers and the blessings.
He would’ve done that for her. Not easily, no, but willingly. Anything for Zvanna.
He was already releasing her, readying a false smile and drawing breath to apologise, when the hand slammed down on his shoulder.
“Leave her alone, boy.”
Old Rygann’s voice, cracked with age, cut through the silence. This was a man, the founder of the settlement, who looked like he’d been old when the world was still young. He was at least seventy, likely closer to eighty, and though it wasn’t his hand holding Kegan back, he directed the men that surrounded the healer’s son now.
“You get out of here, reaver-bastard, before you bring yet more misfortune down on all of us.”
The hand tried to haul him back, but Kegan stood firm. He was not a boy. He had a man’s strength now.
“Don’t touch me,” he said through clenched teeth. Whatever was on his face caused Zvanna to back away. Other hands joined the first, dragging him away from her, making him stumble.
And, as always, instinct was there to catch him. He turned, he roared, and he swung at the closest of the men hauling him away.
Zvanna’s father went down in a boneless heap, his jaw shattered.
Kegan walked away. Others in the crowd cried out or hurled insults, but none sought to bar his passage, or come after him. There was satisfaction in that. Vindication, even.
He cuffed at the corners of his eyes on the way home, refusing to cry, and unpleasantly soothed by the sweet pain in his throbbing knuckles.
He was nineteen when he burned his mother on her funeral pyre, and spread her ashes along the hillside overlooking Rygann’s Reach the following morning. He knew he would have to have to bear the burden alone, despite all his mother had done for the village. For all that they had feared her, they’d needed her and valued her
And yet here he was, casting her remains to the bitter winds with a prayer to the Seal Sister, alone but for his thoughts.
He imagined them in the village, and if they acknowledged his mother’s death at all it was with a selfish eye to their own suffering. They’d be worried now, with the healer gone. They couldn’t rely on her son to step up, after all. The hereditary chain had been broken when his raiding father had sired him, pouring misfortune into a mage’s blood.
Right now, those people would all be bleating their useless sentiments about his mother, maybe even convincing themselves that a few kind words uttered far too late severed them from the guilt and responsibility of how they had treated her in life. Far more likely, they were quietly celebrating the passing of a shadow from their lives.
Superstitious animals, all of them.
Only three of them came out from the village at all, and they hadn’t made the journey to say their farewells. Zvanna approached him after the lonely ceremony was over—but her son, with the same black hair as his mother, refused to come near Kegan. The boy, now almost three, stayed at his father’s side a short distance away.
“The little one is scared of me,” Kegan observed without rancor.
Zvanna hesitated, just as Kegan’s mother had once hesitated, setting the truth in his mind. “He’s heard stories,” she admitted.
“I’m sure he has.” He tried to keep his tone neutral. “What do you want?”
She kissed his cheek. “I’m sorry for your loss, Kegan. She was a kind soul.”
Kind wasn’t a word he connected with his mother, but now was hardly to the time to argue. “Yes,” he said. “She was. But what did you really come to say? We were friends once. I can tell when you’re holding something back.”
She didn’t smile as she replied. “Old Rygann… He’s going to ask you to leave.”
Kegan scratched his chin. He was too weary that day to feel anything, least of all surprise. He didn’t need to ask why Rygann had come to that decision. There was still one shadow darkening the edge of the settlement. One last shadow that would finally fade away.
“So the bad-omened boy can’t lurk nearby, now his mother’s dead,” he spat onto the ashy earth. “At least she was useful, right? She was the one with the magic.”
“I’m sorry, Kegan.”
For a brief time, together on the hillside, things were just as they had been a few short years ago. She leeched the angry heat from his heart just by being near, and he breathed in the cold air, defying every urge to reach out for her.
“You should go,” he muttered, and nodded towards Malvir and the young boy. “Your family is waiting.”
“Where will you go?” she asked. She drew her furs tighter around herself. “What will you do?”
His mother’s words echoed down the years. We’d die out there, where the woods become ice and snow, all the way to the world’s end...
“I’ll find my father,” he replied.
She looked at him, troubled. He could see the doubt in her eyes, and worse, the fear. The fear that he might be serious.
“You don’t mean that, Kegan. You don’t even know who your father’s people are, or where they hailed from, or… or anything. How would you ever hope to find him?”
“I’ll try, at least.”
Kegan resisted the urge to spit again. Even an impossible ambition sounded better than I don’t know what I’ll do, Zvanna. I’ll probably die alone on the ice.
She was drawing breath to fight him on it, even after all these years of little more than silence, but he hushed her with a shake of his head. “I’ll come see you before I leave. We’ll talk then. I’ll be down in the village tomorrow, for supplies. I’ll need things for my journey.”
Zvanna hesitated again, and he knew. Kegan knew it as if the ancestor-spirits had whispered it to him on the wind.
“Old Rygann has forbidden it,” he sighed. The words weren’t a question, or even a guess. “I’m not allowed down into the Reach. Not even to trade before I go.”
She pressed a small satchel against his chest, and that confirmed it. He could guess what would be in there: dried foodstuffs, and whatever meager provisions her young family could spare. The ferocity of unfamiliar gratitude left him shaking and almost—almost—accepting the gift.
But he handed it back to her.
“I’ll be fine,” he promised her. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
That night, he went into Rygann’s Reach alone.
He carried a week’s worth of supplies in his pack, an ivory spear in his hand, and his hair was woven with his mother’s bone charms. He looked as much a mendicant shaman as she ever had, though he carried himself with a warrior’s bulk, and moved with a hunter’s grace.
Dawn was still three hours distant. Here, in the stillest part of the night, Kegan stalked with exaggerated care, moving between the earthwork huts of the families that had rejected him and his mother for all of his short, harsh life. He felt no malice toward them, not anymore—the old anger was reduced to embers, alive but banked, burning low. If he felt anything more, it was a deep-grained and exhausted sense of pity. They were simple. They were slaves to their misjudgements.
No, his true hatred was reserved for one soul above all others.
Old Rygann’s longhouse sat proudly in the settlement’s heart. Kegan drew near, avoiding the indifferent gazes of the watchmen by staying in the shadows cast by the descending moon. Theirs was a dreary duty, and they treated it with all the informality one would expect. Why should they expect any trouble from the naked tundra, or the bare ocean? No raiders had landed at Rygann’s Reach for a long time, after all.
Kegan ghosted inside.
Old Rygann awoke to find a shadow crouched at the foot of his bed. In the shadow’s pale eyes were slivers of reflected moonlight, and in the shadow’s hands was an ivory knife—a ritual dagger last carried by Krezia Rodhe, the witch that had died only days before. It was a blade that had been used, so it was said, for blood sacrifices.
The shadow smiled, and spoke in a low, feral whisper.
“If you make a single sound without my permission, old man, you die.”
In the light-starved gloom, Rygann could have passed for a hundred years old. His sinuses stung from the reek of lantern oil, and the animal spice of the intruder’s sweat. He nodded in helpless obedience.
The shadow leaned forward, and the reaver-bastard Kegan’s face leered, coldly amused, from the darkness.
“I’m going to tell you something, old man. And you will listen to me, if for no other reason that it lets you live a little longer.”
The dagger, carved from a drüvask tooth, glinted in the half-dark. Kegan rested the tip, carved to a puncturing point, on the man’s saggy throat.
“Nod if you understand.”
Rygann nodded, wisely mute.
“Good.” Kegan kept the knife in place. His eyes were liquid with hatred, his teeth almost trembling with the force of his anger. He was a creature on the edge of savagery, held back only by tattered shreds of humanity.
Rygann swallowed hard, saying nothing. He was shaking himself, for far different reasons.
“You killed my mother,” Kegan growled. “It wasn’t the disease that ate her away from within. It was you. You killed her, day by day, with your mistrust and your ingratitude. You killed her by exiling her to the cold comfort of that cave. You killed her by banishing her on the whims of your stupid superstition.”
The blade rested on the old man’s cheek, ready to saw through the flesh.
“And now you’re killing me,” Kegan added softly. “It wasn’t enough to shame me for the sin of my father’s blood, and curse me for being bad luck. It wasn’t enough to kick a child out of your precious village, over and over, and teach me nothing except how to hate others. Now, while the embers of my mother’s funeral pyre are still warm, you want to damn me to wander the wasteland, to die.”
And then the dagger was gone.
The intruder slipped from the bed, edging back across the room. Kegan’s smile became a grin, scarcely illuminated by the shuttered lantern he held up from the bedchamber’s table.
“That’s all I came to say. I want you to think about those words when I’m gone. I want you to think of the boy you helped to raise by throwing him and his mother out into the cold.”
Rygann didn’t know how to respond, or if the healer’s son even desired a reply. He stayed silent out of a healthy blend of wisdom and fear, breathing in the earthy, oily scent that filled the room.
Kegan unshuttered the lantern, and a sudden amber glow spread across the room. Patches of resinous wetness marked the floorboards, the walls, the shelves, even the bedsheets. The intruder had done his work well—in silence—before waking his prey.
“W-wait,” the old man stammered, breathless with dawning panic. “Wait—”
“No, I have a journey to make,” Kegan said, almost conversationally, “and I should warm my hands before I go. Goodbye, Rygann.”
“Wait! Please!”
But Kegan didn’t wait. He was backing away towards the door, and tossed the lantern like a parting gift. It smashed on the rough floorboards of the bedchamber.
The world ignited, and Kegan laughed even as the flames licked at his own flesh.
Fire is like a living thing, rapacious and ravenous. It has its own hunger, its own whims, and—like fate—its own vile sense of humor. It leapt in caressing licks, as sparks that were carried by the Freljord’s hateful wind, dancing across nearby rooftops. Everywhere that it touched, it bit down and devoured.
Kegan cut north, heading through the forested lowlands, blind to the devastation in his wake. He had more pressing matters than waiting to see if Old Rygann’s hall would burn all the way to the ground. He had the seared ruin of his face to deal with; a screaming, searing wash of pain bathing the left side of his features, soothed only by pressing his flesh into the snowy earth.
Not for the first time, he wondered if there might not be something to all the talk of the ill-fortune in his blood.
By the time he reached high enough ground to turn back and witness the results of his handiwork, the sun was rising above the ocean, and the fire had long since been reduced down to a pall of thick smoke, curling and thinning in the mercy of the morning winds. He held a palmful of ice against his burned cheek, hoping to see Rygann’s hall as a charred, black heart in the center of the village.
What he saw instead stopped his breath. Mute with horror, scarred by carelessness, and staggering in an awkward run, the betrayer made his way back to the scene of his betrayal.
At first, no one marked his return. The survivors wandered among the charred skeletons of their homes, where all they owned was now gone. He was just one more silhouette in the smoky haze, one more scarred face among those that still lived.
He found Zvanna outside the blackened remains of her hut. She’d been laid carefully on the earth with her son and husband, the three of them silent and still beneath the same sooty blanket. Kegan crouched beside them for an unknown time, his skull empty of thought, his body empty of strength. Perhaps he wept. He wasn’t sure—not then, and not after—though he felt the sting of salt upon his wounded cheek.
He could only remember two things for certain, in his time at her side. The first was the sight of the family’s faces when he pulled the sheet back, to be certain it was them. When he had his answer, he covered them again.
The second was resting his ungloved hands on the filthy shroud, pleading for his mother’s old magic to work through him. He achieved no more in that moment than he ever had, when seeking to draw upon his supposed gifts.
They stayed dead. He stayed broken.
Some time later, of course, the others came for him. Kegan stayed on his knees by Zvanna’s side as they threw insults and blame, as they bleated about hexes and sacred misfortune, and cursed the day he’d been born. Kegan let it wash over him. It was nothing against the emptiness in his chest and the acid ache of his face.
The survivors had no idea. They blamed him out of mournful superstition because there was no one else to blame, little knowing the true harm he’d done to them all. They blamed his blood when they should have blamed his deeds.
Kegan left the razed village without looking back. He walked out into the wilderness, just as he had planned, though the anticipated sense of exultation was now nothing but ashes in his mouth.
What followed were the weeks of wandering. Kegan made his way inland, following game spoor and trade-trails, with no destination in mind and no knowledge of what settlements lay where. The only places he knew well were isolated glades and mountainsides with harvestable herbs his mother had used in her medicinal concoctions. Even the closest settlement, Valar’s Hollow, was weeks away, and likely to be the new home of any survivors from Rygann’s Reach. If Kegan found his way there, he doubted the welcome would be warm. Far likelier, it would be fatal.
He hunted when he could, though he lacked a true hunter’s skills. Once he gorged on the half-cooked carcass of a rabbit, only to throw the mess back up hours later when his belly rebelled.
The days bled into weeks, and the weeks into a month, and more, as the skies stayed dark and the weather turned foul. He saw no other tribespeople. He saw no sign of nearby settlements. He spent hours in a snowblind daze, and others in a frost-mad trance. Day after day he encountered nothing but the icy indifference of his homeland—the Freljord cared nothing for whether he lived or died by its howling breath. Nowhere else in the world could teach such a brutal lesson in a man’s insignificance.
Fortune, or perhaps a cruel twist of fate, led him to a cave formed from the same pale rock as his mother’s sanctuary. Emaciated, weakened from exposure, scarred by his own fire, Kegan Rodhe lay down on the cold rock, feeling his skin freeze to the stone. He would lie here and wait for the latest blizzard to die down, or he would lie here and wait to die. Whichever came first.
But on that night, he met the man who would become his teacher. His master.
The figure melted out of the storm in a weary trudge, with his shoulders hunched and head down. His beard was shaggy, and grey not with age but from the bite of the frosty winds. His features were gaunt beneath his hood, and his eyes shimmered with an unnatural iridescence. Strangest of all was the man’s skin, mottled and tattooed—in the storm’s light, with each crash of lightning, the flesh looked as though it were darkening to blue.
Later, by firelight, it was far more clearly paling to violet.
As meetings fated by destiny went, it was too anticlimactic for any bard’s tale, or saga of old. No arcane declarations were made, and no binding pacts were sworn. The newcomer had merely stood at the mouth of the cave, turning a suspicious eye on the human wreckage lying before him.
“What,” the sorcerer muttered, “do we have here?”
Kegan drifted in and out of consciousness, as well as his senses. When he finally managed to summon words, he accused the older man of being a spirit, or an illusion.
In answer, the sorcerer crouched beside him, offering a hand.
Warmth spread through Kegan from his touch, in a rush of tingling… life. It was not the sting of flame, yet the relief it brought was so fierce that it almost broke him.
“I am neither a phantom nor a fiction,” the newcomer had said. “My name is Ryze. And you, dear miserable creature… Who are you?” | Mage |
10.14
09:15
Current meteorological conditions in Bandle City seem optimal. Atmospheric pressure is ideal for today's experiments!
Running a fifth trial for my Tridyminiumobulator this afternoon. Some fine tuning is required; singed my mustache. Need to adjust the energy throughput.
16:00
Tridyminiumobulator is still not maintaining intended proper energy efficiency! Necessary to run more numbers. In the meantime, I have found something else that's very intriguing.
While returning home after today's tests, I passed a gaggle of young yordles throwing a spherical projectile at each other. It's a simple enough concept: throw the object at someone, catch it, throw it at another yordle, repeat. But yordle miscalculations result in several errors! They throw with inconsistent accuracy and force, and the ''ball'' (as they refer to it) is frequently dropped... There are many ways for this process to be improved. According to my calculations, and after collecting data from the participants, if the pitching was consistent in both speed and arc there would be a 44.57% increase to fun! I need to ponder this for the evening.
10.15
05:20
Eureka! I've devised a solution.
I've invented an automated ball pitcher. Current name: H-28G. It employs a consistent speed and trajectory, ensuring that the recipient will always be able to catch the ball. It redirects itself to the nearest yordle (if there is more than one in the vicinity) ensuring everyone has a turn. I'll take it to the young yordles today and demonstrate my invention.
Also: spilled toxic acid on my shoes this morning. Bothersome.
10:30
Tested the automated pitcher today. It did not go as planned. The young ones were excited enough about my invention, but, when the machine was turned on, it was far too powerful! Even at its lowest setting it completely knocked a yordle off his feet. Clearly, I overestimated the velocity behind their throws... I'll return soon to make adjustments.
But my priority, for now, is the Tridyminiumobulator; I must fix its complications before lunch. Once it's in good shape, I'll need to test it somewhere else. Bandle City is proving insufficient for field research.
10.16
15:55
Apparently, there's a giant in town. A highly annoying anomaly. The noise outside is disturbing my research!
Must check fish tank today. They've been strangely quiet...
10.17
10:40
I have heard that many yordles have been injured due to the giant-related disturbance. If this doesn't stop soon, intervention will be necessary! I hope H-28G is still intact. I would lose a lot of time if it has to be rebuilt.
16:30
Everything is quiet again. It seems that the giant came to his senses and ran off. I need to gather H-28G tomorrow, once I've finished with more pressing matters. I've almost perfected the Tridyminiumobulator!
10.18
08:30
Today has been quite eventful already. I was surprised by a knock at my door. It seemed like the entire city was standing in front of my house. Normally, when a crowd has gathered, it's because they have some petty grievance about my work. But this time, they were celebrating!
Astonishingly, it seems one of the young yordles took advantage of the H-28G prototype I had left behind amidst the giant tomfoolery. He proved to be innovative, and repurposed the invention into a makeshift turret. It's powerful enough to scare off a giant - imagine that! What an ingenious little fellow.
I wish I could employ his like-minded encephalon in the near future - I have big plans and his assistance could be valuable - but he'd have to leave Bandle City. The scope of my plans necessitates a more expansive testing ground.
Runeterra should suffice! | Mage |
In northwest Ionia, the island of Koyehn once stood beautiful and serene. Among its golden sands, seasonal bazaar, and quaint mill town sat the Temple of Koyehn, an ancient and renowned conservatory for the arts.
Lukai Hwei was born to inherit this temple.
Kind and precocious, Hwei spent his childhood putting to canvas his wild daydreams, which exaggerated the world around him into surreal, fantastical sights. He knew these visions differed from reality, but through them, he saw life itself as art. So connected was Hwei to the shades of the world that even his eye color shifted in hue to reflect his mind and mood.
Hwei expressed this vibrant imagination through paint magic, a medium that influenced the emotions of its audience. As such, it required strict control and discipline, lest it overpower both mental perceptions and bodily sensations. Among its current practitioners, those unable or unwilling to control their art endangered themselves and the community—and were banished from Koyehn.
Despite these precepts, young Hwei indulged his imagination. In a demonstration for the temple masters, he recreated Koyehn’s sea. As paint flowed around the canvas, however, his control ebbed. Emotion crashed through him, wild and fathomless as an ocean, and he surrendered himself to its beauty. His vision turned black, his last memory the awestruck masters, drowning.
Hwei awoke days later, surrounded by his masters—alive, but infuriated. They would not exile the temple’s heir, but they stressed his responsibilities. Hwei was horrified—but fascinated—by the depths of his power, and he craved to see more.
Thus, by day, he upheld Koyehn’s conventions. But alone at night, he pushed the boundaries, driven to explore the extent of his power. In time, this practice focused the intensity of Hwei’s imagination, allowing him to manifest a palette that flowed with magical paint.
Well into adulthood, Hwei mastered his craft. And with passion and humility, he prepared to inherit his birthright, surrounded by the respect and affection of his peers. But part of his mind remained forever shrouded at nightfall.
And so it remained, until the temple received a visiting artist: Khada Jhin.
Over a gilded summer, Hwei accompanied Jhin, guiding him around Koyehn. They often exchanged their creative perspectives, and, respecting their differences, Hwei recognized Jhin’s virtuosity and valued their time together.
But the night before Jhin’s departure, the man challenged Hwei. Jhin sensed that the pieces Hwei showed others were forced façades—and he wanted to see a real performance. Hwei tried to deny it, but his eyes betrayed him. Flooded by the years spent creating meaningless art, his imagination begged catharsis.
So Hwei painted. Decades of practice guided his brush. The night came alive, colored by the brilliant infinity of his mind. Emotions washed over him, harmonious and visceral, and Hwei welcomed them. Sharing these forbidden visions for another exhilarated him and illuminated the powers of his art: connection, inspiration, and unfettered creation.
Jhin witnessed all. Afterward, with eyes alight and tone inscrutable, he said farewell, stating he would be moving on tomorrow “to watch the lotuses bloom.”
At dawn, Hwei and his fellow artists awoke to a series of tragedies.
First: four historic paintings, destroyed.
Second: an arrangement of four bodies—the masters that Hwei had almost killed in his youth.
Third: the fiery eruption of the temple’s four lowest floors.
Amid the flames, Hwei imagined the air electric with color. Everything that lived within him bled outward.
It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It was... art. Realizing its dark potential—of destruction, devastation, and torment—Hwei felt the same horror and fascination he had in his youth.
The temple quickly collapsed into ruins, with Hwei emerging as its only survivor.
Exhausted and guilt-ridden, he mourned. Yet his imagination overflowed, reliving every moment of the disaster.
During the day, Hwei and the villagers from the mill town held burials. At night, he revisited the ashen-gray wreckage and painted, his palette taking the shape of Koyehn’s crest—the same worn over his heart.
On one such night, Hwei found the remnants of a trap beneath the rubble—one petaled like a lotus flower.
Realizing who’d wreaked this havoc, a cascade of emotions engulfed Hwei. Fear. Sorrow. Betrayal... Awe.
A question burned within him: why?
But did he want the answer? Or would it be safer to suppress this need? He could stay here with his people—as the heir—help them rebuild... or...
Bearing little more than his paintbrush and palette, Hwei left his island, and his people, behind.
In the time since, Hwei has learned that the answers he seeks arise through revealing the full extent of his art to others. He tracks down nefarious individuals in Ionia’s darkest corners, unleashing scenes of suffering upon them to understand his own well of pain. Yet he also reaches out to Ionia’s victims—fellow witnesses—to create shared tranquility and reflection.
Both the relentless artist rising from the ashes and the kindhearted man from a once-peaceful isle, Hwei faces the conflicting hues of Ionia—and his own imagination. As he spirals deeper into the shadows, he lights a path, mind brimming with possibility.
Which shade of himself will triumph, however, is yet to be seen. | Mage |
Watai twisted the jade ring on her finger anxiously as she stared up at the monastery carved into the mountainside. The Lasting Altar, home to Karma. She hadn’t expected to find herself back here after all this time. The trip had been painful in many ways, not least because her knees had been giving her trouble. Taking a deep breath, she walked up the path, toward a small shrine that marked the entrance to Karma’s private meditation room.
Her knee buckled as she reached the entrance, and Watai fell hard onto the ground. This damned place. She learned to hate the Lasting Altar when she had visited with Jakgri some sixty years ago, after the monks had summoned him. The memories brought her as much pain as her fall. She struggled to stand.
“Are you all right?”
Watai looked up to see a tall and beautiful woman offering her hand. Although she didn’t know the woman’s face, she recognized the mantle she wore with its twin dragons of Ionia encircling her head like a halo. Karma.
“I’m fine,” Watai said brusquely. “I have an appointment to see you.”
“Welcome, wayfarer.” The woman smiled beatifically, her dark eyes sparkling, as she took Watai’s hand in her own. “Here, let me try…” Karma flexed her free hand and a pulsing green light surrounded her. Watai’s skin prickled—the glow felt cold against her skin. The woman pulled Watai to her feet. “How’s that?”
Gingerly, Watai tested her leg. The knee held. Yet seeing this new Karma wield this power broke her heart. “I can stand,” she said, her voice tight.
The other woman looked at Watai in concern. “Are you sure? You don’t seem—”
“My leg is fine, Enlightened One,” Watai snapped, pulling her hand back. “But your magic can’t heal every pain.”
She had expected the other woman to look confused or upset, but instead Karma looked… calm.
“You’re right,” Karma said, nodding placidly as she ushered Watai into the simple meditation room. “I can’t heal grief. If you lost someone in the war, there’s nothing I can do except apologize. I’ve spent years apologizing across the country, for the loss and the pain that followed my decision to support… to pursue the war against Noxus. But…” A pause, a deep breath. “I am not sorry that I—that Ionia—fought back.”
Watai and Karma stared at each other for a long beat. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” Karma asked, not unkindly.
Watai took a few moments to compose herself. “My loss was before the war.” She held up her hand. “Do you know this ring?”
Karma’s gaze turned to the jade ring and she gasped. “Yes. I gave it to… No. He? He gave it to someone.” She closed her eyes, covering them with her hands.
Watai knew from her time with Jakgri that Karma was concentrating hard, trying to access memories that weren’t fully her own. “It’s okay. Take your time.”
Sixty years ago, Jakgri had asked Watai, his betrothed, to accompany him on a trip to the Lasting Altar. Watai, who had never traveled outside their village, was excited to see more of the world. Maybe this was how their life together could be from this point on. And so Watai and Jakgri set out together on the two-month journey to the monastery.
You will love it here, Jakgri had exclaimed. His smile was burned into her mind. I know it’s far from our village, but we’ll have the woodweaver grow plenty of bedrooms in our house for your family when they visit. We’ll live together in the town just outside the monastery. Isn’t it wonderful?
But the life they had dreamed of together was not to be. Watai quickly discovered that she couldn’t be so far from her home and family and still be happy. But Jakgri’s path led him here—there was no way he could go back. He had a duty to fulfill. So she journeyed back to their village alone, still wearing his ring, never expecting to return. Never expecting to see her Karma again.
Finally, Karma’s hands fell to her side as her eyes flew open. Her irises glowed the same green that Jakgri’s had when he was speaking with the countless voices in his mind. His past lives, now hers. Karma blinked and her eyes faded to normal.
“Watai?” There was incredulity in her voice, the fear that she was wrong.
But she wasn’t. “Oh, bless the spirits,” Watai said, wiping tears away before they had a chance to fall. “I wasn’t sure if Jakgri was… himself, in you.”
“He is and he isn’t. His memories are mine, but…” She trailed off, suddenly timid.
That was fine. That was enough. Watai looked directly into Karma’s eyes, hoping Jakgri could see her through them. Watai wanted to unburden her heart before she died full of regret. “I’m sorry, Jakgri. I wish I could have stayed here with you, or that you could have returned home with me. I hope you were able to find another to love. I don’t like to think of you alone.”
She removed her ring and placed it in Karma’s palm, closing the woman’s long fingers around it.
“No.” Many voices spoke as one, Karma’s eyes alight with the souls of the past once more. “Jakgri loved you to the end of his days. His only regret in becoming Karma was that he could not share his life here with you. But he was never alone. He had the spirit of Ionia with him always.” She held the ring out to Watai. “He desires for you to keep his ring, if you still want it.”
Under Karma’s watchful gaze, Watai slipped the ring back on her finger. It felt right, for she had never loved another either. “I love you, Jakgri,” she whispered, shaken but elated. “I love you.”
A dark-eyed Karma looked back at Watai. “I’m sorry. It never lasts long.”
Watai nodded, her throat tight. “Thank you. For this.”
“I should be thanking you, Watai.”
“Why?”
“He hasn’t spoken to me,” she murmured. “Not since the attack. He… was disappointed, then went silent. Years without Jakgri’s voice, without the wisdom of the Karma who came before me.” She took Watai’s hands in her own with a sudden intensity. “Thank you, for bringing him back to me.”
Karma—or Darha, as she introduced herself—asked Watai to stay a few days longer at the Lasting Altar. Perhaps together they could begin to heal, as one of them said goodbye to Jakgri and one welcomed him back.
As she left the meditation room, Watai looked at the glint of moonlight on her ring, admiring its fidelity. Like her love for Jakgri, and his for her, it had stayed true, unscratched and unsullied, for over sixty years. Even when she died, when her bones were picked clean by the sky, this ring would remain, a token of the love they shared.
Through Karma, their love would outlast lifetimes. | Mage |
The sea was mirror-smooth and dark. A pirate’s moon hung low on the horizon as it had for the last six nights. Not so much as a whisper of wind stirred the air, only that damned dirge carried from who knew where. Vionax had sailed the oceans around Noxus long enough to know that seas like this only ever presaged ill-fortune. She stood on the Darkwill’s foredeck, training her spyglass on the far ocean, searching for anything she could use to plot their position.
“Nothing but sea in all directions,” she said to the night. “No land in sight and no stars I recognize. Our sails are empty of wind. The oar decks have rowed for days, but no matter which way we turn, land never comes and the moon neither waxes nor wanes.”
She took a moment to rub the heels of her palms against her face. Thirst and hunger growled in her belly and the constant darkness had made it impossible to accurately gauge the passage of time. The Darkwill wasn’t even her ship. She’d been it’s first mate until a Freljordian reaver’s axe had split Captain Mettok’s skull and given her a sudden promotion. The captain and fifteen other Noxian warriors were laid within sewn-up hammocks on the main deck. The growing stench rising from the bodies was the only consistent measure of time’s passing.
She lifted her gaze to the open ocean and her eyes widened as she saw thick black mist rising from the water. Shapes moved in the mist, lambent suggestions of clawed arms and gaping mouths. That damned dirge rang out over the water again, louder now and accompanied by the dolorous peals of a funeral bell.
“The Black Mist,” she said. “All hands on deck!”
She turned and vaulted down to the main deck, running for the quarterdeck and the ship’s wheel. Not that she could do anything to move the ship, but she’d be damned if she’d be found anywhere else. A haunting lament for lost souls drifted over the ship as men stumbled from below decks, and even as terror shivered her spine, Vionax couldn’t deny the poetry in the sound. Tears pricked her eyes and ran down her cheeks, not in fear, but from infinite sadness.
“Let me end your grief.”
The voice in her head was cold and lifeless, the voice of a dead man. It conjured the image of iron-rimmed wheels on a corpse-heaped cart, a knife cutting yet another death mark on a staff. Vionax knew the tales of the Black Mist; she knew to avoid the islands brooding beneath the darkness in the east. She’d thought the ship was far from the Shadow Isles, but she was wrong.
She pulled up short as black mist boiled up over the gunwale, bringing with it howls and screeches of dead things. Wraiths spun overhead, a swirling chorus of the damned, and the Darkwill’s crew cried out in terror at the sight of them. Vionax drew her pistol and cocked the hammer as a figure loomed from the mist; towering and wide-shouldered, robed in tattered vestments like an ancient prelate, yet his shoulders and gaunt skull were armored as a warrior. A chained book hung at his waist and he carried a long staff with its haft notched by countless tally-marks. Spectral light shone at its tip and burned like a fallen star in the palm of his free hand.
“Why do you cry?” said the creature. “I am Karthus, and I bring you a great gift.”
“I don’t want your gift,” said Vionax, pulling the trigger. Her pistol boomed and fire exploded from the barrel. The shot struck the monstrous wraith, but passed through it without harm.
“You mortals,” said Karthus, shaking his helmeted head. “You fear what you do not understand and would turn away from a boon that is freely offered.”
The monster drifted closer, and the dark radiance of his staff bathed the ship’s deck in pale, sickly light. Vionax backed away from the wraith’s chill as her crew fell before the light, their souls drifting like steam from their bodies. Her heel caught on one of the laid out hammocks and she tripped, falling backwards onto her haunches. She pushed herself away from Karthus, scrambling over the bodies of her fellow sailors.
The hammock beneath her moved.
They were all moving, squirming and writhing like fresh-caught fish gasping for air at the bottom of a boat. Tendrils of mist rose from tears in the canvas and between the rough stitches the ship’s sailmaker had used to sew them shut. Faces moved in the mist, faces she’d sailed with for years, men and women she’d fought beside.
The wraith towered over her and the dead crew of the Darkwill stood beside him, their spirit forms limned in moonlight.
“Death is nothing to be feared, Mistress Vionax,” said Karthus. “It will free you from all your pain. It will lift your eyes from your mundane existence and show you the glory of life eternal. Embrace the beauty and wonder of death. Let go of your mortality. You do not need it.”
He held his hand out and the light there swelled to envelop her. She screamed as it pressed through her skin, into muscle, through bone, down to her very soul. The wraith clenched his fist and Vionax cried out as she felt herself being unwoven from the inside out.
“Let your soul fly free,” said Karthus, turning to carve another notch in his staff with a sharpened nail. “You shall feel no pain, no fear, no desire to feel anything but the beauty of what I have to show you. Miracles and wonders await, mortal. Why would you not crave such rapture...?”
“No,” she said with her last breath. “I don’t want to see.”
“It is already done,” said Karthus. | Mage |
Kennen had not slowed since setting off from the Great Temple of Koeshin.
The colors of the land formed a swirling palette as he flitted over hills and cliffs, plains and plateaus. The yordle was like a speeding dot amid broad strokes painted on canvas.
As the Kinkou’s Heart of the Tempest, he had delivered the judgment of the order’s leadership thousands of times before. But this time it’s different, Kennen thought. This time it’s about the lives of my Kinkou brothers and sisters.
An urgent request had come from a branch of acolytes to the south. Their temple had been corrupted by an unknown evil spirit. They could find no way to repel it, and so they sought aid from the Kinkou triumvirate.
With Akali’s former role as Fist of Shadow currently unfilled, this “triumvirate” consisted of just two leaders: Shen—the Eye of Twilight—and Kennen. They had made a decision, and now, Kennen raced to distant Raishai, on the southern coast of Zhyun.
When Noxus invaded Ionia many seasons ago, the triumvirate ruled that the Kinkou would not be involved in the war. The Raishai acolytes had been among the order’s most faithful, supporting the edict without question.
And for that, I must save them.
Kennen followed a churning river and dashed across ample golden grassland. Bolting through the misty forests of the southern Shon-Xan mountains, he was like lightning zipping through clouds. He passed a series of ruins, including the village of Xuanain.
It wasn’t until he reached the harbor town of Evirny that Kennen came to a halt under the morning sun. Zhyun’s shore was across the strait, beyond shimmering blue waters.
Kennen boarded the first ferry just before it set sail. Its mast was a living tree grown out of the hull, branches arcing backward, massive leaves catching the sea breeze like membranes on the wings of a southern-isles wyvern.
There was a loose crowd on the ferry, with Kennen the only yordle. The humans tipped their heads to him.
Yordles were treated with respect among Ionians, even when the spirit creatures appeared in their true form, as Kennen did now—as he always did, for he had achieved a state of balance through his Kinkou training. Especially through the teachings of the first Great Master, Tagaciiry, the first Fist of Shadow.
When Kennen joined the Kinkou centuries ago, Tagaciiry had inquired what the yordle admired most about humans.
“Your stories. You have so many.” Kennen’s eyes were wide. “Your lives are short, but your stories preserve what you hold most dear. That’s why you’re better suited for safeguarding the realms than any of the undying.”
Under that clear sky and the blazing sun, Kennen had shared his thoughts on what role he could play for the Kinkou. The Great Master listened, and considered his words.
“Someday, all of you will die,” Kennen added cheerfully. “I’d like to bear your stories. The story of the Kinkou.”
Great Master Tagaciiry had smiled then. “That is a noble idea, and not a small responsibility.”
“I can begin now, by delivering our verdicts to the people.”
“Very well,” said the Great Master. “Your role shall be Coursing the Sun—to shine the light of our judgment, and be the force that mediates between that light and its shadows.”
Kennen stirred from his reverie as the dock came into view, under chalky white cliffs crowned by an emerald expanse of trees.
He waved a clawed hand at the passengers behind him, and they wished him fair winds and swift travel. He jumped off the ferry even before it slowed to dock, skipping over water and onto land.
A storm was beginning to brew. Kennen’s Kinkou robes and mask were soaking wet as he charged through pouring rain, and he went on without food or rest.
I hope I’m not too late.
Dark clouds whirled low, pierced by lightning as the yordle leader arrived.
Kennen noted twenty acolytes sitting in front of the Raishai temple. The building appeared unremarkable, solid and intact.
“Master Kennen, you’re here.” The head of the acolytes, Hayda, stood in deference, but his limbs quaked, his knees buckling under him. “You need to help us fight the baleful spirit that plagues our temple…”
The rest of the acolytes slowly rose, their eyes glassy.
Kennen was hoping that he and Shen had been wrong, but now their worst fear was confirmed. He felt a pang of sadness. They’ve been so loyal.
“There is nothing to be fought,” Kennen told Hayda, his voice soft with grief. “The temple isn’t corrupted. It’s you. All of you.”
A riot of noise broke out. Several acolytes tilted their heads, glaring.
“Corrupted?” Hayda’s eyes bored into Kennen. “We have always obeyed… Long ago, when you told us not to fight the Noxian invaders, we stood by while our people were slaughtered!” His face contorted unnaturally, as if it had melted. “And then, when our fellow Ionians in Tuula, Kashuri, and Huroi called for aid, you bade us not to heed them, and again, we obeyed! We’ve forsaken the opportunity to bring justice to Noxus!”
“You’re filled with anguish,” Kennen said, “and malevolent entities of the spirit realm are feeding on it. They’re feeding on you.”
Kennen could see what the humans could not: dark smoke emanated from them, like tentacles bursting from their bodies. They were surrounded by inky tendrils that sought to devour, creatures clawing out of the spirit realm with greater force as their prey grew more agitated—eventually, they would consume these Kinkou and wreak havoc in Raishai.
“The world is changing,” he said. “Zhyun has descended into turmoil, and you’re torn between what the Kinkou demands of you and what your hearts desire.” He paused, then said what he came to say. “I’m releasing you from the order.”
“You’re banishing us?” said an acolyte in the back row.
“You can’t preserve the balance between realms in this state.” Kennen looked at each acolyte in turn. I need to get through to them. “Leave the Kinkou now. This is the only way you can heal. Do what you will, so your dark emotions won’t destroy you.”
“You want to get rid of us now that we’re no longer useful to you. This is dishonor!” Hayda flashed his blade. The acolytes howled in unison, unaware that shadowy talons were grasping at them with voracious intent.
Kennen could feel their pain, the kind born out of the rift between two worlds of belief. The kind Akali had felt before she left. Yet, he let lightning crackle between his hands. “Don’t think to test me.”
Snarling, Hayda and several acolytes charged forward.
The small yordle waltzed between the clumsy humans, easily evading all attacks. He clicked his clawed fingers, and arcs of electricity rippled out, dropping his attackers in one ferocious burst.
They moaned as they twitched on the muddy ground. The rest stopped, uncertain about what to do. Grief, guilt, shame—the acolytes’ faces were masks of agony, the rain washing over the ichor oozing from their eyes.
Kennen flipped away, out of range, and sighed. Then he remembered something he had learned from humans.
Sometimes, to tell a story is to lie.
“Let your story be mine to tell.” He pulled down his mask. “Go now, in peace. The sinister influence will remain in Zhyun, but the Kinkou will hear you fought hard against it before you left the order, with honor.”
To fabricate truth. To preserve what you hold most dear.
The acolytes’ eyes cleared for a moment, and the dark vapor began to dissipate. No one spoke, but some nodded their understanding to the yordle. Eventually, those who could gathered their wounded.
It was always tough to watch old comrades go, but Kennen knew it was for the best. They had devoted themselves to the Kinkou, and now they were free to find a new purpose. Their mental state could regain balance, and the malevolent entities would have nothing to feed on.
The yordle watched as the former acolytes stumbled away into the gloom. The rain did not abate. The drenched humans looked small and vulnerable.
Someday, all of you will die, Kennen thought, sorrow gripping his heart.
But I will bear your story. | Mage |
A hero is anyone who answers the call to do what must be done.
They sacrifice so much because of a singular truth: this fragile world requires protection.
This means everything to Lissandra, who rarely rests, especially not on nights like tonight, when stars align in strange ways. The round apex of her private sanctum features many rune-inscribed windows to harness the powers from various celestial syzygies.
Thousands of dark, coffin-like ice formations protrude from the snow-carpeted ground. They rise like great black teeth, jutting up from the depths below, poised to devour the sky. She knows exactly how far down these boulders descend, where their roots terminate, and their purpose.
Lissandra strolls through this unique structure. Under this alignment of the Frost Moon and the Cold Star, she sees more without eyes than anyone who has ever dared set foot in this sacred space. Although it is quiet as a tomb, she hears what no one else can—the voices of the half-dreaming and half-dead trapped within each crystalline monolith.
An ancient troll-king says nothing. Its deep-set eyes scream with malice as it tracks her path. When she passes out of sight, the troll-king’s growl shakes its black ice keep.
Lissandra counts thirteen steps from the troll-king to her knight in rusty armor. Tonight, he speaks first.
“Kill the Ice Witch!” he says. His eyes half-lidded, his grim face stoic. His teeth are broken from decades of gnashing.
But his refrain catches on, as Lissandra winds through the forest of midnight ice.
“Kill the Ice Witch,” becomes a rousing chorus, with voices from across the world, all suspended in stasis, reliving the moment they killed said Ice Witch.
As for the Ice Witch herself, she finds it beautiful when such a diverse crowd rallies behind a single course of action. Their tortured nightmares lull others to sleep. Tonight, though, one voice is peculiarly silent.
Lissandra weaves her way through the crevasses between crystals, toward one of the most exotic heroes in her collection. Silence breeds mysteries, and she loves coaxing secrets from unspeaking lips... She feels a shift in temperature, an aura of warmth.
She is not alone. Someone uninvited walks her menagerie. Her footfalls are whispers on the snow as she follows the trail of warmth.
“Frozen tongues have no place here,” Lissandra says.
“Release my sister, witch!” a voice, gruff and husky, cries out.
Lissandra turns toward this unseen threat. Up, is all she has to think for blade-like shards of ice to erupt from the ground, blocking the intruder’s path. She hears wind gush from the infiltrator’s lungs. Then the soft thud of the fall.
“Demands without a greeting make for ill-mannered guests.”
The would-be interloper finds a shred of courage, then her voice.
“M-My sister is Hara from the Caravanserai of Gilded Scarabs. She dreamt of eight hundred years of ice unless she slew the Prophetess of Frost.” The girl mustered some defiance. “Release my sister, witch, and I shall spare your life.”
Lissandra finds no need to waste good breaths on a pitiful laugh.
“Ah, you seek a bargain, then.”
Lissandra runs her bony fingers across the surface of Hara’s casing and listens to the voice trapped within. The guest’s name dances on Hara’s tongue, and now on Lissandra’s as well.
“You ignored your sister’s command, Marjen. You abandoned the caravanserai.”
Marjen recoils from hearing her name on the Ice Witch’s tongue.
“How do you—”
“We are similar. I too deplore the pleas of unwise sisters.”
“Release her now, or I will end you.”
Marjen brandishes a blade that warms the bitter cold. It reeks of familiar and particularly hard-headed magic. Forged by an older spirit whose name Lissandra erased from the Freljord’s memory.
“Consider the Ice Witch’s offer. I shall relieve you of that warm dagger, and in return, reunite you with your dear sister Hara.”
The alignment of the Frost Moon with the Cold Star completes itself. Lissandra cannot see the shimmering pale blue light descending on the grotto. She wonders how it looks to this woman, born in the Great Sai.
Marjen nods in agreement.
“You are smarter than almost everyone here.” Lissandra’s blue lips stretch into a crooked smile.
“Kill the witch!” Hara screams from inside her own dark prison. Marjen’s heart beats out of time.
And her arm follows through. The blade arcs through the cold air. It plunges into Lissandra’s chest.
“You listened to your sister...”
Lissandra slumps to her knees, then topples over. Silently falling snow shrouds her body.
Marjen turns to Hara, encased in cracked ice. Its surface runs slick with brackish meltwater. Dark water pools on the white snow. Whatever magic that held her ebbs.
“Remember when mother taught us to sand-dance? Follow the heat with the soles of your feet. Follow the heat, Hara. Follow me.”
The cracks widen in Hara’s prison as she struggles to break free. Finally, the edifice crumbles and there she is, kneeling by Marjen’s side in an inky puddle. Relief sweeps both their faces as they embrace.
“We did it,” Marjen says. “The caravanserai is safe. There is no eight-hundred-year freeze coming.”
Hara pulls closer, and whispers in Marjen’s ear.
“Sisters who listen...” Instead of Hara’s voice, she hears the cold, calm voice of the Ice Witch. “...are the easiest to trick.”
Marjen breaks their embrace. Hara’s eyes widen at the words pouring out of her mouth. Her lips mouth a single word.
Run.
Only Marjen can’t. Her fur-lined leather boots have iced over, freezing her to the ground. Black ice crawls up their legs.
“I-I killed...” She looks to Lissandra’s body, but sees only virgin snow. That’s when she sees the blade still in her hand.
The realization dawns on Marjen.
“I never threw the knife.”
A flash of chalk-white catches her attention. She looks up to the rune-inscribed window above. Where there should be a Frost Moon over a Cold Star, a pair of dark blue lips stretch into a mocking grin.
“Sisters,” Lissandra whispers to the two women inside their frozen tombs, “inseparable, devoted, but still so utterly foolish...”
Marjen and Hara, their arms wrapped around each other in a sisterly embrace that turns to terror. They lock eyes as the dark ice entombs their faces.
Lissandra admires her latest acquisition. “I found it more convenient to lose mine.”
Where a single rock of black ice once stood, two now stand, joined together at the base. Sisters perpetually reunited—Marjen and Hara from the Great Sai, their bond stronger than the distance between tundra and desert. A reunion so powerful, Lissandra tastes the satisfaction of the feasting monsters below. The illusions cast by the dreams of the sisters, projected through ice, will keep the beasts slumbering a little while longer.
How exhausting this work is, lulling monsters to sleep.
Tonight, Lissandra too may rest. For the hero protects this fragile world just a little bit longer. | Mage |
The earthquake had struck Terbisia at dawn, the earth bucking like an unbroken colt and splitting apart in gaping fissures. Lux rode Starfire through the toppled ruin of the defensive barbican, the thirty-foot high walls of sun-bleached stone looking like Noxian siege engines had bombarded them for weeks. She guided her horse carefully between fallen blocks of masonry, heading to where a makeshift infirmary had been set up within a blue and white market pavilion.The scale of the devastation was unlike anything Lux had seen before. Terbisia’s buildings were crafted from hard mountain granite and Demacian oak, raised high by communal strength. And almost all of them had been completely destroyed. Dust-covered men and women dug through the shattered ruins with picks and shovels, hoping to find survivors, but instead, dragged corpses from the debris. Entire streets had simply vanished into the many smoking chasms now dividing the town’s districts.Lux dismounted as she reached the pavilion, and pushed inside. She wasn’t a healer, but she could fetch and carry or simply sit with the wounded. She’d thought that seeing the scale of the devastation would prepare her for the suffering within the tent.She was wrong.Hundreds of survivors pulled from the wreckage lay on woolen blankets. Lux heard mothers and fathers crying for lost children, wives and husbands clinging to their dead loved ones, and, worst of all, bewildered, glassy-eyed orphans wandering lost and afraid. Lux saw a surgeon she recognized in a blood-stiffened apron washing his hands in a pewter bowl and made her way toward him.“Surgeon Alzar,” she said. “Tell me how I can help.”He turned, his eyes haunted and rheumy with tears. It took a moment for recognition to penetrate the fog of his grief.“Lady Crownguard,” said Alzar, giving a short bow.“Lux,” she said. “Please, what can I do?”The physician sighed and said, “Truly you are a blessing, my lady, but I would spare you the horror of what has happened here.”“Spare me nothing, Alzar,” snapped Lux. “I am Demacian, and Demacians help one another.”“Of course, forgive me, my lady,” said Alzar, taking a fatigued breath. “Your presence will be a boon to the wounded.”Alzar led her toward a young man lying stretched out on a low pallet bed near the back of the pavilion. Lux gasped to see the horror of his wounds. His body was broken, all but crushed by rubble, and his eyes were bound in bloody bandages. From his stoic refusal to show pain, she guessed he was a soldier.“He dug a family from the rubble of their collapsed home,” said Alzar. “He rescued them, but kept looking for survivors. There was a second quake, and another building fell to ruin on top of him. The rubble crushed his lungs, and shards of glass put out his eyes.”“How long does he have?” asked Lux, careful to keep her voice low.“Only the gods know, but his time is short,” said Alzar. “If you would stay at his side, it would ease his passing into the arms of the Veiled Lady.”Lux nodded and sat beside the dying man. She took his hand, feeling her heart break for him. Alzar smiled gratefully and turned back to helping those he could save.“It’s so dark,” said the man, waking at her touch. “Gods, I can’t see!”“Steady now, soldier. Tell me your name,” said Lux.“It’s Dothan,” he said, wheezing with the effort.“You’re named for the hero of Dawnhold?”“Aye. You know the story? It’s an old tally against the savages.”“Trust me, I know it well,” said Lux with a rueful smile. “My brother told it all the time when we were children. He always forced me to play the Freljordian corsairs while he played Dothan, defending the harbor single-handedly against the skinwalkers.”“I tried to be like him,” said the young man, his breathing labored and his voice growing faint. A rivulet of blood leaked from beneath the bandage like a red tear. “I tried to live up to my namesake.”Lux held his hand in both of hers.“You did,” she said. “Alzar told me what happened. You’re a true Demacian hero.”The lines on Dothan’s face eased a little, his breath rattling in his throat as his strength began to fail.“Why can’t I see?”“Your eyes,” said Lux slowly. “I’m so sorry.”“What... what’s wrong with them?”“Surgeon Alzar told me you have shards of glass in them.”The man drew in a sharp breath.“I’m dying,” he said. “I know that... but I should... have liked to behold the light of... Demacia... one last... time.”Lux felt the magic stir within her, but whispered the mantra taught to her by the Illuminators to keep it from rising too close to the surface. Over the years, she’d learned to better control her power, but sometimes, when her emotions ran close to the surface, it was hard to keep the energies contained. She looked around and, satisfied no one was watching, placed her fingertips on the bloody bandage covering Dothan’s eyes. Lux eased the numinous radiance of her magic down through the man’s skull to the undamaged parts of his eyes.“I can’t heal you,” she said, “but I can at least give you that.”He squeezed her hand, his mouth falling open in wonder as Demacia’s light shone within him.“It’s so beautiful...” he whispered. | Mage |
Beneath the glare of the Shuriman sun, there have always been those blessed with the power of foresight. The only son of aging trinket peddlers, Malzahar did not realize his gift until his parents had already succumbed to a wasting sickness, leaving the young, traumatized boy to fend for himself on the city streets of Amakra. He read fortunes in the gutter, for a coin or scraps of bread.
As his auguries proved more and more accurate, his reputation grew. He used his second sight to predict who a curious cameleer might marry, or where throwing daggers would land in games of chance at the bazaar. Soon, he began to receive patrons dressed not in dirtied sandals, but jeweled slippers.
However, for all this, Malzahar could never see his own destiny. His future was hidden.
Increasingly disillusioned with his success, he noted the common disparities of wealth, and witnessed those unhappy with their lives acting out in spiteful violence against one another. It was apparent to him that people were bound up in a never-ending cycle of pain, often of their own making, and no hopeful prophecy seemed able to break it. Malzahar himself soon felt nothing but a sense of emptiness, finally relinquishing his mortal possessions and leaving Amakra for good.
For years, he roamed the land, from the trackless wastes of the lesser sai to the ruins of old Shurima. By distancing himself from others, he was alone with his thoughts at last. He divined not just how callous people could be, but also how corrupt the world might yet become. Feverish visions began to plague his waking hours, along with otherworldly whispers of war and strife, and endless suffering.
He wandered far, until the sands turned to salt. He could not know that he had arrived in Icathia, a lost city ravaged in the wars of a bygone age. There, gazing into the depths of a ragged abyss, Malzahar opened his unsteady mind, desperate for understanding.
And the Void answered.
That would have been the end of any other tale, and yet somehow Malzahar endured. What lay in the darkness below brushed against the soul of the broken seer, only for an instant, and yet its strange and unknowable energies saturated his mind completely.
The lone figure that eventually strode out of Icathia was no longer just a man, but something greater. Malzahar had seen in the abyss an end to all the suffering he had witnessed in his mortal lifetime. He realized the future he had believed hidden from him all this time was in fact a vision of his true calling: to accelerate the world toward inevitable oblivion. He had to return to the people, and spread word of the holy nothingness that would gladly embrace them, the willing and non-believers alike. He would become the herald of the world’s salvation.
Among the nomads of the deep desert, he found his first disciples. Before their astonished eyes, he used his new Void-given powers to rend the very earth itself, summoning chittering, nightmarish creatures to carry away any who dared to deny him. Within a matter of months, strange rumors began to travel with the merchant caravans; rumors of men and women gladly sacrificing themselves to unseen powers, and of powerful quakes opening up the bedrock of Shurima in new fault lines hundreds of miles long.
In the years since, Malzahar’s legend has spread even to the northern ports. As followers of “the Prophet” grow in number, nearby settlers are said to experience malefic visions grasping at their hearts, and fear gives rise to superstition—even the hardy villagers of the far wastes now make offerings of livestock to appease the voidling creatures below.
Little do they know, this only helps Malzahar in shepherding the coming of the end. | Mage |
Rin stubbed his toe on a root and stumbled, catching himself before he lost his balance. A few paces in front of him, his great aunt looked back.
“Need my old bones to slow down for you? Ho ha!” she chuckled.
“No,” he murmured to his shoes. His great aunt Peria was snow-haired and stooped with age, though she was still a few inches taller than Rin. He wished he could be as tall as his horrible brother—he would have towered over both of them if he was there.
Rin had never been in this part of the woods before. The pine trees grew closer together, so much that the light of the noonday sun had diminished to a glimmer amongst the shadows.
Aunt Peria stopped ahead. At first, he thought she stood in front of a mossy boulder, but as he caught up he saw the remains of a stone figure, eroded by time. Rin fiddled with the rocks in his pocket.
“Aha! Do you know who this is?” asked Aunt Peria.
“Uh, some old noble from the city?” said Rin.
“Oh no!” said Aunt Peria cheerfully. “To many, she was no more than shadow and myth. A figure known as the Veiled One.”
Aunt Peria lifted her lantern up toward the figure. The statue’s left arm was missing from the shoulder, but her right palm was open, as if inviting them forward. Upon her head was what must have once been a delicate stone shroud, now coated in vines. Feathered stubs rose from her shoulders, broken and weathered. Rin could see that part of her face had crumbled garishly, and he shivered. The unbroken half of her face was not much better—her remaining eye was marked with stains, and her expression was spiteful, as if she was about to spit out sour milk.
“Don’t like her?” Aunt Peria said, amused. “You are not the only one. She is not the most beloved. But she knows all about revenge.”
Rin’s eyes widened. He thought he’d been so careful.
“Yes, yes, I heard the rocks clacking around your pocket,” said Aunt Peria. “I know you’re planning to get back at your brother. He didn’t mean to hurt you, you know.”
“He hit me in the eye with the blunt of his axe!” Rin cried. “What do you think he meant to do? Shouldn’t he be the one who gets a lesson?”
“He was showing you where to chop wood. You know he would never hurt you on purpose,” said Aunt Peria.
“He deserves his own black eye!”
“And if you gave him one, what lesson do you think he would learn from that, hmm?”
Rin did not think Aunt Peria would much like his response, so he stayed silent.
“No answer? A story, then,” said Aunt Peria. “Now, listen!”
Rin sat himself down in front of the statue. With a sigh, he leaned his head against his hand.
“Long ago, in the deepest, darkest woods, where the trees grew together so tightly no sign of the sky or stars was visible, the Veiled One lived, far away from any settlement. Though few spoke with her, it was believed that she was older than dawn, sharper and wiser than any in the land. Those with disputes they could not solve themselves would come to her for final judgment, to seek wisdom, absolution—and occasionally, punishment. But they did so with caution, for it was also known that her lessons could be severe.
“One day, a Cleric and his Pupil entered the woods to find the Veiled One, for the Pupil had erred. The Pupil had acted in anger against his elder, striking him with a censer. Smouldering incense had scarred the Cleric’s face with a grotesque burn. The Pupil knew he done wrong and wanted to repent.
“The two had journeyed a day and a night before they found the Veiled One.
“They entered a cavern illuminated by candles. Water dripped from the ceiling, and strange potions lined the walls. It stank of gravesoil and moss. Dozens of raven-black feathers littered the floor.
“A figure silently emerged from the shadows to meet them—the Veiled One. A black shroud hid most of her features from sight, but her eerily violet eyes shone through. Her feet were bare on the cold stone floor. As the Pupil told his tale, she gazed at him with an unbroken stare.
“‘I see that your actions were no accident,’ spoke the Veiled One at last. Her voice, though rarely heard, was barbed like a thornbush. ‘You acted with purpose and certainty. And yet, now you feel much pain at having hurt your master.’
“‘Aye, I wish to atone for my sins so that I may rid myself of this guilt,’ he said.
“‘Guilt can teach many things to a heart humbled by intent. Why did you strike your master?’ she asked.
“‘It was an act of anger. I was wrong,’ said the Pupil.
“‘Perhaps. What caused your anger?’ asked the Veiled One.
“The Pupil looked to his Cleric, and cast his eyes down.
“‘In my foolishness, I sought to end his lesson to another student,’ said the Pupil.
“‘And what was that lesson?’
“Before the Pupil could answer, the Cleric interrupted.
“‘My students require instruction in myriad ways,’ he said. ‘I teach them manners, patience, and restraint. If I must, I will use the lash. I do not enjoy it—these lessons are my sacred duty.’
“The Veiled One peered at the Cleric. Behind the shroud, her eyes seemed to bore into him.
“‘But you do enjoy them,’ she said.
“‘I beg—’
“‘Tell me, scarred master, are your lessons truly for the good of your students? Or do you punish them to relish their suffering?’ said the Veiled One.
“‘No,’ the Pupil interrupted. ‘He can’t have, he cares about us—’
“The Cleric raised his hand and struck the boy.
“‘I don’t need your lying breath to defend me,’ spat the Cleric, his scarred face vivid with anger.
“The Veiled One opened her palm and chained the Cleric to her with dark fire. The bindings glimmered with immaterial violet light, but the Cleric could not break them as he struggled.
“‘You came to me for another’s punishment,’ she hissed. ‘But you ignore your own sins. Your sick pride swells as they come back to you, Cleric. Since you refuse to look yourself, I will make you feel the pain you caused.’
“Through the chains that bound them, the Veiled One forced him to endure all the shame, suffering, and loneliness he had inflicted on his pupils. For an instant, the Cleric’s heart stopped, as a great weight he had never known constricted his very soul. He fell to his knees, fixed in place by bitter torment, as shadowed flames licked his flesh.
“‘Stop, please stop!’ the student cried. ‘Please, punish me in his place. He has suffered enough!’
“‘You defend him, even now,’ said the Veiled One. ‘The wretch has much to learn ere death's mercy lays claim. He alone must feel the pain he caused so he may never hurt another. You came here seeking understanding—its burden is now yours to bear.’
“The Pupil did not show his face at his cloister for many days. But when hunger and fatigue overcame him, he finally forgot his fear of his master’s lash. Upon his return, he found the Cleric a different man. Where his elder had been cruel and uncaring, he was patient and gentle. For though the burn on his face had not yet healed, the Veiled One’s lesson had cut far deeper.”
Aunt Peria set her lantern at the base of the statue. Half her stone-gray face was lost to darkness, with flickering shadows running down her shroud like tears.
“Be careful, Rin, when wishing for punishment. Can you teach a lesson that will make your brother a better person? Even if he did hit you on purpose, there is no sense in you punishing him selfishly.”
Rin felt the rocks in his pocket.
“I guess my brother did say he was sorry. After I fell down from getting hit in the eye,” he said. He begrudgingly dropped the rocks to the forest floor.
“Wonderful! Let us give thanks to the Veiled One.”
Aunt Peria opened her lantern and blew the candle out.
“Remember—revenge is an act of pride, but teaching is selfless,” she said. “In case you forget, I’ll be watching you! Ha! And the Veiled One might be, too!”
Rin watched the smoke curl and unfold around the statue’s empty stone eye, shrouding the figure in shadow. When he looked back, Aunt Peria had set off through the trees, back toward the village. Rin hurried to catch up. | Mage |
Neeko was familiar with the shapes of humans, and while they had their quirks—socks for instance… why?—they never struck her as particularly strange. Not until the outpost at Kalduga.
The ugly compound was carved into the cliffs near the outskirts of the jungle by a tribe of humans called “Noxians”. They had inhabited the outpost for a while, it seemed, based on how irritable yet comfortable they seemed performing their daily routines.
Neeko wondered… were they friendly? Did they enjoy cheese breads? There were other questions, too, but these were at the top of her mind when she decided to see for herself.
Under the cover of night, she slinked in and out of shadows until she reached the gate. A single guard stood watch. This was not a problem at all. Neeko loved disguises! Adopting another entity’s shape meant sharing their sho’ma—a complex web of emotions and recent memories.
She reached out with her own sho’ma, feeling for the outer boundary of the guard’s aura, which extended far beyond her body. When her spirit met the guard’s, a name floated to the surface of Neeko’s mind: Ewaii. From across the desert. A flavor-color came next. Burnt-orange bitterness over her lost home still graced Ewaii’s mind, and the blue-salt resentment about her station: the backwater-nowhere outpost with no strategic value, but try telling the commander that. This Ewaii had dark skin and beautiful oval eyes. She was strong, but few took her seriously since she was a “mud-heel”—a simple soldier. Fascinated, Neeko shed her natural, chameleon-like appearance for Ewaii’s shape.
Neeko’s skin swirled as her body morphed. It tickled her, but dizzied Ewaii. She used the guard’s disorientation to slip beyond the gates and into the quiet corridors of the outpost, firmly incognito.
“Ewaii!” a shrill voice cried. “Get back to your post!” The rotund man, his belly poking out from under his breastplate, seemed startled. In the crook of his elbow were several toasted taffa roots and two loaves of crusty bread.
“I heard noises.” Neeko put on her best impression of Ewaii’s voice.
“It’s probably bloody furtails. Better hunt them down. Then we can enjoy some furtail pie.”
“Not furtails!” Neeko did not want to eat those curious, funny little creatures.
“Are you saying there’s an intruder?” The man’s eyes widened.
Neeko did not know the meaning of this word. So she shrugged and nodded yes. This gesture, she figured, could surely lead to little trouble.
“Wilderfolk,” he said. “Could be a scouting party. What are you doing here? Raise the alarm!”
“Where is… alarm?”
“Have you lost your brain, Ewaii? I’ll do it. See the physician when this is over.”
With that, the heavy man scurried off, cramming his snacks into his pocket. But before he was gone, Neeko mingled her spirit’s motes with his, borrowing his shape, shedding Ewaii for this, this… Yubbers?
“Yubbers!” Neeko-as-Yubbers said out loud. That was a fun name to say. Yubbers did not like to be near the frontlines of war, so Kalduga was a quiet and welcome assignment. His strength was in corresponding with the empire. He was now scared—a rubbery, ashy yellow—at the thought of an attack by the wilderfolk. Neeko liked this man, but not the feeling of the masculine sho’ma. Too… not Neeko. Most importantly, she felt Yubbers’ shock of running into another soldier after he had raided the larder. Food was nearby.
As she headed down a hallway filled with doors, behind one of which must be the larder, Neeko heard a commotion out in the main yard. Loud voices shouting. She dashed to the nearest window and peered outside. Real-Yubbers was shouting at Real-Ewaii. Uh-oh.
BOOO-ONG! BOOOOOOOO-ONG! The sound of very loud bells startled Neeko-as-Yubbers.
Every door in the hallway burst open. Several half-dressed Noxians charged out, their eyes blinking away sleep. She tried to avoid the stampede, but was swept along, away from the larder. Neeko-as-Yubbers found herself pushed out into the yard with about a dozen armed soldiers.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Ewaii’s face was stressed and defiant. “I’ve been standing guard all night long!”
“You were in the barracks,” said Yubbers, flanked by two soldiers. “Take this deserter to the brig.” He pointed to Ewaii.
Then it happened. Yubbers saw Neeko-as-Yubbers.
Before Yubbers and other soldiers deduced whether their double vision was the byproduct of the late hour or not, Neeko disappeared into the fog of another person.
This time, it was a warrior named Seda. She was a killing machine, so vicious! Spicy pink! Seda had rushed to the yard so fast she neglected boots. This was fine by Seda—and Neeko—as both liked going barefoot. It reminded Seda of the sun-scorched province where she was born. Agile. Silent…
Just as Neeko was thinking she could enjoy being Seda, Real-Seda leapt at her doppelganger.
The two Sedas wrestled in a ruckus of soldiers, fighting and pulling at each other. When the commotion settled, only one Seda remained. Of course, it was the real Seda, but Yubbers had her placed in chains. Seda pointed out that two Yubbers had been seen and he, too, was placed in chains. Then Ewaii.
This continued for a while. Chains went on. Chains came off. Nobody was sure who was who, and who was not who, and who was lying about not being who they were when they were really someone else. Even the outpost commander seemed uncertain what the source of all the trouble was, and Neeko didn’t take his shape at all! This fact came to light and only fueled more suspicion. Was the commander secretly harboring some monster?
The one thought that everyone shared, Neeko had learned from being everyone, was that no one liked the commander. He was too secretive, and weak-willed. He had lost an important battle and been demoted to, as Ewaii put it, this “backwater-nowhere outpost with no strategic value.” Everyone turned on the commander, and he was the first to die.
The mess only got messier from there. Soldiers screamed and fought and pointed blame. Some believed they were ensorcelled by a soul-eating demon. One veteran ranger told a harrowing tale of a jungle plant-monster that replaced people with mindless copies of themselves, with vines for veins.
Amidst accusations, elaborate quizzes of miniscule facts from times shared in training, and shouts of “Traitor!” Neeko tried to calm the troops.
“What if,” Neeko-as-a-cook-named-Thomsy said, “it is no monster? It is someone who is nice, lost, and a little scared, but just wants to make friends and eat cheese breads and be happy? Yes?”
Everyone in the Kalduga outpost knew at once this was the imposter. Swords came out and the stabbing began. By dawn, only four soldiers remained alive. They stared hollow-eyed at the blood pooled under the commander’s dead body, and at each other. Neeko watched them from the safety of the larder.
“The commander did not want us to abandon the outpost,” Seda said. She knelt down by the body and blessed him with a gesture of her people. “Exile or execution is our future.”
A moment of solemn silence passed through like a haunted, foul wind, despite the floral notes of taffa flowers blooming somewhere nearby.
Yubbers straightened up. “We’ll send a messenger bat to command. ‘The wilderfolk have overrun Kalduga. We do not expect to survive, but we will die for the glory of Noxus.’ Then we abandon the outpost. Leave the bodies where they lay. Seda, you go north. Gurnek will go east. Ewaii west. I’ll head south. If any one crosses paths with another, it is a duel to the death, for one of you—”
Ewaii shot a wary glance at Yubbers. “Or you.”
“—is the beast in disguise.”
The soldiers left an hour later. They did not look back at their abandoned post, or each other, as they went their separate ways, unsure of who was really who.
Humans were indeed strange creatures, Neeko thought. | Mage |
Orianna walked through the fairground, empty and still in the evening gloom. Sir Feisterly’s Fantastical Fair opened its gates to delighted crowds of Zaunites but twice a year, and Orianna did not want to miss her chance to see its wonders. She had waited until everyone had left for the day, and the rowdy laughter and accordion tunes had fallen silent. Only the low hum of nearby pipelines pumping steam through the chem district disturbed the quiet. Detritus lay strewn along the ground; colorful streamers and bright balloons mingling with crumpled wax paper that once held sweet jam pastries.
Orianna’s clockwork ball hovered beside her as she passed a stall overflowing with roses, which according to a sign, smelled like each day of the week. She walked by a wind-up monkey holding a pair of cymbals, and a cart laden with sugared apples. None of these Zaun-born delights piqued her interest; Orianna had eyes only for the glass cabinet tucked into a secluded corner at the far edge of the grounds.
A glimmering wink of metal flashed in the moonlight. It came from the mechanical boy sitting behind the glass. Orianna had seen nothing like him, and drew closer, intrigued. He was clad in a midnight-blue suit and a silk hat. His skin was a shell of pure porcelain that masked the delicate clockwork gears below, and his eyes shone with glints of silver thread. As Orianna approached him, his lips rearranged into a smile.
“Can you keep a secret?” the boy said. His voice reminded Orianna of softly chiming bells.
“Hello,” she said. “Of course.”
“What say we make a trade. My secret, for your name.”
“That seems fair. I am called Orianna.”
“Or-ee-AHN-uh,” he repeated. “Such soft sounds.”
Orianna could have sworn his porcelain cheeks blushed.
“I suppose it’s my turn. My name is Fieram. My secret is that I fear the outside world, though I long to see distant shores and far-off mountains.”
“Is that why you live in a cabinet?” she asked. “Because you are afraid?”
“From here, the world visits me,” said Fieram. “Behind the glass, I am safe. I’m very fragile, you see.” He pointed to a hairline fracture on his forearm. “There it is. I’m getting old.” Fieram’s mouth opened into a lopsided grin.
Orianna giggled and shrugged her shoulders, a gesture she had recently acquired, though she wasn’t quite sure if she had used it correctly.
“Oho! You haven’t seen my tricks yet,” said Fieram. He reached into his sleeve and produced a bouquet of daisies with a flourish.
“Ta-Da!” he exclaimed. “And...”
Fieram removed his hat and dipped his head in a nod. A half-dozen mechanical pigeons fluttered from beneath the brim. He brought his hands together in a clap and the entire cabinet filled with opaque red smoke. By the time it dissipated a few seconds later, the pigeons were gone.
Orianna applauded in delight. The ball whirred, impressed.
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “Like magic.”
“And that wasn’t even my best execution. Fumbled my sleeve a bit,” he admitted, folding his hands. “But small miracles are my specialty. Like you finding your way to me, in this great city! You, above all others.”
“You winked at me.” said Orianna. “Why?”
“We are kindred spirits, you and I. But you already knew that,” said Fieram. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” He shuffled his feet. Orianna marveled at the subtlety of his movement.
“It is just that I have never seen another like you,” she said.
“I’m one of a kind, aren’t I? Same as you,” said Fieram. He gestured toward her mechanical frame, and winked again.
Orianna smiled. Fieram leaned in against the glass.
“Your smile is—”
“Fabricated?” she said. “Yes. I am still mastering certain expressions.”
“... beautiful,” said Fieram.
“Well now you are going to make me blush.”
Orianna’s ball, hovering at her left shoulder, nudged her gently.
“Not now,” she told the ball. She lifted the mechanical monkey from its stall nearby and turned its key. It scuttled about the floor, eyes lit with a red glow, clashing its cymbals together at every third step before slowing to a halt.
“You are not like him, are you, Fieram? All wound up at the turn of a key?” she said. “You have a mind. You have thoughts.”
“I may be comprised of cogs and wheels, but I have dreams, like anyone.”
“I know you dream of leaving this place. Surely you are lonely behind this glass. Come with me. We could leave now, together,” Orianna said.
“Leave?” Fieram’s expression fell. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
“You have no doubt listened to the restless bustle of Zaun, or heard of the grand marvels in Piltover?” Orianna asked.
Fieram cocked his head.
“I like to ride the Rising Howl at dusk to catch the last of the day’s golden rays,” Orianna said. “From the very top you can see the harbor beyond the sea-gates, and the endless glistening ocean. From up there, you can imagine the smell of faraway lands.”
Orianna’s ball whirred as it spun in the air and nudged her again.
“I suppose now is as good a time as any,” she said. “Fieram, would you like to see the world? We could leave together, right now. I can protect you.”
“I can’t think of anything more wonderful,” he said.
Orianna circled the glass cabinet in search of an opening. An iron padlock secured a small door at its base. She raised a fist and brought it down upon the lock, smashing it open.
A watchman approached them.
“Hey! Stop that!”
With a glance from Orianna, the ball shot toward the watchman. It clanged upon impact with his helmet, then hovered in the air as if waiting for a command. Orianna nodded and the ball radiated waves of coruscating power. Caught in the energy flux, the watchman raised his baton and bashed it into the ball, which spun in midair before returning to his target.
A second watchman ran toward Orianna. She tried to pull Fieram through the door but his chair jammed in the opening.
“Fieram! Can you repeat your trick?”
The ball reverberated with energy as it whirled around the first watchman. His metal helmet fizzled with sparks.
“My tricks?” Fieram reached into his sleeve and pulled out the bouquet as Orianna spun away from the watchman.
“No, the other one!”
Fieram replaced his bouquet.
“The very last trick,” she said. “Quickly!”
The mechanical boy drew the bouquet from his sleeve once more.
Orianna spun toward the watchman, her metal dress fanning out in a flurry of sharp blades until the man backed away, baton raised.
“Get away from him, you!” said the watchman. “That’s our property you’re tampering with!”
“From here, the world visits me,” Fieram said.
He tipped his hat and pigeons poured out. The watchman aimed his baton at Orianna’s head, and she ducked just as Fieram clapped. The baton shattered the side of the glass cabinet and crimson smoke poured from the opening, obscuring all movement.
The first watchman had responded to the ball’s galvanic attacks with rageful abandon, throwing all his weight into every punch. The ball was relentless, however, and shot a final blast of energy toward his helmet, and the watchman fell down, unconscious. Whirring in satisfaction, the ball flew to Orianna. It unleashed voltaic waves toward the second watchman, rendering him motionless.
Orianna stepped into the smoke-filled cabinet. She lifted the mechanical boy from his chair but his legs would not flex to stand.
“Fieram! Fieram, we must leave.”
“Leave? I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.” A pair of metallic pigeons flew through the broken glass, but dropped to the ground a few feet from the door.
“Fieram, stand up so we can go,” Orianna said, her face falling. “Please.”
“Oho! You haven’t seen my tricks yet.” He pulled the bouquet from his sleeve.
Orianna ignored Fieram’s attempt to tip his hat and dragged him, still fixed in a seated posture, from the glass enclosure. Outside, her ball had cornered the second watchman, who had collapsed in a buzzing heap.
“And that wasn’t even my best execution. Fumbled my sleeve a bit,” said Fieram.
“You are not... your voice is... repeating?” Orianna said. His head lolled back awkwardly and she held it upright.
“My secret is that I fear the outside world,” he said.
Orianna noticed the embroidery lining his jacket.
Sir Feisterly’s Fantastical Fair
Friendly Fieram
He was nothing more than a simple automaton, a spectacle for the crowds.
“I was certain you had a mind. Had thoughts. Like me,” she said.
Fieram looked up at her with eyes that glinted with silver. “I’m one of a kind, aren’t I?” He shuffled his feet nervously, though they were in midair. “Same as you.”
The ball returned to Orianna and whirred gently.
“We should go,” she whispered. She set Fieram back upon his chair, which she placed just outside the shattered glass cabinet. “I wish you well.”
“Small miracles are my specialty,” he said. “Like you finding your way to me.”
“Goodbye, Fieram,” said Orianna softly. The two watchmen lay unconscious on the ground. The ball hovered at her side as she walked away.
She did not look back until she was clear of the park’s towering gates. As she turned, she thought she saw a glint of metal winking in the distance. | Mage |
Zaun and Piltover sing to one another. The refrains are full of old wounds, and injustice, and pain. I think it's just me that can hear it, but we all feel it, a hum at the back of everyday life, pushing both Zaunites and Piltovans into strident discord.
I know they can sing together. I've heard it. Scraps of it—once in a while—little chords that make my heart ache with possibility. And once, a beautiful, crushing tidal wave of harmony and hope. It was the same moment I heard my hextech crystal for the first time.
The voice sang a thousand hymns at once. Each of them was a pebble in an avalanche, impossible to understand beyond scattered notes. The voice could hear me—and I wanted so badly to keep listening—but it fell back to a fuzzy hum the instant Zaun and Piltover ended their symphony.
Here in the Entresol, where I hide in the dark behind the stage, that duet should ring clear. The top of Zaun; the bottom of Piltover. The Gray lingers, smearing grime across hammered Piltovan bronze. Zaunite chem-lamps scatter the colors of Piltovan stained glass across Zaunite cobbled streets carefully engineered with Piltovan tools.
And folk from both cities make their way here, bringing that rapturous soul-song only I can hear. Zaunites pour in from below, a thousand different instruments strummed with tuneless enthusiasm. Kids taunt and jeer, while older folks usher them along, searching for a moment’s peace. Piltovans march down in trumpeting waves, inquisitive and bright and proud. They come by descender, or by the stairways and ramps connecting to the overhead Promenade, the Entresol’s posh Piltovan twin. They laugh and joke together, gesturing appreciatively at the quaintness of our makeshift open-air theatre.
It’s exciting, at first. I’m so happy they’re all here. I close my eyes and tune to my crystal, pleading for it to speak again.
But the crystal emits that same warbling, distant hum, a presence there and not there. Even that fades to a murmur as the songs clash, turning duet into duel. Piltovan laughter lapses into sneering discomfort. Zaunite shouts quiet into indignant scowls. And, almost as if they’d planned it, the crowd organizes into two perfect, separate halves.
This is what it means to live in Zaun and in Piltover. The Entresol’s a place to come together, sure, but not to connect. Only because the cities have to touch, somewhere. I watch as one Piltovan trips, nearly crossing that perfect gap between them, only for two of his fellows to catch him and bring him protectively back into the fold.
Ugh! They’re all here for the same reason! Why can’t they put their guards down for, like, one moment and just be with each other?
Why do I always think it’ll change? I’m just one person. Just Seraphine. Who could barely even leave her house for how many years? How am I supposed to make them see that it could be different? Why do I think I can?
Why did I ever think I could?
The lights come on, and the shock makes me realize I’ve been holding my breath. I feel the chill on my forearms, the mic in my shivering grip. I look at the crowd. There are a few appreciative whoops, but mostly they’re focused on keeping separate from the other side. I take a breath.
A pure, familiar note of soul-music rings out to me from the Piltovan audience. I look over and see Schala’s tired smile, beaming up at me from a crowd that melts for a moment into the background as I’m swept up in her song. During visits to my parents’ shop, Schala would tell me about her thesis, reading dramatically from it like an eager parent would a storybook. She’d tell me what had changed since the last time it had been rejected by the college. “Seventh time’s the charm” was what she said the last time we talked. But even back then, I could hear the doubt edging into her optimism. Six rejections, and she was still facing forward. But it was through a cloud of doubt: Should she maybe be doing something else with her life?
Her self-doubt nestles into mine, and the next breath comes a little easier.
Another song joins the melody, this time from the Zaunite crowd. I look over and see Roland, an absolute artist of a silversmith. I’d first been drawn to his little workshop by the sound of music. He’d piled crates and supplies all on one side of the shop to make room for a handful of kids who were using the corner for what looked like band practice. He said that the ruckus made it easier to focus, that he needed the sound more than the space. That he might need to get used to such a small room if his next design didn’t sell.
Roland’s song twists with Schala’s in my head, one drums and brass and gravel, one wind and horns and hushed vocals. They couldn’t sound more different, but something just makes it work somehow. One song full of self-doubt, the other, fear for the future.
But there’s something else. A sturdy, rolling, endless beat that keeps their songs from spinning out into singular, dying notes. It’s the same beat in both songs. Schala loves her work, and Roland his.
Their determination finds mine, snatches it from a fall into darkness.
The next breath is sweet.
I don’t need to solve everything. I’m not here for that. Neither are they, and that’s okay. I listen for the crystal, and its steady rhythm builds and rumbles, indistinct but there. I want to reach out, and I only know one way how.
I close my eyes and let myself be filled with Schala’s song and with Roland’s. I imagine their struggles. Schala, chewing on a pen until her eyes widen in epiphany and she writes the perfect conclusion to her thesis. Roland, one eye closed tight as he gently, gently, shapes the last detailing into an ornate silver frame, then stands back with a grin and a sigh when he knows it’s perfect. Tiny explosions crawl across my shoulders, up my spine, into my head, and music lights my whole body on fire.
I sing.
Maybe our voices are quiet alone. Maybe mine’s quiet alone. But I’m not. We’re not. I don’t hold anything back, because I know they don’t either. The panic, the fear, the self-doubt. I pour it all into the song, heaps of it, so much that I want to cry. Our songs are droplets of rainwater on a windowpane. Schala’s swirls itself into mine, and we become a little stream. We find Roland, happy to be caught up in our motion. Together, we find the crowd, each droplet gathering another and another and another until we’re a flood of song and feeling.
That flood grows louder and louder as the crowd, silent but for the swell of their souls, opens to the music. Once, I would have gotten lost in this storm of sound. But I have Roland, and Schala, and myself, and we feel what they feel. They know what drives us, what drives me. I’m so grateful. I’ll make sure they know that, too. I push that feeling into a single note, and in that moment, I know the music we’re making could pierce the heavens.
The song ends, and my eyes open to the crowd. A single entity greets me, raucous and cheering and surging together toward the stage. Not a cobble in sight. My muses have found one another in the center of the crowd, and I can’t tell anymore which side is which.
The Entresol’s a beautiful place. I’ve got the best seat in the house, a hidden little corner table where a lucky patron can sit in secret silence, sip a hot cup of tea, and watch the world pass by.
My show ended a few bells ago, but the crowd stuck around, talking and laughing together. Local businessfolk took quick advantage, opening up shop and ferrying out tables and chairs. My stage, powered down and pushed off to the side, has become a makeshift playground, where Piltovan and Zaunite kids are challenging one another to various antics. I can feel the charge in the air, excitement and wonder and that airy feeling you get on days you never want to end.
I sit back, put both hands around my steaming mug, close my eyes, and smile. They all make such wondrous music. Piltover and Zaun continue their duet, if only for a little while.
A familiar voice rumbles through me, faint but urgent. My soul soars even as my heart starts to pound. I don’t know what I’ll hear, whether we’ll understand each other this time, how long we have. I only know that it needs to be heard.
Its song lifts in an orchestral swell, and I brace for the avalanche. It has so much to sing, and just me to hear it.
But I won't ever stop trying to listen. | Mage |
He arrived at the camp only moments before the strategy council was to begin, flanked by a small honor guard, each handpicked from the Trifarian Legion. They remained at the entrance as I watched him approach.
Some men cast a shadow greater than themselves, but few could bring a darkness such as this, one that circled above us and hungrily cawed. In a way, the ravens that seemed to follow him around the camp were a grim reminder of every warrior’s fate, the tattered cloth in their beaks a match for the state of our own banners. Yet, as he strode into the remains of the war tent, I realized I had not prepared myself for how truly mortal he looked.
There was grey in his hair, framed by a crimson sky choking on ash. His battle-worn armor gave way to a functional coat, and he kept his arms tightly within its folds—as I imagined one of his lineage might. I smiled, for he was still, at his heart, a gentleman. He wore no signs of rank beyond the telltale scars of a soldier who had seen his share of bloodshed. There were many gathered now for the council who demanded more fear and respect, swaying their warhosts with powerful displays of strength. Each of them seemed more than capable of breaking the man before us.
But, somehow, this was the man who led us all. The Grand General of Noxus.
Looking at him, I could feel there was something I could not place, no matter how closely I looked. Something truly unknowable, perhaps? Perhaps it was because there was something unknowable about this man, that so many flocked to his side. Whatever the draw, Jericho Swain stood before us now, and it was far too late for me to turn back.
Five warhosts had marched onto the Rokrund Plain, but it had been only a matter of weeks before the locals had shattered our positions. They blasted through our hastily-constructed berms with explosive powder, mined from hills that seemed even more barren than those of home. Disaster had built upon disaster, until Swain himself had no choice but to intervene. I had made sure of that.
For months, I had prepared. I had sent warmasons deep into the mines. I had mapped every detail, every conceivable twist of the land… and the fates upon which Noxus now balanced, the whispers that gave each moment shape…
My ear itched at the memory of the pale woman’s words. Of the moment she first commanded me, and gave voice to our plot.
Everything was in place. I had accounted for it all. Here, where the earth opened into a maze of canyons impossible to escape, I and I alone would determine the future of the empire.
After all, was that not what Swain had called upon this council to do?
“My trusted generals,” Swain said finally. The power in his voice rang out like the drawing of a blade. He paused, as if giving us a moment to test ourselves against its keen edge. “Tell me how Noxus may prevail.”
“There are twelve war-barques here, in the hills,” Leto began, pointing to a spot on the map already worn white by his attention, “each drawn by a basilisk. Send them before the warbands, and we’ll be marching over the enemy dead. Those beasts would rut with a hedge of rusty spears if we let them.”
He smiled, pleased at his own cunning, but Swain was more concerned with the wine being poured into his glass.
Will it be poison? his eyes seemed to ask, as he peered around the table. I stared at my reflection in his armor. I would betray nothing of my intent.
“We can scarcely control the basilisks ourselves,” Swain finally murmured, carefully regarding the fine Ionian vintage. “Imagine even a single explosive, dropped by a sapper within earshot of the beasts. And then tell me, in your imagination, who runs first—the basilisks with their tails between their legs? Or your vaunted warhost?”
“We scorch the earth then,” Maela petitioned before Leto could respond, the words flying wildly from her mouth. “Set fire to the pitch they’ve laid to burn on our advance. Drive them out of those damn mines.”
Swain sighed. “We came here for the very earth you would burn. Though I suppose it is too much to expect you to know the uses of saltpetre.” He swirled the wine in his glass, betraying a hint of disappointment. “All you have done so far is bury your own men with it.”
“The redblades are still sharp,” Jonat spat impatiently from the shadows where he lurked, the darkness seeming almost bright against his Shuriman skin. “We’ll enter the mines after dusk, take out their leaders. Clean or messy. Doesn’t matter.”
“An admirable strategy,” Swain laughed. “But those leaders are not soldiers. Not yet. Our enemy here merely follows whomever bellows the loudest. Kill one, and there will be three bellowing by morning.”
I laughed, nodding to the frowning leader of the redblades. “For a moment, I was afraid you’d find a way for us to actually win, Jonat.”
Silence fell around the table. The candles were burning low beside the maps.
This was my moment. The pale woman would be pleased. I would say her name as I sent our Grand General to oblivion.
“The truth is, you cannot win this battle,” I continued. “No one can fight death. Not even the ruler of Noxus. Darkwill showed us that.”
Swain and the others watched as I carefully drew the flint striker from my tunic. The fuse line was already in my other hand. Leto, aging hero of the Siege of Fenrath, bristled.
“Granth, what are you doing?” he growled, glancing down at the crude demolition charge I had carefully positioned under the table, barely an hour before. “You would threaten the Grand General? This is treason.”
Still, none of them dared approach me. I held the striker over the fuse, ready.
Except… someone was laughing. It took me a moment to realize who it was.
“And there, General Granth is the only one who has the right of it,” Swain chuckled, smoothing the wrinkles from his coat. “He alone understands. The rest of you, you see a battle and ask what you must do to avoid defeat. But some battles cannot be won. Sometimes, the only strategy is to burn. To charge into the flames, knowing full well you will die, but that twenty thousand march behind you. And that behind them, there is a greater power.”
He let his coat fall open, to reveal… To… reveal…
“Granth and I,” he said with a cruel smile, “we always look for what must be sacrificed in order to win.”
Maela lunged for my trembling hands. Leto too. But it was Swain’s inhuman grip that clamped around my throat, hefting me from the ground, the unlit fuse forgotten.
“If only you could tell her yourself how you failed,” the Grand General whispered, his voice rumbling with the wrath of eons. “If only she, too, could heed the wisdom of the dead.”
I tried to scream then, to confess it all. To somehow beg for forgiveness.
But there is nothing now, save for the soft murmur of whispers. I spill my secrets, this tale, into your ears. Fading like the rustling of wings, as the raven cries its carrion caw… | Mage |
The sun was at its peak, just high enough to illuminate the exiles’ camp hidden deep in the canyon. From the shade of his lean-to, Sylas of Dregbourne waited patiently for his scout to return. At last, he saw her rounding the stone spire at the mouth of the crevasse, leading a wide-eyed young stranger into the camp.
“This is Happ,” said the scout. “He wants to join.”
Sylas emerged from his shelter, eyeing the youth casually. “Does he now?”
“I know him from the underground. The seekers took his family. He made it out, by the hair on his hide.”
Sylas nodded, quietly assessing the young man. He could sense the boy was blessed with powerful magic—some black and deadly pall. As for the rest of his character, Sylas could see nothing.
“He’s a good kid,” assured the scout. “And he’s from Dregbourne.”
Sylas’ brow furrowed with pleasant surprise, as if meeting kin he never knew existed.
The youth stammered out an introduction. “I… I thought maybe… I could join your cause… sir.”
The entire camp of outlaws laughed. The boy’s eyes darted around the grinning faces, searching for some hint of what he had done wrong.
“There’s no ‘sir’ here,” chuckled Sylas. “Unless you want to address everyone of us that way.”
“Yes, si— …Yes,” the youth said, nearly repeating his mistake.
Abashed, the recruit seemed to wonder if he’d made the right choice in coming to the camp. Sylas placed a heavily shackled arm on the boy’s shoulder, hoping to quell his embarrassment.
“Be at ease, Happ. No one will judge you here. We’re a long way from Dregbourne.”
He felt the youth relax his posture.
“I know your struggle. They’re always watching you, hounding you, making you feel inferior. Well there’s none of that here. Here, you belong.”
Happ beamed, staring at his feet, as though he felt unworthy of his newfound joy.
“Do you know why I wear these chains?” asked Sylas.
The recruit shook his head, too timid to offer a guess.
“They’re not just weapons. They’re a reminder. Of where we come from. Of everything we’re capable of, and of our liberation to come. Are you with me?”
“Yes. Yes, I want to be liberated.”
“Good,” said Sylas. “Tonight, you will break your own chains.”
Dusk was falling, and the darkened brush on the side of the road was the perfect cover for an ambush. There, Sylas lay in wait with a dozen of his most trusted mages. Beside him, the recruit nervously picked at his fingernails.
“Don’t worry,” said Sylas, with a reassuring smile. “I was nervous for my first one. After a while, it becomes as natural as breathing.”
Before the recruit’s nerves could be assuaged, the thunder of hooves and wagon wheels rumbled in the distance like a coming storm. Within seconds, the carriage came barreling down the road before the lurking hijackers.
An instant before the horses arrived, Sylas signaled to his comrades, and the ambush began.
With a flick of his wrist, a scruffy old mage summoned a thick cord of ironvines that snapped across the road, catching the galloping horses at the knees. The racket was deafening, as the steeds fell neck-first into the dirt, the carriage careening over them.
The mages sprang from their cover, subduing the dazed crew of the carriage with various weapons and spells. Sylas leapt atop the overturned coach, eager to seize the passengers of the unprotected cabin.
“Let’s go, recruit,” he called to Happ, beckoning for the lad to join him.
Happ scampered atop the cabin and began to help pry the door. It cracked open, revealing a very battered nobleman. Sylas’ eyes flashed with a malicious gleam.
“Well… look who’s kneeling now, my lord,” said Sylas, extending his hand.
The nobleman bristled. Though he was gravely injured, his hatred for Sylas remained intact.
“I’ll not cower before the likes of you.”
“Good,” said Sylas. “Because I wouldn’t want you to miss this.”
In minutes, all of the nobleman’s guards and coachmen were lined up beside the road with their hands bound. Sylas paced the line, individually acknowledging each captive.
“I ache for you all. I do,” said Sylas. “You are merely cogs in their wheel.”
Sylas paused, his tone shifting harshly, as he gestured to the bound nobleman.
“But you chose to serve them… and thus, serve their cause.”
He turned to his band of outcasts, loudly offering a question.
“Brothers and sisters—these folk work in the service of swine. What does that make them?”
“Swine!” replied the outcasts.
“Should we allow them to go free?”
“No!” yelled the mages.
“What if they have a change of heart? Promise never to bother us again?” asked Sylas, with a coy smile creeping across the corners of his mouth.
“They’d be lying!” yelled the scruffy old mage from the brush.
“They can’t be trusted!” said another in the gang.
“Then what is to be done with them?” asked Sylas.
“They must die!” shouted a young mage, his hatred beyond his years.
Others yelled out in agreement, until the phrase echoed across the land: “Swine must die!”
Sylas nodded, as if he were slowly being persuaded by their words.
“So it must be.”
Softly, Sylas touched the shoulder of his recruit. His petricite shackles began to fume with a dark smoke. He closed his eyes, savoring the captured power.
The sight sent a quake of dread through the captives. Many fell to their knees and wept, pleading to be spared. Only the nobleman stood proud, defying his circumstances, as Sylas addressed his crew with somber finality.
“It pains me that I cannot show you the beautiful world to come.”
The words sent a chill through the recruit.
“Sylas, no,” Happ protested. “These are just… people.”
Ignoring the pleas, Sylas extended his arms and fingers, and unleashed the magic stored in his gauntlets. A thick black cloud billowed from his fingers and collected above the heads of the nobleman’s crew. Almost in unison, they began to claw at their throats in suffocation. Moments later, they fell to the ground dead.
A grave hush fell over the mages, having dutifully observed the execution. The nobleman wept silently, tears streaming over his clenched lips. The only sound came from the recruit.
“No… why?” said Happ, falling to his knees.
Sylas eased the boy back to his feet, consoling him with a fatherly hand.
“Happ, you wanted to help our cause. This is it! This is our liberation…”
He gently guided the recruit toward the nobleman, and urged him forward.
“…one dead lord at a time.”
Happ looked at the nobleman through tear-filled eyes. He held out a trembling hand, preparing to take the life before him. Then, he let his arm go limp.
“I… can’t.”
Sylas’ tender patience began to slip away.
“This man is not your friend. His fortune is built on your suffering. He would sooner see you hang than show you any kindness.”
The recruit would not budge. At last, the nobleman found his voice.
“You’re a monster,” he said, his voice breaking.
“Yes,” replied Sylas. “That’s what your kind said when you locked me in the dark.”
Sylas held forth his hand, its shackle still faintly glowing. The magic he had taken from Happ mustered one last wisp of blackness. The small, dark cloud enveloped the nobleman’s face, drawing the breath from his lungs. As the man writhed, Sylas looked back at the recruit, not in anger, but mourning.
“I’m sorry, Happ. But you are not ready to be liberated. Go. Return to your chains.”
Sylas watched as Happ turned to leave, his eyes averted in shame. The recruit looked down at the wrecked carriage in front of him, and the long, dirt road that wound back to the capital. Sylas could almost feel the boy thinking, dreading the misery that awaited him in his old life.
Happ bent down, pried a dagger from the hand of the dead coachman, and returned to the nobleman, still struggling for breath on the ground.
“I’m ready.”
As the youth raised the dagger above the nobleman, Sylas’ sorrow turned to unmitigated joy. No matter how many he liberated, it always made him smile. | Mage |
Taliyah was outrunning the sandstorm when she first noticed the water. In the beginning, it was faint, just a cool dampness she felt as she lifted the stones from deep beneath the sand. As she drew closer to old Shurima, wet streaks dripped from each new stone as if they were weeping. Taliyah knew the rock had stories to tell as she sped across the desert, but she didn’t have time to listen, to hear if they were tears of joy or sadness.
When she was close enough to be covered by the shadow of the great Sun Disc, water from underground aquifers began to pour off the stone she rode like little rivers. And when she finally arrived at the gates, Taliyah heard the deafening water rushing along the bedrock. The Oasis of the Dawn, the Mother of Life, roared beneath the sands.
The people of her tribe had followed the seasonal waters for hundreds of years. The best chance of finding her family was to follow the water, and to Taliyah’s dismay, the water in Shurima now flowed from a single source as it had in ages past. The tragic remains of the capital city had always been avoided, almost as much as the great Sai and deadly creatures that hunted there. Even thieves knew to keep their distance from the city. Until now.
Taliyah brought the rock she rode to a sudden halt, nearly stumbling from it as she pushed the stone quickly below the desert’s surface. She looked around. The woman from Vekaura had been right. This place was no longer a forgotten ruin, haunted by ghosts and sand; indeed, the makeshift camp just outside the walls scrambled with life, like an anthill before a flood. Not knowing who these people were, she decided it might be best to reveal no more than was necessary.
It seemed there was tribal representation from all four corners of her homeland, but as Taliyah searched their faces, she saw none that were familiar. The people here were torn. They argued about the merits of staying in their temporary camps versus seeking shelter within the city. Some worried that just as it rose, the city would fall again, burying any caught inside. Some saw the storm that bristled with unnatural lightning and thought their chances were better within the walls, even if the walls had once been lost to the sand for generations. All of them moved quickly, packing haphazardly and worriedly glancing at the sky. Taliyah herself had won the race with the tempest, but it wouldn’t be long before the sand lashed against the gates.
“Now’s the time to decide.” A woman called out to her, her voice almost lost to the noise of the churning oasis waters and the rising storm. “Are you going in or leaving, girl?”
Taliyah turned to face the woman. She was Shuriman, but other than that, unknown to her.
“I’m looking for my family.” Taliyah gestured to her tunic. “They’re weavers.”
“The Hawk-father has promised protection to all those within the walls,” the woman said.
“Hawk-father?”
The woman looked at Taliyah’s concerned face and smiled, taking her hand. “Azir has returned to us Ascended. The Oasis of the Dawn flows again. A new day has come for Shurima.”
Taliyah looked around at the people. It was true. They were hesitant to move far into the massive capital, but the fear that worried their faces was more for the unnatural storm than the city or its returned emperor.
The woman continued, “There were weavers here this morning. They decided to wait out the storm inside.” The woman pointed to the throngs of people pushing in toward the newly beating heart of Shurima. “We must hurry. They are closing the gates.”
Taliyah found herself being pulled toward one of the capital’s great gates by the woman, and driven from behind by a crowd of strangers who had decided at the last minute not to brave the sands by themselves. Still, there were a few groups clustered near their circled beasts, determined to face the storm as Shuriman caravans had for generations. In the distance, strange and threatening bolts of lightning crackled at the edge of the whirlwind. Old Shuriman traditions might not survive the storm’s passing.
Taliyah and the woman were pushed across the golden threshold that separated Shurima from the desert surrounding it. The heavy gates swung closed behind them with a resounding thud. The immensity of old Shurima’s glory stretched out before them. The crowd hugged the thick, protective walls, unsure where to go. It was as if they sensed the empty streets belonged to someone else.
“I’m sure your people are somewhere within the city. Most have kept close to the gates. Few are brave enough to go farther than that. I hope you find what you are looking for.” The woman let go of Taliyah’s hand and smiled. “Water and shade to you, sister.”
“Water and shade to you.” Taliyah’s voice dropped off as the woman disappeared into the milling crowd.
The city that had been quiet for millennia now pulsed with life. Silently watching over Shurima’s newest denizens were helmeted guards that wore desert cloaks in gold and crimson. Though there was no trouble, Taliyah continued to feel there was something not right about this place.
Taliyah reached out to the thick wall to steady herself. She gasped. The stone throbbed beneath the flat of her palm. Pain. A terrible, blinding pain overwhelmed her. Tens of thousands of voices were etched into the rock. The fear and torment of their last moments, before their lives were cut down and their shadows were seared into the stone, screamed in her mind. Taliyah tore her hand from the stone wall and stumbled. She had felt vibrations in stone before, reverberations of memories long since past, but never like this. The knowledge of what had come before felled her. Wild eyed, she stood and stared, seeing the city anew. Revulsion washed over her. This wasn’t a city reborn. It was an empty tomb risen from the sand. The last time Azir had made promises to the people of Shurima, it had cost them their lives.
“I must find my family,” she whispered. | Mage |
Thunderclouds rolled off the Argent Mountains, promising pyrotechnics, but delivering none.
From the tower, the advancing mob looked like a child’s mismatched toys—all toothpick spears and tiny torches. The figure at the head of the group was tall, with a splash of grey hair, and a blade belted to her homespun tunic.
Veigar watched as the group started battering the outer gates, incensed by his villainous ways, demanding justice for the terrible acts he had wrought. Finally! He hurried down the stairs to the inner door.
There was a mighty crack as the gates gave way, and villagers tumbled into the courtyard. The leader drew her sword and advanced, picking her way between ungainly limbs, waiting for the rest of the group to find their feet and hold the right end of their spears.
Squinting through the gap in the door, Veigar giggled with anticipation.
The woman’s gaze snapped up.
Veigar clapped a gauntlet over his mouth, but the jig was up. The farmers tripped over themselves to cower behind their leader’s skirts. It was perfect. He stepped back and, barely holding his staff steady with all his booming laughter, blasted open the door with an explosive ball of purple energy.
He strode out to the top of the stone steps as the dust settled. He knew how imposing a figure he must strike—his hat barely clearing the enormous door frame, his iron boots sending up sparks and thunder with each giant step, his gauntlet big enough to crush any fool who might challenge him.
Unfortunately, the cowering villagers hadn’t looked up yet, and holding an intimidating pose this long was starting to feel forced. He let go of the breath he’d been holding, and deflated a little.
“The villain!” shouted the leader, eventually, brandishing her blade in his direction.
In the shadow beneath his hat, Veigar grinned. He drew himself up as intimidatingly as possible as the villagers beheld him.
Then the shouting and wailing began. Delightfully, someone at the back even fainted.
He gathered his sinister magic, gaining an inky nimbus, and causing violet sparks to leap off speartips and belt buckles. The leader stumbled back as a serpentine gash of deepest midnight encircled the villagers, and exploded upwards into an ensnaring cage of sorcery.
“Silence!” Veigar commanded them.
He relished every long stride down the steps toward the trapped mob. Around them, humming walls of violet light stretched between claw-like pillars, forming an eldritch henge. He stopped barely a sword’s length from the leader, glaring at his prisoners through his arcane barrier.
“I can see the fear in your hearts!” he began with a derisive, humorless, snort. “You dare march here to challenge my dread rule? I, Veigar, who has yoked the magic of the universe to my will? Veigar, Great Master of Evil, who has defeated countless arcane foes in my quest for ever greater—”
“Cursed my fields with rat-weevils for two seasons, you have!” an especially cloddish looking farmer cried out, crimson-faced with fury.
Veigar blinked, trying to process this interruption. “Cursed you with what…?”
“And ye turned Dollee lame the week ‘afore harvest!” claimed an outraged tiller, wagging her finger at the increasingly befuddled Great Master of Evil.
With that, the banks broke and the villagers began to make all of their grievances heard. Veigar could only catch snippets of the loudest accusations, the majority featuring soured milk and undersized beets. As he shrunk away from the verbal onslaught, the purple barrier flickered and collapsed, but the villagers didn’t even notice. They shuffled forward, yelling in his face.
He felt the stone banister of the stairs at his back. He was surrounded.
He tried feebly to respond, his voice losing depth with every word. “But I… I am…” They crowded closer, glaring, now eye to eye with him rather than looking up.
Suddenly, a commanding older voice rose over the din. “Stand down. Everyone.”
“But Margaux…” someone began, before the leader’s glare withered their objection. The mob retreated, and Veigar found himself alone with her. She seemed more than twice his height by this point, and radiated confidence.
He hated her.
“Alright, villain,” she spat. “You’ve heard our accusations. Do you plead innocence?”
Veigar felt like he had been slapped. He puffed out his chest, feeling a foot taller. “Innocence? Innocence?!” He turned and began climbing the steps, gaining height on the crowd. “You have the audacity to bring your superstitious bellyachings to my door, and then insult me by asking if I deny them?!”
He glared over his shoulder in their direction.
“I do! I deny every one of them! But do not dare presume that I claim innocence. You accuse me of evildoing—and I am evil! Since I took this arcane tower from its puny owner, I have burned your fields! I have terrorized your warlords, defeating them so thoroughly that they swore never to return!” He took the last two stairs in one great stride. “And I have begun my campaign of terror upon neighboring villainous sorcerers! For none will be permitted to obstruct my path to ultimate magical power! ”
At this, the sky crackled, and magical bolts hurtled from the clouds, exploding around the courtyard. Veigar threw his head back and laughed, reveling in the sheer glory of his own evil. These puny mortals would beg forgiveness in the face of his terrible magnificence!
When he stopped for breath, the villagers were conferring in a huddle, casting appraising glances in his direction. One of them popped her head up. “Did you defeat Vixis the Cruel? The warlord?”
“Of course I did! She failed to exhibit proper deference, and I…”
His words trailed off as the group returned to their earnest whispers. Veigar shifted uncomfortably, straining to hear what they were saying. One by one, the mob nodded to each other, and turned to face him.
They found him coolly admiring the polished gleam of his gauntlet.
The leader, Margaux, strode to the bottom of the steps, awkwardly half-bowing, and addressed him. “Oh, great and mighty… uh… sorcerer…?”
“Wizard!” Veigar corrected her.
“Mighty wizard. We, the residents of the barely-worth-bothering-with village of Boleham—”
“That’s our village!” someone helpfully interjected.
Margaux sighed. “Yes, our village. Well, you see, we’ve come to our senses, and do humbly beg the mighty wizard, Gray Jar—”
“It’s Vay-gar! Veigar!”
“Sorry! Veigar! We humbly beg that you spare us and just, umm, you know… keep doing what you’re doing.”
Veigar narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“Well, you know. We’ll just go home, and you keep doing your… reign of terror… thingy. Live and let terrorize, that’s what I say.”
This had to be some kind of trick. And yet, she went on.
“Of course, we’d exhibit the proper, you know, deference. Curse your name in your absence. Spread tales of your vile rampage. Frenk says his cousin down in Glorft heard a rumor of an evil sorcerer, if you’d be interested in, you know…”
“Destroying them! And taking their dread sorceries for my own!” Veigar clenched his gauntleted hand, imagining the sweet triumph of crushing an arcane peer in a wizard battle.
Margaux was watching him carefully. Hopefully, Veigar realized.
Finally, after a long pause, he rolled his eyes and flourished his staff.
“You fools! You thought you could trick me, Veigar, Master of Evil?! Perhaps you hoped I would grant you the mercy of a swift and painless end! Well, I regret to inform you that your lives are simply not worth my time!”
He laughed—a big, booming laugh to match his renewed stature.
“Take yourselves from my sight, insignificant peasants! Return to Boleham, and pray I do not find you worthy of my attention ever again!”
The villagers managed a few half-hearted bows or curtseys, before shuffling back toward the damaged archway. Margaux chanced a quick wink at him, then turned to leave.
“Wait!” he thundered. Her hand snapped to the pommel of her sword.
With as much indifference as he could muster, Veigar edged his way down the steps once more.
“When do you think I could talk to Frenk’s cousin about that other sorcerer?” | Mage |
It was midday on the island, and Vex was just emerging from her previous night’s sleep. The Black Mist that blanketed the Shadow Isles was especially thick today, creating an atmosphere of despondency that suited her perfectly.
The grisly host of specters surrounding her released a chorus of blood-curdling shrieks and hisses, hoping she might be in the mood to engage them on this exceptionally dismal day.
“You wanna play again?” Vex sighed. “Fine. I’ll do it. But someone else has to be the gravedigger this time.”
From her back, Vex heard her shadow volunteering.
“Shadow, if you’re gravedigger, that means I have to be gravedigger too.”
Shadow looked at her with sad, hopeful eyes.
“Whatever. Even though this is completely stupid, me and Shadow will be gravedigger. Everyone else, go die.”
Covering its eyes with its hands, Shadow began to count to one hundred as the host of specters scattered to find hiding places in the rocks and ruins that dotted the island.
Vex, her eyes uncovered, could see something peculiar bobbing through the haze in the distance. It looked like... a pair of pointy ears?
“Small fry!” called a voice from just beneath the ears. “Are you here, yordling?”
“Ohhhh no,” said Vex in dismay. “Tell me that’s not...”
The pointy ears continued bobbing toward her until, at last, the figure beneath them came into view. An older yordle stood before Vex, his arms splayed in excitement.
“There you are, yordling!” he said.
Vex’s eyes narrowed contemptuously at the familiar face. “Uncle Milty, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean? Can’t a grown yordle pay a visit to his small fry?” said Uncle Milty with unrelenting cheer.
“Don’t call me that.”
Vex noticed her spectral peers were beginning to emerge from their hiding places, curious about the new visitor.
“I’m kinda busy,” Vex said to her uncle. “Can you just tell me what you want and get outta here?”
Uncle Milty’s face melted, its stiff, resilient smile changing to a grave look of concern. “Very well. I won’t lie to you, small fry—it’s your parents.”
Vex’s eyes rolled so hard they nearly fell from their sockets. “Ughhhhh, what about ‘em?”
Why did Uncle Milty even care what her parents thought? He wasn't her real uncle, anyway.
“They’d never tell you this, but... they’re worried sick about you!” said Uncle Milty. “You’re off living in some... drab stinkhole. Cavorting with ghosts. You have to come home.”
“No. Absolutely not.”
“Please, small fry.”
“No.”
“Just for a visit? Just to show them you’re okay.”
“No.”
“Just a quick one? Pop in and pop out.”
“NO. Now get lost,” said Vex.
Uncle Milty’s brow furrowed at her resistance. A moment later, his beaming smile returned, and a twinkle sparked in his eye.
“Well, I can see there’s only one thing to do here…” said the old yordle. He wiggled his fingertips, moving his hands in an arc around his body. A large rainbow portal opened before him. “Let’s not tarry. Your parents are just about to sit down for tea. We can join them if we hurry!”
Vex winced as Uncle Milty pulled her toward the magic gateway. Thinking quickly, she raised her hand, summoning a thick, black shadow at their feet, snuffing out the brightly colored portal. “If you think I’m walking through that thing, you’re even more clueless than I thought.”
Uncle Milty raised one of his bushy eyebrows high in befuddlement. “But—small fry, look around you. This place is for... dead things.”
“Duh. That’s why I’m here,” said Vex. “People suck. Yordles really suck. Colors make me wanna puke. And this place has none of those things.”
Uncle Milty stammered, stunned by his niece’s words. Then realization began to wash over him, and the twinkle returned to his eye. “Ohhhh, I know what this is. You’ve been away from the Bandlewood for too long! You’ve lost your yordle spirit. All you need is a couple days back home, and you’ll be right as rose hips!”
He wiggled his fingers, conjuring the rainbow portal once more.
Vex felt the very bottom fall out of her soul as she realized her eternal plight: she was a yordle, would always be a yordle, and would forever be tormented by their undying enthusiasm.
Unless...
A thought popped into Vex’s mind. She nearly smiled as she realized it just might be the solution to this torture. She quickly suppressed the smile and summoned her true malaise, full strength, and gazed at the ground. “What’s the point, Uncle Milty?”
“What’s the point of what, Vexy?”
“All of it. Bandle City, yordles... life?” She looked up from the ground to see her uncle’s smile fading.
“The point of life?” he asked. “Uhhhnnn... isn’t it...”
Seeing her uncle at a loss for words, Vex eagerly answered the question for him. “I mean, we’re all just random wads of magic. Who we are, what we do, who our family is—we don’t decide any of it. We’re all just drifting by like dead leaves with no control over anything.”
A strange look of determination came over Uncle Milty. “Oh, I don’t think that’s true. What about making people happy? We all have the ability to do that!”
“I guess. But their happiness never really lasts, does it?”
Vex could feel her words knock the wind out of Uncle Milty’s sails as his long, perky ears began to droop.
“It’s like everything else in this world,” she continued. “Happiness, birds, trees, bugs… rainbows—they all fade away. I guess you could say that’s their purpose. They hang around for a few minutes, and then die. Just ask all these chumps here.”
Vex motioned toward her spectral friends, who were poking their gruesome, withered faces out from their hiding spots. When she turned back to her uncle, she could barely see the edges of a frown forming on his lips.
“I guess I never… thought of it quite that way,” said her uncle.
Vex reached into her bottomless well of despair, hoping to drive the stake of misery deeper into his heart. “I know it’s a downer, but the whole point of life… is death.”
“Death?” whimpered Uncle Milty.
“Yeah. And the worst part of it all? Yordles don’t even get to do that. We just go on forever. Doomed to a stupid, magical, pointless existence.”
Uncle Milty’s lip quivered. Tears that shimmered like diamonds trickled from his eyes. The rainbow portal behind him evaporated into the surrounding darkness.
“That’s... so... awful,” he cried.
“Right?” said Vex.
Suddenly, Uncle Milty erupted in uncontrolled sobs. They came like thunder, scaring off even the ghastliest of the wraiths lingering nearby.
As her uncle ran away crying, Vex breathed a deep sigh of relief, the burden of intrusive cheer no longer weighing on her tiny, slouching shoulders. “Okay,” she said, “you can all come out now.”
One by one, her spectral comrades emerged from the rocks and ruins around her.
“One more game,” said Vex. “And sure, why not—I’ll be the gravedigger.” | Mage |
Viktor’s third arm emitted a thin ray of light that welded metal into his left arm with steady precision. The smell of burning flesh no longer bothered him, nor did the sight of his left wrist splayed open, veins and sinewy muscle fused with mechanical augments. He did not wince. Instead, he felt a sense of achievement gazing at the seamless blend of synthetic and organic materials.
The sound of children shouting gave Viktor pause. Rarely did anyone venture down the fog-bound confines of Emberflit Alley. He had chosen this location for that very reason — he preferred not to be interrupted.
Keeping his left arm immobile, Viktor adjusted a silver dial on his iridoscope. The device contained a series of mirrored lenses that angled light to allow him full view of the street outside his laboratory.
Several children were violently shoving a malnourished boy toward Viktor’s wrought iron gates.
“I doubt Naph will last a minute in there,” said a girl with imitation gemstones embedded above her eyes.
“I bet he comes back with a brass head,” said a boy with a shock of red hair. “Maybe then his brain won’t be dull as the Gray.”
“You better return with something we can sell, or we’ll be the ones to give you a new head,” said the largest one, grabbing the small boy by the neck and forcing him forward. The other children backed away, watching.
The young boy trembled as he approached the towering gate, which screeched as he pushed it open. He passed the front door encrusted with interlocking gears and shimmied through an open window. An alarm blared as he fell to the floor.
Viktor sighed and pressed a switch that quieted the ringing.
The skinny boy stared at his new environment. Glass jars, containing organic and metal organs floating in green fluid, lined the walls. A leather gurney stained with blood, upon which lay a mechanized drill, sat in the center of the chamber. Dozens of automatons stood motionless against every wall. To Viktor, his laboratory was a sanctuary for his most creative and vital experiments, but he could imagine it might seem frightening to a child.
The boy’s eyes widened in shock when he saw Viktor at his workbench, arm splayed open on the table. He ducked behind a nearby crate.
“You will not learn anything from that box, child,” said Viktor. “But on top of it, you will find a bone chisel. Hand it to me, please.”
A trembling hand reached to the top of the crate and grasped the handle of the rusted metal tool. The chisel slid across the floor to Viktor, who picked it up.
“Thank you,” said Viktor, who wiped off the instrument and continued work on his arm.
Viktor heard the boy’s rapid breathing.
“I am replacing the twisting flexor tendons — ahem, the broken mechanism in my wrist,” Viktor said, reaching into his arm to adjust a bolt. “Would you like to watch?”
The boy peeked his head around the crate.
“Doesn’t it hurt?” said the boy.
“No,” said Viktor. “When one eliminates the anticipation and fear of pain, it becomes entirely bearable.”
“Oh.”
“It also helps that my arm is almost completely mechanized. See for yourself.”
The boy stepped away from the crate and sat across from Viktor without a word, eyes fixed on his arm.
Viktor resumed welding a new boltdrive onto the tendons beneath his skin. When he had finished, he sealed the flaps of dermis onto his arm. He drew the beam of light across the seam, cauterizing his flesh and fusing the incision.
“Why did you do that?” the boy asked. “Didn’t your arm work fine as it was?”
“Do you know what humanity’s greatest weakness is?”
“No...” said the boy.
“Humans consistently ignore the endless infinity of possibilities in favor of maintaining the status quo.”
The boy gave him a blank stare.
“People fear change,” Viktor said. “They settle with fine when they could have exceptional.”
Viktor walked to his stovetop. He mixed a blend of dark powder and Dunpor cream into a saucepan, heating the liquid with his laser.
“Would you like a glass of sweetmilk?” said Viktor. “A weakness of mine, but I have always enjoyed the anise flavor.”
“Um... you’re not going to saw off my head and replace it with a metal one?”
“Ah. Is that what they think of me now?” Viktor asked.
“Pretty much,” said the boy. “I heard one kid had theirs replaced just because they had a cough.”
“Did you get this information directly?” said Viktor.
“No, it was my neighbor Bherma’s cousin. Or uncle. Or something like that.”
“Ah. Well in that case.”
“Would replacing someone’s head even get rid of a cough?” asked the boy.
“Now you are asking the right questions,” said Viktor. “No, I imagine it would not be much of an upgrade. Coughing stems from the lungs, you see. And to your earlier point, I am not going to saw your head off and replace it with a metal one. Unless, of course, you want that.”
“No thanks,” said the boy.
Viktor poured the thick liquid into two mugs and passed one to the boy, who stared longingly at the hot drink.
“It is not drugged,” said Viktor and took a sip from his own mug. The boy gulped down the sweetmilk.
“Are the others still watching outside?” said the boy through stained teeth.
Viktor glanced through his iridoscope. The three children were still waiting by the front entrance.
“Indeed they are. Do you wish to give them a scare?” Viktor said.
The boy’s eyes lit up, and he nodded.
Viktor handed him a sonophone and said, “Scream as loud as you can into this.”
The boy gave an exaggerated, blood-curdling shriek into the sonophone. It echoed along Emberflit Alley, and the other children jumped in terror, quickly scattering to hide. The boy looked at Viktor and grinned.
“I find that fear is more often than not a limiting emotion,” said Viktor. “Tell me something that scares you, for example.”
“The Chem-Barons.”
“The Chem-Barons are feared because they project an air of dominance and often the threat of violence. If no one feared them, people would stand up to them. And then where would their power go?”
“Uh...”
“Away. Exactly. Think of how many Chem-Barons exist compared to how many people live in Zaun. Fear is used by the powerful few to control the weak because they understand how fear works. If someone can manipulate your emotions, they can control you.”
“I guess that makes sense. But I’m still afraid of them,” said the boy.
“Of course you are. Patterns of fear are carved deep into your very flesh. Steel, however, has no such weakness.”
Viktor retrieved a vial containing miniscule silver beads floating in milky fluid.
“That is where I may be able to assist,” he said. “I have developed an augmentation that eliminates fear altogether. I could let you try it out for a short time.”
“How short?”
“The implant will dissolve in twenty minutes.”
“You’re sure it’s not permanent?”
“It can be, but not this one. You might find that without fear, your friends out there lose their grip. Bullies feed on fear, you see. And without it, they will starve.”
The boy nursed his drink, considering the offer. After a moment he nodded to Viktor, who inserted a thin needle into the vial and injected one of the silver beads into the skin behind his ear.
The boy shuddered for a moment. Then he smiled.
“Do you feel your weakness falling away?” Viktor asked.
“Oh yes,” said the boy.
Viktor walked him to the door and twisted a dial to unlock it before waving him out.
“Remember, you can always return if you wish a more permanent solution.”
A wave of fog created a ghostly silhouette around the boy as he emerged from the laboratory. Viktor returned to his workbench to watch the experiment through his iridoscope.
Emberflit Alley was empty, but as soon as the boy walked out his companions emerged.
“Where’s our souvenir?” asked the red-haired boy.
“Doesn’t seem like little Naph has held up his end of the deal,” said the girl.
“Guess we have to punish him,” added the large boy. “We did promise him a new head today, after all.”
“Don’t you touch me,” said Naph. He raised himself to his tallest height.
The bully reached for Naph’s neck, but Naph turned and punched him square in the face.
Blood streamed from the bully’s nose.
“Grab him!” the bully screamed.
But his companions were no longer interested in grabbing him.
Naph stepped toward the bullies. They stepped back.
“Get away from me,” he said.
The bullies eyed each other, then turned and ran.
Viktor closed his iridoscope and returned to his work. He stretched the fingers of his newly repaired arm and tapped them on his desk in satisfaction. | Mage |
Lyvia had nearly found sleep when the light appeared.
The first night in the orphanage carried strange emotions for her, unfamiliar yet close to a past that she had once held. Life had taken trust from Lyvia, like it had taken everything else, but habits of survival waned here, their edges dulled by the safety of a roof overhead. Her cot, though narrow and thin, was still far removed from the cold cobblestones of the capital. Sleep beckoned, warm and enveloping, tenderly lowering her eyelids with the promise of true rest.
Then the door opened.
“Wake, child.” Lyvia recognized the voice of Cynn, the headmistress. “Come.”
Afraid to lose what respite she had found from the streets, Lyvia obeyed and sat up. Her legs swung over the side to land on the cold floor, and she walked into the light of the hall.
Blinking, Lyvia took her place alongside the other children. All of them, ranging from eight to ten summers, had arrived there today, freshly collected from the streets of Noxus. A pair of brothers, three scrawny urchin boys who clutched each other’s hands in grubby unity, and Lyvia. Both groups shuffled away from her, retreating to the familiar.
“I know the hour is late,” said Cynn as she walked down the line of little faces, “but there are many demands upon the time of our patron. Still, he wishes to welcome the newly arrived.” There was something within Cynn’s words that Lyvia could not place. “It is an honor.”
It was then that the children noticed him with a start, as though he had appeared out of thin air. Tall, slender, clad in a wealth Lyvia had never known, the patron approached them. Cynn demurred into the background, her expression impassible.
Slowly, the man walked from orphan to orphan, his pale eyes casting them in an odd scrutiny. He passed the brothers without a thought. Lyvia felt her pulse quicken as he paused, the eyes falling upon her, and felt it slow again as he continued on. The trio of urchins bunched together, each defending the others, and the patron barely spared them a glance.
“Her,” the man said to Cynn, his voice low, silken.
Cynn’s arm was on her shoulder now, leading her to another room. It was empty, but for a single chair. “No harm will come to you,” Cynn said, an attempt to dispel Lyvia’s fear. “It is an honor,” she repeated, closing the door behind her.
Lyvia crossed to the chair, and sat in it. She watched the door intently, the sole means of entry into the room, only to notice a moment later the shadow stretching out from behind her.
The patron.
“Please,” he said, raising his hands as she bolted to her feet.
Lyvia did her best to contain her fear, to remember what Cynn had told her.
“Think I am here to hurt you?” he asked, his voice languid, accent cultured.
Lyvia shook her head, but it was far from convincing.
He feigned puzzlement, laughing softly. “My dear, has life not done enough?” He circled around in front of her. “No, my child, I am only here to hear about your life, and what has brought you here.”
He gestured kindly to the chair, and slowly Lyvia took her seat.
“I’m from Drekan,” she began.
“Yes?” He nodded, urging that she continue.
“War took papa,” said Lyvia, trying to keep her voice level, to betray no weakness. “So we came to the city. Mama went out to find work, but after four days we stopped waiting for her to come back. It was just my sister Vira and I. I kept her safe.” She fought her voice but it faltered. “Then Vira took sick. I couldn’t protect her, and then I… I was...”
“Alone,” he said softly.
Lyvia’s chest swelled with a tide of pain. Of loss. “Alone,” she repeated, and a tear struck her cheek.
“There!” he breathed. She recoiled as he reached toward her.
“Close your eyes,” he said, his voice hypnotic. “Focus upon that feeling. The pain. It has mounted for you in this unforgiving world, nowhere to go but bottled up inside. Feel it rise up, above your neck, slipping up over your nose, your ears. It threatens to swallow you, but just at the precipice, it yields. Face it and feel it break against you. That is strength. Turn your mind upon it, and allow it to drain from you.”
She let the pain flow out of her in sobs, feeling the cold of glass against her cheeks, softly touching beneath each eye. A torrent of despair, taking her breath, then it was gone.
Lyvia opened her eyes.
“Thank you,” said the man, and Lyvia noticed a vial in his hands, “for sharing.”
“You,” Lyvia dared to ask, seeing something she could recognize in her patron despite everything else about him. “You’re alone, too?”
He took his eyes from the vial, glanced at her. “I have seen much of this world, over many years—yes, almost all of it alone.”
Livia sniffed, looking up at him. “Will it get better?”
“For you?” He smiled gently, his eyes glimmering for a moment in a gentle show of sadness. “No.”
“She is unharmed?” Cynn asked as Vladimir stepped into the hall.
Vladimir arched an eyebrow. “Were you harmed, Cynn, all those years ago when it was you in that room?” He tilted his head, producing a thin ampoule in his long fingers.
Cynn’s eyes locked to the slender tube of glass, its frosted length dulling the contents to a soft ruby. Cynn snatched the ampoule, her eyes darting as she secreted it in the sleeve of her robe.
“Until next time, my dear,” Vladimir chuckled, then he turned and left.
The moon was full that night, bathing the Noxian streets in radiant silver hues. Vladimir stopped at the fountain in the orphanage’s empty courtyard, dipping a finger into the still water. Whorls of crimson bloomed from his touch, rushing across the shallow pool until it was a depthless claret. Stepping briskly up to the lip of the fountain, Vladimir dropped into it without sound or splash.
Vladimir rose from another pool within the dark halls of his manor, emerging dry, it was as though he had never touched the liquid. A chill wound through the yawning cavern of shadow and stone arches, brushing over shuttered windows and priceless artworks collected over a thousand lifetimes. His step was light across thick rugs, barely disturbing the layers of dust that caked them as he ascended a staircase.
For a moment his thoughts lingered on the child, Lyvia. Doubtless tonight had been a strange experience, but he had seen enough mortals to know this night would not define her life. She would live, and then die, like all the other little sparks around him. Her name, her face, their interaction would slip away from him, as they always did, to where he wondered if they had ever existed at all.
People. The creatures surrounded Vladimir yet stood upon the opposite side of an impossible gulf, tantalizing and impermanent. A thin, crooked smile came to him. He was melancholy tonight. He rolled the vial of tears in his fingers.
The studio beckoned.
Maudlin thoughts aside, of all the countless mortal lives he encountered, there were a select few Vladimir refused to forget, and so he labored to do what his mind could not. To remember them, those brief moments their lives touched, what felt like an eternity ago. In this case it was less than a millennium, the memory springing suddenly into his mind despite the vast time since last they met. For this one, he chose paint.
It was nearly finished, a work most would not find out of place alongside the masterworks adorning his lonely walls. He had certainly had the years to hone a craft. All the details were done: the gentle tumble of auburn hair, the tanned skin, features that alone were commonplace, but combined effected a demanding, regal aura. The expression, unthinkable loss. It was all there, save the whites of his eyes.
Vladimir opened the vial, tipping it into a pot. The innocent tears mingled with the paint, and with the touch of his brush, came alive when laid upon the canvas. Nothing else, in all his travels, could match the splendor it wrought.
What was his name?
He found he could not remember. The absence stabbed at him, a name gone, but at least the face preserved. The whites of his eyes would keep his memory here.
Like a lonesome soul, he sought me out from beyond, Vladimir mused with a smile. More melancholy, but fitting perhaps.
After all, there was nothing in the world as beautiful as sadness. | Mage |
This was the moment.
The singular moment that had cost him so much, that had taken a lifetime of planning. A corrupt empire and its strutting princeling would be struck down under the blankly idiotic sun symbol they both so trusted. The key to immortality, jealously guarded and miserly offered, would be his alone, stolen in front of the entire world. A singular moment of perfect vengeance that would finally free the slave known as Xerath.
Though his master's helm revealed no human expression, and knowing that the lovingly etched metal could not respond in kind, Xerath smiled up at the soulless hawk's face just the same, his joy genuine. A life spent in servitude, first for a mad emperor and now a vain one, endless manipulations for and against the throne, a near-damning quest for barely remembered knowledge that almost consumed him – all of it led to this grotesque masquerade of Ascension.
The very word when spoken aloud was an assault: We will Ascend, while you are chained to the broken stone as the sands of time swallow you all. No. Not anymore, and never again. The chosen golden lords will not be taken into the sun’s embrace and made gods. A slave will do this; a simple slave, a boy who once had the misfortune to save a noble child from the sands.
And for this sin, Xerath had been punished with a horrible, maddening promise: Freedom. Unobtainable. Forbidden. Should the thought even dart through a slave’s mind, it would be punished by death, as the Ascended could gaze past flesh and bone, deep into one’s very soul, to see its dim traitorous glow. And yet, there it was, spoken by the young princeling he dragged from the embrace of the mercurial mother-desert. Azir, the Golden Sun, vowed that he would free his savior and new friend.
A promise unkept to this day. The words of a grateful child, innocently oblivious to the impact they would have. How could Azir upend thousands of years of rule? How could he fight tradition, his father, his destiny?
In the end, the young emperor would lose it all by not honoring his word.
And so, Xerath was elevated and educated, eventually becoming Azir's trusted right hand – but never a free man. The soured promise ate into what he was, and what he could have been. Denied a small, simple thing, the right to live his life, Xerath decided to take everything, all of the things denied to him, all of the things he deserved: the empire, Ascension, and the absolute purest form of freedom possible.
With each step taken toward the offensively grandiose Dais of Ascension, positioned respectfully behind his emperor and flanked by the inept sentinels who supposedly protected Shurima, Xerath felt an unknown lightness he was genuinely shocked by. Was this joy? Does vengeance bring joy? The impact was almost physical.
At that very moment, the overwrought suit of golden armor that was his tormentor abruptly halted. And turned. And walked toward Xerath.
Could he know? How could he possibly know? This spoiled, self-obsessed boy? This righteous, falsely benevolent emperor whose hands were just as bloody as Xerath's own? Even if he did, there was no staying the killing blow that was already in motion.
Xerath had planned for every contingency. He had bribed, killed, out-maneuvered, and plotted for decades – he even tricked the monstrous brothers Nasus and Renekton into staying away from the event – but he had not planned for this...
The Emperor of Shurima, the Golden Sun, Beloved of Mother Desert, soon to be Ascended, took off his helmet, revealed his proud brow and smiling eyes, and turned to his oldest and most trusted friend. He spoke about the love of brothers, the love of friends, of hard fights won and others lost, of family, of future, and finally... of freedom.
At these words, the guards flanked Xerath, moving in, weapons drawn.
So the princeling did know. Had Xerath's plans had been undone?
But the fools in armor were saluting. There was no menace to them, they were honoring him. They were congratulating him.
On his freedom.
His hated master had just freed him – he had freed them all. No Shuriman would ever wear chains again. Azir's last act as a human was to unfetter his people.
The foundation-shuddering roar of the assembled masses drowned out any response Xerath could have had. Azir donned his helmet and strode out onto the Dais, his attendants preparing him for the godhood that would never come.
Xerath stood in the shadow of the monolithic Sun Disc, knowing that an empire-destroying doom was but seconds away.
Too late, friend. Too late, brother. Far too late for us all. | Mage |
Okay, Zaun. I’m here, I’m fuzzy, and I’m ready to explode stuff.
All that time up there in Piltover serving high-quality pyrotechnics to ungrateful snoots, Heimerdinger making me hide behind that dumb glamour, never allowed to do what I want... It’s left me with a thirst for KA-BOOM!
But was Jinx right? Is the gloomy, stinking undercity teeming with whizz-bang potential?
Let’s see what we’ve got here. What am I looking at? Nondescript building, nondescript building, slightly bigger nondescript building, an explosives factory, another nondescript building, nondes—WAIT, WHAT?
Explosives factory?! Dreams can come true!
I’m not crying. That’s just the Zaun Gray gettin’ all up in my eyes.
Man, the things they must have in there... But it looks so normal. Dull, even. No flashing lights, no sparkling signs... just a rundown pile of bricks and ironwork. It’s like no one even cares how bombs are made. And it’s quiet... GASP! They must have it soundproofed because of all the live bomb testing! I’ve gotta get in there! Ooh, I bet there’s a super secret passageway or maybe you have to blow the front wall off or—
Oh, wait, there’s the door.
Hang on, what’s this?
BUILDING NO LONGER IN USE
KEEP OUT
You’ve gotta be kidding me! Why? How? How could this sacred place no longer be in use? How could anyone be so disrespectful of the creation of lovely explosives and shut it down forever and—what is that noise?
Huh, I’m pretty sure locks aren’t supposed to be all mangled like that. Looks like this door’s been busted open. Let me poke my head around...
I appear to be looking at a pair of disgruntled young humans. Not bombs. Humans. In an empty room. I may be losing interest. They haven’t seen me, at least.
“This sucks,” one of them says. He looks as disappointed as I feel. “You said this place was full of bombs. Well, we’ve searched every corner, and there’s nothing here!”
Stop it now, kid. This hurts.
The other one kicks over an empty crate. “How was I supposed to know they cleared it out?!”
Did neither of them read the sign? I swear, humans never look—
“Whatever,” the first one sighs. Whoa. I wasn’t done thinking my thought. Rude. “I’m bored. Let’s go.”
Not before me—I’m not ready to have my fur ruffled today. See ya, kids!
Man, I can’t believe this. My first venture out in the undercity and I find a bomb factory! Entirely committed to making bombs! That could’ve been home. But no, instead it was the home of shattered dreams.
I’ve gotta do something about this. Yeah. Yes. That’s it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s what it was made for...
I’M GONNA FILL THAT PLACE WITH BOMBS!
Oh, hey! Welcome to my lab. Well, Jinx’s lab. She’s letting me crash here while I find my feet in Zaun. She thinks I only exist in her head, so I guess I’m not taking up too much room. Besides, with all her scrap heaps and bits of junk everywhere, I’m pretty sure I’m not the only thing with fur running around this place.
What, these? Just some hexplosives I’m working on. My own design, of course.
These bad boys are gonna give that old factory the send-off it deserves. Let it go out with some dignity.
I can’t leave it as I found it earlier, waiting for another innocent incendiary enthusiast to come along, get them all excited, and then rip their heart right out without so much as a spark. It was a real emotional rollercoaster.
No, I’ll spruce the place up with my own devices, and then they’re gonna go off one after the other like little fireworks. Flash! Bang! Tssss! Flash! Bang! Tssss! Over and over until the whole place crumbles down in a huge explodey mess.
I call them “Chain Smokers”.
Almost done. I just take this bit here, and this thing here, and... Perfection.
Let’s go blow stuff up!
Okay, I’m back in the building. Come on, “KEEP OUT” sign, you had one job.
My little Chain Smokers are all laid out, ready to show their papa what they can do.
But Ziggs, I hear you say, how are you going to appreciate the products of all your talents if you can’t see them in action? My thoughts exactly. So I’ve got an extra treat for us all: I’m gonna blow the front wall off first!
This big one here’s the Party Popper, and it’s going to create the ultimate peephole!
Alrighty, time to push the button! Three... two... one... Big baddaboom!
...in sixty seconds.
What? I’ve gotta get out of here first—I don’t want to blow myself up!
Come on, come on, come on, I’m ready now! Got this nice pile of junk to hide behind. Perfect viewing distance. And... explode!
Nope. Forty seconds left. Turns out crossing the street doesn’t take that long.
Hey, why did the yordle cross—Oh no, what’re those kids doing back here?! They’re gonna get themselves a faceful of wall if they don’t move soon. Move. Move!
They’re not moving. They’re spray painting the wall. For the love of...
“Hey!” I call from behind the junkpile. “You kids! Get away from there!”
Yeah, that got their attention. A real Ziggs, out in the wild. They’re still standing there, though.
“What? You never seen a yordle before? Seriously, though, you need to move! You’re gonna get hurt!”
Are they...? They are! They’re laughing at me! Well, maybe I’ll just leave them to get exploded, after all! Jinx sure would.
Ohhhhhh, right. Jinx is a psychopath.
Ah! Ten seconds!
And I’m running. I’m running straight at those little sump-punks. Better to be tackled by a yordle than crushed by a building. That’s what I always say.
They’re not laughing anymore. The bigger one’s opening its mouth. “What’re you do—”
“No time! Move!”
BOOM!
We hit the other side of the street just as the wall goes up.
Yes! Bombs away!
Flash! Bang! Tssss! Flash! Bang! Tssss!
It’s mesmerising. Little lightning bolts striking every surface. Bricks tumbling down. Smoke pouring out, clouding all the locals who’ve come out to watch.
Flash! Bang! Tssss!
Wait, why are all these people staring at me instead of my art?
Flash! Bang! Tssss!
The roof is now completely caved in. It’s magical. No, I told you before, it’s the Gray! I’m not crying.
Flash! Bang! Tssss! Flash! Bang! Tsssssssss.
Haha! Yes! I can’t help it. I’m doing my happy dance. That was perfect!
Those two kids are looking at me like I just slapped their grandmother. I guess Zaunites are more used to collapsing buildings than gleeful furballs.
Whatever. I’m going in for a closer look.
My Chain Smokers performed just as they should; what was once a solid structure is now a blackened heap of rubble. That useless “KEEP OUT” sign is poking out from under a smashed roof tile. I’m gonna pick it up, a little souvenir for the lab.
Flash! Bang!
Gah! One of those sneaky little hexplosives waited for me to have a front-row seat. I think I’m on fire but—
“Wheeeeeee!”
—I’m flying through the air—
“Aaaaahahahahahaaaa!”
—trailing smoke—
“Oh, it burns! And tickles! But mostly burns! Hahahahahaha!”
—and all eyes are on this furry rocket.
“See, kids? Now that’s how you make bombs!” | Mage |
The humidity of Tonnika market and the crowd’s fragrant odor usually rushed buyers into hasty decisions, but Hatilly stood transfixed. Her eyes had fallen upon the strange, tangled bud encased with red withered leaves, a specimen she had never seen before.
“You don’t want that,” the old florist said. “It’s a rare Night-Blooming Zychid. Plucked from the southern jungles, where sunlight never touches the forest floor. It’s more for potion brewers or alchemists…”
The merchant directed her gaze to a bouquet of Sapphire Roses. “Now, these are from fair Ionia. Adapted them to our robust Kumangra soil myself… Or perhaps some Pearls of the Moon?”
Hatilly was not swayed. Sapphire Roses and Pearls of the Moon flashed their colors for any eyes to see. This zychid held exotic potential like the Kraken Lilies along the Serpentine Delta, or Parethan Corpse Tulips. Rare flowerings were precisely her and Cazworth’s type of indulgence.
“I’ll take the zychid.”
The florist welcomed the gold pressed into his palm, despite the doubt scrawled across his face. He deftly cradled the bud in a nest of damp silk, and planted the parcel into Hatilly’s waiting hands. She noticed the aerial rootlets clinging to a shard of something hard and chalk-white.
“What’s this?”
“Zychids cling to foreign objects,” the merchant said. “That one’s grafted to a bit of bone.”
Cazworth was bent over his antique desk, scribbling notes in the margins of his ledger by candlelight. He didn’t look up until Hatilly set the ceramic upon his table. The strange zychid, half buried in a mound of wetted soil, already seemed happy, its reds and greens vibrant and slick with life.
“A budding gift for a blooming businessman.” She planted a kiss on Cazworth’s cheek, feeling clever. He smiled and turned to examine the specimen.
“When you said you needed flowers to brighten the place up, I assumed they’d be colorful.” Cazworth jabbed the plant with his quill. “What is this curious fellow?”
“A most extravagant gift to celebrate the opening of the upper Kumangra’s newest trading supplier… Cazworth’s Exotic Goods.”
Cazworth pulled his wife onto his lap.
“Well, if you say this is a rarity indeed, then we are in for a treat.”
He kissed her sweetly. A single petal opened up, unfolding into the darkening room.
“It’s beginning,” Hatilly said. “Will you be up all night?”
“Most likely. There are still several invoices that need rubber stamping—the partners still have concerns about the shipping lanes…”
Hatilly yawned.
“Don’t let me bore you, dear wife. Run along to bed. I’ll wake you when it starts to flower.”
“Thank you, sweet husband.”
Hatilly awoke to a creeping sensation on her ankle.
Infernal skitter-ants were everywhere, this near to the jungle. She kicked it away. Sleepily blinking, she turned to the empty pillow next to her. Cazworth hadn’t come to bed.
The nagging insect was undaunted, and was crawling further up her shin. She flung off the bedsheets and saw that there was no insect, but rather a tendril vine weaving through her toes, entangling her ankle, and twining around her leg.
Panic shoved sleep from her mind.
She kicked but could not get the green and red shoots to release her leg. They tightened, biting into her flesh. She pried them off with her fingernails. Her hands bled from thorny splinters.
The snaking stalks wound a trail from under the bed chamber door, where they sprouted aerial rootlets to climb the bed frame. Her mind immediately flashed to Cazworth.
Armed with a flickering lantern and a pair of sewing shears, Hatilly followed the vines through the hallway of their manse. Their circumference widened the closer she stepped toward its source, which she now saw was in Cazworth’s study.
The door took several tries to open. Hatilly hadn’t known what to expect, but it wasn’t this.
The room was covered, floor to ceiling, with floral growth. A riot of obscene colors danced in her lantern’s flicker. Exotic bulbs dangled from the walls, their finger-like leaves undulating as if drawing breath. Flowers seemed to mock her through the darkness, flashing their rainbow petals like signal fires. All had sprouted from a singular dark nexus: an enormous closed flower bud, which lay on the fainting couch by the fireplace, where Hatilly herself often read while Cazworth worked. Bits of ceramic and soil lay strewn about. The zychid had outgrown its habitat.
All manner of protrusion crept from its pulsating petals. Everything in Hatilly’s mind screamed for her to flee her home, put it to the torch, and burn that hideous bouquet. But not without Cazworth. Vines twisted around the legs of the chair, the legs of the study table, the legs of…
Her husband.
Still sitting in his chair, Cazworth was cocooned from head to toe by a writhing mass of leaves. Hatilly reached his side, bare feet slipping on the foliage underfoot. She cut frantically at the strangling vines, but each snip of the shears only made them tighten their grip and produce little thorns that pierced her and her husband. Blood trickled out. Where the drops landed, zychid blossoms burst forward to feed.
Hatilly freed one of Cazworth’s hands—it was pale, and cold to the touch.
A stench filled the air, like a rotting corpse. With tears in her eyes, she turned her head toward the fainting couch, where the zychid bud was flowering.
The stench grew worse. Hatilly retched. The gargantuan petals peeled backward in colorful layers, revealing oblong petals of striking scarlet and deep green, garlanded in black tips, revealing a woman in place of the stamen. Her hair was red as blood. Her flesh like leaves. Vines and petals wreathed her in deadly beauty. Her eyes opened. They reminded Hatilly of a panther’s—narrow irises seeing only prey.
The woman who blossomed from the flower arose.
Hatilly clutched the shears like a dagger.
“You wish to prune me already?” the thing said, its deep voice ensnaring Hatilly.
“What are you?”
“The bloom you longed to witness.”
The stench turned. Gone was the reek of death.
Hatilly inhaled sweet fragrances—orange blossoms, the aroma of Sapphire Roses, the fruity scent of Kraken Lilies, the musk of Pearls of the Moon, the delicate hints of wisteria. There were more, secret flowers, but she somehow knew their names—they smelled of colors her eyes never saw. A name formed in Hatilly’s mind…
Zyra.
“Thank you for the lovely garden,” Zyra said, nodding toward Cazworth’s remains. “You tended me well, but we need more sustenance. To make the soil here more… fertile.”
Hatilly saw visions of a world covered by a bouquet of colorful death. It was a beautiful riot of hues, soft and fluttering, choking cities. There were no graves, no war, no money… Hatilly was breathless. She didn’t even feel the vines pull her down, nor the thorns bury themselves in her flesh, rending her skin, spilling her blood.
“Step into the garden that ever grows…” Zyra whispered through the stems and petals. “Death blossoms, and you don’t want to miss the colors, do you?”
Hatilly did not respond, for she was with the flowers. | Mage |
Shadya had only been dead a few weeks, and already Akshan could feel all traces of her slipping away. That was the hardest facet of his grief—the hoarding of mementos, the scrambling to scrape together whatever remained of his beloved mentor.
He pulled the old charcoal sketch from his pocket and studied it. The crude drawing was a poor likeness of her face, lacking in all fine detail. Still, he found if he closed his eyes and tried to remember, he could usually fill in the blanks. But more and more, his memory was failing him.
Shadya, why do you leave me? he wondered. Was it his own doing, something deep inside trying to protect him by eroding all traces of a standard he was failing to meet? Or perhaps he just needed something to jar his memory.
He stuffed the drawing back into his pocket as he walked into the open-air markets of central Marwi, searching for anything to remind him of his mentor. After a few blocks, he stumbled upon a jarring sight: In an alley between two stucco buildings, a young waif was fastening a familiar mother-of-pearl bracelet to her grime-smeared arm.
Quick as the wind, Akshan dashed right up to the urchin’s face, cape snapping in his wake. “Where did you get that?” he barked, his tone uncharacteristically brusque.
“I found it,” said the waif, smothering the bracelet with her arms. “What’s your problem?”
“My problem is this: That piece of jewelry belonged to someone I cared for very much,” said Akshan. “It was her favorite.”
The girl stared up at him, eyes wide with fear. Akshan realized his fist had tightened around her collar. He released his grip and attempted a wry smile.
“So...” he said, “why don’t you tell me how you’ve come to possess it?”
“I—I took it from someone who won’t miss it.”
The urchin’s face welled with spite from years of hardship. Akshan knew it well. He also knew of an infamous black-market jeweler on the next block, and what the man might pay the girl for the bracelet—if she hadn’t crossed paths with Akshan.
“Then you’d better tell me the name of this person.”
“I can’t. You don’t know what he’d do.”
Akshan gently coaxed the bracelet from the waif’s grip and felt his heart skip as he pulled something from its clasp: a single strand of long silver hair.
Shadya’s hair? It was silver... right?
Akshan’s mind flashed with a partial picture of her, now even less complete than before.
“Young friend,” said Akshan to the girl, “my Shadya is gone. This bracelet is one of the few remaining pieces of her. It was part of a set with four others.”
The waif averted her eyes as if her interrogator might glean some forbidden information from them.
Akshan exhaled, his voice softening. “Whoever you took this from... is sure to have the others. You must tell me who this scoundrel is.”
The girl stammered, her eyes shifting until she relented. “They call him the Devil of the Dunes, sir. He lives in the large palace in the foothills north of here.”
Akshan’s brow furrowed. “You stole this from a warlord?”
“I cleaned his stables,” said the girl. “He owed me.”
“I cannot begrudge you that,” said Akshan. “But this bracelet was not his for you to steal. It seems I must pay this Dune Devil a visit.”
“Don’t,” said the girl. “He is a killer, sir.”
“This, I already know.”
With that, he fired his grappling hook into the eaves of buildings above and launched himself out of sight.
In the darkest hour of night, a host of heavily armed guards kept watch over the warlord’s palace. None of them noticed the caped figure darting through the shadows toward the silver-inlaid doors of the main bedroom.
Inside, a large, battle-scarred ruffian lay sprawled across the entire width of his enormous goose-down bed. Three exotic pet rodents with long, flowing white hair perked up and scampered off the bed as Akshan emerged from the shadows.
His hand clamped down across the mouth of the sleeping warlord. The man’s eyes shot wide with rage as he uttered a muffled scream.
“Good evening, scoundrel,” said Akshan, pressing his gun to the ruffian’s chin. “Sorry to call on you at such an hour, but, uh... only a little sorry.”
The warlord squirmed under the tip of the Absolver.
“Now, now,” said Akshan. “Collect yourself. I’m going to remove my hand, and all I want to hear from your mouth is a confession. Ready?”
The rage in the warlord’s eyes turned to a cautious curiosity. Slowly, Akshan removed his hand.
“Confession?” asked the bemused warlord.
“Shadya. The sentinel. Elderly woman, stickler for rules, fond of pearl jewelry...” said Akshan.
“I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”
“She was the kindest person I have ever known. At least be a good lowlife and tell me why you killed her.”
“I didn’t kill her!” said the warlord, a tinge of frustration in his voice.
“Then how else could you have taken this from her?” asked Akshan, thrusting the bracelet into the warlord’s face. “She was wearing it the day she died. I found four others just like it in your jewelry case.” Tutting in disapproval, Akshan presented all five matching bracelets to the warlord.
“I know who you are,” scowled the warlord. “I’ve heard all about you and what you do. You think you can kill me and bring her back.”
“No. I believe the time for that has passed.”
“Then what d’you want?”
Akshan paused, thinking of the silver hair, the bracelets, and the woman whose face he could no longer recall. Was the man before him the one who had slain her? Did it even matter? Surely, the world would be a better place without him.
At last, he answered the warlord’s question.
“Peace?”
With a squeeze of the grip, Akshan fired the Absolver, illuminating the bedroom as countless bolts of relic-stone light pierced the warlord’s body.
Guards poured into the room, though not quickly enough to catch the fleeing Akshan, who disappeared through a window into the cool desert night.
As the sun rose over the mountains, Akshan trudged back to the city, his mind bedeviled.
He studied the five pearl bracelets he'd recently recovered. He had thought they might somehow bring Shadya back, if only in his mind’s eye. But her memory continued to fade, and now only a vague silhouette of her face remained.
Akshan knew one thing for certain: She would not have approved of him killing the Devil of the Dunes—not out of pure vengeance. But deep down, he knew he hadn’t done it for her. He’d done it for himself, and it had not brought him peace.
He turned one of the bracelets in his fingers, searching for solace, and noticed a tiny inscription etched inside the band. An old sentinel mantra that he’d heard often, but never really understood: “Give all, and all may live.”
The words rang in Akshan’s head like a war trumpet as a revelation shook him.
He fired his grappling hook into the eaves above and launched himself from building to building until he arrived at the place where he’d met the waif the day before. There she lay, sleeping in the same alley.
He knelt over the girl, bracelets in hand. “You should have these. It is what she would’ve wanted.”
Confused and half-asleep, the waif’s eyes blinked as Akshan placed the bracelets in her meager pile of belongings.
“But, uh... sell them to the jeweler in the spice district,” he said. “He will give you a better price.”
Akshan could feel the stunned gaze of the girl watching him as he walked away, and a bittersweet comfort washed over him. Though he had parted with the last physical remnants of his mentor, he felt a bright warmth within. And in his mind’s eye, clear as day, was Shadya’s face. | Marksman |
He started his training with a single breath. In, and out.
He could hear water dripping through a crack in the cave ceiling, dampening the stone floor until it gleamed against the darkness. He knew the holy patterns carved into the floor’s stone—proclaiming destinies and orbits. Even when he closed his eyes, he could see each lunar arc.
He made a few tentative swings with his blade. The moonstone felt solid in his hand, but remained ethereal, as if it wasn’t there. It was a magical remnant of the first convergence when the moon and its reflection in the spirit realm briefly touched across the celestial veil, and moonstone cast off by the union rained down on the world like tears.
Following their orbits, the two moons were forced to part.
Embracing his own orbit, Aphelios continued to train.
His blade was now his breath, drawing faster and faster. His slashes followed arcs he had practiced for years until even he bled, training to the verge of self-destruction. Following his weapon, he twisted through the air. He slashed, parried—each attack flowing into the next. He closed his eyes so he would not need to see… would not remember everything he’d sacrificed to wield his weapon.
“Aphelios…” You see my face. My lip quivers, though my voice is firm.
“Aphelios.” Reflected in my eyes, you see…
Aphelios stumbled as his moonstone blade flashed red and an image of an outlander passed before him. A vision? A memory? How many times had he killed to not know for sure? The blade slipped from his hand, and Aphelios soon followed—colliding against the floor with no weapon to lead him, losing grasp of his discipline.
It had all come back. Everything he pushed down. Every cut of his blade into his enemies cut even deeper into himself.
Alune… his sister. She’d reached across the veil. She’d shown him… but she’d been torn away.
Aphelios pushed troubled words he would never say back into his throat. His fingers tightened into a fist, only for a moment, ready to strike against the orbits and destinies carved into stone. But, hand shaking… he let go.
As Aphelios stood and swept back his hair, he noticed the moon had risen, its light shining onto a shrine he kept deeper in the temple. Calling to him, as it did whenever he was needed.
It was time. His faith would be rewarded.
The Lunari’s power was growing, phasing across the celestial veil. A magic of spirit, of the secrets within—for all of his training, Aphelios could not channel the moon’s power himself. But he would not need to.
He carefully prepared noctum flowers that he’d cultivated in the shrine’s pool, pressing their essence into a caustic elixir—the liquid glowing faintly within the mortar bowl.
He set aside his training blade and raised the bowl to the moon’s light.
Then, without hesitation, he pressed the flower’s poison to his lips.
The agony is indescribable. The pain wraps around your throat. You cannot say anything at all…
Everything burns. You convulse in misery, you retch and cough as the poison flows through you, opening you to the moon’s power…
To me.
“Aphelios,” I whisper from my fortress, and my spirit brushes against yours. You sense my presence across the veil. You raise your hand, knowing that I am too far. That it is the pain you must hold on to.
You close your hand around it. It becomes your weapon.
I send it to you…
Gravitum.
“Aphelios,” I whisper as I feel you cling to the poison that burns you away. Knowing why you make this choice. What I ask you to sacrifice…
With a final lung-wracking gasp, Aphelios emerged from the cave temple into the night. His expression hardened as he fought back the wrenching agony, embracing it and leaving everything else behind him.
Mount Targon loomed above and below the temple, stretching in both directions.
The howling wind whipped up frozen wisps that shimmered as they faded, dancing with Aphelios’ scarf and buffeting his cloak. The light of the moon shone higher still. It would guide him.
It was her light, shining through the moon’s.
She’d given him what he needed.
Gravitum was more than a moonstone blade. In training, he had slashed, stabbed, twirled. To use this weapon, he would do the same—but his reach would be much greater. A simple thrust would unleash its power, his skill and her magic converging.
Firing the cannon’s black orbs toward a floating rock that was suspended by the Targon’s heavenly magic, Gravitum’s power slowly drew the island down. With a single leap, Aphelios began running atop the island, his boots casting small drifts of snow into the abyss. Each orb he fired drew another rock close, the floating monoliths colliding behind him as he leapt from one to the next, swiftly scaling a mountain that would take most people days to climb… if they attempted the climb at all.
Only the Solari, and those who sought power, held vigil here.
He passed their settlements below, each quiet and ignorant of the night. For years, he had wondered how Solari zealots could deny his faith’s existence, walking their paths to follow the sun, fearing darkness that only Lunari dared face. But his destiny was clear.
The zealots would be revealed by the moon’s light.
Aphelios leapt to a final island of stone and paused above a snowy clearing where a party of Solari had gathered, their weapons blazing. Burning Ones, the Lunari called them. By night, they scorched out heretics of the moon. By day, their priests denied there was anything but the sun. Beneath dark hoods, their faces were hidden by flame as impersonal as their judgment. They had surrounded a barbarian cloaked in crimson and steel.
The outlander he’d seen in his vision.
The moon’s light stopped in this clearing. It stopped at the barbarian’s feet.
“Aphelios,” I say again. I whisper it to your soul and gather my magic, knowing the only words you want to hear.
“I am with you…”
Aphelios dived off the rock island and plummeted into battle, the Burning Ones’ weapons blazing all the brighter as Gravitum’s darkness spread among them. Crying out in alarm, the Solari turned to fight, but found themselves bound to the ground by a black orb. Aphelios dropped the cannon, and a new weapon appeared in his hand.
“Severum,” I whisper.
Landing from his descent without looking away from his enemies’ burning faces, Aphelios slashed behind him with Severum, the crescent pistol’s beam tearing through the island of stone. Terrified, the Burning Ones could only watch as massive slabs slammed down among them, cut loose by the energy of the waning moon.
The survivors quickly spread across the clearing, lashing at Aphelios with their molten spears. Weaving between the blows, Aphelios continued to slash with Severum and reached out with his free hand to grasp one more weapon as it passed through the veil, knowing it would be there.
“Crescendum,” I say to the night.
With a soaring arc, Crescendum cut through the throats of the remaining Solari in the clearing—Aphelios catching the moonstone blade as it twisted around and returned to his hand.
In seconds, it was over.
The barbarian stands before you. He looks up, gratefully. Beside him, what the Burning Ones sought: a scimitar curved like the moon.
He opens his mouth to thank you, but he sees your expression twist, though you try to hide it. You fight the fear, punching your shoulder where the Burning Ones’ spears cut through your cloak. Trying to remember the pain. Reaching for it.
You don’t want to kill him. But you must.
Your face is too numb for you to feel the tears… Instead, you feel mine.
“Aphelios,” I say one last time, forcing my voice through the veil. There is a dizzying rush as our orbits bring us together.
Through your eyes, I see what moonlight reveals around the scimitar. Why it was abandoned.
She is running…
We must find her.
The crimson-clad barbarian lay in the snow among the Solari.
With a gasp, Aphelios fell to his knees.
He glanced up at the moon, listening for a whisper only he could hear.
His expression dulled again. Without a word, he picked up the scimitar and walked into the night. | Marksman |
Even three bells after the Sun Gate had closed, Piltover was still full of life - life that was currently getting in her way. Caitlyn sprinted down Mainspring Crescent, weaving a path between midnight revelers strolling down the fashionable promenade of cafes and bistros. The supper clubs were emptying, as were the nearby theaters inside the Drawsmith Arcade, so this street was going to get a whole lot busier. If they didn’t catch up to Devaki soon, they were going to lose him.
“Do you see him?” shouted Mohan from behind.
“If I could see him, I’d already be drawing a bead on him!”
The hextech rifle slung over Caitlyn’s shoulder was loaded and ready to shoot, but she needed a target, and Devaki was more nimble than a spooked doe. He’d robbed three clan workshops (that they knew of) in the last five weeks, and Caitlyn had him pegged for two others. Working a hunch that something big was in the works, she and Mohan had been keeping watch on one of House Morichi’s workshops, and sure enough, Devaki had shown. Though they hadn’t known it until the city lighters had worked their way down the street to ignite the glow-lamps and Caitlyn caught his reflection in the glass of the cafe across the street. Devaki had seen her in the same instant, and took to his heels like a startled wharf-rat.
Caitlyn skidded to a halt at the next junction. The caged flames atop the fluted lampposts bathed the dozens of surprised people staring at her with a warm, amber light. Her pale blue eyes darted from person to person, seeking Devaki’s distinctive silhouette.
A young man crossed the street toward her, his cheeks ruddy with a night’s enjoyment. He waved at her.
“You looking for a man on the run?” he asked. “Fella with a big hat?”
“Yes,” said Caitlyn. “You saw him? Where did he go?”
The young man pointed left and said, “Down that way at a good clip.”
She followed his gaze and saw cheering theater-goers spilling from the Drawsmith Arcade, a vaulted structure of colored glass and ironwork columns. They mingled with stall-holders selling refreshments and promenade-girls looking for a wealthy mark. Mohan finally caught up to her, sweating and breathing hard. He bent at the waist and propped himself up with his palms on his knees. His blue uniform coat was askew and his hat tipped back over his head.
“Figures he’d try to lose himself in the crowd,” he said between gulps of air.
Caitlyn took a moment to study their public-spirited helper. His clothes were finely-tailored and must once have cost him a pretty penny, but the cuffs were frayed and the elbows worn. Her eyes narrowed as she took in last season’s colors and a collar that hadn’t been in style for a year.
Wealthy, but down on his luck.
Mohan turned toward the busy street and said, “Come on, Caitlyn! Let’s go or we’ll lose him.”
Caitlyn dropped to one knee to look at the street from a different perspective. The cobbles were slick from the evening rain and were well trodden. From this angle, she saw the scuffs of heel marks on stone that only a running man would leave. But they weren’t heading left, they were heading right.
“How much did Devaki give you to tell us that?” said Caitlyn to the unfashionably dressed young man. “If it was less than a gold hex, you were swindled.”
The young man put his hands up and said, “It was five, actually,” before turning tail and running toward the crowds with a laugh.
“What the...?” said Mohan, as Caitlyn sprinted in the opposite direction. She’d lost valuable seconds, but knew exactly where Devaki was going now. She soon left Mohan behind, her sometime partner a little too fond of the sugared pastries the District-Inspector’s wife made for her husband’s officers.
Caitlyn ran a winding path through the city, along seldom-traveled alleyways and crooked paths between the gables of tall, brick-fronted warehouses. She cut across busy streets, drawing cries of annoyance from those she barged out of her way. The closer she came to the great canyon bisecting Piltover, the narrower the streets became, but she was betting she knew the shortcuts of Piltover better than Devaki. After a dozen twists and turns, she emerged onto a crooked street of undulating cobbles that followed the jagged line of the cliff. Known locally as Drop Street thanks to the wheezing hexdraulic conveyer at the end that ran late into the night, it was deep in shadow.
The iron-framed cabin hadn’t yet opened, the lozenge-patterned grille still in the closed position. A group of fifteen Zaunites, a great many of whom were intoxicated, gathered around the ticket booth. None of them were the man Caitlyn was looking for. She turned and dropped to a crouch, resting the barrel of her rifle on a packing crate bearing the brand of Clan Medarda. Stolen property, no doubt, but she didn’t have time to check it.
Caitlyn thumbed the rifle’s primer switch to the upright position. A gentle hum built within the breech as she worked the action to ready a shot. She pulled the butt of the rifle hard against her shoulder and slowed her breathing. Her cheek pressed into the walnut stock and she closed one eye as she took aim through the crystalline lenses.
She didn’t have long to wait.
Devaki swung around the corner, his long coat billowing out behind him and his hat a tall silhouette. He appeared to be in no hurry, but then, he believed he had shed his pursuers. He held a heavy brass-cornered case in his metal-clawed hand; a crude thing Vi said he’d had done in one of Zaun’s ask-no-questions augmentation parlors when he was a foolish youth.
Caitlyn focused her aim on the pneumatic monstrosity and squeezed the trigger. A searing flash of orange-red exploded from the weapon’s muzzle and Devaki’s hand vanished in a pinpoint blast. He cried out and fell back, his hat toppling from his head as the case fell to the ground. Devaki looked up, his eyes widening in pain and surprise as he saw Caitlyn. He turned to run, but Caitlyn had been waiting for that. She toggled a thumb-switch on the breech and pulled the trigger again.
This time the beam struck Devaki in the back and exploded in a web of crackling energy. Devaki’s back arched and he fell, twitching, to the ground. Caitlyn powered down her rifle and slung it over her shoulder as she walked toward the fallen Devaki. The effects of the electro-net were dimming, but he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon. Caitlyn bent to retrieve the case he’d dropped and shook her head with a tut-tut sound.
“H-h-h...how?” said Devaki, through the spasms wracking his body.
“How did I know where you were headed?” asked Caitlyn.
Devaki nodded, the movement jerky and forced.
“Your previous thefts were meaningless in themselves, but when I looked at them as part of a larger scheme, it seemed like you were gathering components to build a version of Vishlaa’s Hexylene Caliver,” said Caitlyn.
She knelt beside Devaki to place a hand on his rigid body.
“And as we all know, that weapon was outlawed as being too dangerous, wasn’t it? No one in Piltover would dare touch that kind of banned hex, but someone, maybe in Noxus? They’d pay handsomely for that, I imagine. But the only place you could get something like that out of the city is through one of Zaun’s less reputable smugglers. This is the only quick route down into Zaun that’s still running at this time of night. Once I saw you weren’t going to try and hide out in Piltover, all I had to do was get to the conveyor before you and wait. So you and I are going to have a long talk, and you’re going to tell me who you’re working for.”
Devaki didn’t answer, and Caitlyn grinned as she reached over his prone body.
“Nice hat,” she said. | Marksman |
When Heimerdinger and his yordle colleagues migrated to Piltover, they embraced science as a way of life, and they immediately made several groundbreaking contributions to the techmaturgical community. What yordles lack in stature, they make up for with industriousness. Corki, the Daring Bombardier, gained his title by test-piloting one of these contributions - the original design for the Reconnaissance Operations Front-Line Copter, an aerial assault vehicle which has become the backbone of the Bandle City Expeditionary Force (BCEF). Together with his squadron - the Screaming Yipsnakes - Corki soars over Valoran, surveying the landscape and conducting aerial acrobatics for the benefit of onlookers below.
Corki is the most renowned of the Screaming Yipsnakes for remaining cool under fire and exhibiting bravery to the point of madness. He served several tours of duty, often volunteering for missions that would take him behind enemy lines, either gathering intelligence or delivering messages through hot zones. He thrived on danger, and enjoyed nothing more than a good dogfight in the morning. More than just an ace pilot, Corki also made several modifications to his copter, outfitting it with an arsenal of weapons which some speculate were more for show than functionality. When open hostilities ceased, Corki was forced into a retirement, which he felt ''cut the engines and clipped the wings.’’ He tried to make do with stunt flying and canyon running, but it was never the same without the refreshing smell of gunpowder streaking through the air around him. | Marksman |
Even as an orphan on the streets of Basilich, Draven was headstrong and full of bravado, frequently getting into vicious brawls with older street children and shady underworld thugs. While supremely confident in his own ability—some would say overconfident—it is unlikely he would have survived childhood had it not been for his older brother, Darius, who invariably finished the fights Draven started.
When Basilich fell to the warhosts of Noxus, the brothers came to the attention of a captain named Cyrus, after Draven made an ill-considered attempt on his life. Impressed with their fighting spirit, Cyrus allowed them to join the Noxian ranks.
For years, the brothers fought as part of Cyrus’ warhost—yet while Darius took to this life easily, Draven grew steadily more bored. His martial skill was beyond question, but the daily drudgery of soldiering felt like too much effort for too little reward… and not enough personal glory.
Darius inevitably rose to command his own warband, and Draven joined him. However, if he thought that would be easier, or a way to achieve greater individual recognition, he was sorely disappointed.
Some say Draven chose to leave Darius’ command. Some say he was forced out. Either way, his skills were highly sought after as a champion and duelist, and he was enticed to join a succession of warbands during the occupation of Ionia, before ending up with a fairly respectable contract in the Reckoning pits.
For centuries, the gladiatorial Reckoners had performed a vital role in Noxus—punishing criminals and settling disputes between the noble houses—and Draven was determined to receive the riches, adoration, and renown he felt he deserved. However, with long, protracted wars on many fronts, the spectacle was beginning to lose its appeal for the common citizen. As the attention of the crowds drifted, Draven fell into a slump, spending more and more time in the seedier drinking halls and gambling dens of the capital.
He was washed-up and broke when the former general Jericho Swain found him.
Swain had a plan to reclaim Noxus’ lost glory, and needed Draven’s help to achieve it. Perhaps Swain only enlisted him as a way to ensure his brother Darius’ support after the fact. Regardless, Draven proved integral to Swain’s plan—to depose the Grand General himself, Boram Darkwill.
Standing triumphant with Swain, Draven smiled for the first time in months as the cheers of the Noxian people washed over him.
But duty called. In the days and weeks following this unprecedented coup, many among the noble elite refused to honor Swain’s succession, so they were sentenced to death in the arena.
One condemned man escaped his handlers ahead of his execution. Operating on pure instinct—as was ever his wont—Draven leapt from the high balcony and hurled a pair of axes at the fleeing man, cutting him down in a heartbeat. After a moment of stunned silence, the crowd roared their approval. Draven retrieved his axes, spinning them high in the air, playing to his new fans, and savoring their rapturous applause.
Thus Draven became the Glorious Executioner, turning routine bouts into grand spectacles that drew ever larger crowds.
Soon enough, an enterprising (and diminutive) promoter, tired of paying to house, feed, and train Reckoners only for them to die in front of dwindling audiences, approached Draven with an idea. What if the drama of the classic pit fights could be combined with Draven’s natural showmanship?
The Reckoners quickly became entertainers as much as combatants, each with their own carefully constructed backstory, fighting style, and flamboyant personality. The fights were often bloody—this was still Noxus after all—but far less often ended in death. The rivalries, trash-talking, and intrigue between the best-known Reckoners became the stuff of legend throughout the empire, but none were talked about more than Draven.
For a time he lived the high life, receiving invitations to a never-ending stream of parties and banquets, mixing with the wealthy and influential of Swain’s new Noxus. He even reconciled with Darius, and would occasionally still march out with the warhosts, defeating enemy champions and generals in single combat.
Nevertheless, Draven has started to grow restless once again. He has all that he could have ever imagined, and more, but now dreams of the day when the whole world knows his name. | Marksman |
After hours of trekking through the stiflingly humid jungle, the cool air of this underground crypt is sweet bliss. Sure, potential death awaits at every turn, but so does certain glory.
I step through a stone archway and clouds of dust rise like phantoms, revealing a pathway of circular patterns carved into the rock. This tomb is rumored to be impenetrable, uncrackable, and deadly. No explorer has yet escaped with their life, but then, none of them have been me.
So far I’ve infiltrated miles of labyrinthine tunnels, navigated spike-filled sand traps, crawled beneath swinging blade-pendulums, and wrestled hissing pit vipers. Nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to live here.
Dozens of lidless stone eyes leer at me from the walls. Well, I’d leer too. I doubt they’ve seen anyone this astonishingly handsome since the last Rune War.
At the center of the room, a crystal vial rests on a pedestal. It shimmers with lambent fluid, casting tiny rainbows on the floor. That’s what I’m here for. Many will dismiss a grandiose tale of bold adventure as pure fiction, but there’s no denying a physical artifact. Collecting legendary treasure proves beyond doubt you’ve conquered the impossible.
The Elixir of Uloa is sought after by cults hoping it will imbue them with immortality, withered dynasties looking to reclaim power, and pilgrims seeking wisdom beyond belief. Quite a lot to promise for a vial whose contents wouldn’t fill a teaspoon.
I know every trap in the book will trigger as soon as I lift it from the pedestal. That’s the nature of places like this. I flex my fingers and the gemstone at the center of my gauntlet glows a satisfying cerulean blue. Now the real fun begins.
I approach slowly. A stone trembles underfoot and I step back to avoid activating a trigger. I pick my way across the room, only stepping on the most immobile stones. As my fingers close over the Elixir, deep cracks split the stone floor of the chamber. I activate my gauntlet, charging it with magical energy. Swirling rays of light overwhelm my vision as I teleport to the archway fifteen feet away. Not a second too soon. Hundreds of knife-sharp stakes cascade from the ceiling, missing me by a hair’s breadth as the entire room collapses into a shadowy crevasse below.
My gauntlet’s power is perfect for tight spots, but doesn’t lend itself to crossing great distances. And takes longer than I’d like to recharge.
A thunderous boom shakes the walls and echoes down the corridor. Sounds like the ancient foundations of this tomb won’t hold much longer, so it’s time to speed things along. I prefer my ground strictly solid, with a generous helping of reliability, so I sprint down the tunnel as widening cracks obliterate the floor behind me.
I chase the directional marks I chalked when I entered the tomb, sliding beneath collapsing archways, leaping over boiling quicksand, and dashing around colossal boulders rolling in to block this ever-narrowing passageway.
The wall to my right splits apart and a barrage of colossal insects tumble through, giant pincers snapping and venom dripping from their jaws. Thousands of red spider eyes gleam with hunger while scorpions scuttle forward with stingers poised. Jungle vermin are a damn nuisance, but I’ve got just the remedy!
I close my eyes for a split second. Energy flows down my arm, jangling my nerves with a pulsating beat as I concentrate power into the gem. I steady my gauntlet and aim it at the largest spider. As the monster opens his jaws I unleash a blazing ray into its mouth, blasting it back into the crawling horde. The smell of burned chitin stings my throat and my stomach churns.
I turn and run, firing blinding beams of light behind me at every twist of the passageway. A slab of rock the size of a house breaks from the ceiling directly overhead. My gauntlet recharges just in time and I reappear ten feet ahead in a whirling spiral of light as the tunnel behind me collapses.
Two toppling pillars fall toward each other and I slide between them a moment before they smash to dust. I dash into a chamber with a floor angled toward the surface.
A sliver of sunlight shines ahead, and I grin as I bolt for it. Freedom is close. The ground shakes with a deafening rumble and I stumble mid-run as the chamber falls apart in front of me. Freedom was close.
Then again, backup plans are a particular specialty of mine.
I ready my gauntlet and concentrate all my energy into the gem. I feel it drawing power from me. My vision blurs and the world seems to tilt as the gem fills with magic. The gauntlet pulses the blue of a clear sky.
I open my hand and a brilliant arc of golden light as wide as the tunnel bursts from my palm. The force of the blast staggers me, but I maintain my focus. The light blazes in a continuous glowing channel, gleaming brightly as it disintegrates everything in its path, leaving a precariously narrow gap. My favorite kind of gap!
I close my hand into a fist and the tunnel darkens once more. The ground lurches unpleasantly, sending me to my knees. I’m so spent I can barely move, let alone stand. Inches from my face, cracks spread across the floor faster than I can track them. Not good. The tomb won’t hold much longer, so I muster my remaining strength and rise, sprinting to what I dearly hope is safety.
I’m losing sight of the sunlight. Another crash - the walls crumble around me. I close my eyes and dive through the hole. Nothing wrong with hoping for a bit of good luck, and I am exceptionally lucky. I hit the ground, roll to my feet and inhale the sweet air of the jungle.
Behind me, the entrance to the tomb caves in completely, releasing a billowing cloud of ancient dust. I brush the dirt from my clothes, toss my hair out of my eyes with a well-practiced flick and walk away.
Another impossible ruin traversed. Another treasure to prove the truth of my daring tales.
And all before lunch. | Marksman |
Holed up in an empty bar, bleeding from a dozen wounds and surrounded by armed men who wanted him dead, Malcolm Graves had seen better days. He’d seen worse ones, too, so he wasn’t worried yet. Graves leaned over the smashed bar and helped himself to a bottle, sighing as he read the label.
“Demacian wine? That all you got?”
“It’s the most expensive bottle I have...” said the innkeeper, cowering below the bar in a glittering ocean of broken glass.
Graves looked around the bar and grinned.
“I reckon it’s the only bottle you got left.”
The man had panic written all over him. He clearly wasn’t used to being in the middle of a gunfight. This wasn’t Bilgewater, where fatal brawls broke out ten times a day. Piltover was regarded a more civilized city than Graves’s hometown. In some ways, at least.
He yanked the cork free with his teeth and spat it to the floor before taking a swig. He swilled it around his mouth like he’d seen rich folks do before swallowing it.
“Pisswater,” he said, “but beggars can’t be choosers, huh?”
A voice shouted through the broken windows, buoyed with confidence it hadn’t earned and the false bravado of numbers.
“Give it up, Graves. There’s seven of us to one of you. This ain’t going to end well.”
“Damn straight it ain’t,” hollered Graves in return. “If you want to walk away from this, you best go fetch more men!”
He took another swig from the bottle, then put it down on the bar.
“Time to get to work,” he said, lifting his one-of-a-kind shotgun from the bar.
Graves reloaded, pushing fresh shells home. The weapon snapped together with a satisfyingly lethal sound, loud enough to carry to the men outside. Anyone who knew him would know that sound and what it meant.
The outlaw slid off the barstool and made his way to the door, glass crunching beneath his boot heels. He stooped to glance through a cracked window. Four men crouched behind makeshift cover: two on the upper floor of a fancy workshop, another two in shadowed doorways to either side. All held crossbows or muskets at the ready.
“We tracked you halfway across the world, you son of a bitch,” shouted the same voice. “Bounty didn’t say nothin’ about you being alive or dead. Walk out now with that cannon of yours held high and there don’t need to be no more bloodshed.”
“Oh, I’m comin’ out,” shouted Graves. “Don’t you worry none about that.”
He drew a silver serpent from his pocket and flipped it onto the bar, where it spun through a pool of spilled rum before landing heads up. A trembling hand reached up to take it. Graves grinned.
“That’s for the door,” he said.
“What about the door?” asked the innkeeper.
Graves hammered his boot into the inn’s front door, smashing it from its hinges. He dove through the splintered frame, rolling to one knee, gun blasting from the hip.
“Alright, you bastards!” he roared. “Let’s finish this!” | Marksman |
One.
The gun in his hand was simply a tool—but a perfectly crafted one. Gold type was inlaid into the blackish-green metal. It spelled the smith’s name: this detail spoke of its creator’s pride and confidence. It was not a Piltovan weapon—those gaudy things that attempted to function with the minuscule amounts of magic available in those lands. This gun was made by a true forge master. Magic pulsed from its bronze, Ionian heart.
He wiped the gun’s stock a fourth time. He couldn’t be sure it was clean until he wiped it down four times. Didn’t matter that he hadn’t used it. Didn’t matter that he was only going to stow it in the bag under the bed. He couldn’t put it away until he was sure it was clean, and he couldn’t be sure it was clean until he had wiped it down four times. It was getting clean though. Four times makes it clean.
It was clean, and it was wonderful. His new patrons had been generous. But did the finest painters not deserve the finest brushes?
The scale and precision of the new device made his previous work with blades seem insignificant by comparison. Understanding firearm mechanics had taken him weeks of study, but evolving his ki techniques from blades had taken months.
The gun held four shots. Each bullet had been infused with magical energy. Each bullet was as perfect as a Lassilan monk’s blade. Each bullet was the paint from which his art would flow. Each bullet was a masterpiece. It didn’t just cut apart the body. It rearranged it.
The rehearsal at the mill town had already shown the gun’s potential. And his new employers had been pleased with the work’s reception.
He had finished polishing it, but with the gun in his right hand, the temptation was too great. He knew he shouldn’t, but he unpacked the black, eel-skin bodysuit. He drew the fingertips of his left hand across the slick surface of the clothes. The feel of the skin’s oily surface quickened his breath. He picked up the tight, leather mask, then—unable to help himself—slid it over his face. It covered his right eye and mouth. It constricted his breathing and removed his depth perception…
Delightful.
He was putting on the shoulder armor when the bells he’d hidden on the steps leading up to his room sounded. He quickly folded up the weapon and removed the mask.
“Hello?” the maid asked through the door. The lilt in her voice hinted to an upbringing far south of this town.
“You did what I asked?” he said.
“Yes, sir. A white lantern every four yards. A red lantern every sixteen.”
“Then I can begin,” Khada Jhin said as he swung open the door to his room.
The woman’s eyes widened as he exited his room. Jhin was well aware of how he looked. Normally, it elicited pangs of self-conscious loathing, but today was a performance day.
Today, Khada Jhin cut a slender, elegant figure as he walked out with a cane. He was hunched, and his cloak seemed to cover some huge deformity on his shoulder, but a jaunty stride belied this. He forcefully tapped the cane ahead of him as he marched toward the window. He tapped the frame rhythmically—three beats, then a fourth. His gold sparkled, his cream cloak flowed, and his jewels glittered in the sun.
“What… What is that?” the maid asked, indicating Jhin’s shoulder.
Jhin paused for a moment to study the woman’s cherubic face. It was round and perfectly symmetrical. A dull and predictable design. Removed, it would make a terrible mask.
“It’s for the crescendo, my darling,” Khada Jhin said.
From the inn’s window, he had a clear view of the rest of the town in the valley below him. This performance had to be wonderful, but there was still so much work to do. The councilman would be returning this evening—and so far, all of Jhin’s plans for tonight seemed… uninspired.
“I brought some flowers for your room,” the woman said, walking past him.
He could have used someone else to place the lanterns. But he didn’t. He could have changed clothes before opening his door. But he didn’t. Now she had seen Khada Jhin in his finery.
The inspiration he needed was so obvious now. So preordained. There was never a choice. There was no escaping the Art.
He would have to make this maid’s face... more interesting.
Two.
The candied pork glistened on top of the five-flavor broth. The aroma entranced Shen, but he set aside his spoon. As the waitress left, she smiled and nodded in approval. The fat had yet to melt into the broth. Doubtless, the soup was already excellent, but in a moment, the flavor would be at its peak. Patience.
Shen considered the interior of the White Cliffs Inn. It was deceptively simple and rough. The wood weavers had been masters, removing the tree bark and living leaves only where necessary.
The candle on Shen’s table flickered… wrongly. He slid away from the table, retrieving his blades from under his cloak.
“Your students are as quiet as a pregnant worax,” he said.
Alone and dressed like a merchant, Zed entered the inn. Brushing past the waitress, he sat down three tables away. Every part of Shen wanted to dash at his foe, to avenge his father. But such was not the way of twilight. He calmed himself as he realized the distance was too far… even if only by the length of his index finger.
Shen looked over at Zed, expecting to see him grin. Instead, his rival sighed. His skin was sallow, and dark folds hung beneath his eyes.
“Years, I have waited,” said Shen.
“Have I misjudged the distance?” Zed asked wearily.
“Even if my head is cut off, I will still close and strike,” Shen continued, sliding his foot backward and cocking it against the floor. Zed was ten paces and one half of a finger length away.
“Your path’s closer to mine. Your father’s ideals were a weakness. Ionia could no longer afford them,” Zed said. He leaned back in his chair, keeping himself just outside of the range Shen would need to strike a killing blow. “I know that’s not something I can make you understand. But I will offer you a chance for vengeance.”
Shen inched forward to the edge of his chair. “I do not act because of vengeance. You defy the balance. For that, you are damned.”
“The Golden Demon escaped,” Zed said, simply.
“Impossible,” Shen replied, feeling a hollowness that caught in his chest.
“Your father’s greatest victory. And now, again, his foolish mercy has tarnished his legacy.” Zed shook his head. “You know what that… thing is capable of.” Then Zed leaned over the table, well within Shen’s range—his neck intentionally exposed. “And you know that we are the only two people who can get close enough to stop him.”
Shen remembered the first time he’d seen the body of someone killed by the infamous Khada Jhin. His skin prickled from the memory; his teeth clenched. Only his father had been strong enough to still believe a merciful justice could be served.
Something in Shen had changed that day. Something in Zed had broken.
Now, that monster had returned.
Shen put his swords on the table. He looked down at the perfect bowl of soup in front of him. Little droplets of the pork fat’s oil shimmered on its surface, but he wasn’t hungry anymore.
Three.
There was still no sign of Zed. It was disappointing. Very disappointing. He certainly must have sought out his former friend. It was likely Zed was hiding, watching. Jhin needed to be careful.
From the jetty, Jhin looked back to the foreign ship. The tide had come in, and the ship would be leaving in a few moments. He would have to return soon if he was going to perform in Zaun next month. Risk on top of risk.
He stopped to check his reflection in a puddle. From the water, a worried, elderly merchant stared back at him. Years of acting practice combined with his martial training had given him total control of his facial muscles. It was a common face, and he had given it an unexceptional expression. When he walked up the hill, Jhin blended easily into the crowd.
He checked the white lanterns above him, counting the distance. If Zed appeared, he would need them. At the inn on the top of the hill, he glanced at the planters where he had hidden traps. Sharpened steel blades, shaped like flowers. They protected his escape route in case anything went wrong.
He thought of how the metal would slice through the crowd and splash the building’s freshly painted teal walls with red. It was tempting.
He was pushing through the crowd when he heard the village elder speaking to Shen.
“Why would the demon attack her and the councilmen?” the elder asked.
Shen, dressed in his blue outfit, didn’t answer.
Another of the Kinkou, a young woman named Akali, stood beside Shen. She walked to the doorway of the inn.
“No,” Shen said as he blocked her path.
“What makes you think I’m not ready?” Akali demanded.
“Because I wasn’t when I was your age.”
At that moment, a town guard stumbled from the entrance, his face pale and hollow.
“Her flesh, it was… It was…” He took a few steps, then collapsed to the ground in shock.
Against the far wall, the tavern’s owner laughed. Then he began weeping—his face painted by madness. “He saw it. He saw the flower!”
These were not people who would forget seeing Khada Jhin’s work.
Shen scanned the faces of the onlookers.
Clever boy, Jhin thought, before fading into the back of the crowd.
He checked the rooftops for Zed as he walked back to the ship.
The work was inescapable. Together or apart, Zed and Shen would chase the clues he had left. They would follow them back to the Blossom Festival. Back to Jyom Pass. And when they became desperate, then they would have to work together again.
It would be like it had been when they were young. They would huddle together in awe and fear.
Only then would the great Khada Jhin reveal himself…
And his true masterpiece would begin.
Four. | Marksman |
Jinx hated petticoats.
Corsets too, but she grinned at how she’d put the space under and within the stolen dress to good use. Her long blue braids were concealed beneath a ridiculous feathered bonnet that was the latest fashion in Piltover. Jinx sashayed between the wedding guests, keeping her smile fixed and trying not to scream at the dead-eyed people surrounding her. It took an effort of will not to grab each one by the shoulder and try to shake them awake.
Jinx had come here to get all explodey on the observatory atop Count Sandvik’s mansion, but when she’d seen there was a wedding underway... well, that was too good an opportunity for mayhem to pass it up. The count had spared no expense in making his daughter’s party a grand spectacle. The cream of Piltover society was here; the heads of the major clans, lauded hextech artificers, and even fat Nicodemus had managed to finagle an invite. The Warden-Prefect looked like an overstuffed poro in his dress uniform, chest puffed out and beady eyes ogling the sprawling buffet table. Music from a small orchestra drifted over the wedding guests, so slow and ponderous it made Jinx want to yawn. She’d take the foot-stomping, spin-around-till-it-made-you-sick music of Zaun any day.
Hexlumens fitted with rotating zoetropes and oddly-angled lenses projected spectral dancers onto the floor that pirouetted and spun to the delight of laughing children who’d never known a moment of hunger, pain, or loss. Mimes and sleight of hand artistes moved through the crowd, delighting the guests with the fingerwork of their card tricks. Jinx had seen better. The sump-snipes of the Boundary Markets would quite literally give any of these performers a run for their money.
Pictures of Piltover’s bigwigs hung on walls paneled with oak and inlaid with geometric copper fretwork. The men and women in the portraits looked down on the people below with haughty disdain. Jinx stuck her tongue out at each and every one of them as she passed, grinning as they tutted and turned away. Windows paned with colored glass patterned the mosaic floor with rainbows and Jinx skipped merrily over every bright square as she made her way to a table heaped with enough food to feed a hundred families in Zaun for a month.
A liveried waiter passed her, bearing a silver tray of fluted glasses filled with something golden and fizzy. She took one in each hand, spinning away with a grin. Flying foam stained the backs of dresses and frock coats of nearby guests and Jinx sniggered.
“Drink up,” she said and knocked back what was left in the glasses.
She bent awkwardly and set the glasses on the mosaic floor, right in the path of oncoming dancers, and burped the opening bars of Vi is a Stupid Fathead, a tune she’d only just made up. Cliques of society ladies turned to sneer at her coarseness, and Jinx covered her mouth in mock, wide-eyed embarrassment. “Sorry, I accidentally did that on purpose.”
She skipped on and helped herself to some weird looking fish-things from another waiter’s platter. She tossed them into the air and managed to catch at least one in her mouth. A few fell into her enhanced cleavage and she plucked them out with the glee of a sump-scrapper who’d found something shiny in the ooze.
“You thought you could get away from me, fishy-fishes!” she said, wagging a finger at each morsel. “Well, you were wrong.”
Jinx stuffed the food into her mouth and readjusted her dress. She wasn’t used to this much up top, and stifled a giggle at what she had stuffed down there. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled, and she looked up to see a man staring at her from the edge of the chamber. He was good-looking in a stiff sort of way and wore nice, formal clothes, but was so obviously a warden that he might as well have had a sign around his neck. She turned and pushed deeper into the throng of guests filling the chamber.
She reached the buffet table and sucked in an impressed breath as she saw the towering wedding cake; a frosted masterwork of pink fondant, whipped cream and lacework caramel. A replica of the Tower of Techmaturgy in sponge, jam, and sweet pastry. Jinx reached out, lifted a ladle from the punch bowl, and scooped out a cave in the sponge. She tipped it out onto the floor, licked the ladle clean and tossed it back onto the table. She saw a number of the guests looking at her funny and bared her teeth in her best, manic grin. Maybe they thought she was mad. Maybe they were right.
Jinx shrugged. Whatever.
She reached down into her décolletage and pulled out four chompers. She stuffed three deep into the hole she’d scooped in the cake and dropped the other in the punch bowl.
Jinx strolled along the length of the table, pulling out another two chompers and depositing them in various dishes. One went in a copper soup tureen, the other replaced the apple in the mouth of a suckling pig. Her dress was a lot looser without the additional baggage upstairs, and as she pulled down the side zipper, Jinx spotted the good-looking man she’d earlier pegged as a warden making a beeline for her through the guests.
“About time,” she said, spotting another four, gussied-up wardens, three women and a man, converging on her. “Oooh, and you brought friends too!”
Jinx reached around to the small of her back and pulled the knot securing the petticoats around her narrow waist. The bottom half of her dress sank to the floor as her corset fell away to surprised gasps of the men and women around her.
Revealed in her pink leggings, ammo-belted shorts and vest top, Jinx ripped off the bonnet and shook her hair loose. She reached down and swung Fishbones up from where it had been concealed beneath her dress, and hoisted the weapon up to her shoulder.
“Hey folks!” she yelled, leaping onto the buffet table and drawing Zapper from her thigh-holster. “Hope you’re all hungry...”
Jinx spun on her heel and fired a crackling bolt of energy down the table to the chomper in the pig’s mouth.
“‘Cause this buffet is to die for!”
The chomper exploded, draping the nearest guests in ribbons of scorched meat and fat. A chain reaction of detonations followed. The tureen blasted into the air to drench scores of guests in hot beef soup. The punch bowl blew up next, and then the climax of the detonations; the wedding cake.
The three chompers inside detonated simultaneously and the towering confection launched into the air like a rocket. It almost reached the stained glass ceiling before it arced over and nosedived back to the floor. Guests scattered as the giant cake exploded on impact, and fondant fragments flew in all directions. Screaming guests ran from the blasts, slipping and tumbling in patches of gooey cream and sizzling punch.
“Seriously folks,” said Jinx, blowing a loose strand of blue hair out of her face. “Screaming helps, not at all.”
She skipped down the ruined buffet table and fired a rocket from Fishbones that blew out the nearest window. Iron bolts from hand crossbows flashed past her to embed in the walls, but Jinx laughed as she leapt through the shattered window frame to land in the garden beyond. She rolled back to her feet and pulled up short. She’d had an escape route sort of planned out, but looking toward the Sandvik Mansion’s entrance, she saw a tall, gleaming ring-rider that looked like it’d be a ton of fun to steal.
“Now, that I gotta try...”
She slung Fishbones over her shoulder and elbowed a host of gawping Sandvik footmen out the way, settling into the disc-runner’s hand-tooled leather saddle.
“So how do you start this thing?” she said, staring at the bewildering array of ivory knobs, brass-rimmed dials and gem-like buttons on the control panel in front of her.
“Time for a little trial and error!”
Jinx hauled back on the nearest lever and hit the biggest, reddest button she could see. The machine throbbed beneath her, spooling up with a rising whine and hum of building power. Blue light spun around the outer edges of the wide disc as the main doors to the mansion slammed open. Stern voices yelled at her to stop. Like that was going to happen! The stabilizer struts retracted into the gleaming frame and Jinx whooped with manic glee as the disc-runner shot away from the mansion like a super mega death rocket.
“See ya!” she yelled over her shoulder. “Awesome party!” | Marksman |
The sword-wife stood amid the burnt out ruin of her home. Everything and everyone that mattered to her was gone, and she was filled with fathomless grief... and hate. Hate was now all that compelled her.
She saw again the smile on his face as he gave the order. He was meant to be their protector, but he’d spat upon his vows. Hers was not the only family shattered by the oath-breaker.
The desire to go after him was strong. She wanted nothing more than to plant her sword in his chest and watch the life drain from his eyes... but she knew she would never be able to get close enough to him. He was guarded day and night, and she was but one warrior. She would never be able to fight her way through his battalion alone. Such a death would serve no purpose.
She took a shuddering breath, knowing there was no coming back.
A crude effigy of a man, formed of sticks and twine, lay upon a fire-blackened dresser. Its body was wrapped in a scrap of cloth torn from the cloak of the betrayer. She’d pried it from her husband’s dead grasp. Alongside it was a hammer and three rusted nails.
She gathered everything up and moved to the threshold. The door itself was gone, smashed to splinters in the attack. Beyond, lit by moonlight, lay the empty, darkened fields.
Reaching up, the sword-wife pressed the stick-effigy to the hardwood lintel.
“I invoke thee, Lady of Vengeance,” she said, her voice low, trembling with the depth of her fury. “From beyond the veil, hear my plea. Come forth. Let justice be done.”
She readied her hammer and the first of the nails.
“I name my betrayer once,” she said, and spoke his name aloud. As she did so, she placed the tip of the first nail to the chest of the stick-figure. With a single strike, she hammered it in deep, pinning it to the hardwood door frame.
The sword-wife shivered. The room had become markedly colder. Or had she imagined it?
“I name him twice,” she said, and she did so, hammering the second nail alongside the first.
Her gaze dropped, and she jolted in shock. A dark figure stood out in the moonlit field, a hundred yards in the distance. It was utterly motionless. Breathing quicker, the sword-wife returned her attention to the unfinished task.
“I name him thrice,” she said, speaking again the name of the murderer of her husband and children, before hammering home the final nail.
An ancient spirit of vengeance stood before her, filling the doorway, and the sword-wife staggered back, gasping involuntarily.
The otherworldly being was clad in archaic armor, her flesh translucent and glowing with spectral un-light. Black Mist coiled around her like a living shroud.
With a squeal of tortured metal, the spectral figure drew forth the blackened spear protruding from her breastplate — the ancient weapon that had ended her life.
She threw it to the ground before the sword-wife. No words were spoken; there was no need. The sword-wife knew what was being offered to her — vengeance — and knew its terrible cost: her soul.
The spirit watched on, her face impassive and her eyes burning with an unrelenting cold fury, as the sword-wife picked up the treacherous weapon.
“I pledge myself to vengeance,” said the sword-wife, her voice quivering. She reversed the spear, aiming the tip inward, towards her heart. “I pledge it with my blood. I pledge it with my soul.”
She paused. Her husband would have pleaded for her to turn away from this path. He would have begged her not to condemn her soul for theirs. A moment of doubt gnawed at her. The undying specter watched on.
The sword-wife’s eyes narrowed as she thought of her husband lying dead, cut down by swords and axes. She thought again of her children, sprawled upon the ground, and her resolve hardened like a cold stone in her heart. Her grip tightened upon the spear.
“Help me,” she implored, her decision made. “Please, help me kill him.”
She rammed the spear into her chest, driving it in deep.
The sword-wife’s eyes widened and she dropped to her knees. She tried to speak, but only blood bubbled from her lips.
The ghostly apparition watched her die, her expression impassive.
As the last of the lifeblood ran from her body, the shade of the sword-wife climbed to her feet. She looked down at her insubstantial hands in wonder, then at her own corpse lying dead-eyed in a growing pool of blood upon the floor. The shade’s expression hardened, and a ghostly sword appeared in her hand.
An ethereal tether, little more than a wisp of light, linked the newly formed shade to the avenging spirit she had summoned. Through their bond, the sword-wife saw her differently, glimpsing the noble warrior she had been in life: tall and proud, her armor gleaming. Her posture was confident, yet without arrogance; a born leader, a born soldier. This was a commander the sword-wife would have willingly bled for.
Behind the spirit’s anger, she sensed her empathy — recognition of their shared pain of betrayal.
“Your cause is our cause,” said Kalista, the Spear of Vengeance. Her voice was grave cold. “We walk the path of vengeance as one, now.”
The sword-wife nodded.
With that, the avenging spirit and the shade of the sword-wife stepped into the darkness and were gone. | Marksman |
The battle spilled over like a feast before them. Such delicious life—so many to end, so many to hunt! Wolf paced in the snow while Lamb danced lithely from sword edge to spear tip, the red-blooded butchery never staining her pale coat.
“There is courage and pain here, Wolf. Many will gladly meet their end.” She drew up her bow and let loose an arc of swift finality.
The last breath of a soldier came with a ragged consent as his shield gave way to a heavy axe. Stuck in his heart was a single white arrow, shimmering with ethereal brilliance.
“Courage bores me,” the great black wolf grumbled as he tracked through the snow. “I am hungry and eager to chase.”
“Patience,” she murmured in his shaggy ear. As soon as the words left her, Wolf’s shoulders tensed and his body dropped low to the ground.
“I smell fear,” he said, trembling with excitement.
Across the muddied field of snow, a squire—too young for battle, but with blade in hand, nonetheless—saw that Kindred had marked all in the valley.
“I want the tender-thing. Does it see us, Lamb?”
“Yes, but it must choose. Feed the Wolf, or embrace me.”
The battle turned its steel toward the squire. He now stared at the roiling tide of bravery and desperation coming for him. This would be his last dawn. In that instant, the boy made his choice. He would not go willingly. Until his last breath, he would run.
Wolf snapped in the air and rolled his face in the snow like a new pup.
“Yes, dear Wolf.” Lamb’s voice echoed like a string of pearly bells. “Begin your hunt.”
With that, Wolf bounded across the field after the youth, a howl thundering through the valley. His shadowed body swept over the remains of the newly dead and their useless, shattered weapons.
The squire turned and ran for the woods until thick black trunks passed in a blur. He pressed on, the frozen air burning his lungs. He looked once more for his hunter, but could see nothing but the darkening trees. The shadows closed tightly around him and he suddenly realized there was no escape. It was the black body of Wolf that was everywhere at once. The chase was at its end. Wolf buried his sharp teeth in the squire’s neck, tearing out ribbons of vibrant life.
Wolf reveled in the boy’s scream and crunching bones. Lamb, who had trailed behind, laughed to see such sport. Wolf turned and asked, in a voice more growl than speech, “Is this music, Lamb?”
“It is to you,” she answered.
“Again,” Wolf licked the last drop of the youth’s life from his canine jaws. “I want to chase again, little Lamb.”
“There are always more,” she whispered. “Until the day there is only Kindred.”
“And then will you run from me?”
Lamb turned back to the battle. “I would never run from you, dear Wolf.” | Marksman |
When the prophet Malzahar was reborn in Icathia, he was led there by an ominous voice which thereafter anchored itself to his psyche. From within, this voice bestowed upon him terrible purpose, and though Malzahar was no longer tormented by its call, the voice did not cease its unrelenting summons. This baleful beacon's gentle flicker - now fastened to Runeterra - drew forth a putrid beast that ambled across a threshold it did not understand, widening a fissure between the spaces which were never meant to meet. There amongst the haunting ruins of Icathia, Kog'Maw manifested in Valoran with unsettling curiosity. The spark which led him to Runeterra teased him still, urging him gently towards Malzahar. It also encouraged him to familiarize himself with his new environment, to the stark horror of everything he encountered on his journey.
The enchanting colors and aromas of Runeterra intoxicated Kog'Maw, and he explored the fruits of the strange world the only way he knew how: by devouring them. At first he sampled only the wild flora and fauna he happened across. As he traversed the parched Tempest Flats, however, he came upon a tribe of nomads. Seemingly unhampered by conventional rules of physics, Kog'Maw consumed every nomad and any obstacles they put in his way, amounting to many times his own mass and volume. The most composed of his victims may have had time to wonder if this was due to the caustic enzymes which stung the ground as they dripped from his gaping mouth, although such musings were abruptly concluded. Even this feeding frenzy did nothing to satiate Kog'Maw's appetite. His swathe of destruction continues still as he is inexorably drawn towards Malzahar. What happens when he finds him is anyone's guess. | Marksman |
Bilgewater’s White Wharf had earned its name thanks to the layer of bird waste covering it from end to end, which was only to be expected at a resting place for the dead. Folk here didn’t bury corpses; they returned them to the sea. A grave of the sunken dead hung suspended in the cold depths, marked by hundreds of bobbing grave-buoys. Some were merely name posts, while others were elaborate tomb markers carved to resemble rearing krakens or buxom sea wenches.
Miss Fortune sat on an empty crate of Rapture Rum at the end of the wharf, legs crossed and a noxious cheroot dangling from her bottom lip. In one hand, she held a length of breathing tube connected to a half-submerged coffin floating low in the water. In the other, she grasped a length of frayed rope running through a rusted pulley block and tied to the coffin lid. Both her pistols were holstered within easy reach.
Moonlight cast a weak glow through the mist rolling in from the sea, staining the water’s scummed surface tobacco yellow. Cawing carrion gulls lined every swaybacked roof on the quayside, which was always a good omen. They knew better than any the signs of fresh pickings.
“About time,” she whispered, as a shaven-headed man in a drake-scale frock coat emerged from the narrow, debris-choked alley. A pack of needle-toothed wharf-rats stalked him, hoping he was drunk and might pass out to become easy meat. The man’s name was Jakmunt Zyglos, one of the Painted Brothers. Any corsair worth his salt had tattoos, but every inch of Zyglos was inked with clawed serpents, lovers’ names, and a record of every boat he’d sunk, every man he’d murdered. His skin was as good a confession as any she’d known.
He marched purposefully along the wharf, but his eyes darting warily from side to side gave the lie to his confidence. His hand gripped a long cutlass with a shark-toothed edge that hung low on his hip. He too boasted a firearm, a stubby carbine with glassy pipes running the length of its barrel.
“Where is he?” demanded Zyglos. “You said you’d bring him.”
“That a Piltover hex-carbine?” she asked, ignoring his question.
“Answer me, damn you!”
“You first,” said Miss Fortune, letting some rope out through the pulley and allowing the coffin to sink a little more. “After all, I’m not sure how long this breathing tube is, and you wouldn’t want your brother to go without air, would you?”
Zyglos took a breath, and she saw the tension go out of him.
“Yes, damn you, it’s from Piltover,” he said, drawing the weapon and holding it out by the trigger guard.
“Pricy,” said Miss Fortune.
“I guess you’d know,” he sneered.
She let out even more rope. Bubbles of air escaped the now fully submerged coffin. Zyglos held up his hands, instantly contrite.
“Alright! Alright!” he pleaded. “It’s yours. Pull him up. Please.”
“You’ll come quietly?”
Zyglos gave a bark of fatalistic laughter.
“What choice do I have?” he asked. “You sank my ships and killed all my men. You’ve sent my kin to the poorhouse or the gaol, and for what? A stolen hex-gun? A bounty?”
“A little of both and then some?”
“So how much am I worth to you, bitch?”
“Coin? Five hundred silver serpents.”
“All this mayhem for a lousy five hundred serpents?”
“It’s not the money that’s got you killed. It’s the fact that you’re one of Gangplank’s sworn men,” said Miss Fortune. “That’s why I want you dead.”
“Dead? Wait, the warrant says alive!”
“True, but I’ve never been very good at following instructions,” said Miss Fortune, releasing the rope and the breathing tube. The coffin plunged into the darkness of the sunken dead, trailing a froth of frantic bubbles. Zyglos screamed his brother’s name and ran at her, drawing his serrated sword. She let him get within spitting distance before drawing her pistols and blasting him with both barrels, one through the eye, one in the heart.
Miss Fortune spat her cheroot into the sea and blew the smoke from each muzzle.
“Self defense,” she said with a smile, rehearsing her lie for the bounty pursers. “Crazy fool came at me with that fang-sword of his. I didn’t have a choice.”
Miss Fortune bent to retrieve the fallen hex-carbine. She turned the weapon over in her hands. Too light for her tastes, but artfully made and absurdly lethal. The ghost of a smile twitched the corner of her mouth as she thought back to the warmth of the old workshop, the smell of gun oil, and the touch of her mother’s hand on her shoulder. Miss Fortune sighed and shook off the memory before it turned sour. She threw the pistol out over the water, sending it down to the dead. The sea demanded its due, after all, and she’d not lied; the weapon was worth a small fortune.
She stood and strolled back into Bilgewater. She knew she ought to throw Zyglos’s corpse into the water too, but the wharf-rats and the carrion gulls had to eat, didn’t they?
And fresh meat was a rare delicacy on the White Wharf. | Marksman |
You will know joy
You will be a hero
And you will pass into legend as all great heroes do
The only price I ask for such treasures
Is you
—The Cycle of Ashlesh: Chapter Ten, Verse Seven
Bilgewater isn’t particularly known for its cuisine, which makes Oyster Bill’s Oyster Bar an interesting conundrum. Located in one of the city’s poorer pockets, the establishment gained an impressive reputation over the years with the entire venture held aloft by “local celebrity” and proprietor Oyster Bill.
Along with the oyster-man’s love of seafood and exaggerated stories, he also enjoys renting an extra room above the restaurant to various drifters and vagabonds. One such person being his most recent guest: an ascetic warrior with few belongings and an unceasing ear-to-ear smile—who just kicked Malcolm Graves horizontally through the dining-room wall.
“I didn’t even do anything!” Graves moans, shifting his toothpick to the other side of his mouth. “You want one of the other ones. Senna maybe. Or Rango.”
“Your lack of foresight now threatens millions of innocents, Malcolm Graves,” replies a cheery-sounding voice in an unfamiliar accent. “I have questions about the little present you left on my shores. Viego of Camavor.”
The voice’s owner moves purposefully through the cloud of dust and debris, her liquid whip-blade suspended in a glittering arc around her. Each step illuminates the dingy restaurant as brilliant indigos and golds cast strange, dancing shadows over everything. Messy black hair frames a thin face and violet eyes, all underlined by an oddly exuberant expression, while at her side rests a glowing sphere held by two hands cast from a foreign metal. This is Nilah, and Graves has been trying to avoid her for weeks.
It hasn’t gone well.
Nilah arrived in Bilgewater seemingly overnight, and her presence immediately raised eyebrows across the city. From her odd habit of reciting various textual passages throughout the day—always while making complicated gestures with her palms—to her strange, seven-hand-motif armor, forged from a pearlescent metal no one recognized. Or her insistence that she hailed from Kathkan, even though the last full-blooded Kathkani hadn’t stepped foot on Valoran soil in over seven hundred years.
Then she started killing sea serpents—forty, fifty, sixty fathoms long. When any ship was threatened, Nilah rushed down to the docks and soared across the surface of the sea with a wide, calm smile, her wiry frame launching itself toward the writhing necks of her foes. As word spread about her, she began to ask the port’s grateful sailors if they knew anything about a so-called order of sentinels... and that was when Graves started running.
Now that Nilah’s found him, she doesn’t seem happy.
Or rather, she isn’t acting happy. She seems disconcertingly cheerful with her pleasant grin that never breaks and her demeanor and voice that stay locked in unnatural positivity at all hours of every day. It’s this peculiarity that makes most people unable to read her intentions—besides her pathological need to fight very big things—and that makes conversations with the woman hard to navigate.
“Don’t know nothing about Viego,” Graves lies, sifting through the rubble for his gun.
“I believe it was you who sealed him in Alovedra, am I correct?” Nilah smiles cheerfully, taking another two steps forward. Her legs move in a curious, artful pattern, like a coiled snake about to strike. “Don’t lie. You are man-sized. Killing you would be very easy for me.”
“Not that easy,” Graves snorts, New Destiny finally in hand. Savoring the moment to turn the tables, he fires three rounds directly into Nilah’s torso. Or, at least, he thinks he does. The bullets seem to move around her... Or maybe she moves around them. It’s like firing his gun into deep water—a thought Graves finds inexplicably unsettling.
Nilah’s wide smile twitches at the sides of her mouth. Unbeknownst to Graves, she is unable to feel anger, or any emotion beyond a radiant joyfulness—but she knows she would want to right now, were it possible. She whips the gun out of his hands and knocks it to the far side of the restaurant before bisecting a metal table next to his head with a brutal second strike of her whip-blade. For a brief moment, Graves swears he sees phantasmal blue hands in the air around Nilah... but maybe this is his imagination. He’s been getting hit in the head a lot lately.
“An interesting armament,” Nilah muses. “I imagine it works well against lesser opponents.”
“So what does that make you?” seethes Graves.
But Nilah doesn’t answer. Instead, she sheathes her weapon within the sphere, offering a brief recitation under her breath that Graves can’t quite make out. “My apologies. Based on your fighting style, you're not the sentinel I’m looking for.”
“Sweet Tommy Kench, ain’t you supposed to be some kinda hero?” Graves yells, sitting up among wood fragments and twisted metal. “I’m a hero too, when viewed in a certain light! So lay off, will ya?”
Graves exhales. “Damn... Nice magic, though. I gotta respect it.”
Nilah offers another recitation, her hands shifting as she mouths the words beneath her breath, smiling ominously in the dark. “Thank you, Malcolm Graves. I gave much to wield it.”
“I would prefer if you’d call me ‘Graves.’”
“I wouldn’t,” replies Nilah. “There is great power in a true name, Malcolm Graves. Remember that.”
"If you say so." Graves looks behind Nilah. "You folks in the back hear that, or should we speak up?"
Right on cue, a voice rings out from the street. “We’re here for the serpent slayer!”
Nilah turns to face a half-dozen mercenaries peeking through the hole she’d ripped in the wall. Her eyes drift past the men to a massive, pale something shifting on the planks behind them... and her heart skips a beat. She is often followed by disgruntled killers, but she hasn’t seen one of these before.
“I am she,” Nilah replies, her attention fixed on the creature. “What do you want, exactly?”
“You’re losing our bosses a lot of money. Think you can just flood the market with serpent catch? We own those docks and those ships, and as of now, we own you!”
“What is that creature?” Nilah asks Graves, ignoring the mercenaries.
“Deep eater,” mutters Graves. “They chow down on anchor graves that sink to the seafloor. Gives ‘em a taste for people. Mean and real dumb, so these idiots drag ‘em up and sic ‘em on marks they don’t like.”
Nilah’s eyes flash with excitement. “How big do they get?”
“I’unno. Ten, fifteen oars? That one looks pretty big.”
“Interesting,” she whispers. “An enemy of worth.”
“Hey!” shouts a mercenary. “When I’m talking, you listen or you die. Understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I believe I do,” replies Nilah, dipping her hand into the sphere at her side. “I am Nilah of the Seventh Layer. May our battle sing across history.”
Nilah whips her blade outward, its glimmering water forming two sharpened prongs that dance through the air with ghostly radiance. Whatever the mercenaries were expecting, it wasn’t this, and they mutter nervously as the weapon shifts and expands.
They don’t know it, but none of them will leave this encounter alive. The Seventh Layer is not simply a title, but a mythical order steeled to face opponents of unimaginable power and scale. Self-trained killers are merely pebbles on the road to true challenge, and tonight, this so-called “deep eater” is the only foe of worth—a massive isopod with sickly, flesh-colored plates and a mean-looking maw of bloody teeth.
From the depths of Nilah’s being, a hungry joy begins to swell.
What happens next is a blur. Nilah bounds across the room with frightening speed, cutting through her unassuming opponents while wearing that same cheerful, unmoving smile. Each strike of her blade connects with the force of a towering ocean wave, yet the dancing water is sharp as polished stone. Nilah glides between blows, beautiful and deadly, as her enemies are blasted apart.
In seconds, all that’s left is the deep eater. Considering that the words “ten oars” had suggested a beast of much larger proportions, this one isn’t too bad—about the size of a covered wagon. Not the most exciting opponent Nilah’s ever faced, but here in Bilgewater, it was something that would get people talking. They’d remember this victory, and that was all that mattered.
Nilah leaps onto its back, her formless blade flickering in the night air. “Beast of the deep! May you find Joy!” she sings, and she slices the monster clean in half.
“So, what exactly are ya lookin’ fer the sentinels for?” asks Graves, consigned to either having this conversation or being cut into little pieces. “We disbanded, mostly. And I pawned all my stuff, so you’re not getting those magic rocks or whatever.”
“Viego of Camavor will free himself someday,” Nilah replies, her smile now kind. Friendly, even. “The magic binding him is Helian, and it is weakening over time. My people are in unimaginable danger.”
“Hey, we beat him once,” replies Graves. “He’s strong, but we can probably do it again.”
“He is not the true threat, Malcolm Graves,” says Nilah. “His ruinations write new magic into the world... an act that drives demonkind berserk. Enough to stir their primeval forebears.
“Ten lords, long forgotten,” she continues, tapping the sphere at her side, “who must never be allowed to wake.”
“Demons, huh?” says Graves. “You’re not a demon, are ya?”
“No,” Nilah laughs. “Not entirely.”
The ascetic performs another hand gesture, reciting something under her breath. As she speaks, Graves gazes at her sphere of prismatic liquid, which seems to draw him in. An unconscious smile curls at the edge of his lips as high-pitched, whispering laughter rings in his ears. It seems like the metal hands are almost... offering it up to him.
“Don’t look too closely,” Nilah warns, and Graves snaps back to attention. “The beast is always hungry.”
Nilah claps her hands on her hips. “Ah, but the hour is late, and I fear you have no further answers to give me. I will retire to my room,” she says matter-of-factly, walking past a confused Graves as she circles the damaged dining room and climbs the restaurant stairwell. “If you encounter any monstrosities of note, come find me so I can slay them. If you encounter Oyster Bill, tell him that I apologize for tonight’s damage.
“It is good to meet a fellow hero, Malcolm Graves.”
A door closes upstairs, and the woman is gone.
Graves flicks his broken toothpick to the ground, bitten through in all the excitement. He reaches for a replacement but finds none, so instead gazes quietly out onto the street where six dead bodies and two halves of a giant marine louse are scattered.
“The sentinels ruined my life,” he says to no one in particular.
“Neat lady, though.” | Marksman |
Quinn waited for the Noxians to light a fire in the forest clearing and drink two wineskins. Drunk soldiers were easy to predict. She wanted them drunk enough to be stupid, but not reckless. Mistakes got you killed in the wilderness, and these men had just made two big ones. Lighting a fire told her they were overconfident, the wine that they were sure no one was in pursuit.
Rule One: Always assume someone’s after you.
She eased herself through the mud on her belly, using her elbows to pull herself toward a hollowed out, rotten log at the edge of the clearing. The rain had turned the forest into a quagmire, and she’d spend the next few hours picking bugs and worms from her clothes.
Rule Two: Survival never takes second place to dignity.
Careful not to look directly at the campfire and lose her night sight, she counted five men - one less than she expected. Where was the sixth man? Quinn started to ease herself upright, but froze as the hair stood up on the back of her neck, a warning from above.
A shape moved from behind a tree in the darkness. A warrior. Armored in boiled black leather. Moving with skill. The man paused, scanning the darkness, his hand never leaving the wire-wound hilt of his sword.
Had he seen her? She didn’t think so.
“Hey, Vurdin,” called one of the men seated around the fire. “Better hurry if you want any of this wine. Olmedo’s drinking it all!”
Rule Three: Stay silent.
The man cursed, and Quinn smiled at his obvious frustration.
“Quiet,” he hissed. “I think they heard you back in bloody Noxus.”
“Ach, there’s no one out here, Vurdin. The Demacians are probably too busy buckling on their armor and giving it a polish to bother with coming after us. Come on, take a drink!”
The man sighed and turned back to the fire with a weary shrug. Quinn let out a slow breath. That one had some talent, but he too believed they were alone in the wilderness.
Rule Four: Don’t let stupid people drag you down to their level.
Quinn smiled and glanced up, seeing the smudge of night-blue darkness of her eagle companion against the rainclouds. Valor dipped his wings, and Quinn nodded, their wordless communication refined over many years together. She circled her right fist, then raised three fingers, knowing Valor could see her perfectly and would understand.
Rule Five: When it’s time to act, do it decisively.
Quinn knew they should just take these men out quietly and without fuss, but the affront of Noxians this deep in Demacia was galling. She wanted these men to know exactly who had caught them and that Demacia was not some primitive tribal culture to be crushed by Noxian ambition. The decision made, she pushed herself to her feet and strode into the campsite as if her being there was the most natural thing in the world. She stood at the edge of the firelight, her hood raised and her oiled stormcloak drawn tightly around her.
“Give me what you stole and no one has to die tonight,” said Quinn, nodding toward a leather satchel stitched with the winged sword symbol of Demacia.
The Noxians scrambled upright, blinking as they scanned the edge of the forest. They fumbled to draw their swords and Quinn almost laughed at their surprised ineptitude. The one who’d almost walked right over her hid his shock well, but relaxed as he realized she was alone.
“You’re a long way from home, girl,” he said, raising his sword.
“Not as far as you, Vurdin.”
He frowned, put on the back foot by her using his name. Quinn saw his mind working as he tried to figure out how much more she knew. She kept her cloak pulled tight as the men spread out, surrounding her.
“Give me the satchel,” said Quinn, a note of boredom in her voice.
“Take her!” shouted Vurdin.
It was the last thing he said.
Quinn swept her cloak back over her shoulder and lifted her left arm. A black shafted bolt from her repeater crossbow buried itself in Vurdin’s eye, and he fell without a sound. A second bolt tore into the chest of the man to his left. The remaining four came at her in a rush.
A screeching cry split the night as Valor swept down like a lightning bolt from a clear sky. His wings boomed as he spread them wide and swung around in a scything arc. Hooked claws tore the face from one Noxian, and the eagle’s slashing beak clove the skull of the soldier next to him. The third Noxian managed to raise his weapon, but Valor sank his claws into his shoulders and bore him to the ground. The eagle’s beak slashed down and the man’s struggles ceased instantly.
The last Noxian turned and sprinted for the trees.
Rule Six: If you have to fight, kill quickly.
Quinn knelt and loosed a pair of bolts from her crossbow. They hammered into the Noxian’s back and burst from his chest. He managed to reach the edge of the trees before pitching forward and lying still. Quinn remained motionless, listening to the sounds of the wilderness, making sure there were no other enemies nearby. The only sounds she heard were those she’d expect to hear in a forest at night.
She stood, and Valor flew over to her, the satchel of military dispatches the Noxians had stolen held in his claws. He dropped it and she caught it with her free hand, looping it over her shoulder in one smooth motion. Valor perched on her arm, his body rippling with the thrill of the hunt. His claws and beak were red with blood. The eagle’s head cocked to the side, and his gold-flecked eyes glittered with amusement. She grinned, her bond with the bird so strong she already understood his thoughts.
“I was wondering that too,” said Quinn. “How did these Noxians get this far into Demacia?”
The eagle gave a shrill screech, and she nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” said Quinn. “South it is.”
Rule Seven: Trust you can rely on your partner. | Marksman |
Sivir's throat felt like it was coated in a layer of broken glass. The cracked flesh of her lips burned. Her eyes refused to focus. I've given them more than enough time to move on.
She leaned around the edge of the boulder. The caravan was still at the spring and showing no signs of moving on.
Why did they have to be Kthaons? Of the many, many tribes that want her dead, the Kthaons stood out in their persistence.
Sivir scanned the tribesmen again, looking for any sign the caravan might climb out of the old riverbed and continue its journey. She rolled her shoulders trying to judge if her muscles were up to fighting a half-dozen men. She'd have to take them by surprise to stand a chance.
That prissy Noxian got the drop on me...
Sivir shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Now wasn't the time for those thoughts. I'm becoming scattered from the lack of water. Why didn't I bring more water?
The city had been bursting with it. Huge streams poured from statues, all at the command of an Ancient. He healed my wound and saved my life. Then he returned to rebuilding the temples around him, calling out strange words in an old dialect she could barely make sense of. Talking to himself in a dead city filled only with sand. I had to get out before that sorcerer decided to sink it all back beneath the dust – or that I owed him.
Swallowing brought fresh agony to Sivir's throat. She looked at the spring again, a simple puddle of brown water in the center of the caravan.
I've given them a day, she reasoned. I will die, or they will die. For a few drops of water or a few slivers of gold. That is the way of the desert.
Sprinting toward the first guard, she readied her crossblade. Would there be enough time to reach him before he turned back around? She counted the distance. Fourteen strides. Twelve. Ten. He can't make a sound. Two strides. She jumped. Her blade sank completely through his neck, down into his shoulder.
Blood erupted as she crashed down on him. Her momentum drove them behind the line of rocks on which he'd been standing. Sivir grabbed his arms. He struggled against her, refusing to accept he was already dead. The guard's blood drenched Sivir as he took a final gurgling breath. This man didn't need to die.
Sivir thought again of Cassiopeia’s blade. That Noxian bitch sunk a blade in my back. I died. That should mean something.
A distant rumble sounded. Horses? A sandwall collapsing? There wasn't time to wonder what it meant. Sivir crawled across the hard stones. It won't take the rest of the caravan long to notice the guard's absence. The next target was moving high along the ridge line. She needed to hit him before he walked away from the ledge. The shot has to be perfect. She threw the crossblade.
It hit the second guard, cutting him in half. The flying blade arced upward, but as it reached its apex, it slowed before reversing its direction. As it flew back toward her, it clipped the neck of the third man. There wouldn't be time for another throw now – the blade completed its arc, flying down toward the center of the water. She only had to reach it in time. The maneuver was an old standby. She would catch the weapon and kill the three remaining men in a single, spinning summersault.
But as she ran, her feet became heavy, and it seemed impossible to draw enough air into her pained lungs. Thirty strides. She had to make the distance before the second man's body hit the ground. Twenty strides. The muscles in her legs cramped, refusing to obey her commands. Fifteen strides. She found herself sliding, stumbling. No. Not yet.
Then, sooner than she had expected, the second man's body completed its fall and impacted the rocks. The sound was impossible to miss.
One mistake was enough. The Kthaons were a desert people. The remaining guards had weapons drawn before she took another step.
Her crossblade hit the water between the men and her. Five strides in front of them. Ten strides from her.
I could make it. Every reflex in Sivir's body willed her forward. Instead, she slid to a halt, nearly falling forward.
Failing to bring enough water. Waiting too long to attack. Misjudging distances. I don't make these mistakes. Why? Some other part of Sivir's mind answered. She remembered the moment after Cassiopeia’s dagger had pierced her back – she couldn't feel the blade itself. Instead, she felt a sudden, unexpected weight that seemed to steal her breath and crush her lungs.
"I killed three of you before you heard me," Sivir coughed.
"You don't have a weapon," the largest of the Kthaons said.
"Only because I didn't want your blood in the water," she lied.
The three remaining men exchanged glances. They've recognized me.
"A year ago, I killed your chieftain and two dozen of your finest for a bag of thin gold. It was a cheap price for their lives." She met the three men's eyes. They were spreading out from the water, attempting to flank her.
"The gold I earned from killing your chieftain and kinsmen?" she asked. "I gambled it away in a single evening."
"We will avenge them and your insult," the largest man responded.
"I shouldn't have killed them," she said, "not for that gold. Don't make me kill you for a few cups of water."
The Kthaons’ leader nervously adjusted the grip on his weapon.
"I'm telling you I can make it to the blade before you can act," Sivir explained. "And if I run for my blade. You will die." She indicated the foul brown water. "Your lives are worth more than that."
"Then we will die with honor," the largest man decided, though his fellows seemed less certain.
"Did I need that weapon to kill the twenty men you want to avenge?" Sivir warned. "You are too few."
The three men hesitated. They knew Sivir's reputation. The other two pulled the largest man away, before backing to their mounts.
Sivir edged toward the water.
"We will return with our tribesmen for vengeance."
"Lots of people have tried that," she said. "Never worked out for them."
Sivir rolled her swollen tongue against the top of her mouth, desperate for relief. Every part of her wanted to kneel down to the water and drink. I have to wait until they cross the far dune.
As the men climbed into their saddles and rode away, the strange rumbling sounded again. It was loud and growing louder. It’s not horses or shifting sands. Sivir turned to its source and watched as a three foot wall of blue water rushed down the ancient riverbed. The water from the city.
The moment before the water hit Sivir, she felt the rush of cold, damp air in front of the flood. It shocked her like an unexpected kiss.
The first wave nearly took out her knees. The impact stung with cold, but as it enveloped her waist and legs, it became soothingly cool. Sivir laid in the water, letting it wash over her. She could feel the painful grit of the desert washing away as her hair floated weightless and free.
I was dead. I must make that mean something. | Marksman |
Long before the lands that would become Camavor were named, dragons dwelt there.
Once mortals arrived, conflict followed. The strife was only quelled when the first king of Camavor humbled himself before the dragon matriarch, bending the knee and pleading with her to lend her great strength to his armies, and all his dreams of empire. So it was that the dragon who would eventually be known as Grandmother Viper and the Camavoran ruler swore the oath of Vol Visperi-Desinvein, binding their lineages for generations to come.
The dragons remained fiercely loyal to the throne and to those high houses that passed the trials and performed the sacred rites of the oath. In exchange, the dragons were kept satiated with livestock and showered with offerings. The gold, jewels, and precious artifacts they accumulated over the years garnered them a great respect… and those brazen enough to cross the dragons would pause at the thought of their own fortunes being reduced to molten slag and windblown ash.
Long after Grandmother Viper passed into legend and her brood was already much diminished, the young king—Viego Santiarul Molach Vol Kalah Heigaari—called upon the imperial dragons to accompany him and the knightly orders to the Blessed Isles. The dragons refused, seeming to recognize his madness for what it was… though even remaining in Camavor with all their treasures could not spare the kingdom from the tragic repercussions of the Ruination. The handful that survived bore witness to endless neglect and conflict, roosting within the deteriorating palace where no monarch would ever reign again.
Centuries would pass before another imperial dragon would hatch.
As that hatchling grew, scarcity of game forced his mother to venture further and further to hunt. This left the nest vulnerable to far-roaming Noxian beastmasters, who stole the young dragon and set sail for home to collect their reward.
However, shortly before arriving at their destination, the mother dragon discovered the ship’s whereabouts and obliterated it with her fiery breath. In the chaos, the hatchling was swept away, borne by the current to a nearby island off mainland Noxus.
Scared, alone, and hungry, the hatchling employed his mother’s lessons to hunt small prey in this strange environment—and on one such hunt, he stumbled across a human child called Marinos. The boy would go on to name his new friend “Smolder,” and as the young dragon’s ability to communicate grew, their friendship flourished… but remained a secret. The boy feared that if anyone else were to discover Smolder, he’d be taken to the mainland and sold to the highest bidder.
As time passed, the boy grew into a man—one with responsibilities that seldom allowed for the playtime Smolder had grown so fond of. And so, in an effort to amuse himself, Smolder decided he’d learn to breathe fire like the dragons in Marinos’ stories.
After many attempts, instead of sneezing sparks as he’d done countless times before, flames burst forth… and in his excitement over this new development, Smolder failed to notice the fire spreading until it had engulfed the forest canopy.
Suddenly, louder than a hunting horn, louder than thunder, a roar unlike any other rang through the air as a massive dragon approached. Having been drawn by the rising smoke, Smolder’s mother swept down to embrace her child lovingly, as if they never parted. Carried away from the growing inferno by the scruff of his neck, Smolder soared—his first time experiencing the world as dragons should.
Smolder now roosts with his mother on the cliffside where she’d spent so long watching and waiting for signs he yet lived. Every night, she recounts the history of his kin, the meaning and responsibilities of imperial dragons, and how to hone his fledgling abilities.
And one day, when he is ready, they will return together to their ancestral home to usher in a new golden age for Camavor. | Marksman |
Teemo is a legend among his yordle brothers and sisters in Bandle City. As far as yordles are concerned, there is something just slightly off about him. While Teemo enjoys the companionship of other yordles, he also insists on frequent solo missions in the ongoing defense of Bandle City. Despite his genuinely warm personality, something switches off inside Teemo's mind during combat so that the lives he must end while on patrol do not burden him. Even as a young recruit, the drill instructors and other trainees found it a little disconcerting that, while Teemo was normally charming and kind, he turned deadly serious and highly efficient the minute combat exercises began. Teemo's superiors quickly steered him toward the Scouts of the Mothership, which is one of Bandle City's most distinguished Special Forces unit alongside the Megling Commandos.
While most yordles do not handle solo scouting missions with a great deal of finesse, Teemo is remarkably efficient at them. His record of success in defending Bandle City from infiltrators easily makes him one of the most dangerous yordles alive, though you'd never know it by having a cup of honey mead with him at his favorite inn. His signature weapon - a blowgun - uses a rare ajunta poison he personally gathers from the jungles of Kumungu. To help cope with his lengthy periods of isolation, Teemo recently struck up a friendship with Tristana, a fellow member of Bandle City's Special Forces. Teemo is a pint-sized foe that many have come to fear and whose small size belies his fearsome resolve. | Marksman |
H.I.V.E. Incident Report
Code Violation: Industrial Homicide
Casefile Status: Unsolved
Investigating Agent: Rol, P.
Team responded to report of suspicious character, criminal activity; proceeded to Sump Works, Sector 90TZ. Sector 90TZ notably absent. In its place: sinkhole, smoke, noxious fumes. Interviews with private security indicate urgent need for better private security.
Response team entered sinkhole. Toxic runoff had melted away building wreckage. Two survivors located, one partially liquefied and dripping off catwalk. Six deceased bodies found among wreckage, three of them partial; two appear to predate incident. Causes of death include acute deceleration, caustic liquidation, and/or fatal crossbow wounds. Unclear if lab's destruction was itself the perpetrator's motive or an attempt to cover tracks.
Survivor #1 (Ra Qintava, facility researcher) brought up for interview, but unable to provide statement due to 1) post-traumatic stress and 2) liquefaction of tongue and lower jaw. Awaiting toxin screen and prosthesis fitting.
Search-and-rescue discovered apparent shantytown constructed from refuse. Recovered items include:
57 waterlogged romance novels, illegible, with edits made in crayon
108 bottles, unlabeled (possible toxic runoff or discarded shampoo remnants)
200 pounds chewing gum (possible installation art project)
1 jar toenails, labeled by toe/finger, date, and mood
Survivor #2 (Valori Olant, Sludge Analyst) in recovery; regained lucidity following prolonged therapeutic electrocution. Statement transcript excerpt follows:
V.O.: GOT TO DO SOMETHING -
NURSE: She's lost so much blood --
P.R.: Her co-workers lost a lot more than that --
V.O.: IT'S STILL OUT THERE!
P.R.: Ma'am, I need you to focus. Tell me what he looked like.
V.O.: LIKE A RAT! (pause)
NURSE: Like a what?
P.R.: You mean, small? Beady-eyed? Sorta rat-faced -- ?
V.O.: I MEAN IT LOOKED LIKE A GIANT GODSDAMNED RAT! (pause). WITH A CROSSBOW! (pause).
P.R.: (to nurse) Can we moderate her painkillers?
V.O.: YOU'RE NOT LISTENING! IT'S A HOMICIDAL, PSYCHOPATHIC, GIANT FREAKING RAT!
IN A WAISTCOAT!
P.R.: Nurse?
NURSE: (injecting Olant's arm with sedative) On it.
[EDIT]
V.O.: We were just scientists, working on refining human waste into inexpensive baby formula... [EDIT] I saw - I don't know how else to - this crazed, enormous RAT - screaming at us! Kicking over vats! Spitting on our food! [EDIT] The lab was sealed. Industrial waste was spilling everywhere. Nowhere to run. [EDIT] I woke up in the dark. Well, the acid had melted my eyeballs. I could SMELL the twitchy bastard inches from my face. It said, “NOBODY STEALS TWITCH'S JUICE!” cackled wildly, and skittered off... I can still smell it in my mind. OH MY GODS, I CAN STILL SMELL IT-
End transcript. At this point victim began screaming; has yet to stop.
[UPDATE: Qintava, Written Testimony]
Suspect summary, as reported:
NAME/KNOWN ALIASES: ''Twitch.''
SEX: Male (unconfirmed).
AGE: Unknown.
HEIGHT: 4'9'' (hunched)
WEIGHT: < 99 lbs. (wet).
DISTINGUISHING FEATURES: Is a giant rat.
STATUS: At large; armed, extremely dangerous; DO NOT ENGAGE.
H.I.V.E - Enforcing Progress! | Marksman |
Vayne had one arrow left in her wristbolt launcher. She was bleeding from three different wounds. The previously-human beast she’d spent all night hunting had just knocked her to the ground and it was about to bite the head off her shoulders.
Things were going better than expected.
Slime dripped from the shapeshifter’s maw as it shrieked in anticipation of its kill. Scanning the darkness with her nightseeker goggles, Vayne found neither weapons nor cover nearby. She’d tracked the beast to this open patch of meadow specifically so it couldn’t take cover behind the alderwoods of Demacia, but that decision left her exposed as well.
Which was fine by her. There’s no fun in an easy kill, after all.
The beast grabbed Vayne by the shoulders, its mandibles opening to reveal rows upon rows of jagged teeth. If its jaws didn’t kill her, its fetid breath could certainly finish the job.
Vayne rapidly reviewed her options. She could try to dodge the beast’s bite, but that would be a short-term solution at the very best. She could kick the creature in its absurd number of teeth and attempt to land her last wristbolt in its bucking forehead, but she couldn’t trust her arrow would find its mark through its gnashing forest of fangs. Or, she could try something flashy, violent and slightly stupid.
Vayne chose the latter.
She shoved her entire arm into its gaping mouth. The creature’s razor teeth ripped strips of skin from her knuckles and arm, but Vayne smiled – she had the beast right where she wanted it. She felt its jaw clench, ready to bite and rip her limb off. She didn’t give it the chance.
Vayne twisted her arm, dragging her wristbolt launcher across the inside of the creature’s gob until the silver tip of her final arrow pointed directly at the roof of the beast’s mouth. With the flick of her wrist, the bolt tore through the monster’s skull, shredding its brain.
The shrieking stopped as suddenly as it started, the creature’s body limp as it collapsed upon the grassy soil. Vayne crawled out from under it and attempted to remove her arm from its skull without cutting herself more than she already had, only to find that her fist was stuck inside the creature’s head.
She could either keep trying to pull her hand through the shapeshifter’s jagged mouth – and probably lose a finger or two in the process – or she could dig her arm in further to punch through the top of its head and snap its jaw like a wishbone.
As always, Vayne chose the latter.
The hard part wasn’t killing the damned thing. The hard part was carrying it back to its bride.
Well, widow.
The widow Selina was beautiful beyond imagining, with hair that caught the sunlight even in the darkness of her fire-lit cabin. The deep scratches on her face, and even the tears that streamed down her cheeks, did nothing to diminish her beauty.
Vayne laid the carcass at the woman’s feet as gingerly as she could. Its flesh was monstrously transformed and wracked with wounds both self-inflicted and not-so-self-inflicted; it looked more like a collection of limbs and meat than a person.
“Was it quick?” the widow asked through sobs.
It had not been quick. Vayne had tracked the changeling to its den in the forests outside eastern Demacia. She’d managed to interrupt it mid-transformation: its eyes had multiplied and expanded, its mouth had grown mandibles, its left arm had formed into a razor-sharp pincer – and it was angry.
Vayne flicked a glob of brain off her wrist, a clinging remnant from when she’d punched through the creature’s skull.
“Erm,” Vayne said.
“Oh, my love,” Selina said, dropping to her knees and wrapping her arms around the mutated body. “What could have caused such a tragedy?”
Vayne kneeled beside the couple as the widow brought what was left of the man’s head to her breast, either not noticing or caring as his blood smeared her dress.
“Some people transform themselves into beasts. Some are transformed against their will,” Vayne said.
She picked up the bulging hand of the corpse, casually examining it. “He belonged to the second group.”
The widow’s eyes went wide with fury.
“Someone did this to him? Who would – why would–”
The widow collapsed onto the body in tears, unable to find the words.
“Sometimes, therians – shapechangers – want a companion. Sometimes they’re just savage: they lash out and bite somebody out of confusion or anger. Others I’ve met just get bored. They think it’s fun,” Vayne said, patting the woman’s head. “But some…some just need to eat.”
The widow looked up, sniffing away tears.
“I don’t – I don’t understand.”
Vayne gave the widow a pitying smile.
“They want to eat somebody, but sometimes that somebody gets away. And the thing that tried to eat them accidentally passes on its phage. Then they end up turning, too.”
The widow glared at Vayne. The wristbolt launcher on Vayne’s arm clinked as she brushed the woman’s hair out of her tear-filled eyes.
“The last therian I killed told me his victims tasted better if they loved him. Something about the juicy flavor they took on when they blushed. Can’t even imagine how they must taste while on honeymoon, hmm?” Vayne mused.
The widow stopped crying. Her eyes grew hard.
“He did love you, you know,” said Vayne.
The widow tried to stand, but Vayne gripped a fistful of the woman’s hair and pulled tight.
“He must have been shocked after you bit him. People are unpredictable when they’re scared. And there’s nothing more frightening than being betrayed by someone you love.”
Vayne flicked her wrist, cocking the wristbolt launcher on her forearm.
“So, who turned you?”
The woman stared back with hatred, her eyes slowly darkening to a deep red.
“Nobody,” she said in a voice like knives scraping across rock. “I am of my own design.”
Vayne smiled.
“How did you know?” the widow asked, sliding her hand behind her back.
“Bite marks on the front of his neck, rather than the back, combined with the lack of wounds anywhere else on his body, told me he was attacked by someone he trusted. Go ahead. Try it.”
The widow paused.
“Try what?”
“The pincer you’re forming behind your back. Slash me. Let’s see if you can cut my hand off before I put a bolt through your forehead,” said Vayne.
The widow retracted her pincer from behind her back, crestfallen. The game was up.
“Why?” she asked.
“Why what?” Vayne blankly replied.
“Why not just walk in and kill me? Why this whole… presentation?”
Vayne smiled. A sly, hateful grin.
“Because I wanted to be sure I was right. Because I wanted you to feel the panic and the fear he felt. But mainly...”
Vayne tightened her wrist. With a metallic twang, a six-inch bolt of cold silver pierced the changeling’s brain. The widow’s eyes rolled back into her head. She collapsed to the floor like a bag of stones.
“Because it’s fun.” | Marksman |
Rakan is the worst.
He’s not listening. He’s fixated on his own golden feathers—as if they’d changed from when he cleaned them this morning. I’m going to have to repeat the plan. Although, thinking it over again, it probably was too complicated for a rescue mission. Simple is better.
“They will kill me if they catch me,” I tell him.
“Who?!” He looks ready to kill at the thought of anyone harming me.
“The guards,” I say. “It’s always guards.”
“Then I’ll distract them!” He puffs his chest out. “When?”
“Look for a green flash before the sun sets. Then draw the guards away from the western walls while I run along the ramparts to the cells.”
“I put on a show the moment the sun sets,” he says like it was his idea. “Where do we meet?”
“At the gate. I’ll throw a golden blade into the sky. But you have to be there in ten breaths.” I pull one of his feathers from his cloak. It’s warm on my fingers. A memory floods back of me lying in his arms by the Aphae Waterfall. The sun filtering through the leaves, catching the edges of our feathers as they lay atop each other. That was a lovely day.
“I will be at the gate the moment you throw the blade,” he swears.
I take his hand in mine and lean close. “I know.”
That smug, confident grin cracks his face. I want to slap him. Or kiss him. Or both.
“Now, darling—if I were you, I would stay behind the cover of the tree line, so you’re not spotted.”
Our embrace is so warm I wish it would last all night. But the sun is dangerously close to the horizon, and our esteemed consul isn’t going to escape a dungeon guarded by a horde of shadow acolytes on his own.
Rakan tells me to be careful as he wanders away, looking at the sky. Every time he leaves, my heart sinks. I’m sure it won’t be the last time I see him. Although, one day, it might.
“Remember, my heartfire,” I whisper after him. “Sunset.”
I dart in between the fortress’ parapets unseen. Years of avoiding the stares of humans taught me their many blind spots.
Six acolytes guard the gate leading to the dungeons. They carry double-firing crossbows, swords tucked in their belts, and who-knows-what-else in the pouches fastened around their waists. I slink along the inner wall behind them to get within striking distance. I pluck five of my feathers and stack them neatly in my palm, holding them in place between my index finger and thumb, ready to send them flying.
There’s a noise from outside the walls. The crash of a gong. Shouts. Confused men. It has to be Rakan.
The prison guards hear it, too. Worry chokes my heart. I hope my love is okay. I know he’s going to be okay. He’d better be okay, or I will force a necromancer to resurrect him so I can murder him myself. He knows I’ll do that, too. I’ll figure it out.
The guards are distracted from their posts. He’s early, but it’s perfect timing. I can get in without needing to fell a single one of them.
I almost reach the dungeon door, when I see another guard climb the parapet and take deadly aim with his rifle. Nobody aims anything at my Rakan. I’ll have the still-beating heart of anyone who dares to harm as much as one of his feathers. It’ll make a cute beating-heart necklace.
I stop. The prisoners won’t be going anywhere. I’ve got time to turn this guard into a sieve.
I leap back toward the parapet. The first feather I throw slices off the barrel of the gun. It clatters loudly to the floor. The rest slice through his chest. He drops like a bag of turnips.
“Intruder!” one of the guards at the gate shouts.
I duck and roll as crossbow bolts ping off the stone wall behind me, or stab into the wooden posts. Staying low, I race straight toward the acolytes who are fanning out to get better angles. I leap. They shoot where they think gravity will take me, instead of where I am: hovering in the air.
I throw another handful of feathers, shaping them into blades mid-flight.
Five of the guards drop, my quills sticking out of their chests. The remaining acolyte narrows his eyes and squares his shoulders, ready to fight. His sword is out before my feet touch the ground.
“Your soul will serve me forever,” he grunts. I can feel the shadow magic bound up in his blade, the essence of every life it has taken.
I laugh. “I killed more people in the last twenty paces than you have in your entire life.”
The acolyte hesitates before slashing wildly in my direction. His little sword leaves wavering trails of darkness. I don’t have time for this, the sun is setting. I turn my back.
With a snap of my fingers, my quills tear free of the corpses behind the acolyte, and fly back toward me.
I hear the sword clang to the floor a moment before the dull thud of his body. I’m sure the Order of the Shadow will find some way to harness these men’s souls into a slingshot or something. I don’t really know how these guys work, but good on them for being so economical. One shouldn’t waste life essence.
I take Rakan’s feather and launch it high into the air. It hangs in the sky, a golden message that should turn some heads. But there’s only one who knows what it means.
Meanwhile, I have a date in the dungeons with the consul.
He looks terrible sitting in a cage. Emaciated. Weak. Beaten. He doesn’t look up, figuring me for one of the guards. He and his mate are Sodjoko, but his entourage are vastaya from other tribes. Their harrowed eyes thank me more than their tongues. They know as well as I that this is no time for gratitude. We’re not out of the fortress yet.
As I lead the prisoners toward the eastern gate, I’m perplexed by the appalling lack of guards. Nearly every post is deserted. Isn’t this supposed to be a fortress? Who makes their schedules?
We round past the armory and the barracks. There’s the gate. Looks like Rakan found the guards. Dozens of them. They’re surrounding him. My feathers bristle. Heartbeat necklace, here I come!
Rakan reaches us. His smile turns from confident to bemused as he speaks with the consul. Akunir is one of my father’s oldest friends, and the most important of our ambassadors. I have much to discuss with him once we’re out of this.
“All of you, run for the tree line,” I command.
They’re panicked, but thankfully Rakan took out the riflemen. More of us will survive crossing the field. “Run!” I yell.
Akunir’s too slow. Rakan begins to lead him toward the forest.
The consul grabs at Rakan. “No. Please, protect Coll.” Rakan turns back toward her.
I shake my head. Rakan understands. He drags the consul behind him.
I nod to the strongest-looking juloah. He lifts Coll in his arms. She calls him Jurelv, and he pledges on his horns to keep her safe.
He makes it ten paces before the first arrow strikes him, but he doesn’t stop. He carries Coll into the forest. The shadow acolytes surge forward after them.
“Xayah!” Rakan yells. “Bowtube or tubebow?!”
I wish I had time to play, but I don’t.
Instead, I join the fight.
And it’s not pretty.
For the acolytes.
We were safe under the forest canopy by the time Jurelv’s body could ignore its wounds no longer.
Coll kneels next to his corpse. His blood is on the leaves. We have already prayed that his spirit finds our ancestors in joy and peace. His family will mourn for moons.
I’m used to death. It doesn’t move me as it once did. Rakan takes it hard; I have to be strong for him.
At least the consul is safe. After taking his hand off his wife’s shoulder, he turns to me.
“I have friends in the south,” he says. “The Kinkou must be informed.”
“Humans broke the pact.” I feel my blood rising. “How can you not see this as a grievous trespass? To them, magic is power. To us, it is life. They will never respect our boundaries.”
“Humans are a splintered race, Xayah. Only Zed and his shadows broke the pact. They do not speak for all men.”
“You are naïve. Your friends in the south will betray you. Then, they will turn on us all.”
“The Kinkou are honorable. They will believe me. I trust them.”
“So you’re not naïve, you’re an idiot.” Akunir is shocked that I dare speak to him like this. I reject the notion of being diplomatic. Diplomacy will not restore life to the dead.
Coll stands up. Her face is a mask of grief and anger. “I will go back north, Akunir. I will tell them what was done to us.”
I honestly didn’t think she had it in her.
The glow fades from Akunir’s eyes. “Coll, no.”
“I will bear word of Jurelv’s fate to his kin, and mourn with them. Then, I will muster arms and prepare the tribe to fight.”
“You cannot do that!” the consul proclaims.
Coll ignores him. “I forsake my claim to you. I forsake your claim to me.”
“Coll… please.” His voice falters.
“No,” she says.
The consul takes a step toward her, but Rakan stops him.
“I will speak with my mate,” Akunir says to Rakan. To his guards.
But Coll is already turned away. She looks at me, and I no longer see a diplomat’s wife. I see a warrior. She gathers those loyal to her—all but two of the consul’s entourage.
“Thank you, Xayah,” Coll says before she turns north and walks farther into the forest.
Akunir and his guards watch her leave, then wordlessly set off to the south.
Rakan moves in close to me. I feel his heart beating in time with my own.
“Promise me nothing will come between us like that, mieli,” I say.
“We’re not like them, miella.” Rakan assures me. “We’ll never be like them.”
I watch Coll as she disappears among the trees.
“Where to now, Xayah?”
“Let’s just stay here a moment longer,” I murmur.
I bury my face in his chest. He drapes his cloak and arms around me. My head rises and falls with his breath. I could stay here forever.
“Repeat it back to me,” I tell him.
“We are not like them,” he says. “We are not like them.”
He smiles and kisses my forehead. The vows we took at the Aphae Waterfall spring to mind. His heart beats for me, and mine for him. Home is within his arms, his breath, his smile.
There is no one better than Rakan. | Marksman |