LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Dashing through the shadows of eastern Shurima, a righteous avenger stalks those who have harmed others. His punishment is swift, certain, and exacted by a curious weapon that rights the wrongs of his foes.

Raised on the streets of the city of Marwi, Akshan was introduced to injustice at birth. In a place where local warlords took what they wanted, most people survived by keeping their heads down and minding their own affairs. Try as he might, young Akshan could never manage to let bad deeds go unnoticed and was often quick to intervene when he saw someone being mistreated. This approach made the boy many powerful enemies, and on one fateful occasion, left him beaten within an inch of his life.

But luck was on his side. An old woman named Shadya found the boy unconscious in the street outside her dwelling. Though Marwian custom said she should not get involved, she took young Akshan inside and, against all odds, he pulled through.

As Akshan regained his faculties, he realized his savior was no ordinary woman. Shadya was a member of the Sentinels of Light, an ancient order committed to fighting Harrowings and eradicating agents of the Black Mist. She saw Akshan as a troubled youth, stubborn and defiant, but vulnerable. After butting heads with the boy over her numerous sentinel house rules, Shadya quickly discovered there was much to like about him. He had guts and a conscience—a combination seldom found in Marwi. Seeing the immense potential in the young man, Shadya made a deal with him: she would allow him to stay, free from the grasp of his countless enemies, and, in return, he would dedicate himself to the sentinel order.

Shadya and Akshan formed a fast bond as she taught him everything she knew about surviving as a solo sentinel. Akshan the scrappy street urchin grew into Akshan the full-grown bane of scoundrels. But even as Akshan’s skills grew by the day, he could see his mentor growing more distant, and more troubled.

At last, Shadya told her pupil the reason for her concern: A Harrowing was coming, bigger than any the world had ever seen, bearing an army of wraiths and ghouls from the Shadow Isles. Their only hope of stopping the cataclysm rested with the ancient sentinel weapons that lay buried within Shurima's crypts and tombs. If the world was to be saved from ruination, they needed to collect these weapons, and quickly.

To Shadya’s dismay, she found that the ancient weapons had already been plundered by local warlords. She pleaded with them to relinquish the artifacts for the fight against the inevitable Harrowing, but the warlords refused, determined to unlock the weapons’ mysterious power for themselves.

With time running out, Akshan and Shadya were forced to make do with what they had. As they took stock of their arsenal, Akshan discovered a particularly striking gun hidden away in the base’s vault. Alarmed, his mentor snatched it away and forbade Akshan from ever using it. The weapon, known as the Absolver, was imbued with an ancient enchantment that granted it a strange, unspeakable power—it could take the life of a killer and, by doing so, restore their most recent victims to life.

“It must not be wielded by anyone,” said Shadya. “Such matters of life and death are best left in the hands of fate.”

But Akshan still bristled at sentinel rules, and he had even stronger opinions on fate. He had spent his whole life seeing good people horribly mistreated while bad people did as they pleased without consequence. If fate was real, it definitely needed help—help that the Absolver could provide.

As his interest in the weapon deepened, Akshan continued to pry its history from Shadya and came to a shocking discovery: She had used the gun to save Akshan when she found him unconscious in the street all those years ago. With it, she’d slain the criminal who had nearly killed him, and, in doing so, restored young Akshan to life. He wondered: Why did he alone deserve to be revived by the gun? Surely there were others who were more worthy.

While Akshan questioned the antiquated rules of his order, his mentor continued to press the warlords to turn over their stolen weapons. Tensions between the two parties built until one tragic day Akshan returned home to find Shadya murdered in the street, almost exactly where he had fallen all those years ago.

Akshan knew what he had to do. He made some key alterations to the Absolver and set out into the scorching desert with the forbidden weapon, hungry for vengeance. Though he could not determine which of the warlords had killed his mentor, he knew one way to be certain: he would pick them off one by one until Shadya was returned to Runeterra.

For most of the peoples of Runeterra, yordles are not typically something to be feared. Their fabled home of Bandle City is said to be a mysterious, spiritual place, filled with odd trinkets and keepsakes gathered from across the material realm. While these curious creatures often leave to dwell among mortal races for a time, they generally return with fresh tales and new experiences to recount.

Yet, sadly, there are also those yordles who lose their way. Among them is the sorcerer Veigar.

After the Great Darkin War left the world in ruin many centuries ago, the only light that seemed to shine on Valoran came from the skies above. Scattered survivors looked to the heavens, and their renewed study of ancient celestial magic piqued Veigar’s interest. Imagining himself already a master of these mystical arts, the yordle joined an order of mages in the Noxii territories, hoping to learn more of their craft. They did not think to question this eager newcomer, and he taught them to draw hope from the patterns created by the movements of the stars.

But while many toiled to rebuild the world, others sought to conquer it. The brutal warlord Mordekaiser and his armies swept across the lands, crushing and enslaving any who would oppose his rule, and the mages of the order—unskilled in war—were of little value to this tyrant. Looming over them in his accursed battleplate, his keen eye fell upon Veigar, and Mordekaiser recognized the yordle for what he truly was. He snatched him up in one iron gauntlet, and dragged his prize away as the other mages were put to the sword.

Imprisoned in the heart of the warlord’s new, monolithic fortress, Veigar was forced to turn his magic to darker purposes. Knowing that yordles were craftier than any of the mortal races, Mordekaiser bound Veigar to the physical plane, preventing him even from escaping to Bandle City. He was not the only captive in that hellish place, but such isolation was the worst and most cruel form of torture for a yordle. Veigar performed grisly enchantments against his will—some strengthening his master’s dominion, others simply evoking terror for terror’s sake.

Indeed, terror was what seemed to fuel this dreadful empire. Miserable beyond imagining, Veigar became a reluctant witness as Mordekaiser's vile deeds empowered him to near-immortality. Whether it was over the course of decades or centuries, Veigar never knew, but eventually the yordle’s magic and appearance started to twist in response…

Memories of his past faded. Why had he come to Valoran? Where had he come from? Had he known any other life before this? Questions such as these weighed on his fragile mind, like the last flickers of light before an eclipse.

When the revenant warlord’s own followers conspired against him, the nightmare of his reign was ended, but by this point Veigar was nigh unrecognizable. His eyes blazed. Even his voice had become a sneer of malice. Fleeing from his ensorcelled cage, the wretched creature had no interest in the wars of succession that inevitably followed. Deep down, he most likely yearned to regain the sense of safety and freedom that all living things crave.

And yet, he chose not to turn away from evil, but to embrace it. Clad in armor befitting a sinister warlock, he vowed to seize respect in the only way he could remember—through ruthless villainy, inspiring fear in all who encountered him. He would call down the fury of the stars themselves upon his foes, and trap them in the timeless infinities between moments.

And yet… Veigar could not quite find the same success as his former captor.

Certainly, the good people of Valoran did learn to fear him, to some extent. More often than not, they would find their pastures scorched, or the local baron’s mansion razed to its foundations. Sometimes though, inexplicably, bands of brigands would be driven from their woodland hideouts, or the remains of feral murk wolves found scattered through the town square, and it was difficult to tell whether these acts were malicious or actually reasonably helpful. For all his aspirations of evildoing, it seemed Veigar would always come up a tiny bit short.

Still, the nefarious yordle has not abandoned his quest to become the world’s most wicked villain. With his diabolic staff in hand, he seeks nothing less than to bring all before him to their knees, and revels in the timely demise of those who dare to underestimate him.

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.

The Lady Elise was born centuries ago to House Kythera, one of the oldest bloodlines of Noxus, and swiftly learned the power of beauty to influence the weak.

When she came of age, she entertained the courtship of Berholdt, heir to House Zaavan. Their union was opposed by many, since it would strengthen Kythera at Zaavan’s expense—but Elise worked hard to beguile her intended husband, and manipulated her detractors to secure a betrothal.

Unbeknown to her, this political marriage had been planned for many years by shadowy forces working behind the scenes throughout the empire, with Berholdt Zaavan a mere pawn in a much larger game. Even so, it was an unexpected twist that Elise should dominate him so completely, and while he remained the face of his house, it was clear who was in charge. As time passed, his resentment grew.

One evening, over a typically frosty dinner, Berholdt revealed he had poisoned her wine, and demanded Elise withdraw from society and allow him to take up the reins of power. Knowing he would have the antidote about his person, Elise played the role of a remorseful wife, weeping and begging her husband’s forgiveness. Just as it seemed he might be convinced, she snatched up a knife and plunged it into his heart.

Even with the antidote, Elise was bedridden for weeks… and it was then that the Pale Woman approached her.

The enigmatic mistress of “the Black Rose” spoke of a secret society where hidden knowledge and sorcery were shared among those who could be trusted, and kept from those who could not. In truth, the Pale Woman did not care who controlled each of the noble houses, as long as they were sworn to her. Since Elise had killed the thrall Berholdt, she would have to prove her own value, or a more suitable replacement would be found.

Seeing a path to greater power, Elise took to the cabal like few before her. She met often with the most prominent members, trading influence and thwarting her rivals in a complex web of tangled schemes. With the wealth of two houses, there were not many who could oppose her, and she became even more adept at persuading others to do her bidding.

Eventually, she learned of an object that held great significance for the Black Rose—the skull of an ancient warlord known as Sahn-Uzal, rumored to have been hidden long ago in the Shadow Isles. Keen to gain the Pale Woman’s favor, Elise found a desperate, debt-ridden captain willing to bear her and a handful of devotees to the cursed city of Helia. They came ashore on a beach of ashen sand, and were tormented by spiteful wraiths as they searched in vain for the lost vault.

But Elise found something she had not anticipated.

A creature of the long-forgotten past had made its home in the lightless depths beneath the city. This bloated, chitinous monster was the spider-god Vilemaw, and it erupted from the darkness to devour the intruders, before sinking its fangs into Elise’s shoulder. She fell, howling and convulsing as the venom wrought terrible changes upon her body. Her spine rippled with undulant motion, and arachnoid legs pushed out from her flesh.

Finally, breathless with the agony of transformation, Elise turned to find her new master looming above her. An unspoken understanding passed between them in that moment, and she scuttled back to the beach, untroubled by the Isles’ spirits as she weaved in and out of the twisted treeline.

Some weeks later, when her ship arrived back at the Noxian capital in the dead of night, Elise had regained her human form… though she was the only living thing left aboard.

Though no evidence was ever found of the warlord’s skull, the Pale Woman saw Elise’s dangerous new gift for what it was—a means to come and go safely between Noxus and the Shadow Isles. An accord was struck, wherein the Black Rose would provide Elise with endless unwitting sacrifices to offer up to the spider-god, and in return she would recover any artifacts of power she could from those benighted, forbidding shores.

Elise once again took up residence in the neglected halls of House Zaavan, carefully cultivating a reputation as a seductive yet unreachable recluse. Few have ever guessed her true nature, yet fanciful rumors abound—wild tales of her ageless beauty, and a terrifying, voracious creature said to lair in the bowels of her dilapidated, dust-wreathed palace.

Though centuries have passed, whenever Elise feels the summons of her god, she returns to the land of the Black Mist with a hapless suitor in tow, or some other easily swayed soul.

And none who accompany her ever return.

Life had not always been good to Renata Glasc.

Her parents were brilliant alchemists, focused on innovations for the healing arts. Dedicated to their work and their community in Zaun, they gave their care and their cures to anyone in need... regardless of whether their patients could afford them. Renata grew up accustomed to going to bed hungry, resentful of her parents’ ideology, yet powerless to change her circumstances. She dreamed of the ships that sailed through Piltover’s Sun Gate canal, imagining herself taking the wheel and steering her life in a new direction—toward the riches of the world.

When she was old enough to join the family business, it was quickly discerned that Renata had no aptitude for alchemy. She did, however, have ideas about turning a profit. In her first sales pitch, Renata convinced her parents that they wouldn’t need to ask anything more than people could give, if they started treating wealthier Zaunites. With loyal patients extolling the Glascs’ talents to their betters, their charity work was soon paid for by the rates Renata set for the rich.

Instead of living comfortably, however, the Glascs spent that money developing a highly refined chemtech formula to extend the lives of their sickest patients. No matter what they did, the formula always had unwanted side effects—such as making their patients extremely suggestible, or extremely violent—so they continued to try and improve their work. Only Renata, bitter at what her parents chose to do with the money she had earned them, wondered if the formula could be useful as is.

Up in Piltover, the elite clan leaders who had been making money off of Zaunite medical stopgaps heard whispers of the Glasc family’s research. Not willing to let anything threaten their bottom line, they paid off a handful of enforcers to “take care of it.” Renata woke to the sound of her parents’ screams as her home burned down around them. She lost her arm trying—and failing—to save them.

With only her family name and the scraps of research that survived the fire, Renata swore to avoid her parents’ mistake of thankless altruism. Instead, she threw herself into building her meager inheritance into something bigger, something that could give her everything she’d never had, something that would give her money and power and control. An empire.

As the years passed, she became the brains behind several successful small-time operations while building relationships with unsavory, but influential, individuals throughout the city. She’d give people jobs, lend them money, and give them medicine for their sick children—but never for free. If they couldn’t pay in coin, she demanded their loyalty.

Renata quickly realized that genius was the rarest and most lucrative commodity in Zaun and devised a plan to invest in destitute youths with a talent for innovation. She offered a space to work and stability for their families in exchange for their work in perpetuity. The poorest among them couldn’t afford to say no. Renata found herself with plentiful access to new and unique product designs, and novel uses for the chemtech formula that was her parents’ legacy. Profits soared. She then established Glasc Industries after purchasing the first of what would eventually be dozens of factories to manufacture her high-end chemtech products.

Glasc Industries quickly expanded across Zaun—from chemtech mining operations to dance halls to refineries—angering some barons who’d held monopolies over the ventures. But, one by one, Renata persuaded them all to go into business with her. And just like that, Renata quietly managed to become a chem-baron in her own right, and no one could push back for fear of upsetting their own cash flow. While Glasc Industries flourished, Renata herself remained in the shadows, waiting for the right time to make her next move.

That time came after a chemical accident sent poisonous fumes sweeping through the streets of Zaun, leaving the city in its worst state in decades. Amidst the noxious gray clouds, Glasc Industries offered basic breathers and replacement filters to everyone in the city… for free. Now everyone in Zaun knew of Renata Glasc and her benevolence. She had earned Zaun’s loyalty.

Word of her generosity swept through Piltover, as well. For the first time, shopkeepers looked seriously at Renata’s elegant and ultra-refined chemtech designs and soon lined their shelves with her products.

Now, every fashionable Piltovan owns at least one Glasc Industries product, and the wealthiest among them vie to sit beside Renata at novelty galas and the opera house. But Renata’s plan was never to be a chem-baron in Zaun or the corporate darling of Piltover.

No, she aims to take Piltover’s source of financial power for herself—the Sun Gate she had dreamed of so often in her youth. For she who controls the Sun Gate, controls the flow of trade; and she who controls the trade, controls the world. With a secret cache of her parents’ chemtech formula embedded in every Glasc product in both Piltover and Zaun, ready to be released at her command—side effects and all—it’s only a matter of time before everyone works for Renata Glasc.

Look, I should be clear—I didn’t want anything to do with “the dread lord,” or whoever Januk was talking about. I was just trying to sell this stupid little vial to the guy who asked me to get it for him. Should have been easy.

But when you’re me, nothing goes your way for long.

My way. Whatever.

Januk was a red-bearded Freljordian transplant, with deep pockets and big appetites. Unknown to his employers, his private residence was filled with relics and artwork, half of it raided illegally from tombs or other museums, and he loved to dine amidst his collection. As some of the pieces would attest, we’d worked together several times in the past, and he only betrayed me twice. Well, two and a half times, if I’m counting when he blew my cover after we had already salvaged the wreck of the Echelon Dawn…

To Januk’s credit, payment was never a problem, which vastly diminishes my ability to hold a grudge.

“Ezreal,” he said, pushing his plate aside. There were flecks of lamb in his teeth. “Did you find it?”

The it he was referring to was to the Elixir of Uloa. And yes, I had indeed liberated it from a trap-strewn hovel in the jungle near Paretha. I pulled the bone and crystal vial from my satchel. It was cool in the palm of my hand.

“Got what you’re looking for right here,” I said, holding up the vial. “Interesting container. My best guess would be pre-classical Shuriman.”

The spoonful of viscous liquid inside it shimmered in the moonlight. Januk’s eyes widened.

I decided to ramp up the drama. “I tell you what, though—this here isn’t just any ordinary ancient serum. It’s a load bearing ancient serum. The whole place crumbled around me. I barely escaped with my life.”

“The Elixir…” Januk’s voice took on a reverence I had never heard before. “A single drop can quench the soul for a thousand years… Give a man skin as tough as petricite…”

He went to grab it with his greedy hands. I pulled it out of reach.

“Not so fast, Januk.”

“Right, right, right,” he muttered, fumbling for his desk drawer key. “Payment. We agreed sixty thousand.”

“And full accreditation in the Guild, remember?”

I’d been denied entry to plenty of things, in my time. Bars, schools, even a Sona recital… but the Piltover Explorers Guild was the one that stung the most, considering the number of times I’ve risked my neck in the field. Ingrates.

Januk was scowling. “The Guild aren’t particularly fond of you, Ezreal. Can’t say I blame them, having worked with you in the past.” He poured himself some amberwine from a decanter and took a swig. “You left me to rot in that Noxian prison camp…”

“That was payback. For the Echelon Dawn.”

“Which was payback for the map.”

“Which was payback for… something else you did.” I gritted my teeth. “Probably.”

I was getting antsy. I readied myself to make a quick exit.

“Come on, accreditation was half the deal,” I reminded him. “If you don’t want to honor it, I can always find another buyer.”

His boisterous laugh broke the tension. “Why do you think I continue to do business with you? It’s because I like you. We have history, and history is always good for business.” He finished his drink. “Let me fetch the letter from my study. One moment, please.”

Buyers keeping payment in their studies? Oldest trick in the book. He’d probably return aiming a flintlock at my pretty face.

To kill time, I perused his collection of artifacts. There were some I had procured on his behalf. Then my eyes fell on something I had not seen before. Something new—a stone bell, roughly the size of a housecat. Its base was adorned with strange writing. I stepped closer to inspect it.

“It’s Ochnun,” Januk called out. “The language of the dead, composed beyond the mortal veil, and spoken only by those in the afterworld.”

I was getting some serious backstabby vibes, so I spun around.

Januk didn’t have a flintlock. He had two flintlocks.

“I am sorry to inform you, Ezreal, that the Guild has once again denied your application.” He stepped closer, into the light. “The dread lord will rise again. And the Elixir will make it happen.”

A dread lord? Great. I was so close this time…

My gauntlet’s charge rose. Anger is a wonderful arcane motivator. Use it or lose it, I always say.

I raised my arm. Januk fired his pistols. It was magic versus lead shot.

Surprise! Magic won. Magic always wins.

The dull metal slugs burned white-hot in the face of my blast, and winked into silvery vapor on the other side. But with double-crossers, one must be doubly careful, so I quickly charged my gauntlet again. There was a slight fizzle, then a pop, and then I was standing right behind Januk. Teleporting short distances doesn’t really take a lot out of me, so I put my gauntleted hand to the back of his big, stupid head before he could turn around.

“Drop the guns, Januk.”

“Already one step ahead of you.”

Oh, I did not like the sound of that. I glanced down. Sure enough, the pistols were at his feet.

Did I mention Januk was strong? Because he is super strong. He grabbed my gauntlet in one hand, yanked me over his shoulder with the other, and slammed me bodily through his work desk. The damn stone bell jabbed into my spine. I saw white, and splinters. Lots of little splinters.

Januk kicked me in the ribs for good measure. He twisted the Elixir of Uloa out of my shaky grip, pulled the stopper, and drank deep.

“Your pathetic gauntlet will do nothing to an immortal! The Elixir is—”

“Fake,” I croaked. “Almost the right hues, though.” I held up another, far less remarkable looking vial. “This is the real Elixir. You just drank sand wasp venom, out of a cheap souvenir trinket vessel.”

Januk peered into the empty vial, his face scrunched up like he’d tasted sour milk. In fairness, sour milk would have been a lot better for his digestive system.

I winced as I pulled myself back to my feet. He had kicked me unnecessarily hard, but at least he spared my face.

“If I were you, I wouldn’t stray too far from a lavatory for the next few days,’ I added.

He threw the fancy casing to the ground, doubled over, and groaned. Sand wasp venom hits hard and fast. “You… petulant little… I’ll get you… for this…”

I shrugged, then raised my gauntlet and fired another blast of magical energy at the wall. The masonry cracked, melted and exploded outwards. Papers flew everywhere. I picked up the bell, and crouched by Januk’s new window.

“Always a pleasure, ” I said. “I won’t charge you for the, uhh… remodeling.”

I hopped out through the hole, scampered down the masonry and leapt across to a nearby rooftop. I wanted to be far away from Januk as quickly as possible, for lots of reasons. Admittedly, the sand wasp venom was the main one—it was not going to be pretty in that place by morning.

As I ran, I took a closer look at my latest acquisition. Whatever else it was, the Ochnun bell was definitely touched by some darker energy. Once the Explorers Guild got a load of this piece, I’d be a shoo-in for accreditation. With a party in my honor, perhaps? After all, I had just single-handedly kept some dread lord from rising.

And in the end, that’s usually all that matters.

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.

Renata Glasc’s heels click angrily against the marble floors on her way to the front door. It’s a long walk, and her annoyance grows as the bells screech out the same cloying tune a second time.

The mechanical fingers of her left hand unfurl as she reaches for the latch, twisting and snapping into the necessary shapes, embedding in the bespoke lock as its one and only key.

She throws open the ornate copper door and looks down at her visitor. “Mave.” All of Renata’s high-ranking subordinates had been informed that her priority for the evening was debuting her Decanter at the Vesella Novelty Gala.

“Ms. Glasc,” the shorter woman says with a curt nod, her prosthetic iron eyes rattling against the glass of her gel-filled goggles. “Sorry to interrupt.”

“It must be important.”

“We’ve gotten wind of a new type of breather. Not just a filtration unit. An air purifier.”

Renata’s eyes flash. “My devisers said we had nothing to worry about on that front.”

Mave shrugs—not her department.

“Who’s manufacturing it?”

“Baron Midenstokke. Not sure where yet.”

She glances at her gaudy Piltovan clock. The gala begins in just under two hours, her presentation slot is at precisely 21:05, and she hasn’t even had time to pick up the Decanter from the laboratory yet… She sighs. It looks as though the gala will have to start without her.

Time to get the night back under control.

Basile, a worm of a man, grovels at Renata’s feet, dirtying her office floor with his soot-stained tears. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out, breath still rank from whatever swill he’d been drinking when she’d interrupted his visit to the Corrodyne Taproom. “I’ll get the money to you in a week. Two, at the most.”

Renata says nothing, letting Basile squirm and sob on the floor a little longer. He had come to her for a loan six months ago for his wife’s replacement leg after an accident at a machinist’s shop. Renata gave him what he asked for, and got him a well-paying factory job to boot. But after his wife died from sepsis and Basile tried to drown his sorrows at the taproom… it’s no surprise he can’t pay.

It’s what she’s counting on.

“Do you think,” she asks finally, “that I need that money? That I would even miss it?”

“I…”

“I’m not interested in money, dear Basile. Keep it.”

Basile’s eyes fill with tears of gratitude. “Thank you,” he whispers. “Ms. Glasc—”

“But.” She holds up a finger to quiet him. “There is something I need from you.”

“Anything.”

“You’re still working for Midenstokke, yes? Got a nice little promotion last month?”

Basile’s face falls. Not everyone has the stomach to get between two chem-barons. He swallows hard. “I can get you your money in… in four days, Ms. Glasc.”

“No, Basile.” Renata Glasc leans down. She can see the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “You’ll get me the information I need, and you’ll get it to me within the hour.”

Elodat carefully moves aside the vials and burners, the metals and wires, the tools and masks that litter her own private workspace, and lays out the first few pages of designs. Renata watches as the deviser dons a loupe, looking closely at all of the details that make these new breathers tick. There are few she would trust with this new alchemical technology, but Elodat has proven her worth time and again since she first entered Renata’s employ at age twelve.

“These are unbelievable,” Elodat breathes reverently. “No filter system, no place for the toxins in the air to go. They just… destroy the toxins. Eliminate them completely.”

“And you understand how it works?” Renata asks. “Would you be able to replicate the results in a similar product?”

“Without question.” Elodat’s fingers twitch excitedly. “Is this my next project?”

“It is.” She pauses. “But make some part of it necessary to replace. Filters are a great way to keep money rolling in. Find our version of that for a purifier.”

Renata looks at Mave, who’s standing in the corner near the door and awaiting instructions. “We’re sure about the factory?”

Mave nods. “My scouts confirmed it. Just beneath Midenstokke’s dance hall in the Promenade as Basile said.”

“Excellent. 22:30, then. That should give us both plenty of time.”

Mave turns to leave, but Renata stops her and glances at the deviser. “Elodat, the Decanter’s show-ready, yes?”

Elodat snorts as she marks up the design documents. “Of course, Ms. Renata.”

Beside the deviser’s workstation sits the Decanter prototype. A weapon. A tool. A mechanized wonder attuned only to the gestures of Renata’s left hand. All elegant lines of gold and brass, both sinuous and sharp, protective, yet delicate. Bubbling inside the contraption is the glowing magenta liquid that encompasses Renata’s entire inheritance.

Renata twirls one of her mechanical fingers in the air. In response, one of the vials attached to the Decanter fills with a pink gas. She plucks a breather from Elodat’s desk and grabs the vial, clicking it into the mask in place of a filtration unit.

“Make things easy on yourself,” she says as she tosses the mask to Mave. With a nod, Mave exits.

“Um, Ms. Renata?” The deviser looks at the floor as Renata turns back to her. “How are my parents? I haven’t seen them in… yeah.”

“They’ve just bought a house,” Renata says casually. “And I’ve found work for your brother and his fiancé at a cultivair. Your work has kept them very happy.” A pause. “You should visit them.”

Elodat’s head snaps up. “Really?”

“Absolutely.” With a beckoning gesture from Renata, the Decanter’s thrusters fire, lifting it into the air. It bobs beside her as she walks toward the door. “After the demonstration.”

“And now, finally,” the announcer says with a glare at Renata, “we have the newest product from Glasc Industries, presented by the fabulous Renata Glasc, herself! Renata, darling, please join us on the stage!”

With practiced ease, Renata steps out from behind the curtain to ravenous applause. Wealthy Piltovans, dressed to impress, fill the Vesella clan’s lavish ballroom, eager to hear about the newest novelties from their favorite Zaunite. The announcer claps politely, though his eyes roll at this level of excitement from the audience.

Renata removes her mask. Every breath she takes of the empty Piltovan air cuts her throat like glass, but still, she smiles. “A big thank you to the Vesella clan for having me! What a treat it is to spend an evening in your beautiful city.

“For many of you, ‘chemtech’ is a scary word. An ugly word. One of iron and decay. What, then, could a Zaunite have to offer Piltover? Glasc Industries has shown you time and again that chemtech doesn’t have to be ugly. And tonight, I’m going to show you that it can be beautiful.”

A flick of her wrist, and the Decanter floats across the stage past the announcer to Renata. Delighted gasps punctuate the murmur of the crowd.

So easily pleased. So hopelessly naïve.

“The Glasc Industries Decanter, a milestone in the world of healing! Alchemist and nursemaid all in one, creating medicine and administering it in the same breath.”

She’s interrupted by the announcer coughing into his sleeve. She turns to him, knowing full well that none of the chemicals in the Decanter are strictly medicinal. “Would our kind announcer be interested in helping with a demonstration?”

Renata sips her sparkling wine as yet another potential investor approaches her. Across the room, the announcer stands beside the Decanter and hands out Renata’s business cards—just as Renata had... suggested.

She peers at her pocket watch and walks toward a balcony with a phenomenal evening view of Piltover. Below, even Zaun’s promenade level is visible from here...

An explosion lights up the promenade. Right about where Baron Midenstokke’s dance hall is, in fact. Or, rather, where it used to be.

But no one in the Vesella clan’s ballroom seems to care. A glance is the most any of them spare for the tragedy down in Zaun. It’s beneath them.

Except for Renata Glasc, who watches with a chuckle and takes another sip of her fine Piltovan wine.

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.

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?”