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It was a perfectly good night for a cup of tea. Chilly, certainly, but clear—as crisp a night as frigid Mount Targon ever got, really. Soraka was expecting a visitor. The snow in the stone kettle had already begun to melt over the hearth at the center of her little yurt; as it grew warmer, the room was suffused with the smell of dried tea leaves and sparse mountain herbs.

She crossed the room, passing the shelf she’d built herself along the back wall. Like the rest of her home, it was ever-so-slightly crooked. As far as mortal skills went, carpentry was not her strong suit. But she had built it because she loved the keepsakes on the shelf: a willow-wreath from Omikayalan, a tiny golden acorn from a dear friend in Bandle City, and oldest of all, surely older than anything mortal, was a stone dog from the old days of Nashramae. She owed that city another visit. She hadn’t been back in centuries, and she had a fondness for its people.

But she was shaken from her reverie as the commotion started outside. Shouting. Barking. Precisely on time.

In the darkness a pack of wolves surrounded a huddled lump in the snow. She strode out into the night, drawing her shoulders back, her head high. The moon was out and appeared slightly too large, as it often seemed to on Targon. Her home, nestled partway up the peak, was framed to the east by craggy flats, and to the west by a sheer drop into the mist far below. A constant frigid wind battered everything westward. It wasn’t uncommon for wild creatures to be battered on their way across the flats, too… but it was rare that they found prey.

The wolves turned to snarl at her, half-illuminated in the yellow light from the yurt’s windows. Meanwhile, the lump rolled over. It was a girl. Frightened eyes stared back at Soraka, a wooden spear clutched between two shaking hands. Only one thing brought people to this remote cliffside on the approach to the Holy Mount. But they were never this young.

The wolves lunged for Soraka in unison, and she heard the stars cry out in her defense. Sparks trickled from her fingertips as she rained golden fire down on the pack. The slam of impacts sent most of the wolves skittering back with primal fear, but one of them was left behind, its hindquarters crushed beneath the weight of the dying embers. It moaned and rasped, struggling. She saw the remainder of the pack disappearing over the icy barrens, abandoning their fellow to his fate.

Soraka shook her head and instantly knelt in the singed snow, her hands already outstretched. She couldn’t bear to feel the poor thing’s pain. It tugged at her. As she laid her hands along its bloodied back haunches, it snarled, digging its teeth into her arm. Ouch. Mortality had its drawbacks.

“Stop!” the girl cried. “It… It’ll kill you!”

Soraka felt her face melting into a smile. “I’m not afraid of wolves,” she replied, as light spread down her arms and into the wolf’s mangled body. “Besides,” she added, “Targon belongs to him as much as to me.”

The creature’s flesh began to knit back together, the crushed bones becoming whole once more, like clay taking proper shape in an artisan’s hands. But the magic burned as it left her. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the pain for a moment.

When she opened them, the wolf had retreated. Only the girl remained. Her eyes flicked upwards, tracing the line of Soraka’s horn, and Soraka already knew what she was thinking.

“Are you… one of those things?”

“One of what?”

“Demons. I’ve heard…”

Soraka laughed. But before she could respond, the girl sagged weakly, the spear tip dropping. It was only then, her mind clearing, that Soraka finally felt the enormity of the girl’s own pain. Her arms were black all the way to the elbows. Her fingers were frozen to the spear, the flesh swollen red above that. Frostbite like this… she’d be dead soon.

When she laid her hands upon the girl’s arms, the girl flinched, and Soraka was worried. Humans were curious creatures when it came to healing. Their minds were intricate. It had to be a mutual agreement—they had to want to heal. Sometimes she’d get the tendrils of her magic deep into a wound and find that the mind pushed her right back out again.

But not here. The girl was too tired, all vestiges of her energy spent getting her this far up the mountain. Soraka flooded the dead flesh with all the power she could give, pushing through the pain. Coils of emerald light wound their way up the girl’s arms. The spear dropped to the ground. As Soraka worked, she watched the skin fade through black, red and purple to its proper dusky color. There. That should do it.

“Do I seem like a demon to you?” Soraka asked. Her gold eyes glimmered in the darkness.

The girl was silent. After a moment, Soraka pressed her. “You’re making the summit climb. Why?”

But the girl just looked away, ashamed, rubbing her newly-restored arms. “My family,” she blurted, shaking her head. “We… We Rakkor—we’re warriors. And my mother, she’s the strongest of all. You don’t know what it’s like to be the only one who can’t fight. To be…” she bit her lip, struggling to find the word. “Weak.”

Soraka swept a hand out towards the dirt path the girl had followed, the one which led all the way to Targon’s base. “You came this far, and still you think yourself weak?”

“I won’t be soon,” the girl replied, her hands balling into fists now. “Not when I reach the summit. I’ll walk off the final peak and right into the sky, just like the old stories. And then—then they’ll be forced to accept that I’m strong. No one made of the stars could ever be brought low.”

“If only that were true,” Soraka said, flashing a too-sharp grin.

She scarcely caught the girl’s face breaking out into stunned amazement as she turned, walking to the edge of the path. Above them the stars spread out against the inky sky, brighter than they were anywhere else in the world. They sang songs only she could hear. This was home to her. It hadn’t always been. But it was the home she’d made.

“Come,” Soraka beckoned. And she raised her hand, trailing her fingers across the heavens. As she did, she knit the clouds and mist into shapes which wound their way against the moon and became faces the girl would no doubt have recognized from stories. A young woman with pale hair. Her counterpart, a woman whose face burned as brightly as the sun. And a warrior with a spear not unlike the girl’s own.

“All of these mortals ascended to the peak. But they had chosen that path with all their soul.” She turned to the girl and spoke slowly, taking no delight in her words. “You have not truly chosen the mountain. And Targon will not choose you. You would walk to your death. Don’t do this.”

The girl turned away. She was silent a long time.

“Where, then?” she said at last, her voice rough. “I can’t go home. I can’t go back to them. Where else would I go?”

Soraka smiled. “The world is vast. Your paths are many. I can help, if you let me.”

The images in the moon had faded.

Soraka motioned to the cheerful yellow yurt nestled among the rocks nearby. “But first, better come on inside and get warm. No sense in starting back until dawn comes. Besides, I’ve got a kettle on. Perfectly good night for a cup of tea.”

“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.

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.

Sivir watches leaves fall outside her window, and sips tea flavored with rose petals. The liquid dances gently across her tongue. Its petals are delicate, pink, and soft. The air is still, and the sky is gray, and beneath Sivir’s thatch floor lies hard earth, grounding her upon a single and unnassailable reality.

It is the dirt and the grass and the homes and the villagers she has been accustomed to for the majority of her life—here, in her small dining room, in her small cottage, in the small village of Sugiru. The world, she believes, cannot be a mirror. It is rigid. Concrete.

Sivir’s world is a reflection of nothing.

She avoids looking at the corner of the room.

There is an object there, now. Perhaps it was there before. Perhaps it will be there tomorrow. A golden ring of immaculate, intricate design—or a monstrous wheel whose spokes are sharpened to a wire-thin killing edge. It is a compass, a star, a weapon, a key. It was buried once, someone told her, and now it is not.

Hours pass between Sivir and the golden ring. She drinks tea flavored with rose petals, her cup never emptying as it rises and falls from her lips. Day never breaks, and the leaves outside her window never cease to fall. Hours become days. Days become years. Sivir grounds herself in her small dining room, in her small cottage, in a small village on a tiny island far out to sea, her vision locked in place, her muscles screaming.

Sivir steals a glance at the corner of the room. The ring has begun to widen.

Every synapse in her body freezes. The wheel’s empty center collapses into an ocean of liquid night. Framed with gold, a starless nothing stretches outward beyond an infinite, black horizon. An old fisherman, his shape stark within the ring’s abyss, awaits Sivir’s living eyes as they rise to meet his own. He grins, his mouth blooming into hundreds of teeth.

The fisherman turns to cast his spear into space, each step ponderous, and the needle arcs endlessly upward, then down beneath the surface of glistening, obsidian waters. The ring continues to expand as ichor pours from its center. It fills the room, it fills the cottage, it bursts from the windows and doors. The ring slices into the roof of Sivir’s home, cutting the building’s facade from its foundation, cutting the cliff face it is stood on from the island itself. As she crashes into the sea, Sivir is reflected against the absence of nothing beneath her, the nothing all around her, and she watches the fisherman as his line catches on something, deep below their feet.

Steadily, surely, he begins to drag it towards them.

Sivir runs her finger across the edge of the golden ring. There is no pain as the cut opens, merely a sigh, a release. Sivir studies her blood as it sinks into the metal—a deep, blossoming vermillion that seems to stretch along its surface, down its labyrinthine engravings towards the ever-spreading emptiness at its center. The ring retracts; the portal closes, and the darkness burbles meekly before it is banished.

Sivir drinks tea flavored with rose petals, and watches the leaves outside her window. The clouds begin to dissipate as morning turns to day, and the trees slowly settle against the wind. Blood is smeared along the side of her cup. Black fluid trails along her floor.

It is three days before the rise of the blood moon, and a pair of twin girls has vanished along the beach at night. The day stretches. Sivir remembers how the elders wailed, how their cries punctured the evening air, and how their elaborate burial rites filled the waves with sputtering paper lanterns—an old tradition intended to guide lost souls home. The girls’ bodies were never recovered.

Sivir watches the ring as it rests against the corner of her home.

It is silent. Sated, for now.

It took Sivir hours to dig the ring out of the woods. She hadn’t even known to stop until it almost cut her hand in half, its gleaming edge jutting from the foot of an old stone. When she looked up the day had fully passed, and it wasn’t clear how or why she had found herself there.

Sivir took it into the village, maybe? It is hard to recall. Her memories seem distant, unfamiliar, as though they rest at the bottom of a clear lake she can’t breach. Sivir takes the ring to the other side of the island and buries it with sand. Sivir takes the ring to the sea throws it in.

The ring always returns. Resting quietly against the dusty corner of her home, hungrily awaiting only her. And when Sivir gazes into it, the ring opens again and again, the old fisherman locking eyes with her against a still, atramentous midnight, and he begins to pull some nameless horror up from the bottom of the world.

Sometimes Sivir thinks she is dead. She rubs her thumb along the matching shell bracelets in her pocket in those moments—each one small and delicate—and finds in some half-remembered nightmare a pair of girls, hand-in-hand, drifting crimson against the moonlit sea.

Sivir lives on a coastal road overlooking a small archipelago, on the far edge of a quiet island. She is remote enough from Sugiru to enjoy respite from its daily squabbles, and close enough to be accepted as a part of its community. When Sivir looks over the cliffs she sees herself smashed against the rocks below. A different Sivir will look up from the beach, her hands black with the blood of hundreds of people.

Sivir awakens on a bed made of cotton and straw, on the second day before the rise of the blood moon. She peers down the hall at still another Sivir, clutching the golden ring so tightly that her fingers hang by fleshy threads. Her free hand carries a horned, wooden half-mask emblazoned with the visage of a demon, and she begins to place it over her face. Sivir closes her eyes, and when she opens them she is alone.

Sivir’s memories often overlap. Great lengths of time vanish behind her, and recently she has begun to find herself standing outdoors, gazing upwards at a blank and yawning sky. She walks through the village and greets its inhabitants; she walks through the forest and savors its quiet. She looks at her feet and finds the lacerated skull of a man she saw only an hour before, but when she shakes herself awake he stands in front of her at the harborside, brow furrowed in concern. Sivir imagines her hands wrapping around his neck, and ripping his throat out with her teeth.

Her fingers stretch and bend, her bones piercing through flesh in blighted indigos and reds. Great horns burst from her skull; her skin cracks apart as the chrysalis of her mortal body finally gives in, finally gives way to the true body beneath, and she howls through her single flaming eye as sad, small creatures run for safety. She moves against the turning of the world, her feet pounding across time as serrated claws cut through tiny, gnawing, pleading things. She peels the walls off a building and falls upon the craven figures inside, drinking in their screams as thick rivers of blood pour past her monstrous shadow and into the sea.

Sivir finds herself suddenly on the beach, rubbing dead girls’ shell bracelets between her fingers.

The night creeps in softly. Moment by moment, the sun’s rays vanish beneath a blanket of cold stars, and Sivir stands before the black static of the ocean, its lightless waves roiling against her reflectionless mirror world.

The fisherman’s spear sings across a vast emptiness. Light and sound fail as he casts his line, its heft sinking down into the bottomless chasm above which he stands. His is a sea without end, twin reflections of an infinite nihility, the grave of a lost and nameless epoch. He smiles with the hunger of an ancient shark.

His hook sticks fast, and he begins to pull a great shape up from far below.

Inch by inch, second by second, a mountainous silhouette emerges from beyond the edges of the fisherman’s black horizon. It is a tower, a fortress, a sun; thick ichor sloughs from it without end, a great wall of impenetrable darkness dragged along from some forgotten pelagic abyss. The spear tears loose from the object’s surface, a wooden mask impaled along its tip.

One day before the night of the blood moon, Sivir places the mask over her face.

Sivir is Sivir, and Sivir is not.

In the red light of the blood moon, Sivir walks the paths of a long-deserted Sugiru, clutching the golden ring in one hand, and a mask in the other. Her muscles twitch at the slightest sound. Her organs pop unnaturally, pebbles washed smooth by the timeless advance of a biological sea.

All around her are bodies. A thousand broken dolls, their arms outstretched in hideous ecstasy, frozen in some grotesque invocation of long-absent patrons, house gods, and ancestor spirits. These victims are a delicate garden—these offerings, their curled palms, are the blossoms of a dark and sumptuous harvest given in the name of entities too terrible to understand. Some aren’t completely dead, and their fingers grasp gently at nothing.

The blood moon descends.

It is larger than Sivir imagined it—too large, looming as a great crimson sphere over her lost and rudderless island. It casts no reflection against the sea, for it has no equal; it shadows the true moon and devours it whole, its hunger colossal, unending, unquenched.

Sivir drops the wooden mask and the golden ring. She falls to her knees beneath this mirrored cradle, its center a bounding main of beating wings and boiling, rippling blood. A great figure stirs within: the lone demonic progeny of humanity’s twinned soul, a great demon in the shape of a man, sliding from his womb of light as the moon’s embryonic shell breaks open. The massive figure falls into the waves—a wicked blade in his hand, wings flapping with the sound of cracking glaciers. Buried once, and now not.

Briefly, Sivir imagines the leaves outside her window, and tea flavored with rose petals, and a small cottage on a small island that seems now so, so small. She imagines the girls by the sea, their shattered bodies floating past the reflection of some pale, inadequate pretender, and the dark whispers of an ancient, unnameable thing, standing before her in the bloodstained night.

She raises her head, and imagines the world as a mirror.

The moon caresses Sivir’s two faces, and envelops them.

Procured a cutthroat hiding among the populace and feigning civility. Only a disciplined eye could recognize the beast within, yearning for release. How could I refuse? For what is my work if not an attempt to reveal life’s hidden truths through science? It required two doses to subdue him. Impressively resilient. A necessary quality to survive the grand catalyst of pain and provoke the transmutation. The metamorphosis will reshape the man into a chimeric predator, and all of Zaun will be its hunting grounds.

Prepared subject for implantation. Tested a surgical technique I observed during the Ionian Campaign to reach the scapulae. Required several minutes of drilling through bone to attach the alchemical chamber and pumps that will deliver the transmutative formula. Subject wailed and pleaded. Insisted he was no longer a monster, but a good man. Ignored the distractions and threaded lengths of delicate hoses throughout his extremities, splicing them with his veins and arteries. The subject remained conscious and screaming for six hours. Very encouraging as he endured significantly longer than earlier failures. Finished by integrating the mechanical augmentations with the neurolous fibers of the spine. Minimal stitching required. Subject stable and recovering. I must rest and replenish before tomorrow’s procedure.

Found subject despondent and shrinking at the slightest gesture. He struggled against his bonds as the delivery chamber filled with the transmutative formula and activated. The mechanism primed the alchemicals then initiated the next stage. The effects were instantaneous. The subject convulsed as his blood vessels constricted against those first drops. The plunger pushed the mixture through the obstruction, and the subject thrashed violently, nearly toppling the surgical table.

As hypothesized, pain proved the catalyst of change. It released the flood of chemistry required to transmute the subject’s base anatomy. A snapping of bone and sinew followed, reshaping the skeletal frame. And then a jagged shard ripped through the subject’s wrist. He wrenched against the bindings, pulling until the joint cracked sharply, and his severed hand fell to the floor. There was a piercing wail, and his entire body seized before suffering a full collapse. The transmutation had failed. I stanched the wound and stabilized the body’s vital tasks. Perhaps I’ve overestimated the subject’s tolerance for pain. I will recalibrate and begin anew tomorrow.

Returned to my laboratory and found the severed hand still on the floor. Surprisingly, it showed no signs of decay or rigor. Examined the subject’s mangled stump as he spat a litany of insults and threats. The rise in aggression is a promising aftereffect of the alchemicals. But the most striking change was hidden beneath the blood-soaked bandages. A protolimb. Embryonic and malformed, but beautiful in its predatorial function. Even now, hours after the aborted procedure, flesh continues to grow and outpace the formation of misshapen bone. Perhaps allowing more time for the serum to take effect may prove beneficial.

Images of the protolimb pervaded my sleep. Its beauty and singular purpose arrested in tragic failure. But what if it could be more? Awoke with the spark of inspiration. Metallurgy. It may lack the refinements of true chemistry, but last night, it served my purpose. Worked until first light forging steel, sharpening edges, and hammering a framework. It should provide the necessary structure, a scaffolding of sorts, for the new limb to grow into. Improving upon nature is simple when she’s already offered a design.

The constraints of the procedure forced me to benumb the subject and work swiftly. Discovered signs of new growth on the protolimb. The changes had slowed, but not settled. Grafted the malformed limb’s muscle tissue, blood vessels, and delicate nerve endings to the framework. Finished by integrating the augmentation with the alchemical chamber. Observed a slight twitch in the smallest digit. Moved subject, and reinforced his restraints. What other enhancements could be made? Perhaps I shall have a stroll and take in the Gray. There is much to consider.

Returned from the Boundary Markets and was greeted by an old familiar stench. Tributaries of blighted veins stretched across the subject’s back. The infection originated where bone and metal chamber adjoined. Made adjustment to the formula, and dispensed the new batch. The subject’s stupor broke in a piercing shriek as his skeletal structure fractured and reshaped. A beastial form began to emerge, the chimeric properties finally surfacing, but then, the transmutation slowly ebbed and stilled.

Increased the chamber’s outflow. It trembled violently, delivering twice the dosage for every beat of the heart. The body contorted in response as flesh split like poorly seamed fabric unable to contain the changes occurring underneath. The chamber rumbled as the mixture roiled within the sealed container. Pressure built until it released in a rupture of hoses, seals, and blood vessels. A series of snapping sounds followed, metallic and clanging, and the subject’s restraints gave way.

An instant later, he was tearing into my face, reopening the old wounds and feeding the old rage. We struggled briefly until he finally grew limp and collapsed. A single word escaped his throat. And then all the indicators of life faded, and the body finally settled. No heartbeat detected. Applied several drops of caustic solution to his left arm, and received no response. Subject deceased. Dragged the body outside, and disposed of the remains in the Sump. Once again, scientific progress is stifled by lesser creatures. The only consolation is that even failure adds to the vast reservoir of knowledge.

There was a disturbance last night. Arrived to discover the rear door to my laboratory was torn from its hinges. Its heavy wooden planks cleaved and splintered into kindling. Inside, my equipment and provisions suffered a similar fate. Nothing was spared. And everything bore the same deep, gouging slash of sharpened metal. Hours of examining and comparing the marks confirmed the truth—the subject had returned! I don’t know how, but there are a myriad of questions already forming in my mind. But first, a new laboratory must be secured before locating the beast and starting the next phase. What was the word the subject said before it collapsed? A name perhaps? I’ll start there, and see where the search leads me.

(Being a journal of the observations, theories, and ruminations of the chimeric creatures of northern Ionia as recorded by the esteemed
EDUARD SANTANGELO:
Gentleman, Explorer, Chronicler)

I first became acquainted with the chimeric creatures known as the vastaya upon landing on the fertile shores of Ionia. There, I had hoped, would I find a cure for a uniquely Piltovan malady known as the doldrums – a soft boredom for the ins and outs of everyday life in the dependably shining City of Progress where I make my living as an author of some renown.

Within Ionia’s soft and magical bosom – a bosom generally unexplored by cartographers who were not born upon its vast shores – I endeavored to find something utterly beyond my scope of expertise. Something wondrous, and magical, and beautiful, and terrifying.

Once I discovered the vastaya, I knew I had found that which I sought.

I met my first vastayan creature in the dead of night, as it rummaged through my camp for something it could stuff down its gullet. Though it nearly sprinted away in fear upon my waking, a handful of sweetcakes and the sonorous delivery of a soothing bedtime melody taught to me by my mother (I am a soprano, and thus uniquely well-equipped to serenade others with songs of relaxation) convinced it to stay awhile in my camp.

Though it walked on two legs like a human, its features were a chimeric combination of several other creatures I had seen either in books, or on my myriad travels: it had the long whiskers and pointed nose of a cat, the scales of a snake all over its body, and the physical strength of a Bilgewatrian salt beast (which I discovered when, upon finishing his sweetcakes, the creature lifted me above his head with the same effort I might expend to scratch my nose, and held me aloft until it determined I was not hiding more candies in my bedroll).

The creature fled into the darkness shortly thereafter, and I knew what I had to do: I resolved to learn more about these vastaya (as the locals refer to them).

What follows are my notes on the varieties of vastaya I encountered in my travels across the mysterious continent.

Were I to hypothesize about the origins of these beings – and being a learned gentleman of the physical sciences, I consider myself more than qualified to do so – I would theorize that the vastaya are not an individual species, but a taxonomic classification more on par with a larger order, or a phylum.

Simply put, while many vastaya look similar to one another (as I discovered after following the cat-snake-ape boy back to his village and being rudely chased away by his identically hybridized brethren. Presumably they had confused me for some sort of nefarious spy or apex predator, which explains why they followed me back to my camp and subsequently relieved me of my foodstuffs), the different tribes and familial groupings often look and act in drastically dissimilar ways.

Days after my encounter with the vastaya, I – by following the Whispering River (so named by myself because it was infuriatingly loud, and, like many sophisticates, I have a penchant for irony) near their village, and knowing others would certainly be drawn to such a water source – discovered an entirely different tribe. These vastaya had the squeezable, furry faces of otters, but the lower girth of seals.

After I unsuccessfully attempted to give them my glasses as a peace offering (many of the creatures carried packs full of knickknacks and shiny bits and bobs – perhaps they were a mercantile society), I began an impromptu “I come in peace and will do you no harm” interpretive dance (this particular jig was all about knee placement, and my patellas are positively pristine), which inspired my companions to take me in and feed me a warm supper of a meal I can only describe as slightly unraw not-quite-fish.

Though they said not a word while I performed my ritualistic gyrations, they later revealed, upon politely requesting I pass them a cup of yellowish powder that smelled of salt and fire, that they spoke my language fluently. Their various dialects and colloquialisms were unfamiliar to me, but I could, with very little effort, understand exactly what they said. As hungry for knowledge as I had previously been for food, I hurriedly queried them about the history of their kind.

I learned that the vastaya’s origins could be traced back long, long ago, to a hidden corner of Ionia where a group of humans fled to escape the myriad horrors of the Great Void War (a subject upon which I have written numerous tomes, all of which can be found at the better Piltovan booksellers for more-than-reasonable prices). These refugees came into contact with a tribe of intelligent, shapeshifting creatures who were greatly in tune with Ionia’s natural magicks. The pairing of these two groups produced the creatures I eventually learned to refer to as vastaya. Over time, the offspring of these pairings settled into a variety of regions and therefore adopted diverse forms, from the winged humanoids of Ionia or the sporadically-limbed sandshufflers of Shurima, to the Freljordian scaled manatee with a look of perpetual discomfort on its face.

I wished to stay and ask more of the otterfolk, but one of my questions seemed to cause great offense, and I was unceremoniously ejected from the village and the creatures’ good graces in one fell swoop. My question, for those looking to avoid the same mistake, regarded whether the pairing of the two species was purely magical or more (shall we say) physical in nature.

Relieved of both my supplies and my calm, but never my thirst for adventure, I again struck out in a different direction with nothing to protect me save my gumption and multisyllabic vocabulary. Months passed as I availed myself of Ionia’s plentiful fruits and vegetables, picking them from the ground and trees as easily as one might procure an item from a stall in the Boundary Markets.

I marked time only by the rising and setting of the sun, and happily forgot all those cumbersome Piltovan habits to which I had become accustomed. To wit, after many days spent ambling across Ionia, I had developed something of a stench.

I paused, disrobed (after checking to make sure I was alone – a gentleman never forces his own nudity upon others) and stepped into a nearby lake that smelled of berries and grass.

It was there that I saw the most wondrous thing I had ever seen in my entire life, and will ever see should I live to be a thousand.

Far more human than any vastaya I had yet seen, this creature, bathing on the opposite shore, had the ears and tail(s) of a fox, but she was unclothed – and I shall leave my descriptions vague so as not to offend my younger or more sensitive readers – and otherwise very, very much like a female human.

Very.

I caught but a glimpse of her as I soaked in the pond; my mouth agape, rivulets of water streaming down my gaunt frame as I attempted to come up with the perfect words of greeting. Mayhaps I would introduce myself as a writer of some renown, quoting her some of my more effusive reviews. Or, I might serenade her with one of the many romantic ballads I had composed and memorized for situations such as this.

Soon however, a rustling in the brush behind me gave me a start. I turned to confront the rustling out of instinct, but with no threat brave enough to show itself, I turned back to find the glorious fox woman was gone, leaving me with nothing but questions, the first few bars to “Oh, My Love, My Dream, My Prospective Bedfellow” bouncing around my head, and a decidedly embarrassed look on my face.

The rustler, whom I was determined to beat into bloody unconsciousness for scaring the love of my life away, turned out to be a human merchant from a distant village who specialized in selling gingerfruit – an apparent delicacy I chose not to taste as I was uncertain I’d resist the temptation to smash one into his smiling face.

Shai – for this was his name – chastised me for bathing in the pond, informing me that it, and the fox woman who was sometimes known to bathe there, would be hazardous to my health. I informed him that sneaking up on naked, enamored men would be far more hazardous to his, but he merely laughed.

After I dressed, the merchant agreed to lead me back to human civilization and answer a few of my questions in exchange for my hat (Jeanreaux’s Haberdashery, retail price fifty-three gears).

He informed me that his family had known of the strange woman for generations – that she, like the other vastaya, have far longer lives than we humans. Some have been said to live for thousands of years, while others, rumors and legends say, might well be immortal. It was Shai who informed me of Ionia’s name for these creatures – up until this point I had referred to them as “phantasma,” until the merchant scoffed at my nomenclature. I have retroactively changed all mentions of “phantasma” to “vastaya” purely out of cultural empathy, as my vocabulary is matched only by my humility.

We walked together for several days. Occasionally, he would stop and sniff the air like a starved bloodhound. When I asked him to explain his behavior, he would merely smile and inform me that he was looking for treasures. Though I found his vague demeanor a very special flavor of infuriating, his doglike sniffing led me to a thought which I immediately shared with him: if vastaya were the amalgamation of humans and ancient, shapeshifting ancestors, then what would happen if that blood were to become extremely diluted through reproductive diaspora? What if, say, one had vastayan blood, but not quite enough to take chimeric, animalian form? What would happen then?

It was then that he stopped sniffing and his eyes widened. He looked at me, smiled, and said, “Well, they’d be able to change their shape, wouldn’t they?” before the bastard turned into a pig and unearthed a silktruffle.

As utterly shocked as I was to meet a shapeshifter – to have, what’s more, met THREE different varieties of vastaya in only a few months is beyond lucky, even for a deserved scholar such as myself. I couldn’t help but note, however, that “transforming pig man” was a considerable step down from “voluptuous fox woman.”

At this rate, the next vastayan creature I see could likely resemble a walking roach.

I spent the last several months scouring Ionia for any and all information that I could collect on the various vastaya species in an attempt to create an all-encompassing taxonomic guide to Runeterra and its fauna.

Though I have accumulated an incredible amount of information on the vastaya, there is much left to be discovered – I suspect that in limiting my search to Ionia, I have uncovered a mere fraction of the overall diversity to be found within this classification.

Still, for now, it is time to move on – I have merely opened the door on vastaya, and it will be the job of another journalist to step through it. Today, I draw my attention to the other creatures of Runeterra whose stories have yet to be told: Those horrifying, sentient weapons known as Darkin. The corrupting creatures of the Void. Those illusive fae creatures of legend, the yordles. These stories mustn’t go untold, and on my word, I shall be the explorer to do it. Indeed, I may well be the only one who can.

EDITOR’S NOTE:
Only two weeks after submitting this manuscript, Mr. Santangelo embarked on an unofficial return trip to Ionia to, in his words, “Ask further questions of the foxlike woman – purely for the purposes of a second edition.”

Several weeks later, we received a letter from Mr. Santangelo reading as follows:

“I’ve experienced the grand misfortune of being kidnapped. My captors – a surly lot who call themselves the Navori Brotherhood – suspect I am a Piltovan spy. Naturally, being a man of the world with varied intellectual, athletic, and romantic skills such as [edited for brevity], I was insulted at the accusation.

Still, I convinced them to hold me for ransom rather than execute me outright. If you could, then, send some precious minerals, or food, or weapons in an amount befitting my abstract worth to you as a writer, it would be most appreciated. It is, of course, YOUR choice as to how much to spend on my return, but I imagine you will have to bankrupt the publishing house and all of its investors, at a minimum. Still, the price will obviously be well worth it.”

Upon receiving this ransom note, we subsequently sent Mr. Santangelo the projected profits of his new book: a handful of pocket change and a spoiled sweetcake.

We have not heard back from him since.

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.

The Lhotlan vastaya once lived on the ancient, mystical borders of Ionia’s deep forests, on the eastern island of Qaelin. It was a place where magic was breathed like air, and time had little meaning. To these chimeric creatures, the lands of mortals were an unforgiving desert, virtually devoid of magic—and over the centuries, that desert only grew, encroaching on the vastaya’s territories.

Rakan was born into a tribe in decline, yet he never gave up hope.

Like his brethren, Rakan watched as human settlements continued to expand, damming the flow of Ionia’s wild, chaotic magic for their own safety. Many tribes sent emissaries to negotiate with them, securing treaties to protect the mystical energy the vastaya needed to thrive. Yet over and over again, these promises were broken.

Disillusioned, most vastaya became increasingly isolationist as they clung to their remaining lands. But young Rakan advocated a different path. The battle-dancer believed that mortals could be convinced to let wild magic run free if they could only appreciate its beauty, and he boasted that he was the one to make them see it. For this, he was labeled mu’takl—distrusted as a human sympathizer, and collaborator.

Rakan left the Lhotlan tribe, determined to spread the song of his people across Ionia. He was an entertaining rogue, a welcome performer at any tavern or village carnival, but over the years he realized that was all he was to mortals—no matter how many dances and songs he performed, no matter how much he enthralled the crowds, he merely provided diversion to drunken revelers.

Rakan grew restless, finding himself without purpose... until he had a chance encounter with Xayah, a fellow Lhotlan, at the harvest festival in Vlonqo.

Seeing her in the crowd, Rakan sang one of his old songs, entrancing the entire town with his gleaming plumage. Though countless human and vastayan women had fallen for him in the past, this violet raven seemed immune to his charms, though not uninterested.

How could she see him and yet choose not to follow him? It was a puzzle with no easy answer.

Intrigued, the battle-dancer approached Xayah and asked after the welfare of their tribe. When she told him that the Lhotlan had lost the last of their lands, Rakan howled with rage. This finally seemed to impress Xayah, and she assured him that there was still hope: she was part of something greater, a rebellion of sorts, to take back what the vastaya had lost. Not just for the Lhotlan, but for all tribes.

Rakan was thunderstruck. Here was a chance for him to redeem his people, a cause he was willing to die for. He implored Xayah to let him accompany her, and she agreed—as long as he carried his weight.

And, as Xayah would soon learn, Rakan’s dances were as impressive in battle as they were on stage. He called himself the greatest battle-dancer in Lhotlan history, a boast that none could refute. His grand entrances and dazzling acrobatics distracted and befuddled enemies, before Xayah felled them with her razor-sharp quills. In any dangerous situation, they fought together with uncanny harmony.

During their travels, Rakan became fascinated by how Xayah interacted with the world. She seemed always prepared, aloof, and focused... whereas he was absent-minded, affable, and lacking seriousness. Although Rakan would often forget her carefully laid plans, he made up for it with his ability to read the emotions of others, using charisma and insight to persuade them. The two vastaya were so different, and yet they achieved great feats, each one’s strengths complementing the other’s weaknesses.

Soon enough, Rakan couldn’t imagine life without Xayah, and it was clear that she felt the same for him. The pair pledged themselves to each other in the midst of a raucous tavern brawl.

Yet they did not see eye to eye in all things. Where she viewed the world as black and white, with mortals always the enemy, he had more compassion, and believed some of them were redeemable. Despite this difference, Rakan was certain that his and Xayah’s love for each other would bear them through the storms that lay ahead.

Through Xayah, Rakan has found purpose. Inspired by his partner’s singular drive, Rakan has made her crusade his own, and together they will fight to reclaim the First Lands for the vastaya.

Within Ionia’s magical forests dwells a tribe of vastaya known as the Shimon. A cautious people, they see life as an evolutionary climb to wisdom—upon death, they believe they become stones, returning to the soil to begin the climb of life anew.

Impulsive, clever, and easily bored, young Kong never had much in common with other Shimon. For countless years, they endured his pranks… until the day he arrived in a panic, insisting that a great elemental dragon was coming to burn their woodland home.

But Kong only chuckled as his tribe began to flee. Realizing he had fooled them, and with their patience finally at an end, the Shimon named him outcast. Kong, for his part, was ambivalent. He would seek out people with a better sense of humor.

Living as something of a charlatan, he proclaimed himself “the Monkey King” and often challenged mortals to duels, or games of cunning. He claimed to be undefeated—until he crossed a Noxian headsman in the hinterlands of Zhyun. The Noxian and his comrades chased the Monkey King deep into the wilderness, where he hid, only emerging again after the invaders left the shores of the First Lands for good.

And in time, Kong saw the brutality Noxus had inflicted upon his homeland.

He set out to meet the fabled combat-masters of Wuju, but found that their village had been annihilated. The only living soul was a man sitting quietly among the ruins, so Kong challenged him to a good-natured fight. In a single motion, the man stood, knocked the vastaya down, then resumed his meditation.

For weeks, Kong returned again and again, determined to defeat this dour man—but the Monkey King was always outmaneuvered, no matter if he approached from behind, above, or below. The warrior could sense whenever Kong was about to attack, even when the vastaya tried to distract him with hilarious jokes, and he somehow knew not to drink his tea when Kong laced it with stupefying spirits.

Eventually, the Monkey King knelt before the man and begged to learn his ways. Kong wanted to be the greatest warrior, but he also sought something more. He just couldn’t quite put it into words.

The man saw Kong’s humility, and knew the vastaya was ready. He introduced himself as Yi, the last master of Wuju, and agreed to train Kong in its virtues of discipline and patience. He could help channel Kong’s recklessness and impulsiveness into a lethally swift and surprising fighting style.

The two grew to respect each other, yet Yi refused to speak much of his past, or why he would not leave the ruined village. Kong made a proposition. The two would engage in a friendly sparring bout. If Kong won, Yi had to reveal why he’d stopped fighting. If Yi prevailed, Kong wouldn’t speak for four full seasons.

Yi eagerly accepted.

When Kong had first arrived at Wuju, he crept through a field of smokepoppies, and he lured his master back there now. Each time Yi attacked, the agitated flowers would burst around him—until finally he struck out through the growing haze at what he believed was Kong, but instead hit a straw decoy. Kong seized his opportunity, and grappled Yi to the ground.

Finally, Yi told Kong the truth. He and his fellow disciples had gone to defend Ionia during the war, bringing the wrath of Noxus down upon Wuju in turn. He blamed himself for the death of every last villager, and watched over the ruins as penance.

This, Kong realized, was what he sought. Although his tribe had cast him out, he wanted to defend the Shimon, who had sheltered him for so long, and set him on the path to wisdom and enlightenment. Proud of his student, Yi also felt a renewed sense of purpose—he granted Kong an enchanted staff, crafted by the legendary weaponsmith Doran, and a new honorific, reserved only for the brightest students of Wuju.

From that day forward, he was known as Wukong.

Though the war is long over, Noxus’ influence continues to defile Ionia. Roads have been carved through the ancient forests, self-styled “tax collectors” hound peaceful folk who have nothing left to give, and the great festivals of renewal have been slowly declining, year after year.

But the great warriors Wukong and Master Yi are ready. Side by side, they roam the First Lands, resolved to combat injustice and hatred wherever they find it.

Clan Ferros understands sacrifice.

Most of the family’s wealth came through harvesting a rare crystal from the brackern, a creature native to Shurima. These hex-crystals—or “first crystals”—contained power normally only wielded by those born with innate magical ability. After Camille’s great-great aunt lost an arm during an early expedition, her sacrifice inspired the Ferros family motto: “For family, will I give.”

The brackern were a limited resource, and Camille's family had to augment the crystals they’d accumulated. Utilizing shadow investments in chemtech and runic alchemy, they developed less powerful, but easier to make, synthetic hex-crystals.

Yet there were consequences—synthetic crystal manufacturing has long been rumored to heavily contribute to the Zaun Gray. Furthermore, it was only through espionage, intimidation, and murder that Clan Ferros held its monopoly on this priceless commodity, and ensured its uninterrupted production in Zaun, maintaining the family’s place in Piltover’s illustrious Bluewind Court.

As the eldest surviving child of Clan Ferros’ masters, Camille received every educational advantage. She had exceptional tutors, learning to speak several foreign languages and play the cellovinna at a concert-master level. Camille also learned to read and write Ancient Shuriman while assisting her father on digs in the Odyn Valley.

Traditionally, one of the younger children would become their family's principal intelligencer, working with the clan master to secure their family’s success by any means necessary. However, Camille's younger brother, Stevan, had a weak constitution, and so Camille took his place. He jealously watched her embrace her additional training, and she became quite adept in combat, reconnaissance, and interrogation.

When Camille was twenty-five, augmented Zaunite thugs attacked her and her father, intent on stealing lucrative trade secrets. Camille’s father succumbed to his wounds, and in anguish, her mother died soon after. Stevan became clan master, and he doubled the clan’s research in human hextech augmentation, eager to prove himself as a strong leader.

After a year of mourning, Stevan oversaw the induction of Hakim Naderi—a promising young crystallographer from the Shuriman coastal city of Bel'zhun—as the family’s lead artificer.

Camille requested hextech augmentation from Hakim to push her beyond her human limitations. Hakim was instantly enamored with her, and they bonded over the preparations and late night stories of Shurima… and eventually, Camille returned Hakim's feelings. Their affair grew reckless, as they knew the surgery would conclude their time together. Hakim would move onto other projects, and Camille would once again be fully committed to the principal intelligencer’s duties. More than that, Hakim worried that in carving away Camille's heart, he might remove her humanity.

Days before Camille's operation, Hakim proposed marriage and begged her to run away with him. For the first time in her life, Camille was torn.

Stevan had no such conflict, as he needed Camille to execute his vision. When he learned of the secret proposal, he devised a plan—the next time Camille and Hakim were together, Stevan set himself up to be attacked. When she saw her brother bruised and bloodied, Camille recognized what could happen when her attention was divided.

Hakim pleaded with Camille, but she wouldn’t listen. For family, she would give. She ended her relationship with Hakim, insisting her surgery go forward.

He was the only one who could safely perform the operation, and so he excised Camille’s heart and replaced it with hextech—then resigned. When she awoke, the lab she and Hakim had shared was abandoned.

Camille focused on her work. She took on further refinements, including bladed legs, grapple-spindled hips, and other, minor hex-augmentations, leading some to wonder how much of the woman was left. And as Clan Ferros amassed more power and wealth, Camille’s missions became darker and more deadly.

Thanks to her hextech heart, she did not age—but the years were not so kind to her brother. Yet even as Stevan's body grew more frail, his iron grip on the clan remained.

Eventually, Camille uncovered the depth of Stevan's betrayal, and realized his machinations were no longer in the family’s best interests. In that moment, she discarded the last sentiment she felt toward her brother.

After installing her favorite grand-niece as clan master, Camille now runs the family's public affairs as well as its more shady operations. As a solver of… difficult problems, she embraces her more-than-human transformation and the cutting judgment it affords her—but a strange, mournful keening in her hextech heart may yet prove a troubling portent.

Regardless, Camille refuses to sit idle, and gains invigoration from well-executed industrial espionage, a fresh-brewed cup of tea, and long walks in the Gray.