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When the prophet Malzahar was reborn in Icathia, he was led there by an ominous voice which thereafter anchored itself to his psyche. From within, this voice bestowed upon him terrible purpose, and though Malzahar was no longer tormented by its call, the voice did not cease its unrelenting summons. This baleful beacon's gentle flicker - now fastened to Runeterra - drew forth a putrid beast that ambled across a threshold it did not understand, widening a fissure between the spaces which were never meant to meet. There amongst the haunting ruins of Icathia, Kog'Maw manifested in Valoran with unsettling curiosity. The spark which led him to Runeterra teased him still, urging him gently towards Malzahar. It also encouraged him to familiarize himself with his new environment, to the stark horror of everything he encountered on his journey.

The enchanting colors and aromas of Runeterra intoxicated Kog'Maw, and he explored the fruits of the strange world the only way he knew how: by devouring them. At first he sampled only the wild flora and fauna he happened across. As he traversed the parched Tempest Flats, however, he came upon a tribe of nomads. Seemingly unhampered by conventional rules of physics, Kog'Maw consumed every nomad and any obstacles they put in his way, amounting to many times his own mass and volume. The most composed of his victims may have had time to wonder if this was due to the caustic enzymes which stung the ground as they dripped from his gaping mouth, although such musings were abruptly concluded. Even this feeding frenzy did nothing to satiate Kog'Maw's appetite. His swathe of destruction continues still as he is inexorably drawn towards Malzahar. What happens when he finds him is anyone's guess.

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.

Kassadin started life as a lowly offcast, walking the harsh sands of the Great Sai alongside merchant caravans to draw predators away from their more valuable goods. He survived many of these treks across the desert, and began to serve less as bait, and more as a guide.

The foreign tongues that sought his talents, “Kas sai a dyn?” or “whom does the desert know?” often slurred their Shuriman, and so he became fondly known as Kassadin in the back alleys and markets of Bel’zhun. He spent many years exploring the ancient ruins of his homeland, making his employers exceedingly wealthy, but it wasn’t until a dig near Zirima that he found a treasure of his own—he fell in love with a woman from one of the desert tribes.

With his wife and newborn daughter, Kassadin settled in a small village in the rocky canyons to the south. He was on the road often, his work sometimes requiring him to accompany particularly valuable relics to some faraway sponsor. But, no matter where his travels took him, Kassadin would always return with exciting tales from the world beyond.

Journeying home from distant Piltover, Kassadin and his fellow caravaneers were watering their beasts at an oasis when they encountered the first terrified survivors stumbling out of the desert. They spoke of the disaster that had claimed their homes, as if the maw of the underworld itself had opened up to devour them. They had barely escaped with their lives.

Fearing for his own family’s safety, Kassadin left the others behind, riding hard, driving his mount almost to exhaustion. When he finally reached the place where his village had once stood, he found only shifting sand and rubble. He clawed at the debris until his hands bled, screaming out his wife and daughter’s names, though no answer came. Days later, Kassadin’s companions caught up to him, now just a broken and empty man weeping beneath the scorching sun.

They dragged him back to Zirima, but Kassadin would go no further. For years, he tried to drown his grief, reduced to little more than a vagrant… until word reached town of “the Prophet.”

Whispers of unspeakable horrors that dwelt beneath the earth, and of sacrifices made in their name, chilled Kassadin to the bone. He knew well the legends of old Icathia, and the fate that befell that accursed place—if the Void had been deliberately drawn toward Shurima once more, then it had likely been the death of his entire village, and countless more besides. He also knew there were few, if any, who could stand against it.

In that moment, Kassadin swore that he would avenge his wife and daughter, by destroying this insidious Prophet, and the source of his abyssal power. He was a man who had made his living by finding safe paths through the most dangerous places, and resolved to arm himself with the most arcane and esoteric weapons ever known in Valoran, fused with Zaunite ingenuity, and blessed by Ionian spirit-healers. He called in every favor he could, from scholars of antiquities to common smugglers, for their help in… acquiring what he sought. Many called him a madman, believing this the last time they would ever see their old friend alive—Kassadin merely thanked them for their concern, and bid them farewell. He would face the Void alone.

Last of all, he stole the infamous Nether Blade of Horok, the sword that had slain a thousand deceivers in the latter days of the empire. He could feel the cold pull of oblivion in its edge, but no longer had any regard for his own mortality, and nothing of his old life left to lose.

Disguised in the robes of a pilgrim, more than a decade since he had last set foot anywhere near that desolate land, Kassadin made his way into Icathia. He would go where no man was ever meant to walk.

He would have his vengeance, even if it killed him.

Illaoi’s powerful physique is dwarfed only by her indomitable faith. As the prophet of the Great Kraken, she uses a huge, golden idol to rip her foes’ spirits from their bodies and shatter their perception of reality. All who challenge the “Truth Bearer of Nagakabouros” soon discover Illaoi never battles alone - the god of the Serpent Isles fights by her side.

All who encounter Illaoi are struck by her presence. An intense woman, the priestess is fully committed to the experience of living. She takes what she wants, destroys what she hates, and revels in everything she loves.

However, to truly know Illaoi you must understand the religion she has devoted her life to. Nagakabouros, the deity of her faith, is usually depicted as an enormous serpent head with tentacles spiraling around it in endless motion, with no beginning and no end. Also called The Mother Serpent, The Great Kraken, or even The Bearded Lady, Nagakabouros is the Serpent Isles’ god of life, ocean storms, and motion. (The literal translation of its name is “the unending monster that drives the sea and sky.”) Central to the religion’s theology are three tenets: every spirit was born to serve the universe; desire was built into every living being by the universe; the universe only moves toward its destiny when living creatures chase their desires.

Lesser priestesses are tasked with maintaining temples, calling holy serpents, and teaching people the ways of Nagakabouros. As the religion’s Truth Bearer, Illaoi’s role is to serve the god directly by unblocking the flow of the universe. To this end, she has two sacred responsibilities.

The first duty of a Truth Bearer is to be the spearhead in the war against undeath. Having fallen outside of the normal flow of the universe, the undead are considered an abomination against Nagakabouros. While it is the responsibility of every priestess of the Kraken to protect the indigenous population from the Harrowing, a Truth Bearer directly engages its most powerful spirits and drives the Black Mist back.

Second, Illaoi is tasked with seeking out individuals of great potential and challenging them with the Test of Nagakabouros. This task is the burden Illaoi’s title reflects. With her massive, holy relic, The Eye of God, the Truth Bearer strips the subject’s spirit from their body then forces them to stand against her to prove their worth. She does this knowing those who fail will be completely annihilated, for the great Kraken has no tolerance for cowardice, doubt, or restraint. But destruction is never the goal. Survivors of the ordeal are forever changed and often find the will to pursue their true destiny.

Though Illaoi is the most powerful and respected Truth Bearer in a hundred generations, it is where she has broken the traditions of her faith that speaks the most about her. Having completed her training as a Truth Bearer, and at the height of her power, Illaoi left the golden temples of Buhru for the squalor of nearby Bilgewater.

The pirate city is the only place foreigners are permitted on the Serpent Isles, viewed as a fetid gutter by Illaoi’s people. Previous Truth Bearers ignored the city and viewed the arriving foreigners as little better than untouchables. Illaoi broke with tradition when she chose to protect residents of Bilgewater from the Harrowing, or even more controversially when she decided that some of its residents had souls worthy of the great test. Despite this, only a handful of temples have been opened in the city, and very few paylangi (islander slang for residents of mainlander descent) have ever been permitted inside. Regardless, it is Illaoi who has brought the widespread awareness of the Mother Serpent to Bilgewater, and it is her indomitable spirit that has brought her religion into favor there.

Rumors persist that Bilgewater’s most bloodthirsty and infamous pirate had his heart broken by the towering priestess. To anyone who has ever met her, this is no surprise. Illaoi’s rough manner belies subtle intelligence, strength, and a magnetic confidence.

Many seek Illaoi’s favor and welcome her to Bilgewater... yet everyone fears being tested by the Kraken’s Prophet.

“There can be no rest. We are the motion.”

—From The Twenty Wisdoms of Nagakabouros

There is a place between dimensions, between worlds. To some it is known as the Outside, to others it is the Unknown. To those that truly know, however, it is called the Void. Despite its name, the Void is not an empty place, but rather the home of unspeakable things - horrors not meant for minds of men. Cho'Gath is a creature born of the Void, a thing whose true nature is so awful most will not speak its name. Its fellows have been poking at the walls that divide dimensions for a crack, a way into Runeterra, where they can visit their own personal paradise of horror upon the world. They are called the Voidborn, creatures so ancient and terrible that they have been removed from history altogether. It is rumored that the Voidborn command vast armies of unspeakable creatures on other worlds, that they were once driven from Runeterra by powerful magic lost to antiquity.

If such tales are true, then the rumors that follow must be equally true - that one day, the Voidborn will return. Even now, something dark stirs in Icathia. Cho'Gath, an alien creature of malice and violence, causes all but the most stalwart to cringe in fear. Cho'Gath even appears to feed on its predations, growing and swelling as it gorges itself. Worse yet, the creature is intelligent, perhaps greatly so, hinting at the sentient horror of the Void.

To truly understand the horror that is Vel’Koz, one must first know of the Watchers, and how they were blinded to the mortal realm.

Beyond the material plane, outside and somehow below it, lies the unknowable abyss. It is the realm of the Void, where no mortal or immortal creature may ever walk. It is not necessary to know how such a place ever came to be, nor why—only that it did. The Void is eternal. The Void consumes all.

In that place, in the cold, endless dark, all is equal and empty. For timeless eons, there was purity in that fact. There was peace, if such a term could have any meaning there.

Then, something changed. Not in the Void realm, but elsewhere. It was existence, it was... something, where before there had been nothing, and its mere presence scraped against the vast, cold, formless entities that drifted in the blackness. Before this, they had not even been fully aware of their own sentience, and yet now they knew that they could not tolerate the presence of this other place; this other-realm of mercurial, overwhelming creation.

The entities watched. They scrutinized.

And soon enough, the Watchers found themselves being scrutinized in return. The tiny, mortal minds that reached out to them were insignificant, little more than fleeting motes of light at the very edges of the abyss. Yet, in them, the Watchers saw a chance to invade the material realm, to destroy it, to silence the intolerable pulsing of reality beyond the Void.

The boldest of them tore open the veil and hurled themselves upward, only to be horribly disoriented by the sudden shift between the abyss and the corporeal, linear nature of reality. In an instant, there was time, and heat, and pain...

Then there was only cold. The way was shut, and dozens of the Watchers were trapped in the liminal space between two realms, frozen in the moment of transition.

Those that remained in the Void recoiled. They had no concept of what had happened, yet they knew they had been betrayed.

And so, they adapted.

Reaching into the material realm, the Watchers took from the crude matter that comprised it, shaping, corrupting and imbuing it with consciousness. These constructs were the first of the Voidborn, and would be their masters’ eyes and ears, sent forth into the nightmare of existence to watch, listen, and learn.

Among them, one stands apart. As perhaps the oldest surviving Voidborn, certainly existing the longest outside of the abyss, he has been known by countless names to those unfortunate enough to encounter him. Thousands of years before Icathia unleashed the Void in battle, the primitive cultures of Shurima feared the devil Vel’Koz, who crept forth from the underworld to steal the dreams of wiser men. Though his name has no literal translation in the modern tongue, it equates roughly as “to understand by unmaking.”

His insatiable hunger for knowledge has led Vel’Koz across the world, to its highest peaks and darkest depths. Cunning and methodical, he has quietly watched entire civilizations rise, stagnate and decay, spent centuries combing the ocean floor for its secrets, even scrying the movements of the stars in the heavens above him.

He carries all of this knowledge back to the great rifts in the fabric of Runeterra—so that the Watchers might know what he knows—and will annihilate, without hesitation, any mortal who stands in his path.

For the Void is eternal, and it will consume us all.

Saijax Cail-Rynx Icath’un grew up in Icathia, a satrapy of the Shuriman empire. Ever since he was a boy, his father told him of when their home was a proud, independent nation, before it was ground under the heel of Shuriman oppression. He told him of the Kohari, heroes who protected Icathia and its Mage King. The Mage King had resisted Shurima’s conquest, but when he died in battle, his Kohari protectors followed him, committing ritual suicide. The Shuriman emperor displayed the Kohari’s decaying bodies for all to see, and the Mage King himself was impaled above the city gates, his bones left to molder.

Saijax’s father had witnessed this cruel act, and over time he passed down to his son the burning resentment that was growing in every Icathian heart. Even so, Saijax committed himself to the study of arms, learning from Shurima’s weapons masters as well as his own clan’s elders.

After many centuries of Shuriman rule, a massive earthquake struck the coastal province of Saabera. The destruction revealed something hidden deep beneath the earth, something dark and of great power—perhaps strong enough even to overcome Shurima’s god-like Ascended warriors. Saijax was entrusted with protecting the Icathian mages who encountered this discovery… which the guards just barely contained with brazier-staves that blazed with conjured elemental fire. Disturbed, he escorted the mages to the governing council so they could tell of what they’d learned.

They called this power the Void.

Immediately the council recognized its potential, but Saijax saw the doom the Void portended. As a master of weaponry, he knew the danger of using a weapon they could neither fully understand nor safely harness. He regretted that he didn’t kill the mages as they rode from Saabera. He would regret it even more in the days to come.

Confident that the Void could defeat their Shuriman overlords, the council crowned a new Mage King. The Kohari were rebuilt, with Saijax among the first to join their ranks. They triumphed in early engagements, and Saijax even killed one of the vaunted Ascended in battle, watching with pride as its corpse was paraded around the liberated city of Bai-Zhek.

When the Ascended Host approached Icathia, Saijax and his brethren assembled on the front lines. As the two armies churned the earth beneath them into crimson loam, Icathia’s mages and priests deemed the time had come to unleash the Void.

Ruin swept over the land, as Icathians, Shurimans, and even Ascended were unraveled from existence. The city’s walls collapsed as the Void swallowed thousands into cold, silent oblivion.

In moments, Icathia was lost.

Saijax rode to the ruined crater where the Void had been summoned, determined to fall upon his sword like the Kohari of old. But before he could take his life, he saw among the devastation a discarded brazier-stave that he recognized from Saabera—it still blazed with elemental fire that harmed the Void. This flame kindled a spark in Saijax’s heart. He took up the stave and left behind the ruins of his homeland, tending to this “last light of Icathia”, and the hope it represented.

Grieving and ashamed, Saijax Cail-Rynx Kohari Icath’un forsook his old name, and from that day was known only as Jax.

He became a wanderer, traveling across the known world and to places beyond any map. As he bore the elemental fire, Jax’s life extended beyond even the expectations of his long-lived people. Yet the farther he went from Icathia, the lower the flame burned, until it threatened to gutter out once and for all. Jax understood with grim resolution that he couldn’t run from his past. He had a duty to return, and fight. The advance of the Void had been halted by the last surviving Ascended, but its singular threat endured.

For centuries since, Jax has roamed, a vagabond warrior searching for those strong enough to rebuild the Kohari. Though he has fought countless times against beings of great skill, courage, and power, none have yet convinced him that they can march against the coming darkness. The fall of Icathia has plagued Jax with doubt, but one thing remains certain: when the final battle comes, Jax will stand against the Void.

Even if he has to face it alone.

Fascinated by the world of existence and eager to create one for herself, Bel’Veth is like a dark cancer that has metastasized within the heart of the Void, through which all of Runeterra will be consumed and rebuilt in her own twisted image. She hungers for new experiences, memories, and concepts in vast amounts, devouring whole cities and their populations before repurposing the information into a sprawling alien landscape known as the Lavender Sea. Yet even the Void is not safe from her voracity as she spreads within it like a primordial ocean, forcing all before her to submit to her world of want... or be destroyed.

Though Bel’Veth is new to Runeterra, her birth is untold millennia in the making—the end result of an allergic reaction between the Void and a nascent reality. The once-pristine dimension of peaceful nothingness was irrevocably shattered when existence came into being, and forcefully individualized Void entities lashed out for eons in an attempt to defend themselves from the shock and pain. Erasing everything they consumed, they were named by virtue of what they left behind—a void. But the beings within were changed each time they touched the world, mutating from their once-perfect forms into hedonistic, violent animals.

So too did the Void change with them. After every battle, every incursion, something more sinister grew deep within a hidden womb inside the darkest recesses of the Voidborn tunnels... Buildings, sunlight, proto-humanoid limbs reaching toward nothing... A jigsaw puzzle where none of the pieces fit... The Void had taken a new, hideous shape. In time, fueled both by humans opening rifts for war and the Watchers attempting to invade the Freljord, this blasphemous pocket of un-creation grew to embrace the opposites of the Old Void: desire, want, and need.

Soon enough, it craved a leader. Someone—or something—who could write a horrific new chapter in the worlds above and below. A leader who could interface with these “humans,” tell them of what was to come, and harvest their emotions and memories as they fought a bitter, fruitless war until the last fires of civilization died and a new era spawned.

This leader is Bel’Veth. A terrifying empress born from the combined memories, experiences, and emotions of an entire devoured port city and its outlying ocean—Bel’Veth’s mind contains millions of years of perfectly preserved knowledge, giving her near-omniscience as she prepares to destroy both Runeterra and the domain of her progenitors, the Watchers.

To those lucky enough to be of strategic value to her, she does not lie, ask questions, nor obfuscate the truth—she simply states the nature of things, for with victory all but assured thanks to the very nature of the Void itself, there is no need to say anything more. And to those who displease her, they will find her human form to be merely adaptational—nerve endings, muscles, and eyestalks—as she unfurls her titanic wings to reveal her true, monstrous figure.

Ironically, the ancient Shurimans had a word for such a concept. Loosely translated to “God of Oblivion,” it was a tribal myth of a remorseless deity who would erase all things without hatred, replacing them with itself. They named the city of Belveth after it, though the true meaning was lost after many hundreds of years.

Lost to all, perhaps, save for the creature that city has become.

For more than two millennia, Shurima dominated the known world—an empire that reigned over countless peoples without challenge, and without threat.

Until the day Icathia fell.

From the moment the Void tore its way into the material realm, the armies of Shurima faced an enemy that could not only lay their grand empire low, but one that seemed to grow stronger the more they fought it. The corruption spread rapidly from Icathia’s ruins, boiling over the land and beneath the oceans, before its hideous tendrils reached the southernmost jungles of Ixtal.

Ne’Zuk of the Ascended Host was an Ixtali elemental mage of colossal power, and almost unrivaled arrogance. He went before the emperor, pledging to create a weapon powerful enough to take the fight to the Void, and eradicate it at the source of its original eruption.

After months of inhuman labor, Ne’Zuk revealed the Monolith—a floating fortress of living stone, maintained by the greatest elemental mages, and its ramparts manned by his fellow Ixtali god-warriors. The size of a city itself, the Monolith glided titanically toward the wastelands of Icathia, the lightning crackling from its magical inhibitors fusing the sands to glass beneath it. Ne’Zuk and his superweapon arrived at their destination, to face once more the howling infinite darkness of the abyssal realm, and the hordes of Voidborn monstrosities it had created.

The battle dragged into weeks. It was violence of a scale and intensity never before witnessed in Runeterra. Sorcery enough to raze entire civilizations, or render whole continents into naught but a memory, was unleashed upon the Void.

The darkness retaliated in kind. Its hideous energies gouged deep wounds into the living stone of the Monolith, whose surfaces became pocked and seared with unnatural malphite—from the Ixtali for “bad stone”—and leaving mineral-like scars. The fortress was pushed to the very limits of its design, struggling to self-repair and reknit its weakened superstructure… but even the incredible magics that held it aloft had a breaking point.

As Ne’Zuk fought to rally his Ascended brethren for one last, desperate charge, the unthinkable happened. Sagging for an instant, the Monolith crashed down to earth, cleaving through the bedrock of Icathia and opening the Void beneath to the skies.

Much of the fortress was lost within that gaping maw, vanishing into the silent nothingness beyond. The rest rained down as great ruins, littering a landscape already blackened by the terrible conflict that had been cut so abruptly short. Only a single Ascended survived—Ne’Zuk hauled himself from the wreckage, choking on the ashes of what was meant to be his grandest triumph, now his greatest folly, and fled for his life.

In defiance of all worldly reason, some disparate fragments of the Monolith endured, still imbued with something like magical life. The far-flung shards struggled to heal, to reform the whole to which they had once belonged. But the Void’s endless hunger leached away at them, rendering them as little more than inert shapes clawing feebly in the dust.

However, against all that had been lost, a single shard remained.

Buried deep beneath the surface, forgotten even by those that dwelt in the abyss, it slowly gathered in strength. It lived, until at last it awakened after uncounted centuries, and realized it was alone.

In all the centuries since that dark day, Malphite, the last shard of the Monolith, has become something of a legend in Runeterra. It has reputedly been sighted everywhere, from Targon to Zaun; heard sometimes as a tectonic roar in the deepest caverns, and sometimes as a quiet voice, humming to itself, that it might still remember the sounds of the world it once knew.

Despite the enormous span of its existence, the overwhelming drive enkindled by Ne’Zuk’s creation of the Monolith has not wavered. Now, Malphite knows it must soon rise to meet the resurgent darkness it once battled, as the Void awakens to threaten all of Runeterra once more.

In the wards of Zaun’s infamous asylum, a single monstrous figure roams the halls. His methods are bold, his bonesaw is sharp, and his patients are terrified. For this man is no doctor at all, except in the fancy of his own mind.

Though his true name has been lost to both time and memory, Dr. Mundo was once an enforcer for one of Zaun's most powerful chem-barons. Known for his boisterous affability, he was remarkably good-natured for a man who made his living off physical intimidation. He was always quick with a familiar nickname and a friendly clap on the back, and often blissfully unaware of the toes he was stepping on. It wasn’t long before he had stepped firmly on the toes of his boss.

Determined to make an example of his underling, the chem-baron had him committed to Osweld Asylum—a place well known for its inhumane treatment and questionable cures. The baron watched with satisfaction as his enforcer was placed in restraints and dragged away to the padded confines of the asylum’s most secure cell.

As months went by, the enforcer suffered unspeakable horrors at the hands of his supposed caregivers. Experimental treatments were rendered without concern for the patient's well-being. Nerves were prodded, lobes were severed, and unproved medicines were administered in large quantities. The enforcer began to change, his large frame gaining more muscle by the day. His brain, however, suffered a far worse fate. As he lost all memory of his past life, the enforcer struggled to make sense of the cruel world around him. He looked down at his old restraining jacket—it almost resembled the white coats of the medical professionals that surrounded him.

Misreading the words on his own uniform, he began to assume a new name and new profession for himself.

I must be a doctor, too. Why else would I be in this wretched asylum? he reasoned. And all these other people... must be my patients.

At last, the day came when the chem-baron arrived to discharge his enforcer from the asylum. To his surprise, there was no one to greet him in the lobby. The halls were empty and dead silent, save for the faint, incoherent babbling of a deranged patient in a room at the end of the hallway.

The baron entered the room to a horrifying sight: Scattered across the floor were countless bodies—staff and patients alike, dismembered beyond recognition. Standing above them, a hulking, purple monstrosity blathered unintelligibly as a large blue tongue lolled out the side of its gaping mouth. Muscles bulged grotesquely beneath its undersized garments, and its fist tightened around the handle of a surgical saw. The baron turned pale as his gaze found the face of the monster—and recognized it as his old enforcer.

The enforcer, who recalled nothing of his old boss, saw only another patient in desperate need of treatment. The purple thing lumbered toward the chem-baron, wagging his bonesaw in anticipation. The baron drew his chem-tech pistol and fired. The shot tore through the looming mass in front of him, staggering the monster...

But only for a brief moment.

The hole in the creature's flesh quickly closed as new slabs of muscle rapidly regrew over the wound. The monster paused, eyed the baron quizzically, and uttered, “You sick. Need help!”

Mimicking what he had seen performed countless times by the asylum's former practitioners, the enforcer threw the man on a nearby gurney, strapped his arms into the restraints, and prepared his instruments for surgery. The chem-baron turned pale as he realized the grim fate that awaited him.

The ensuing surgery—like so many before and after it—was not successful. The burgeoning doctor added the remains of his latest patient to the pile on the floor. Though he was saddened he could not save them, he knew he had done all he could. Besides, he would have other chances. Zaun was full of sick people just waiting to be cured. With a smile returning to his face, he left the hospital and set out into the streets to find more patients.