LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Magga was about to die for the fourteenth time. She had bitten into a rotten apple–yet again. Its putrid flesh had, as always, infected her with carrionshade. The actress went through the motions of stumbling to her death while shouting her final words for all to hear.

“Oh, but how wondrous a dream is life? Only now—too late!—do I wake to see its myriad of splendors,” she bemoaned.

With a puff of smoke and glittering powder, Kindred made a grand entrance upon the stage. As per tradition, they were played by one actor, his head covered by two opposing masks. He approached Magga, the white mask of the Lamb facing her.

“Hark! Do I hear a plea for my keenest arrow? Come, child, let the warmth of your heart fade into the cold embrace of oblivion.”

Magga refused, as she had thirteen times before. Any nuance in her performance was buried beneath the ear-splitting delivery of her scream. On cue, Lamb spun around, revealing the second mask–that of the Wolf.

“There is naught ye can do to stave off thine end,” growled Wolf.

“I am but a poor young maiden! Please, let my piteous cry fall on all four of thine ears.”

The audience seemed enraptured by the unfolding dramatics of the Orphellum Mechanicals. With the twin threats of plague and war on the tongues of those in neighboring protectorates, death dramas were all the rage.

Denji, the actor portraying both Lamb and Wolf, descended upon the young actress, awkwardly baring wooden fangs. Magga offered her neck. At the threat of Wolf’s bite, she triggered the device sewn into her blouse’s collar. Ribbons of red fabric unspooled to the delighted pips and yelps of the audience. They’d gotten what they paid for.

By the time the Mechanicals had staggered back to their wagon and set off in the direction of Needlebrook, there were no stars to be seen. Instead, a veil of clouds stretched across the night sky.

Needlebrook always delivered a good audience, Illusian, the company’s owner and sole dramaturg, explained once more. He staggered around, drunk on his own accolades—as well as the wine Parr had grifted from the locals.

The night wore on, and the troupe had descended into bickering. Tria and Denji lambasted their playwright over the quality of his plots, which fell into a predictable structure: tragedy strikes maiden, death finds maiden, death takes maiden. Illusian argued that complicated plots detracted from a good death scene.

Magga, the youngest of the bunch, agreed with Tria and Denji’s diagnosis, but kept her mouth shut. Had she not stowed away in the wandering troupe’s wagon, she would certainly be somewhere far more miserable. Luckily for her, the Mechanicals had recently lost several actors due to Illusian’s insistence on complete artistic control. Because of his attitude—and obvious mediocrity—they were facing a drought of fresh faces. And so, the Orphellum Mechanicals agreed to contract Magga to die in all their dramatics for the foreseeable future. For which she had been grateful.

Illusian was still smarting from Denji and Tria’s words when he motioned to Parr, their wagoner, to stop and make camp. The inebriated auteur set out his bedroll in pride of place next to the wagon. He then threw the rest of the bedding into the long grass nearby.

“Ungrateful players can sleep in the wilds,” Illusian spat, “where they shall hopefully find their manners.”

The rest of the troupe built a fire and swapped stories. Denji and Tria had fallen asleep in each other’s arms while whispering potential names for their unborn child into each other’s ears. They had nattered on about the day the traveling company would stop in Jandelle, a town so perfect and peaceful they would set aside their vagabond ways to raise their child.

Magga moved closer to the crackling fire so its pops and whistles would drown out the irksome affections of her traveling companions.

But sleep never came. Instead, Magga tossed and turned, thinking about the looks on the audience’s faces as the coiled spurts of blood unfurled from her neckline. A pretty maiden struck dead by her own naïveté was all the theatrical pomp Illusian could muster, but the crowd lusted after the gruesome façade.

Eventually, she left her bedroll and set out into the woods to soothe her unsettled mind.

In the dead of night, Magga came upon a low grassy mound with slabs of standing stone at its base. Although she could not read the inscriptions, her fingers traced the familiar etching of Kindred’s twin masks. This was a place of the dead, a burial site built long ago.

She felt a chill on the back of her neck that compelled her to look up. She was not alone. Magga immediately understood what she saw, for she’d encountered a crude impersonation of them night after night. But poor Denji couldn’t begin to instill the dread washing over Magga. Before her, perched on a weathered barrow-archway, was Lamb herself, flanked by her ever-faithful counterpart, Wolf.

“I hear a beating heart!” said Wolf, his black eyes twinkling with delight. “May I have it?”

“Perhaps,” replied Lamb. “I sense she is afraid. Speak, beautiful one. Tell us your name.”

“I-I would have yours first,” stammered Magga, stepping backward. Her slow escape was halted by the speedy Wolf, who materialized unsettlingly close behind her.

He spoke directly in her ear. “We have many names.”

“In the West, I am Ina to his Ani,” said Lamb. “In the East, Farya to his Wolyo. But we are Kindred everywhere. I am always Lamb to Wolf, and he is always Wolf to Lamb.”

Wolf reared up and sniffed at the air.

“She is playing a boring game,” said Wolf. “Let us play a new game, one of chasing and running and biting.”

“She is not playing, dear Wolf,” said the Lamb. “She is frightened and has lost her own name. It hides behind her lips, afraid to come out. Worry not, dear child, I have found your name. We know it as you know us, Magga.”

“P-please,” Magga stammered. “Tonight is not a very good night for—”

Wolf’s great pink tongue lolled out of the side of his mouth, and he proceeded to cackle.

“All nights are good nights for pouncing,” said Wolf, laughing.

“All days are, too,” Lamb said. “With light comes a clear shot.”

“There is no moon tonight!” cried Magga. She used what Illusian had taught her—to gesture grand, so those in the back could see her movements. “It is hidden by a blanket of clouds, tucked away from my eyes and yours. Without the moon, what would be the last thing I would see?”

“We see the moon,” replied Lamb, as she caressed her fabled bow. “It is always there.”

“There are no stars!” said Magga, trying again, this time gesturing smaller and speaking quieter. “No menagerie of twinkling diamonds, glittering in the midnight hue. What more beautiful view could one hope for whence one meets Lamb and Wolf?”

“This Magga-thing is playing a new game,” growled Wolf. “It is called ‘stalling.’”

Wolf stopped moving and cocked his head to the side. He turned his sideways snout toward Magga before speaking. “Can we play ‘Chasing the Magga-Thing and Bite Her to Bits?’?” Wolf clacked his fangs together loudly for effect.

“Let us ask her,” said Lamb. “Magga! Do you prefer Wolf’s chase, or my arrow?”

Magga was trembling now. Her eyes raced to take in every last detail of the world around her. It wasn’t such a bad place to depart. There was grass. There were trees. There was the ancient archway. There was stillness to the air.

“I would prefer Lamb’s arrow,” she said, looking at the rough crusts of bark on the trees. “I’ll imagine myself climbing to the highest boughs, like when I was a child. Only this time, I will never stop climbing. Is that what it is like to go with you?”

“No,” said Lamb, “though it is a nice thought. Fear not, little maiden, we are just having our fun. You have come to us tonight; we have not come for you.”

“I cannot chase Magga-thing,” said Wolf, with a hint of disappointment in his voice. “But there are other things nearby. Other things ripe for the chasing and the biting. Hurry, Lamb. I am hungry.”

“For now, know that your theatrics have pleased us, and we will watch them until the day we meet again.”

Wolf passed over Magga and disappeared into the woods. The shadowy beast snaked away through fields of tall grass. Magga looked back toward the weathered barrow. Lamb was gone.

The actress fled.

When Magga returned to the encampment, she found it in utter ruin. The wagon she had only just begun to call home had been ransacked and reduced to a smoldering husk. Bits of clothing and ruined props lay strewn across the campsite.

She found Denji’s body near where he’d slept. He had died protecting Tria, whose corpse lay behind him. Judging from the trails of blood, their deaths had not been slow. They had dragged themselves toward each other, their fingers entwined in one last caress before death.

Magga noticed that Illusian had managed to kill two of the bandits before being burnt to a crisp along with Parr in the wagon.

The only thing that remained untouched were Denji’s Lamb and Wolf masks. Magga picked them up and held them in her hands. She placed the Lamb mask over her own eyes and heard the voice of Wolf.

“Chase the Magga-thing.”

The maiden ran the distance to Needlebrook, never once looking back.

The Golden Round was filled to the brim with a sea of twinkling eyes, all glittering in excitement at the velvet curtain. The king sat in the theater with the queen and their advisers, all eagerly awaiting the onset of the dramatics. Everyone hushed as the black curtain lifted to reveal the actors.

Magga sat in a quiet dressing room under the stage. She heard the crowd fall silent as she studied herself in the mirror. The luster of youth had faded from her eyes years ago, and left her with a long shock of silver running through her hair.

“Madame!” said the stagehand. “You’re not in costume yet.”

“No, child,” Magga said, “I only dress at the last moment.”

“It is the last moment,” said the young stagehand, holding the two final pieces of Magga’s costume: the same Lamb and Wolf masks from her days with the Orphellum Mechanicals.

“May your performance be blessed tonight,” the stagehand said.

Magga prepared to leave for the stage. She slipped the masks over her head. The old chill from the dark barrow crept down her spine. She welcomed it—as always.

She enthralled the audience as she glided onto the stage, embodying Lamb’s graceful movements. She thrilled the crowd with her rendition of Wolf’s playful savagery. She, as the twin deaths personified, eased the suffering of her fellow actors, or ripped it from their throats, until the crowd stood on its feet and erupted in thunderous applause.

It was true. All audiences loved a good death, and they loved Magga’s more than any other.

Even the king and queen were on their feet in praise of her work.

But Magga heard no applause and saw no ovations. She didn’t feel the stage beneath her feet, nor the hands of her fellow mummers in hers as they bowed low. All she felt was a sharp pain in her chest.

When Magga looked out over the audience, every single face was either a lamb or a wolf.

The colossal brazier flared to life, its flames reaching high into the air. In times past, the gathered tribes would use this as the mark of the festival’s beginning.

The harvest festival had always been the largest celebration of the year for the tribes, and one of the last before winter set in on the plains. As the fire was lit, cheers should have echoed up the frozen slopes of the mountains, calling down blessings from the Three Sisters. Now, though, the mass of gathered Avarosans remained silent as they turned away from the flames to look up to the stage where Ashe stood.

She let her eyes roam over them. No festival had ever seen so many gathered together, and she knew they had come to see her.

She grabbed her bow and unslung it, the now-familiar piercing chill of the True Ice surging through her body. The cold was still painful, even after all her time with the weapon—but now she welcomed it, using it to focus and block out distractions. She lifted her gaze from the crowd to the roaring flame, and took a deep breath as she pulled back the bowstring. All other sounds of the festival faded.

A crystal arrow of pure cold formed, beckoned forth by the deep magic coursing through the bow. Ashe held her breath as she let it continue to channel magic through her arms. The temperature on the stage plummeted, frost creeping out from beneath her feet.

When the cold threatened to finally overwhelm her, she released her breath and let the arrow fly.

It arced high over the crowd, and slammed into its target with a deafening crack. In an instant, the brazier was frozen over, the dancing shapes of the fire enveloped by the spreading ice. The setting sun shone through the crystalized flames and onto the crowd below, and finally the cheer broke out. The crowd invoked the blessings of the Three—Lissandra, Serylda, and Avarosa herself, reincarnated in Ashe.

Ashe kept her address short.

“Avarosans! Never before has a harvest festival seen so many. Sit with your kin from across the snows—we are one family now. Eat, drink, and enjoy!”

She smiled as the crowd cried out her name. She raised her bow high, and the cheers rose higher in response.

Inwardly, she grimaced. As so often, she wondered if it was her leadership that drew them all together, or the weapon she carried. It was the symbol of Avarosa, and many in the Freljord believed that, as its wielder, she was Avarosa reborn. Ashe slung the bow over her shoulder and shook the thought. Why they joined wasn’t as important as what they had become. She hopped off the stage and moved into the crowd as they dispersed to feast-laden tables.

The boisterous tribes mixed together, sharing food, drink, and tales of hunts past. The Stonepicks described the warm yet treacherous southern mountains. Ashe cheered with the others when the Red Snows recounted the defeat of the Noxian warbands that had tried to advance inland from the coast. A warrior from the Ice Veins, storied blizzard walkers one and all, clapped Ashe on the back as she passed, sending a strange chill through her.

All these and more had responded to her call and joined the festivities. All had pledged themselves to the Avarosans, and each tribe needed her to be something different. A prophet, a savior, a mediator. A Warmother.

Ashe would be them all if she could.

As she neared the far end of the feast, though, she froze. At the last table, sitting somber and removed from the rest, was a group of Iceborn that she knew all too well—the Snow Followers, vengeful zealots who had slaughtered a whole tribe only months ago.

A tribe whose only crime had been joining the Avarosans.

A large woman, doubtless their leader, rose and approached Ashe. “Warmother Ashe, Avarosa’s chosen, wielder of Her divine bow. My name is Hildhur Svarhem, truthbearer and Warmother of the Snow Followers.”

Ashe imagined the sight of the scorched huts again, the screams of her people dying in agony, and her fury ignited. The crowd around them quieted as Hildhur continued, whispers spreading quickly. All gathered had heard of what the Snow Followers had done.

“We swore an oath that no faith-traitors would ever again follow those falsely claiming to be Avarosa reborn. Your warriors fought bravely, but not well.” She unslung a large war-axe from her back, its blade coated in a thin but clear layer of True Ice. A true Iceborn, she bore the discomfort of the weapon’s chilling effect silently.

Ashe measured the woman’s wide stance, counted the few steps between them. Dried blood matted Hildhur’s armor—more Avarosan blood? Ashe’s muscles tensed as she prepared to move. She was ready for any attack.

What she was not ready for, however, was for the Warmother to kneel, lower her head, and offer up the war-axe with both hands.

“Forgive us, Warmother Ashe. I did not know then what I do now. I came to challenge you before all your followers, to unmask you as a false prophet. But the magic you wield is beyond any I have ever witnessed. None can deny that She speaks through you. I offer you my axe, Joutbane, and my head. Spare my people, that they may prove their worth by hunting, farming, and dying in your name.”

Each of the gathered Snow Followers followed their Warmother’s example, kneeling in deference.

At once, voices from the crowd called for vengeance. “Death to the raiders!” they cried.

Barely more than smoldering ruins when Ashe had arrived, the skeletal remains told the story of a village surrounded. The few warriors had been easily identified, for their bodies were untouched by fire, but hacked down and left for the crows. The rest of the tribe had hidden in their homes, praying for mercy, or simply a quick death.

They received neither…

Eyes welled up with fury, Ashe reached for the axe. She would take Hildhur’s head, as a warning to any who would—

As her hand clasped around it, and the True Ice sent the familiar spike of cold through her arm, Ashe felt her bow beginning to radiate against her back. A slow, chilling pulse, like a winter breeze.

Her mind calmed.

“Stand, Hildhur,” she said, looking down at the war-axe.

Hildhur rose, furrowing her brow in confusion. Ashe met her probing gaze.

“The Snow Followers have shed the blood of my tribe, and they are my enemies,” she continued. “But you have shown humility and remorse, here and now. You are not the Snow Followers any longer—from today forward, you are Avarosan, and that makes you family. You have nothing to fear from me, cousin.”

She thrust the war-axe back into the woman’s hands, and the tension in the air broke. Soon enough, the celebrations were underway again, the joyous feelings redoubled by forgiveness and mercy. Ashe walked to everyone seated at the table, welcoming each in turn.

As she turned from them and walked away, she was careful to keep her grief in check. Her heart still burned, but her people needed her to walk a different path than that of revenge. She played her fingers along the bowstring, seeking comfort in its chill.

She would be better. She must.

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

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

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

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

“It must be important.”

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

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

Mave shrugs—not her department.

“Who’s manufacturing it?”

“Baron Midenstokke. Not sure where yet.”

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

Time to get the night back under control.

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

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

It’s what she’s counting on.

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

“I…”

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

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

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

“Anything.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elodat’s head snaps up. “Really?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

So easily pleased. So hopelessly naïve.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Zaun and Piltover sing to one another. The refrains are full of old wounds, and injustice, and pain. I think it's just me that can hear it, but we all feel it, a hum at the back of everyday life, pushing both Zaunites and Piltovans into strident discord.

I know they can sing together. I've heard it. Scraps of it—once in a while—little chords that make my heart ache with possibility. And once, a beautiful, crushing tidal wave of harmony and hope. It was the same moment I heard my hextech crystal for the first time.

The voice sang a thousand hymns at once. Each of them was a pebble in an avalanche, impossible to understand beyond scattered notes. The voice could hear me—and I wanted so badly to keep listening—but it fell back to a fuzzy hum the instant Zaun and Piltover ended their symphony.

Here in the Entresol, where I hide in the dark behind the stage, that duet should ring clear. The top of Zaun; the bottom of Piltover. The Gray lingers, smearing grime across hammered Piltovan bronze. Zaunite chem-lamps scatter the colors of Piltovan stained glass across Zaunite cobbled streets carefully engineered with Piltovan tools.

And folk from both cities make their way here, bringing that rapturous soul-song only I can hear. Zaunites pour in from below, a thousand different instruments strummed with tuneless enthusiasm. Kids taunt and jeer, while older folks usher them along, searching for a moment’s peace. Piltovans march down in trumpeting waves, inquisitive and bright and proud. They come by descender, or by the stairways and ramps connecting to the overhead Promenade, the Entresol’s posh Piltovan twin. They laugh and joke together, gesturing appreciatively at the quaintness of our makeshift open-air theatre.

It’s exciting, at first. I’m so happy they’re all here. I close my eyes and tune to my crystal, pleading for it to speak again.

But the crystal emits that same warbling, distant hum, a presence there and not there. Even that fades to a murmur as the songs clash, turning duet into duel. Piltovan laughter lapses into sneering discomfort. Zaunite shouts quiet into indignant scowls. And, almost as if they’d planned it, the crowd organizes into two perfect, separate halves.

This is what it means to live in Zaun and in Piltover. The Entresol’s a place to come together, sure, but not to connect. Only because the cities have to touch, somewhere. I watch as one Piltovan trips, nearly crossing that perfect gap between them, only for two of his fellows to catch him and bring him protectively back into the fold.

Ugh! They’re all here for the same reason! Why can’t they put their guards down for, like, one moment and just be with each other?

Why do I always think it’ll change? I’m just one person. Just Seraphine. Who could barely even leave her house for how many years? How am I supposed to make them see that it could be different? Why do I think I can?

Why did I ever think I could?

The lights come on, and the shock makes me realize I’ve been holding my breath. I feel the chill on my forearms, the mic in my shivering grip. I look at the crowd. There are a few appreciative whoops, but mostly they’re focused on keeping separate from the other side. I take a breath.

A pure, familiar note of soul-music rings out to me from the Piltovan audience. I look over and see Schala’s tired smile, beaming up at me from a crowd that melts for a moment into the background as I’m swept up in her song. During visits to my parents’ shop, Schala would tell me about her thesis, reading dramatically from it like an eager parent would a storybook. She’d tell me what had changed since the last time it had been rejected by the college. “Seventh time’s the charm” was what she said the last time we talked. But even back then, I could hear the doubt edging into her optimism. Six rejections, and she was still facing forward. But it was through a cloud of doubt: Should she maybe be doing something else with her life?

Her self-doubt nestles into mine, and the next breath comes a little easier.

Another song joins the melody, this time from the Zaunite crowd. I look over and see Roland, an absolute artist of a silversmith. I’d first been drawn to his little workshop by the sound of music. He’d piled crates and supplies all on one side of the shop to make room for a handful of kids who were using the corner for what looked like band practice. He said that the ruckus made it easier to focus, that he needed the sound more than the space. That he might need to get used to such a small room if his next design didn’t sell.

Roland’s song twists with Schala’s in my head, one drums and brass and gravel, one wind and horns and hushed vocals. They couldn’t sound more different, but something just makes it work somehow. One song full of self-doubt, the other, fear for the future.

But there’s something else. A sturdy, rolling, endless beat that keeps their songs from spinning out into singular, dying notes. It’s the same beat in both songs. Schala loves her work, and Roland his.

Their determination finds mine, snatches it from a fall into darkness.

The next breath is sweet.

I don’t need to solve everything. I’m not here for that. Neither are they, and that’s okay. I listen for the crystal, and its steady rhythm builds and rumbles, indistinct but there. I want to reach out, and I only know one way how.

I close my eyes and let myself be filled with Schala’s song and with Roland’s. I imagine their struggles. Schala, chewing on a pen until her eyes widen in epiphany and she writes the perfect conclusion to her thesis. Roland, one eye closed tight as he gently, gently, shapes the last detailing into an ornate silver frame, then stands back with a grin and a sigh when he knows it’s perfect. Tiny explosions crawl across my shoulders, up my spine, into my head, and music lights my whole body on fire.

I sing.

Maybe our voices are quiet alone. Maybe mine’s quiet alone. But I’m not. We’re not. I don’t hold anything back, because I know they don’t either. The panic, the fear, the self-doubt. I pour it all into the song, heaps of it, so much that I want to cry. Our songs are droplets of rainwater on a windowpane. Schala’s swirls itself into mine, and we become a little stream. We find Roland, happy to be caught up in our motion. Together, we find the crowd, each droplet gathering another and another and another until we’re a flood of song and feeling.

That flood grows louder and louder as the crowd, silent but for the swell of their souls, opens to the music. Once, I would have gotten lost in this storm of sound. But I have Roland, and Schala, and myself, and we feel what they feel. They know what drives us, what drives me. I’m so grateful. I’ll make sure they know that, too. I push that feeling into a single note, and in that moment, I know the music we’re making could pierce the heavens.

The song ends, and my eyes open to the crowd. A single entity greets me, raucous and cheering and surging together toward the stage. Not a cobble in sight. My muses have found one another in the center of the crowd, and I can’t tell anymore which side is which.

The Entresol’s a beautiful place. I’ve got the best seat in the house, a hidden little corner table where a lucky patron can sit in secret silence, sip a hot cup of tea, and watch the world pass by.

My show ended a few bells ago, but the crowd stuck around, talking and laughing together. Local businessfolk took quick advantage, opening up shop and ferrying out tables and chairs. My stage, powered down and pushed off to the side, has become a makeshift playground, where Piltovan and Zaunite kids are challenging one another to various antics. I can feel the charge in the air, excitement and wonder and that airy feeling you get on days you never want to end.

I sit back, put both hands around my steaming mug, close my eyes, and smile. They all make such wondrous music. Piltover and Zaun continue their duet, if only for a little while.

A familiar voice rumbles through me, faint but urgent. My soul soars even as my heart starts to pound. I don’t know what I’ll hear, whether we’ll understand each other this time, how long we have. I only know that it needs to be heard.

Its song lifts in an orchestral swell, and I brace for the avalanche. It has so much to sing, and just me to hear it.

But I won't ever stop trying to listen.

That old, familiar smell hit her first. Hay, strawberries, and sturdy wood. The courtyard of the Argentine Inn had a particular waft to it that brought the ache of memories long past: a hundred concerts, a thousand faces lit by lantern light, and—most painful of all—a time when things were simpler and happier in Demacia.

But these days, that version of her home country felt distant. Worlds away. When she first spotted her old friend Etra emerging from the doorway of the inn, her breath hitched—maybe this, too, was different. But Etra’s eyes went wide. She shrieked with joy, and as she ran forward to wrap Sona up in her arms, Sona breathed a little sigh of relief. Some things didn’t change after all.

“You got my letter!” Etra said, and squeezed her tight.

Sona nodded. As Etra released her, she stood back to get a good look, still clasping Sona’s hands. “Someone’s been traveling,” she said, impressed. As if noticing Sona was on edge, Etra paused, released her hands, and slipped into the rough sign language they’d forged over a lifetime. All is well?

It was a relief to be able to sign back. To be understood by someone who loved her. Yes, of course, Sona responded, whether it was true or not. Missed you terribly, though. She held her hands a little lower. Didn’t want passersby to see the sharp gestures, the twitching fingers, and draw the wrong conclusions.

How long will you stay this time?

As long as I can, Sona signed. You know I never could refuse an empty stage.

Etra grinned. Excellent.

There was no audience around sunset, when Sona struck her first chord, but the first few folks trickled in right away. She was standing front and center in the Argentine’s “concert hall”—a converted barn with a bit of raised wood at the front to make a stage. Some of the people she could see were familiar faces. They brought their evening plans with them: wine by the flagon, cheese in its cloth.

As they settled into their familiar rhythm, the crowd swelled. Wagons were pulled up beyond the open door of the stage hall now, horses tied to posts. Some of the men had started to sing along loudly. They were drunk faster than usual. Sona smirked over at Etra, and she signed back with one hand: They missed you, too.

Things were tense for folks right now. They’d just lost their king and seen their country turn on itself in a single bloody year.

As if to punctuate Sona’s thoughts, four figures slipped into the back row of the audience, hoods pulled loose over their faces. Dark blue fabric. Not terribly suspicious on its own, but…

One of them tilted their head up at Sona, and she saw the hint of a gold mask glinting in the light.

Mageseekers.

Sona’s stomach lurched. She heard the slightest hitch in Etra’s voice, too, but neither of them dared look at each other right now.

The only answer was to keep performing, keep singing, and—hopefully—keep up appearances. The next song in the set was a solo. Etra and Cal slipped backstage.

This was the moment the crowd had really come to hear, and there were small murmurs and comfortable rustles in the audience as people settled in. There was no name for the piece, but they all knew it regardless. It was Sona’s own creation, and she relaxed into it. Her fingers brushed the strings, the air teemed with silence—and then, with a pick of a single note, they were off.

Her fingers danced like fireflies. The song flowed, built, faded, built again.

But then something evolved in the music. There were additional layers to it, notes that should have been impossible to play simultaneously. Sona looked up and saw only smiles and closed eyes. The audience had become enamored, absorbed.

It was time. The etwahl had awoken. Long, twisting illusions rose up from the strings, stretching and snapping as the very air hummed. To her, they were brilliant—a language she and the instrument alone shared. No one else could see them.

The etwahl had chosen someone. An old woman in the back of the room was thinking of her husband, a farmer, and the instrument had become throaty with the full warmth and bass of his voice. Sona could almost hear him talk. And in the shapes that rapidly shifted before her, she saw the outline of his weathered face, the way his cheeks crinkled when he smiled. But the outline morphed… the fuzzy curve of a sleeping figure. He had fallen ill and passed a month ago. A hard harvest without him, no doubt.

The etwahl hummed something private to Sona then: the last rasping song the man had ever sung to his wife. The notes hung in the air. She took the snatched phrases of the melody and, without even having to pause, she wove it back into the song, building around it. When she glanced up, Sona saw the widow’s eyebrows raised with recognition, tears trailing down the woman’s cheeks.

Sona slipped music into the woman’s heart. Music to warm her. Music to soothe her. Music to give her strength to face the year ahead.

The music had reached crescendo now. She and the etwahl were deep in conversation. The shapes had expanded, brilliant and ever-moving, an aurora stretching across the hall…

A shout shattered the song. She halted, frozen. But the shapes still drifted, no longer a secret between her and the instrument.

She’d lost control.

The mageseekers in the back had risen, making their way down the center aisle. They were coming for her. Some threw their hoods back now. The rest of the audience was still transfixed, unseeing. They hadn’t yet registered what was happening. Sona took two steps back, toward the archway that led out the back of the barn.

“Stop!” one of the mageseekers cried. They were undeniably here for her. She bolted, hefting her skirts in one hand. The etwahl shuddered, broke free of its stand, and drifted after her through the air. Why hide it anymore?

She emerged out back and into the darkness. There was an alley back there—she could flee into the woods before they spotted her. But as she reached the end of the alley, two seekers stepped into her path. She pulled up short and turned around. Maybe… No. Three more blocked her way back to the inn’s door. She was trapped.

“If you don’t resist…” one of them started, but she saw the flash of Demacian steel in his hand and she heard nothing else. Behind her, footsteps. They were closing in.

She backed up against the wall of the inn, all five of them now standing in front of her.

She laid her fingers on the etwahl. I hope Etra ran, she thought.

The etwahl glowed. She struck a violent burst of music. The chord shot forth from her and slammed into the seekers. The air was charged gold, sickeningly radiant. They turned away from her. She heard their groans, their broken screams, and knew it was over.

They were dancing, all of them. They cut an eerie sight to anyone who might see: contorted, twisting figures bent against their will like puppets being made to perform. It was painful, she knew that much. But she had to make them hurt. She had to make pain the only thing they could remember. That way, they couldn’t remember Etra. They couldn’t come after her.

“For pity’s sake, mercy!”

“Ungh… My arm—”

At first they begged her to stop, but after a moment even that died away and there was nothing but gurgling, the shuffle of footsteps, the creaking and snapping of joints. I didn’t want to hurt you, she thought. I never do. But you… You’re the reason home isn’t home anymore.

One last beat. One final encore. She strummed. The chord reached them, deep violet. They dropped to the floor instantly like discarded toys, unconscious and forgetful.

And Sona disappeared into the silence of the woods.

“Hurry up, Wyn!” shouted Janke. “The Rising Howl’s on its way!”

“I know!” he shouted back. “You don’t need to tell me!”

Wyn could hear the squeal of greased iron and the taste of metal tingling on his teeth. The interior of the vent pipe he was climbing vibrated with the hexdraulic elevator’s approach.

He pushed his back against the beveled ironwork, keeping his cramping legs braced on the opposite side. Looking up, the square of light that was the way out of the pipe seemed impossibly distant. A head appeared above him; his older brother, Nico.

“Almost there, little man,” said Nico, reaching back to offer his hand to Wyn. “You need me to come down?”

Wyn shook his head and dug deep, pushing with his spine straight as the muscles in his legs burned. Step by step, he inched upward until he was close enough to reach for his brother’s hand.

Nico grabbed his wrist and hauled, pulling him from the pipework. Wyn landed badly and stumbled, falling flat on his face in the cliff-side alcove known to every kid in Zaun. The space was barely wide and tall enough for them to stand next to each other with a sheer drop at the edge. Maybe ten yards beyond the edge were the elevator’s three support columns, each two yards wide and wrought from heavy ironwork.

Feen stood at the farthest part of the ledge, looking down with a manic grin. The wind billowed around him, his patchwork clothes flapping and his hair wild. Kez stood next to Nico, her cheeks flushed with excitement. Janke beat a nervous tattoo on his thigh with the palm of his hand, glowering at Wyn.

“You almost made us miss it.”

“Howl ain’t here yet,” snapped Wyn. “We ain’t missed nothing.”

Janke glared at Wyn, but with Nico here, he didn’t dare say or do anything. Back at Hope House for Foundling Children, Janke was a bully, but a bully it was sometimes handy to have around when low-rent Chem-Baron thugs fancied kicking downward.

Kez reached to help Wyn up. He smiled and took her hand.

“Thanks,” he said.

“My pleasure,” she said, leaning in to be heard over the noise.

Wyn smelled the caustic soap she’d washed with that morning - like chemical lemon juice. Given the nature of this excursion, she’d made an effort with her clothes too, digging out an old dress from the boxes of clothes discarded by kids who’d outgrown them, or who’d left the foundling home when they got too old. Wyn had beaten the worst of the dust and grime from his own threads, but he suddenly felt acutely scruffy next to Kez.

“I’ve never ridden the Howl,” she said, still holding tight to his hand. “Have you?”

The screeching roar was getting louder. The clattering rattle of the elevator’s mechanisms echoed deafeningly from the dripping, algal-green walls of the alcove. Feen was looking back at him and Janke had an ugly grin plastered over his face. Fear of looking like a dumb kid made the lie easier to tell.

“Me? Yeah, loads!” he said, knowing instantly it was a mistake. Wyn glanced over his shoulder. The others were gathered at the edge; legs braced, leaning into the wind.

Wyn leaned close to Kez’s ear.

“Sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” he said. “I ain’t done this before. Not never once. Don’t tell the others, but I’m crapping it.”

She let out a relieved breath.

“Good. I didn’t want to be the only one.”

Riding the Rising Howl was one of many rites of passage for the kids of Zaun. Like reaching the top of Old Hungry with all your limbs intact, cutpursing a baron’s man or playing knock-and-run with a stilt-walking sump-scrapper. Zaun had a seemingly endless procession of insanely dangerous tests you had to pass to truly count yourself a hard-bitten street kid.

But gathering his courage to leap from the rocky ledge, this test seemed to Wyn to be the craziest. The scream of the approaching elevator was getting louder, filling the alcove with the shriek of metal on metal and the boom of ratcheting gears.

Nico stood, leaned out and stared down, turning back with a crooked grin and a thumbs up. He bent his knees and threw himself out from the cliff. Arms and legs flailing, he vanished from sight. Not wanting to be shown up, Janke went next, hurling himself from the ledge with a wild whooping yell. Feen followed his friend, laughing like a maniac.

“Ready?” yelled Wyn, his words drowned out by the Rising Howl.

Kez nodded. No way she could hear him, but she got the message. She still hadn’t let go of his hand. He grinned, and they ran toward the cliff edge. Wyn’s heart was in his mouth, beating like a pneuma-hammer against his ribs. His step faltered, but it was too late to stop now. He reached the edge of the cliff and leapt into the wind, yelling a defiant roar of fear and bravado.

The ground vanished beneath him. Only empty air between him and the lower levels of Zaun, hundreds of yards below. Sheer, undiluted terror seized Wyn. It clamped him in a smith’s vice and squeezed the air from his lungs. Wyn saw himself tumbling to the ground, windmilling his arms as if he might suddenly learn to fly like the cliff-shrikes. He looked down. The ovoid, glass and iron shape of the Rising Howl was below him, coming up fast.

Nico, Janke, and Feen were already on it, clinging to its baroque latticework frames or braced against its structure. Wyn slammed into the thick glass and rolled. He flailed for a handhold, sliding down the curve of the outer windows. His sweaty palms slipped. His feet scrabbled for purchase. Anything to slow his descent.

Nothing.

“No, no, no...” he gasped, sliding over the curved topside toward the edge. “Janna’s mercy!”

An updraught of wind flipped him over onto his front and he saw a bronze hook standing proud on the giant elevator’s side. He threw himself at it, and it seemed the wind at his back gave him just enough of a push to reach it. His fingers closed on the metal and his sliding descent to oblivion halted.

With the threat of a long fall, followed by a hard stop, averted, Wyn was able to get his feet under him and looked around for Kez. He saw her higher up, laughing hysterically at having survived. Wyn felt the urge to laugh, and couldn’t stop grinning like a lunatic as he clambered up to where the upper surfaces of the Rising Howl were less angled.

Nico gave a whoop when he saw him and punched Janke in the arm.

“See? Told you he’d make it!”

Wyn clambered to his brother, his legs rubbery as a shimmerfiend’s after an all-night bender. He sucked in a great draught of clean air. Down in the Sump, the air had texture, but getting higher, it had a sharp clarity that made him pleasantly light-headed.

“Not bad, little man, not bad,” said Nico, giving him a slap on the back. His older brother coughed and spat a wad of gray phlegm onto the glass. Nico wiped his lips with his palm and Wyn couldn’t help but notice the brackish residue left on his hand.

“Yeah, no bother,” said Wyn.

Nico laughed at his bravado. “Worth it though, eh?”

“It’s beautiful,” said Kez.

Wyn had to agree. Far below, this part of Zaun spread over the rocky floor of the canyon in a glittering, bottle-green swathe of light and color. Vapor rainbows arced over the Factorywood and spiraling plumes of shimmering smoke danced over the chem-forges. From up here, sump pools wavered like emerald mirages and the winking hearth-lights in the darkness were like the stars he rarely saw from Hope House.

Tears pricked Wyn’s eyes, and he told himself it was the keenness of the wind. High above, Piltover shone in towers of ivory and bronze, copper and gold. Beautiful also, but Zaun’s beauty was lived in. Its streets were filled with life and vitality, every one bearing a heaving, bustling mass of humanity. Wyn loved Zaun. For all its faults, and there were many, its sheer unpredictability and exuberance gave it a pulse you didn’t often find up in Piltover.

Wyn looked down through the glass beneath his feet to see scores of people staring up at him. The passengers of the Rising Howl were used to folk hitching a lift upward, but that didn’t mean they liked it. A few were Zaunites, but most of them were well-heeled Pilties, returning after an evening spent in the gaslit commercia arcades, glass-ceilinged food parlors, or pounding music halls of Zaun.

“Bloody Pilties,” said Janke. “Coming down to slum it in Zaun. Think they’re living dangerously, but at the end of the night they run back up to Piltover.”

“Be a lot less coin flowing down in Zaun if they didn’t,” pointed out Kez. “Pilties do well outta Zaun, and we do well outta them. And how many grand days out we had up in Piltover? Remember the fireworks over the Sun Gates last Progress Day? Remember that Piltie girl you were sweet on? You talk big, Janke, but you’re the one always wants us to head up top.”

They laughed as Janke went red.

“I’ll give ‘em something to look at!” said Feen with a grin. The scrawny lad shucked the braces from his shoulders, dropped his trousers, and planted his ass on the glass ceiling. “Hey, Pilties, there’s a new moon out tonight!”

And like a dog dragging its backside along the ground, Feen let himself slide down the glass with his ass-cheeks splayed for the viewing pleasure of the people below.

They laughed uproariously at the horrified expressions of the elevator’s passengers - men covering the eyes of children and shaking their fists at the filthy Zaunites.

“We’re not going right up top,” said Nico, getting his breath back and wiping tears from his eyes. “Babette’s is on the Entresol level.”

“We ain’t even sure Mama Elodie’s gonna be there,” said Janke.

“She’ll be there,” said Wyn. “I saw the playbill on her desk. Painted picture of her singing on stage, sure as Gray follows Day. But we gotta hurry, she goes on at eight bells and it’s already gone six!”

Mama Elodie was the mistress of Hope House, a foundling home dedicated to the welfare of the many orphans created in the wake of the disaster that tore Zaun apart. Initially funded by the families who would go on to become Piltover’s clans, more than two hundred orphans had been cared for within its walls. But in the century or so since its opening, the institution’s fortunes had waned as the money from the newborn city on high stopped flowing. The wealthy upsider families eventually decided they’d assuaged their guilt with enough gold, and that was that.

Mama Elodie was the only member of staff to stay on when the funds dried up, a dark-skinned woman who said she was an Ionian princess. Wyn suspected that might just be a story to charm donations out of the Chem-Barons, but he liked it when she told how she’d chosen to see the world instead of living a boring life in a palace. Wyn couldn’t imagine turning your back on wealth like that, but he’d never met anyone else from Ionia - even when he’d run errands for seafarers down at the docks.

Every waif and stray in Hope House had heard Mama Elodie singing as she cooked and cleaned. Her voice was extraordinary, and Wyn had fallen asleep to her lullabies more than once as a babe in arms. Wyn had been delivering a cup of herbal tisane to Mama Elodie when he’d seen the folded playbill for Babette’s Theatrical Emporium tucked under a sheaf of dog-eared letters. He’d only had time for a quick look, but swore on a chest of golden gears that it was Mama Elodie, dolled up in her best finery and singing on a footlit stage. She’d seen his look and sent him on his way with a cuff round the ear and a sharp rebuke for being nosy.

He told the others what he’d seen, and within the hour they’d formed a plan to sneak out and see her sing.

“Look!” yelled Wyn, nudging Nico in the ribs.

Nico looked down and nodded, seeing the uniformed conductor shouting into a flexible speaking tube.

“He’s warning the staff above to watch out for freeloading Zaunites,” said Nico. “But it don’t matter. Remember, we ain’t riding it all the way to the platform.”

“So where we getting off then?” asked Feen, clambering to his feet and, mercifully, hauling up his trousers.

“There’s an old winch mechanism just below the embarkation platform,” said Nico, pointing upward. “The cowl’s nice and flat and wide, and next to it, there’s a vent pipe that’s lost its cover.”

“We’re going to have to jump again?” asked Wyn.

Nico grinned and winked.

“Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem for a seasoned pro like you, eh?”

Wyn let out a shuddering breath, his palms bloody where they’d grabbed the rusted cowl of the winch. His second jump into thin air had been just as gut-wrenchingly terrifying, but at least this time he’d known he could do it. The Rising Howl continued upward on its way, and Wyn was glad to see it go.

At least heading back down to Zaun would be easier. They’d take the steps cut into the sheer rock or slide down the dizzying screw-stairs plunging through the overhanging structures cantilevered from the side of the cliffs.

The winch cowl was right next to an open vent, just as Nico had said it would be. The inside reeked of toxic runoff, but at least it was mostly dry. Thankfully, it was large enough to stand upright, which meant it had likely carried a whole lot of gunk and deposited it down into Zaun.

“Where does this end up?” asked Kez, careful to avoid the greenish slime that pooled in depressions in the iron.

“Comes out just behind the Bonscutt Pump Station, I think,” said Nico.

“Don’t you know?” said Janke. “I thought you’d done this before?”

“I have, but it was about a year ago and I ain’t too sure the layout’s gonna be the same as it was.”

They followed the pipe as it rose and twisted through the rock. The metal groaned and creaked with the movement of the cliffs.

“The cliffs are muttering again,” said Kez.

“What are they saying?” asked Wyn.

“Nobody knows,” she answered. “Mama Elodie once told me the rock was still sad about what happened when they split the land to make the canal. She said that every now and then, when the rock’s sorrow gets too much, it sobs, and that’s what shakes the earth.”

“So for all you know, this might end in a wall of rock or a barrier of twisted metal?” said Janke.

“Could be,” said Nico. “But I doubt it. Look.”

Nico pointed to thin spars of light up ahead. Swirling motes of dust hung in the air, and Wyn saw a rusted ladder rising into a square-cut channel in the pipe.

“Looks like we got ourselves a way out,” said Nico.

Wyn had only traveled to Zaun’s Entresol level a couple of times in his life, and on each occasion it had left a singularly vivid impression on him. Situated just below the notional border between Piltover and Zaun - a fluid and ever-changing line at best - the Entresol was a flourishing hub of cosmopolitan commercia arcades, supper-clubs, recital halls and joy houses, making it one of the most populated districts of the cities. It was also widely regarded by the people that lived and toiled there as the place where the real work of Zaun got done.

Emerging from the pipework, they’d quickly got their bearings and navigated toward one of the main thoroughfares. Wyn and Kez were the only ones who could read well enough to decipher the cursive street signs, and Kez led them to a wide boulevard thronged with the most amazing people Wyn had ever seen.

Men and women from Piltover and Zaun happily mingled on the cobbled street, dressed in colorful finery and plumed hats. The women wore pleated dresses with scoop-lined necks and brightly colored sashes. The men looked dashing in their long frock coats and polished boots that wouldn’t last a day in the muck below.

“Everyone is smiling,” he said, feeling the corners of his mouth twitch upward in imitation. “And laughing.”

“You’d laugh too if you weren’t struggling every day to feed yourself,” said Janke.

Wyn started to reply, but Nico shook his head. Janke had come to Hope House older than most foundlings, and was on the verge of having to leave and find his way in the world. Small wonder he was bitter.

Wyn understood that bitterness. After all, who didn’t want more than they had? Who didn’t want to live somewhere nicer if they could? The harsh reality of the world was that folk lived as high as they could afford. Most folks were content with their place in the grand scheme of things, but Wyn yearned for a life spent in a place where he could walk hand in hand with a beautiful girl, take in a show, and eat a meal under the moonlight whenever he wanted.

On impulse he took Kez’s hand, and when she didn’t pull away, his heart beat harder than it had when he made his first jump. With Nico in the lead, they strolled down the center of the street like they had every right to be there. Which, of course, they did, but the stares their grimy attire attracted made it clear that, while no one was going to kick them back down, they weren’t exactly a welcome sight.

For a moment, Wyn fantasized that they could stay here forever, walking along a street of glowing chem-lumens, surrounded by people who could direct them to the best delicatessens with the creamiest crag-duck confit, or advise which plays they simply had to see. He pictured himself dressed like a dandy, greeting his fellow citizens and doffing his hat to visiting clan representatives.

“Is that a cultivair?” said Wyn, pointing to a latticework dome of smoky glass leaning out from the edge of the cliff.

“I think so,” said Kez. “I’ve only ever seen them from below.”

An iron bridge and taut cables tethered the glass dome to the rock, and they paused to take in the beauty of what it contained. Behind the glass, a small forest of tall trees with broad leafy canopies were tended by a robed gardener with a tattooed and shaven head. A riot of flowers, with petals of red, gold, and blue stood out in contrast to the greenery within. Wyn had never seen anything quite so beautiful in all his life. He waved to the gardener, wishing he could walk with Kez through the forest, smelling the perfumed blooms and feeling the soft grass between his toes.

The gardener smiled and waved before returning to his duties.

A series of bells rang out. Wyn counted seven in total.

“Come on,” he said urgently. “The show’ll be starting soon.”

Janke turned to Nico. “You sure you know where this place is?”

“Babette’s? Yeah, I know it,” said Nico, covering his mouth as he coughed again. “I took Aleeza there once, when I had a few coin to my name after I beat that merchant from Bel’Zhun in a drinking contest.”

Wyn remembered that night well, watching in disbelief as his brother threw back shot after shot of kouaxi, a potent spirit the Shuriman had said was made from fermented goat’s milk. They reached twenty shots before the merchant finally keeled over. Nico was hungover for a week before he could spend his winnings.

“It’s just up here,” said Nico, as they entered a cavernous plaza hollowed out from the cliffs.

People thronged the wide open space, talking, negotiating and haggling over who knew what. A few people with metallic augments strolled through the plaza, each bearing the sigil of one of the Chem-Barons, but they were few in number and attracted more than their fair share of wary glances.

At the far end of the plaza stood a grand structure of vivid color and noise. Barkers shouted inducements to enter and handed out playbills. Fluted columns of black marble veined with gold formed the building’s giant portico, over which was a series of statues of wild animals, dragons, and armored warriors. Greenish chem-lights illuminated them, and the wavering flames made it look like they were alive.

“I give you Babette’s Theatrical Emporium,” said Nico, taking a deep bow and pointing to the brightly-lit structure.

“What do you mean we can’t come in?” said Nico.

The two doormen were well-dressed, but no amount of finery could conceal their experience in hurting people. Snaking tattooes covered their necks and wrists, and one of them had a mechanized arm that buzzed with something energized. A shok-club maybe? Or something even more deadly? Or perhaps it just wasn’t working very well.

“We can pay,” said Kez.

“It ain’t the money, girly,” said the first doorman, a man Wyn mentally christened Chem-Breath.

“Then what is it?” she demanded.

“You ain’t dressed right.”

“Indeed,” chimed in the second doorman, the one with the buzzing, mechanical arm. “Mistress Babette expects a certain level of... hygiene in her guests’ sartorial selections. Your attire falls somewhat below the expected standard, I fear.”

“Yeah, so go and crawl back to where you came from,” said the first.

“Where we came from?” said Kez, incredulous. “This is Zaun ain’t it? This is where we come from, you stupid sump-sucker!”

“Get lost, ya snipes,” said Chem-Breath. “This part of Zaun ain’t your Zaun.”

“Fine,” said Nico, turning and walking away. “Let’s go.”

“Wait, what?” said Wyn, as he and the others followed Nico. “We’re just going home?”

His brother waited until they were out of earshot before responding, making sure the crowds at the entrance obscured them from the two doormen.

“‘Course not,” said Nico. “Stupid of me. Forgot the first rule of the Sump: Only marks go in through the front door.”

They traversed the length and breadth of the plaza for ten minutes before finding what they sought. Wyn kept one eye on the theater doors. People were still going in, so the show probably hadn’t started.

“There,” said Feen, pointing to a sudden plume of emerald smoke gusting from a nearby roofline. Feen worked for Gray-Scrape Malkev, a ductwork maintenancer who threw a couple of cogs the scrawny lad’s way to worm through the narrow ducts and clean off the scum when the breather pipes got too clogged.

The source of the smoke was an eatery that looked as if it served a fusion of Zaun street food and upscale Piltovan cuisine. The diners were languid, artist types, and the food looked almost too beautiful to eat.

“That’s a shared pipe if ever I sniffed one,” said Feen. “See, you can smell the food from the kitchens and the burn-off from the crystal burners up at Babette’s.”

“I knew there was a reason we brung you along, Feen,” said Nico, leading them down the alley cut through the rock between the eatery and the theater. Heavy crates hauled up from the docks were stacked against the wall, and hissing, groaning pipes sagged overhead. Burly men hauled crates inside, grunting with the effort. None of them paid the kids so much as a second glance.

Feen traced the routes of the ducts with his fingers, counting and listening as they gurgled and rattled. He sniffed the air and grinned.

“That’s the fella,” he said, pointing to a narrow vent that passed into the rock-face.

“You sure?” asked Janke. “I don’t wanna find you picked it wrong and we get flushed out over Zaun.”

“I ain’t wrong, sump-raker,” said Feen. “You crawl through enough soot and slime like I have, you get a nose for what leads where.”

They waited until the men working for the eatery took a break before using the crates to climb up onto the roof. Feen quickly found them a crawl-hatch on the side of the pipe and prized it open. Wyn blanched at the fumes leaking from the hatch.

“Is that safe?” he asked.

“Safe enough for a sump-snipe,” said Feen. “Trust me, you’ll get more grit on your lungs walking the Black Lanes than you will from the fumes in there.”

Wyn wasn’t so sure about that, but Feen crawled inside, swiftly followed by Kez. Janke went next, and Nico gestured to the pipe.

“Your turn, little man,” said Nico.

Wyn nodded and climbed inside, following the sounds of scraping knees, cursing and coughing. Feen was right about one thing; the air in here was pretty rank, but nothing like when the Gray closed in and made every breath a battle. Nico climbed in behind him and he settled into a rhythm of shuffling forward on his elbows and knees. Light filtered in through cracks in the metal where it had split, but that ended the minute the pipe plunged into the cliffs.

“How much farther?” called Nico from behind him, the sound resonating weirdly in the pipes. He received no answer, only echoes. Wyn tried not to think of all the reasons why there was only silence. Had the pipe emptied them out over the cliffs as Janke had feared? Had the others hit a pocket of gas that had knocked them out or suffocated them? Or maybe the rock hereabouts was sad too, and had chosen to crush the tiny figures crawling through it.

Just before the thought of being crushed to death by melancholy cliffs paralyzed Wyn with fear, a hand reached down from above and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

“Got ya!” hissed a voice as he was hauled up through a hatch that had been invisible in the darkness. He cried out in alarm and struggled before he realized it was Janke pulling him up. He was deposited on a wooden floor in a lightless room. No, not lightless, a thin bar of light shone from beneath a nearby doorway. As Wyn’s eyes adjusted, he saw the myriad paraphernalia of the performer’s art stacked haphazardly around the room; shelves upon shelves of masks, garish costumes, theatrical backdrops and fake props.

Feen was laughing as he pranced around the room with the top half of a horse costume on his head. Kez wore a golden crown with paste-gems studded around its edges and a bright red stone at its center. Janke swung a wooden sword, its blade painted to look like gleaming silver.

Wyn grinned as Nico climbed from the pipe behind him. He felt light-headed, but couldn’t tell if it was from the fumes or the elation of getting inside.

“Nice work, Feen,” said Nico, dusting himself off and coughing out a wad of gray phlegm.

Feen threw off the horse costume and beamed at this unaccustomed praise. He started to speak, but then they heard the beat of drums and the skirl of pipes.

“It’s starting,” said Kez.

The interior of Babette’s was no less impressive than its exterior. The main hall was adorned in colorful fabrics, gilded balconies, and a vaulted ceiling decorated with stunning vistas of sweeping forests, soaring mountains, and achingly blue lakes. An enormous chandelier of sparkling crystals hung from the center of the ceiling, wheeling constellations that sent beams of splintered light through the chamber.

Hundreds of people filled the space, revelers in fashionable attire and dancers who had shed their coats and inhibitions both. A raised stage at one end was home to musicians who played from the heart, a pounding, driving beat that shivered the blood and got your feet tapping. The music was infectious and Wyn laughed as Kez dragged him onto the dance floor. The sight of five sump-snipes anywhere else might have provoked a reaction, but here, amid the spinning dancers and singers, it barely raised an eyebrow.

They moved with the ease of those who knew how to slip out of a Piltover warden’s grip in a heartbeat. Feen stomped and threw his arms around like a madman, all elbows and knees. Janke shuffled and bobbed his head, lost in his own private world of music. Nico danced in a weaving pattern, smooth as you like, pausing every now and then to flirt with a pretty girl. Wyn waved as he and Kez twisted across the dancefloor, spinning each other around with euphoric abandon.

The music was so loud they couldn’t speak.

He didn’t care.

Chemlights threw a rainbow at the chandelier and it exploded in a dazzling borealis of colors in splitting lozenge patterns. Wyn lifted his hands, as if trying to catch the light. Kez threw her arms around his neck and reached for the lights as well. He smelled her soap and sweat, the perfume of her hair and the heat of her body. He never wanted this moment to end.

But it did.

A meaty hand came down on Wyn’s shoulder and he felt the crushing disappointment of a moment that might never come again being snatched away from him. He cursed at the interruption, but the swears he was about to unleash died when he saw Chem-Breath the doorman looking down at him.

“Didn’t I tell you to go back to the Sump?”

He glanced over at Kez and saw her chest heaving with excitement. She nodded, and the answer to his unasked question was in her outstretched hand.

Wyn laced his fingers in hers and yelled, “Run!”

He squirmed from Chem-Breath’s grip and they bolted toward the heart of the dancefloor. Kez gave a wild yell and they wove through the dancers as if they were playing hook-dodge in the Sump. They ran hand in hand, Chem-Breath right on their heels. He barged through the dancers, but Kez and Wyn had run the streets of Zaun since they’d learned how to use their legs. They’d given the slip to wardens, chem-thugs, and vigilnauts alike.

A fat doorman was no challenge at all.

They heard Chem-Breath’s enraged shouts even over the music, as if he were singing along to it. They led him on a merry chase, ducking between the gyrating dancers and singers. Kez held tight to his hand. Wyn couldn’t help but laugh even as they let Chem-Breath get close. Then, just as the man’s hand reached for his shoulder, Chem-Breath fell to the dancefloor, smashed in the face by Feen’s flailing elbow.

They left him rolling on the ground. Wyn couldn’t remember a feeling this intoxicating. His every dancing, running step was in time with the beat of the music. Each soaring chorus felt like it had been written especially for this moment. They laughed like lunatics through the light and sound, united in a way they’d never known before.

Then the music stopped. The lights were extinguished and a single chem-burner focused its illumination upon the stage. The suddenly stilled dancers gave a collective sigh as a woman rose from the center of the stage. Magic or stagecraft, Wyn didn’t know or care, it was a magnificent entrance.

“Mama Elodie,” said Kez.

Wyn knew it was her, but still couldn’t match the stern, matronly mistress of Hope House with this goddess before him. She wore her long hair tied up in an elaborate series of braids threaded with beads of mother-of-pearl and jade that glittered like newborn stars. She wore a radiant green gown that hung in sweeping folds and which shimmered like silken spider-skin.

She was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

Mama Elodie raised her head, and the music built from a slow, glacial pace to a rising heartbeat. Her head lifted in time with the music and her dark skin shimmered with diamond dust. Her eyes swept the crowd, seeming to fix everyone in Babette’s with her soulful gaze. She smiled, as if surprised to see so many people, and the warmth of her almond eyes reached everyone who saw her. Wyn felt her goodness enfold him, feeling as if burdens he didn’t know he carried were being peeled away, layer by layer.

And then she began to sing.

The words were unknown to him, but they flowed like honey, half spoken, half sung. Every note drifted like leaves on a warm, summer night, flowing in spirals around the room. Her voice rose in pitch and volume, and Wyn felt his skin tingle with its touch. He let Mama Elodie’s song wash over and through him. Wyn felt a swelling feeling of connectedness between him and Kez. Her eyes met his and he knew she felt the same.

But it was more than that.

Wyn felt a connection between him and everyone in the audience, a sense of oneness and harmony he’d never known or dreamed was possible. Mama Elodie’s hands sculpted the air as her powerful voice filled the chamber with harmonies that penetrated skin and bone and made every edge within them smooth. Sweat sheened her skin, and veins stood out on her neck.

However she was making this music, it was clearly taking a toll.

The light filling the chamber dimmed as her voice grew softer and softer. The notes melted like snow in spring, sunset over a winter ocean. Tears flowed down Wyn’s face, and he knew he wasn’t the only one crying. Dozens of men and women wept, reaching toward Mama Elodie and imploring her to continue. She swayed on the stage, the song nearing completion.

Slowly, so very slowly, she descended through a trapdoor into the stage until she was gone. Mama Elodie’s voice grew softer and softer, until it was little more than a whisper.

Soon, even that was gone.

The chamber was entirely dark now. Wyn let out a shuddering breath as the house lights gradually came up. He blinked as his eyes adjusted, seeing how low the chemlights had burned. How long had Mama Elodie’s song lasted? Hours? Minutes? He had no way of knowing for sure. Wyn felt exhausted, but renewed at the same time. His thoughts were lighter, his lungs feeling clearer than than they had in months. He turned to Kez, and saw she too felt the same sense of rejuvenation. The audience members were smiling; friends and strangers alike embracing in the shared magic of what they had just experienced.

Nico, Feen, and Janke came over, and every one of them had experienced some profound revelation. What that was, Wyn couldn’t know, but that every one of them felt changed was clear.

“Did you...?” said Wyn.

“Yeah,” said Nico.

They hugged, five orphans from Zaun, sharing a brief moment of belonging they would never know again. By the time they broke apart, it was to see the two doormen, Chem-Breath and Buzz-Arm, standing with their hands balled into fists. Chem-Breath’s nose was askew on his face. An improvement, thought Wyn.

“I believe we told you to go home,” said Buzz-Arm.

“Bloody sump-rats,” snapped Chem-Breath, still nursing a bleeding nose. “Think they can give us the runaround.”

He thumped one meaty fist into his palm for extra emphasis.

“It’s time for you to leave, and I can’t promise it won’t be painful,” said Buzz-Arm, sounding almost apologetic.

“There’s no need for that,” said a melodious voice behind them.

Wyn let out a relieved breath as Mama Elodie put a hand on the back of his neck. Her fingers were warm and he felt a calming sensation flow through him at her touch.

“They with you?” asked Chem-Breath.

“They are indeed,” replied Mama Elodie.

The two doormen looked as though they wanted to take this further, but came to the conclusion that arguing with the headline act in front of her bewitched audience probably wasn’t a good idea. The doormen backed away, making eye contact with each of the kids to let them know that they may have escaped a beating this time, but coming to Babette’s again would be a really bad idea.

Wyn turned to face Mama Elodie, but whatever magic she had woven on stage was now entirely absent. The Ionian princess was gone and the Zaunite housemistress was back. She glared at them with hard, flinty eyes.

“I should have let them give you a good beating to teach you all a lesson,” she said, ushering them toward the front door of the theater. The others nodded in mute acceptance of her anger, but only Wyn caught the glint of amusement in her eye. Even so, Wyn could see a great deal of menial labor in all their futures.

“You were amazing,” said Kez as Mama Elodie marched them from the theater and turned toward Drop Street. The late-running descender to Zaun had a station there, so at least they’d be spared more jumping onto elevators or a lot of stairs. Nico, Feen, and Janke waved and ran off, old enough to head home on their own without needing to ask permission. Wyn didn’t mind; he was with Kez and Mama Elodie, so he’d enjoy this moonlit descent to Hope House.

“Where did you learn to sing like that?” asked Kez.

“My mother taught me when I was a girl,” said Mama Elodie. “She was of... an old Ionian line, though her voice was far superior to mine.”

“It was a beautiful song,” said Wyn.

“All the vastaya songs are beautiful,” said Mama Elodie. “But they are also sad.”

“Why are they sad?” asked Wyn.

“True beauty is only beautiful because it is finite,” said Mama Elodie. “That is why some of their songs are too sad to sing now.”

Wyn didn’t really understand. How could a song be too sad to sing? He wanted to ask more, but the farther they walked from Babette’s, the less important it seemed.

He looked up. Chemlights and reflected stars shimmered on the city of iron and glass as they navigated the cliffside streets toward home. Wyn saw a sliver of moonlight peeking out from behind the clouds, and took a deep breath of clean air, knowing it might be his last for a while.

“You know you’re all scrubbing floors and pots for the rest of the week, yes?” said Mama Elodie.

Wyn nodded, but didn’t mind. He was still holding Kez’s hand. A week of scrubbing seemed like a small price to pay.

“Sure,” he said. “Sounds good.”

Though now a powerful player in Ionia’s flourishing criminal underworld, Sett had humble origins. Born from an Ionian vastaya and a Noxian human, the “half-beast” child was an outcast from the start. His birth appalled his mother’s vastayan community, which expelled the family for violating its tribal norms. The humans of Ionia were no more accepting of the taboo union, though Sett’s father’s infamy as a local pitfighter usually kept them from voicing their disapproval.

What little security the family enjoyed vanished the day Sett’s father disappeared. All of a sudden, those who had bitten their tongues at the sight of young Sett felt free to express their contempt. The boy was bewildered, wondering where his father had gone, and why trouble suddenly seemed to be following him.

Sett grew up quickly, becoming calloused in the face of the taunts and threats he endured, and before long, he began using his fists to silence the insults. When news of his fights reached his mother, she made him swear not to go near the Noxian pits where his father had fought.

But the more Sett fought, the more he thought of his father.

Longing to find the man he only vaguely remembered, Sett snuck away to the pit late one night, after his mother had gone to bed. Immediately, he was enthralled by the spectacle. Scores of Noxian soldiers, fresh to the shores of Ionia, roared with bloodlust from the stands around him. Down in the center of the arena, fighters from all backgrounds and martial disciplines clashed in gruesome duels with a variety of weapons—the winners handsomely paid in Noxian coin. When the event was over, Sett inquired about his father, and learned a hard truth: his father had bought out his contract and left to tour more profitable pits abroad. He had deserted his family, to seek fortune on the other side of the world.

Burning with rage, Sett asked the arena’s matchmaker for a fight, hoping that somehow his father would return from his tour—and be the opponent standing across the pit from him. The matchmaker assigned the boy a fight on the next card, figuring he would be easy fodder for one of his star combatants.

Sett would prove him wrong.

From the moment he threw his first punch, “The Beast-Boy Bastard” was a pit-fighting sensation. Though Sett had no formal martial arts training, his primal strength and ferocity more than compensated, and he leveled his more technically sound opponents like a battering ram. Never abandoning hope that he might one day fight his father, he soon became the undisputed “King of the Pit”, with a swollen coffer of prize money—and a trail of broken opponents—to his name.

Night after night, Sett brought money and comforts to his mother, always lying about how he had acquired them. It warmed his calloused heart to see her so proud of his success, no longer forced to toil at menial jobs. Still, Sett couldn’t help but feel he could do better. Being the King of the Pit was good, but being the person who owned the pit… that was where the real money was.

Late one night, after defending his title in front of a record-breaking crowd, Sett presented his new demands to the Noxian matchmaker and his cronies. He suggested they grant him control of the arena and its revenue. When they refused, Sett barred the doors. Minutes later, the doors re-opened, and the Noxians emerged, badly maimed, with a message on their bloodied lips: the half-beast was the new boss.

With the promoters out of the picture, Sett took control of the pit he once fought in. Ionians, who had only recently been conditioned for war, flocked to the arena, paying to satisfy an urge they only now knew they possessed. Sett took full advantage of their newfound bloodlust, accumulating wealth and power beyond his wildest boyhood dreams, as he transformed the pit into the hub of an underground empire of gambling and vice.

The half-beast who reigned supreme in the pit now runs his illicit enterprises with the same iron fist. Any time someone challenges his authority, he personally reminds them where they stand. Every punch Sett throws is a blow to his old life of poverty and ostracism, and he intends to make sure that old life stays down.

Neeko was born on a remote and largely unknown island, far to the east, where the last members of an ancient vastayan tribe remained isolated from the rest of the world. They were called the Oovi-Kat, and could trace their lineage generation by generation back to the legendary Vastayashai’rei—the ancestors of all vastaya.

The Oovi-Kat were peaceful beings, of unrivaled potential. Their harmonious society blended seamlessly with the spirit realm, so that their sho’ma—their spiritual essence—could intermingle with other beings through mere proximity, and even help them mimic other physical forms. No secrets existed between the Oovi-Kat, but few were as curious, resilient, or energetic as young Neeko.

She developed a fondness for games, hiding trinkets and thoughts to see if others could find them. Her inquisitive nature knew no bounds, and she was pure and innocent in her charmed existence.

But it was not to last. Cataclysm loomed on the horizon.

Thanks to the quick thinking and self-sacrifice of the Oovi-Kat elders, Neeko escaped the death of her homeland. She clumsily took the form of a bird, and fled the smoldering destruction, feeling the screams of her people fading into the ethereal gulf between realms.

Days later, desperate and exhausted, Neeko plummeted into the sea. She clung to driftwood, entirely at the mercy of the currents, until an odd silhouette rose into view. She could hear voices carrying over the waves, and so she swam toward the strange structure.

With the last of her strength, she crept aboard what turned out to be a mercantile vessel destined for Harelport. Neeko rested where she could, calling out into the spirit realm for her lost tribe. She felt only scattered, sad echoes in response, and images of towering, dead trees that lay somewhere over a fragile horizon…

When Neeko emerged from the ship into the city, it was a strange and unfamiliar new world. All her senses tingled. Many a creature, even another Oovi-Kat, might be afraid in that situation—but not Neeko. The society bustled with unique personalities, strangers with a vast array of motives and shapes. This was a place of countless stories and experiences, and it entranced her completely.

Before she could get far, she was spotted by a vastayan sailor named Krete. Neeko could not understand all his words, but he demanded to know which tribe she belonged to. Neeko reached out with her sho’ma, mimicking his face and expression to make her peaceful intentions understood, but Krete did not seem to like this at all. Overwhelmed by his darkening thoughts, Neeko fled into the crowd, altering her shape many times until she escaped.

Surrounded by lush, tropical greenery in the hinterlands beyond Harelport, Neeko grappled with her recent experiences. She simply could not understand how anyone might rely solely on words as their singular form of communication. It seemed so… limiting?

Seeking solace, she took on the shape of the sleek jungle cats she encountered among the trees, and tried to run with them. Neeko loved being fast and agile, and their bright, keen eyes reminded her of home—until, quite unexpectedly, the leader transformed into a beautiful, strong, dark-haired woman. After a tense standoff, she introduced herself as Nidalee, and reluctantly accepted Neeko into the group.

Neeko hesitated to entrust the truths of the Oovi-Kat to others, but she felt a deep kinship with Nidalee, because she suspected this bestial huntress might share some forgotten connection with the vastayan race. Their friendship blossomed, and for many months they roamed the wilds together.

But the towns and cities, with all their flaws, still called to Neeko. Her ancestors came to her in dreams, showing her the pale branches of those dead trees, over and over. The trees needed color, to bloom again—of that much, Neeko was certain. She asked her friend to join her on this new journey, but Nidalee could not be persuaded.

Crestfallen, but determined, Neeko set out alone.

Her old life among the Oovi-Kat may be lost forever, but Neeko envisions a magical future—a larger tribe of like-hearted vastaya, yordles, humans, and whatever other creatures might share her dream. As far as she is concerned, everyone has the potential to find a place in her new tribe. She has pledged to seek these souls out, to befriend them, and defend their sho’ma with her life.

To know Neeko is to love Neeko, and to love Neeko is to be Neeko.

Zac is the product of a toxic spill that ran through a chemtech seam and pooled in an isolated cavern deep in Zaun’s Sump. Despite such humble origins, Zac has grown from primordial ooze into a thinking being who dwells in the city’s pipes, occasionally emerging to help those who cannot help themselves or to rebuild the broken infrastructure of Zaun.

A group of Zaunite children first encountered Zac when they were out skimming rocks over a sump pool and some of the stones were thrown back. The “Returning Pool” became well-known to Zaun’s Sump dwellers, and eventually drew the attention of a shadowy cabal of chemtech alchymists. Over the protests of the local residents, the alchymists pumped the contents of the pool into vats and carried the substance back to their laboratories for experimentation.

Via a series of experiments designed to test negative and positive reinforcement techniques, the alchymists discovered the coagulate mass within the pool appeared to have psychotropic tendencies. Simply put, it mirrored whatever stimulus was provided to it. If treated well, it responded with childlike glee and playfulness, but when its response to pain and aggression were tested, the alchymists lost numerous augmented sump-scrappers in the ensuing destruction.

Most of the alchymists attributed this to nothing more than a simple reflex response, but two among their number weren’t so sure. They questioned the morality of experiments that seemed entirely driven to produce a creature of unmatched aggression. When the pair dug further, they discovered the project was being funded by Saito Takeda, a Chem-Baron with a notoriously violent temperament and reputation for bloody gang warfare. The implication was clear; Takeda sought to develop a fighter who could shrug off mortal wounds, squeeze into places humans could not and who would obey any command. They also discovered the project’s true name; the Zaun Amorphous Combatant.

As they pondered the best course of action, the two dissenting alchymists saw more than just a mirroring of whatever stimulus was applied to the viscous gel. They saw behaviors manifest without any obvious stimulus - behaviors consistent with sentience. They came to know the creature as Zac and concluded that he exhibited the behaviors of a thinking, feeling being. They brought their findings to the spindle-limbed leader of their research team, but their concerns were ignored.

Unwilling to let the matter drop, they began their own covert efforts to counter the violent teachings of the rest of their team. They sought to show Zac right from wrong, exposing him to acts of altruism and generosity. Their efforts bore fruit, with Zac showing sadness when one of the researchers hurt her hand and reacting badly when another killed a rat in the laboratory. Eventually, they could no longer tolerate the cruel experiments being done to Zac by their fellow alchymists.

One night, during Zaun’s Progress Day remembrances, when the laboratory was empty, they drained Zac into a wheeled septic tank and dragged him to a far distant part of Zaun. When their act was later discovered, the footsoldiers of Baron Takeda sought them out. But Zaun is a big place, and the researchers were able to hide from their pursuers. They had thought to give Zac his freedom, but Zac did not want to be released, for he now considered the two researchers his family. They alone had shown him kindness, and he wanted to learn more from them. In truth, they were pleased by his reaction, for they had become so fond of Zac that they considered him their adoptive son.

To stay hidden from Takeda’s men, they changed their identities and appearance, taking up residence in a remote part of the Sump, far from prying eyes. Zac learned to mimic their voices, and quickly adapted to shift his gelatinous mass into the required shapes to form sound. He lived alongside his adoptive parents for many years, hiding when necessary in sump pools or in the cracks in the cliffside rocks. His ‘parents’ told Zac of the world in which he lived, how it could be beautiful and full of wonder. They showed him the moon rise over the Sun Gates, the play of rainbow light on the stained glass roofs of Zaun’s commercia halls, and the bustling, vibrant beauty of their city’s heart. They also explained how the world could be cruel and harsh, and Zac learned that people were sometimes mean and unkind, hateful and prejudiced. Zac rejected such behaviors and helped his parents where he could as they used their skills to aid the people around them without attracting undue attention.

They did what they could to treat the sick, mend broken machinery or otherwise put their chem-knowledge to benign use. These were golden years for Zac, and he roamed Zaun through its almost limitless network of pipes and through the many cracks in its bedrock. As much as Zac was a sentient being, too much stimulus from his environment could sometimes overwhelm his senses and cause him to temporarily absorb the dominant emotions around him, for good or ill. Oft-times he couldn’t help getting involved in aiding the oppressed and downtrodden against thuggish bullies; leading to rumors of his presence spreading through Zaun. Though the majority of tales were of him helping, others attributed destructive events to Zac; a factory destroyed or a crevasse ripping open in a Sump neighborhood.

Eventually, those rumors reached the ears of Saito Takeda, and he sent a band of augmented thugs to retrieve what he saw as his property. His alchymists had been attempting - without success - to replicate the process that had created Zac from droplets left behind in his vat. Takeda wanted the creature returned, and his augmented heavies surrounded Zac’s parents’ home and attacked. They fought back, for they were chemtech researchers and not without esoteric means of defending themselves, but their defiance could not last forever and eventually they were killed, despite Takeda’s order that they be taken alive.

Zac had been exploring subterranean seams far below Zaun, but sensed his parents’ distress and raced back through the pipes of the city to the rescue. He arrived too late to save them, and the fury that overwhelmed him upon seeing their bodies was unmatched by anything the baron’s men had ever seen. Zac attacked in a ferocious display of stretching, smashing, and crushing. In his grief and anger, he demolished dozens of nearby dwellings, and by the time the battle was over, all the augmented thugs were dead.

When the heightened emotions of battle drained from Zac’s consciousness, he was overcome with remorse for the homes he had destroyed, and vowed to continue the good work done by his parents. He helped rebuild what he had destroyed, but as soon as the work was done, he vanished into Zaun’s vast network of pipes.

Now Zac lives alone, dwelling in the tunnels and caverns threading Zaun, and bathing in the emotions of the city’s inhabitants. Sometimes this enriches him, but other times it saddens him as he takes on both the good and bad of the city. He has become something of an urban legend among the people of Zaun, a mysterious creature that sometimes emerges from cracks in the rock or a section of damaged pipework. Most times this is to help those in need, but in times of trouble, when the city’s moods turn grim, his appearance can be cause for trepidation.

The plump belly of the Rising Howl looms before me, churning with its endless gears and elaborate ironwork. Some say the Howl is named for the wrought iron wolf that cries atop the apex of the hexdraulic descender; others swear the ghost of a black-veiled gentle-servant haunts the cabin, and when the Howl lifts him away from his lost love in Zaun, the sounds of his moans reverberate and shake its metal core. Many Piltovans, convinced as they are in their own sound judgment, are sure the name refers to nothing more than the cold wind whistling between the crevasses below their city.

But to me the Howl is not a single lone cry. It is an orchestra of noise, a melodic blend of a thousand unique sounds. It is why I am drawn to the machine.

The multi-tiered elevator, supported by three vertical structural beams which span the height of the city, descends to the Promenade level and slows to a lurching halt.

“Disembark for the Promenade!” the conductor announces, her voice magnified by a bell-shaped sonophone. She adjusts her thick goggles as she speaks. “Boundary Markets, College of Techmaturgy, Horticultural Center.”

Passengers pour from the descender. Dozens of others board and spread throughout its floors: merchants traveling to Zaun to trade in the night bazaars, workers returning home to sleep, wealthy Zaunites visiting night blooms in glass-domed cultivairs. Then there are the unseen riders who have made the Howl their home. I spy them scurrying in the shadows: plague rats, shadowhares, and viridian beetles.

Sometimes I climb down the crevasses to descend to the Sump, but tonight I long for the harmony of noise I know the descender will create.

Instead of entering through the doorway, I swing around the outside and lock my grip on the bottommost bar where ridged steel brackets frame the glass windows. My metal plates clank as I clamber onto the Howl, drawing stares from the passengers and what looks like a grimace from the conductor. My knowledge of facial expressions grows each day.
Most passengers ride within the compartment, away from the cold and soot, but outside, in the open air, I can hear the satisfying click-clack of mechanical parts snapping into place and the soft hiss of steam releasing as we sink into Zaun. And besides, I don’t easily fit through most doors.

A small boy clings to his sump-scrapper father’s hand and gapes at me through the window. I wink at him and his mouth opens in what I estimate is surprise. He ducks behind his father.

“Going down!” says the conductor. She rings a large bell and adjusts the dials on a bright red box. I can almost feel the commands buzz as they surge through wires into the descender’s engine.

Below us, the iron pinnacles of Zaun’s towers and green glass cultivairs glitter like candles in the dimming light. The Howl whirs and creaks as its cranks spiral down against the three towering beams, weighted down with iron, steel, and glass. A blast of steam whistles from the topmost pipe.

Inside the cabin, the sump-scrapper and his child look on as a musician tunes his four-stringed chittarone and begins a sonorous melody. His tune synchronizes with the clacking gears and whirring machinery of the Howl. The father taps his foot to the rhythm. A beetle snaps her pincers as she scrambles away from the man’s heavy boot. A gang of chem-punks lean against the wall in soft repose, a pause so unlike their usual frenzied jaunts through the city.

The Howl whirs in its perfect fusion of sounds during our descent. I marvel at the symphony around me and find myself humming along to the deep buzzing tones. The rhythm thrums through me and I wonder if those around me feel it.

“Entresol!” the conductor calls out as the descender slows. A pair of couriers carrying parcels wrapped in twine disembark, along with a crew of chemtech researchers and a crowd of chem-merchants. A merry crowd of Zaunites from the theater district steps aboard.

“Down we go!” she says, ringing her bell, and the Howl responds with a whir. The descender sinks and the windows mist as vapor pours from pipes above. Beads of water spread across my metallic chest as the harmony of clanking machinery and whooshing steam begins anew.

A discordant murmur interrupts the pattern of sounds. The vibration is subtle, but I can tell something is off. The descender continues as if all was normal, until a jarring clunk breaks its perfect rhythm.

Though I have never dreamed, I know a break in the pattern this abrupt is a machine’s most frightening nightmare.

The spiralling gearway is jammed, and the cabin’s iron brackets grate against it with a horrible screech. Many lives are at stake and I feel the machine’s pain as it braces desperately against the support beams. The entire weight of the Howl heaves against its bending columns and the cabin tilts at a lurching angle. Rivets burst from their seams as metal is pulled away from itself.

We wobble for a moment, then drop.

Inside the cabin, passengers scream and grasp at the nearest railing as they plunge. This is a different kind of howl.

I tighten my hold on the cabin’s bottommost platform. I extend my other arm, launching it toward one of the three vertical structural beams. The iron column is slippery in the mist and my grip misses it by inches. I retract my arm and steam blasts from my back as I try again, whizzing it toward a second beam. Another miss.

Time slows. Inside the cabin, the chem-punks cling to a ledge while the viridian beetle flies out an open window. The sump-scrapper and his child brace themselves against the glass, which fractures under their weight. The boy tumbles out, scrabbling at the frame with his fingers before he slips and falls.

I reach up and catch the boy in mid-flight, then retract my arm.

“Hold on,” I say.

The child clings to the plates on my back.

I fire my arm up toward the support beam once more, and this time my hand meets solid metal with a resounding clang as I secure my hold. My other arm is forced to extend as it’s wrenched down by the plunging cabin, so much that I feel my joints might fracture. Suspended in midair, I try to steady my grip.

With a great jolt, my arm jerks as the descender halts its freefall. It shakes from the sudden stop, now supported only by my arm. The boy shudders as he tightens his grip on my back.

The Howl is still fifty feet above the ground, hovering over the Sump-level buildings. My overlapping metal plates groan as they strain against the weight and I concentrate all my efforts on holding myself together. If I fall, the Howl falls with me, along with all its passengers.

While locking my arm onto the support beam, I slide my arm down the pillar. We drop ten feet and the cabin sways precariously before stabilizing again.

“Sorry about that!” I shout. Statements of empathy can be reassuring to humans in moments of crisis.

I must try again. I must be strong.

I release my grip on the support column ever so slightly, and with a piercing screech we gently slide down the remaining forty feet to the ground. My valves sigh as they contract.

Passengers echo my sighs as they stumble through the doors and broken windows into the Sump level, leaning on each other for support.

The boy on my back breathes rapidly as he holds my neck. My arms whir as I retract them and lower myself to the floor, crouching down so the child can touch the ground. He scrambles back to his father, who embraces him.

The conductor emerges from the descender and looks at me.

“You saved us. All of us,” she says, her voice shaking from what I think is shock. “Thank you.”

“I am simply fulfilling my purpose,” I say. “I am glad you are not hurt. Have a good day.”

She smiles, then turns to direct the crowd of Zaunites who have gathered to offer their assistance to the passengers and begin repairs. One of the chem-punk girls carries the musician’s chittarone for him as he crawls from the descender. Several of the theater-folk comfort an elderly man.

Two Hex-mechanics stumble toward me and I direct them to a medical officer who is setting up a tented repair station. The murmurs of the passengers and the hissing groans of the wounded descender blend with the whirrs and churning of the Sump. The steam-engine within my chest murmurs along, and I am moved to whistle a tune.

The boy turns and waves shyly at me.

I wave back.

He runs to catch up with his father, his heavy boots tapping a rhythm on the cobblestones. Shifting wheels sing and gears click-clack within the belly of the Rising Howl. The viridian beetle snaps her pincers in time with the beat as she zooms away into the Sump.