LoL Universe Indexing and Search

Among the many spirits Ionians revere, none are as storied as that of the dragon. While some believe it embodies ruin, others view it as a symbol of rebirth. Few can say for certain, and fewer still have ever been able to channel the dragon’s spirit, and none so completely as Lee Sin.

He arrived at the Shojin monastery as a boy, claiming the dragon had chosen him to wield its power. The elder monks saw flashes of its fire in the talented child, but also sensed his reckless pride, and the disaster it could bring. Warily, they nonetheless took him as a pupil—though, as others advanced, the elders kept him cleaning dishes and scrubbing floors.

Lee Sin grew impatient. He longed to fulfill his destiny, not waste time on chores.

Sneaking into the hidden archives, he found ancient texts describing how to call upon the spirit realm, and chose to flaunt his skill during a combat lesson. Brashly, he unleashed the dragon’s rage in a wild kick, paralyzing his learned instructor. Consumed with shame and banished for his arrogance, the young man set out to atone.

Years passed. Lee Sin wandered far, to distant places, benevolently aiding those in need. Eventually he reached the Freljord, where he met Udyr, a wildman who channeled the primal beasts of his homeland. The so-called Spirit Walker struggled to control the powers that warred within him, and Lee Sin began to wonder if controlling the dragon was even possible. Sharing a need for spiritual guidance, the two men forged a bond, and he invited Udyr on his journey back home.

The two were dismayed to hear that the empire of Noxus had invaded and occupied Ionia. Monks from every province had fallen back to defend the holy monastery at Hirana, high up in the mountains.

Lee Sin and Udyr found it besieged. Noxian soldiers had broken through to Hirana’s great hall. As Udyr leapt to join the fray, Lee Sin hesitated, seeing his former peers and elders fall to the enemy’s blades. The wisdom of Hirana, Shojin, so much of Ionia’s ancient culture—all would be lost.

With no other choice left, he invoked the dragon spirit.

A tempest of flames engulfed him, searing his skin and burning the sight from his eyes. Imbued with wild power, he crippled the invaders with a flurry of breakneck punches and rapid kicks, the untamable spirit flaring brighter and hotter with each blow.

The monks were victorious, but Lee Sin’s desperate actions left the monastery in ruins, and his vision would never return. At last, in the blind darkness, he understood that no mortal could ever bend the might of the dragon spirit to their will completely. Devastated, agonized, he bound a cloth over his sightless eyes and tried to stagger away down the mountain paths.

But the surviving elders stopped him. In forsaking all desire for power, their disgraced pupil was finally ready to begin anew. Although they would not forget his previous arrogance, the monks offered absolution: the dragon’s wrath was deadly and unpredictable, true enough, but the humblest and worthiest mortal souls could counter its fiery nature, and direct it from time to time.

Gratefully, Lee Sin stayed with the monks to rebuild their monastery, and after the work was done and the Spirit Walker returned to the Freljord, Lee Sin devoted himself fully toward the pursuit of enlightenment.

In the years since the war with Noxus ended, he has continued to meditate on his role in Ionia. Knowing his homeland has not faced the last of its trials, Lee Sin must master himself, and the dragon spirit within, to face whatever foe is yet to come.

Whenever the moon rises into a wintery sky, round and red as blood, the spirit walkers of the Freljord know that another of their kind has been born into the world. One attuned to the wilds and the land, one who walks within and beside the spirit that best matches the shape of their heart. On the night of Udyr’s birth, there was nothing in the crimson moon that suggested anything different than that.

Nothing that would suggest Udyr was already the most powerful walker to ever live.

Every being has spirit, whether person or beast, plant or animal, dead or alive or deathless. But unlike his brethren, Udyr’s power of spiritual connection was not limited to one type of spirit—he could hear them all. The needs and wants of everything around him constantly flooded his mind, making it impossible to hear anything above their roar.

His parents did not know how to help him. Their warmother sent for other spirit walkers to train the boy, but each said the same thing: spirit walker training focused on opening oneself up, not closing oneself off.

The first time Udyr tapped into his powers with purpose was the night the Frostguard came for him. Young Udyr, terrified, hid in the forest. He did not expect to feel the life ripped from... everyone. His entire tribe, slaughtered in an instant. Howling with sadness and rage, Udyr took power from the spirits of the forest. With a swipe of his claws and a beating of his wings, he brought the mountain down on the Frostguard. Alone, grieving, and overwhelmed, Udyr wandered the wastes for years, doing what he had to in order to survive.

He did not interact with humans again until he landed the killing blow on a wildclaw that was troubling a Winter’s Claw hunting party. Impressed, they brought Udyr back to camp. Warmother Hejian sent him to be trained in the ways of war alongside her daughter Kalkia. The wild boy showed the lonely daughter how to live in the wild, and she showed him how to live among people. Soon, the Winter’s Claw began to almost feel like a home.

But that changed when a pack of starved and diseased rimefang wolves skulked close to the camp. Udyr lost himself in the fog of the pack’s madness and hunger, attacking and nearly killing a child. It took Kalkia and her mother’s True Ice to stop Udyr. After the wolves had all been slain, Hejian banished Udyr from the Winter’s Claw.

Udyr returned to the mountains, far from those he could hurt. Kalkia would visit whenever she could get away until she was eventually called upon to lead her tribe. She joyfully lifted Udyr’s banishment, but he refused to return. He still had no control over the spirits whose wants and needs howled inside his mind, but swore he would always be there to protect Kalkia and the people she loved. That was the last time they saw one another.

Everything changed when a foreign monk sought him out, saying he had come to train with the spirit walkers so that he may learn how to subdue the dragon spirit that burned within him. Udyr refused, but the monk challenged Udyr for the right to train with him. They fought to their limits, but in the end, neither won.

The monk introduced himself as Lee Sin, and said that this battle had shown him they both had much to learn. He invited Udyr to train in his homeland of Ionia. With nothing left to tie him to the Freljord, Udyr agreed.

The two men grew close during their journey, taking time each day to spar together and to speak of the spirits, but when they finally arrived at Hirana Monastery, they found it besieged by Noxian invaders. Calling upon the spirits of Ionia, Udyr leapt into the fray.

After their victory, the two men asked the abbott for guidance and how to learn control. The abbott told them that self-mastery had no guaranteed end, but agreed to train them both.

For the first time, Udyr’s mind was quiet enough for him to hear his own thoughts. He and Lee trained together to master the spirits within and beside them. With new knowledge and understanding, Udyr was able to help Lee and his dragon find balance with one another. And through this endeavor, Udyr came to understand that harmony and interdependence created a state of balance in Ionia. In contrast, balance in the Freljord was based on a sense of struggle and conflict—of growth and change—where the fight to survive against an uncaring and dangerous environment lived deep in the soul of every Freljordian.

After several years, Udyr’s powers plateaued. He was faced with the choice to stay and train in Ionia, or return to the struggle of his homeland where he could continue his growth. In the end, the choice was obvious.

Lee gave Udyr one of his blindfolds to keep with him—a reminder of his commitment to self-mastery—and asked for a promise. That, once Udyr had achieved what he was looking for in the Freljord, he would return the blindfold to Lee in person. Udyr wrapped the blindfold around his hand before setting off across the world once again to take up the mantle of spirit walker.

A new conflict between an Avarosan and Winter’s Claw warmother greeted Udyr upon his return to the Freljord. The Avarosan wanted to unite the people of the Freljord under a single banner, putting an end to their struggles. Udyr understood that such an action would harm the spirit of the land, and so he decided to offer counsel to the other side—the Winter’s Claw. It was Kalkia’s headstrong daughter Sejuani who received him, and he could feel her need for guidance.

The young woman accepted Udyr’s help, but Sejuani’s trust was hard-won, for she had grown up hearing tales of the spirit walker and his bloodlust. Udyr came to appreciate Sejuani’s drive and cleverness, though her ruthlessness worried him. Sejuani saw wisdom and a warrior’s heart in Udyr, but his frequent absences grated her nerves. In time, they came to view one another like family—a surrogate oathfather and daughter—though they would never say it aloud.

Before long, the other spirit walkers summoned Udyr down to the south. But fate intervened when he met a strange old woman in an enormous coat. She asked for his help with several impossible tasks that he inevitably failed. Entertained by his attempts, she rewarded his efforts with bread so salty that he choked, and water so cold that his veins turned to ice. The old woman laughed at his reaction and shrugged off her coat, and the spiritual power hit Udyr like an avalanche. He passed out, and woke alone. But he could feel something had changed within him—a new power had awakened. He didn't realize it, but the Seal Sister, in one of her many disguises, had tested Udyr and given him her blessing.

Still unnerved by this odd encounter, Udyr joined his brethren in the south and listened as they told him of a strange spiritual shift they had each felt. They feared the Freljord was dying—the spirits of the land itself crumbling from within. Udyr believed that it was the Avarosans, in their efforts to unite the Freljord, that was causing this pain. He told the other spirit walkers as much, and asked them to fight against the Avarosan advance alongside the Winter's Claw. Many were skeptical, but others, afraid that Udyr might be right, agreed.

With his new spiritual power flowing within him, Udyr raced back to the Winter’s Claw to help end this existential threat to the Freljord once and for all.

“Help… me,” begged the shipwrecked man.

Yorick couldn’t say how long the survivor had been lying there, bones broken, bleeding into what remained of his wrecked sailing vessel. He had been moaning loudly, but his cries were drowned out by the multitude of wailing souls that haunted the isle. A maelstrom of spirits gathered around him, drawn to his flickering life force like a beacon, hungry to reap a fresh soul. The man’s eyes widened in horror.

He was right to be scared. Yorick had seen what happened to lost spirits taken by the Black Mist, and this—this was warm flesh, a rarity in the Shadow Isles. It had been how long—a hundred years?—since Yorick had seen a living being? He could feel the Mist on his back quivering, eager to wrap this stranger in its cold embrace. But the sight of the man stirred something in Yorick he had long forgotten, and whatever it was would not allow him to surrender this life. The burly monk heaved the damaged man onto his shoulders and carried him back up the hill to his old monastery.

Yorick studied the face of the injured man as he groaned in agonized protest with each step the monk took. Why did you come here, live one?

After completing the climb, Yorick carried his guest through several corridors in the abbey, before coming to a stop in an old infirmary. He eased the shipwrecked man onto a massive stone table and began to check his vitals. Most of the man’s ribs were shattered, and one of his lungs had collapsed.

“Why do you waste your time?” asked a chorus of voices, speaking in unison from the Mist on Yorick’s back.

Yorick remained silent. He left the table and made his way to a heavy door in the rear of the infirmary. The door resisted as he pushed, his hand doing little but leaving a print in the thick layer of dust. He pressed his shoulder against the wood and heaved his entire weight into it.

“So much effort for naught,” sneered the Mist. “Let us have him.”

Again, Yorick answered it with contemptuous silence as he finally forced the door open. The heavy oak dragged across the stone tiles of the monastery floor, revealing a chamber full of scrolls, herbs, and poultices. For a moment, Yorick stared at the artifacts of his former life, struggling to remember how to use them. He picked up a few that looked familiar—bandages, yellow and brittle with age, and some ointment that had long turned to crust—and returned to the man atop the stone table.

“Just leave him,” said the Mist. “He was ours the moment he came ashore.”

“Quiet!” snapped Yorick.

The man on the table was now gasping for breath. Knowing he had little time to save him, Yorick tried to bind his wounds, but the rotten bandages fell apart as quickly as he could apply them.

As his breath grew more ragged, the man convulsed. He grabbed the monk’s arm in agonized desperation. Yorick knew there was only one thing that could save the man’s life. He uncorked the crystal vial at his neck, and considered the life-giving water it contained. There was precious little left. Yorick was unsure if it was enough to save the man, and even if it did…

Yorick was forced to face the truth. In trying to save the man, he was just chasing the memory of his former life, when this cursed place was called the Blessed Isles. The souls in the Mist had taunted him, but they’d taunted him with the truth. This man was doomed, and if Yorick used the Tears of Life, he would be too. He closed the vial and let it rest against his neck.

Stepping back from the table, Yorick watched the man’s chest rise and fall one last time. The Black Mist filled the room, spirits clawing out from it in anticipation. The Mist shivered eagerly, then ripped the dead man’s soul from his body. It uttered a faint, feeble cry before it was devoured by its new host.

Yorick stood motionless in the room and uttered a barely remembered prayer. He looked at the soulless husk on the table, a bitter reminder of the task he had yet to complete. While the curse of the Ruination remained, anyone who came to these isles would suffer the same fate. He had to bring peace to these cursed islands, but after years of searching, all he had found were whispers about a ruined king.

He needed answers.

With a single motion of Yorick’s hand, a thin strand of Mist poured into the man’s body. A moment later, it rose from the table, barely sentient. But it could see, it could hear, and it could walk.

“Help me,” said Yorick.

The body shambled out the door of the infirmary, its sloughing footsteps echoing through the halls of the monastery. It continued out into the foul air of the cemetery, walking through the rows of emptied graves.

Yorick watched as the corpse trudged toward the center of the isles until it disappeared into the Mist. Perhaps this one would return with the answer.

Scrape the bench of sunless moss,
And harken to this tale of loss.
A princess lies below the soil,
A king’s pride and joy, a beauty divine.
Now food for worms, her flesh to dine.
Skin once fair, now left to spoil.

A Princeling came, a suitor fair,
To press his cause, to wed the heir.
The marriage feast like none before
was blighted by a deed most foul.
A poisoned cup, the king did howl.
To find a cure, the Princeling swore.

His ship set sail, crossed ocean’s deep,
With knights all pledged to end death’s sleep.
Through tempests fierce and unknown miles,
Drawn by wind from a land undying,
The very storm its name seem’d sighing.
A place men named the Shadow Isles.

Like the hound abroad with bloody scent,
Drawn ever on by forlorn lament,
To a night-veiled isle on no man’s chart.
No wind was heard, no bird nor beast,
Only spirits summoned by death’s priest.
Onward knights to this island’s heart!

Through black-thorned trees on crooked path,
A clash of steel, a cry of wrath.
The Shadow of War wrought bitter defeat,
The Princeling’s men were slain.
He ran in fear; they died in vain,
His love of life too bright, too sweet.

Lost in darkest, haunted night,
Pursued by spiteful wraith and wight.
He chanced upon a moonlit field,
And a ghastly monk assailed by the mist.
“Aid me!” cried he, “With sword and fist!
The spirits are cruel, their hearts unhealed.”

“Here, all men are equal, all sins forgiven,
But pride hath made this land corpse-riven.
The dead we’ll fight, our lives as the prize.
Shepherd them onward, and then come the dawn,
Triumph will teach you secrets long gone,
But vanquished, we fall and then rise.”

They fought as brothers on cursed battleground,
Atop the bones of scholars renowned
‘Gainst spirits in black, with hunger infernal.
Dawn never came, but the battle was done.
The monk and the Princeling had won!
“Speak, fellow! Tell secrets of life eternal.”

The monk told tales of a time forgotten
An ancient queen, now dead and mulch-rotten.
Of her king brought low by sorrow and woe,
Who came to this isle to bring back her life,
But damned the world to endless strife,
Spirits of death and carrion crow.

His magic unleashed a terrible scourge;
Grim prelude to the Deathsinger’s dirge.
Black mist rose up and doomed all to death.
But spirits arose from every dead thing,
Cursed to undeath by this grief-maddened king.
He begged it all end with his very last breath.

A land once blessed, was ripped asunder,
Split with lightning and beaten by thunder.
Phantoms now mutter in graves enshrined.
And banshees throng its haunted streets,
Shrieking their woes of black defeats,
A boundless curse upon all mankind.

The Princeling listened, all aghast,
To hear this tale from the grim outcast.
He spared this ancient king no boon,
But tales of death and grim disaster;
Unmask all, from slave to master.
The Princeling’s lies laid bare by the moon.

The goblet supped by his new wife,
The Princeling poisoned to take her life.
Her father’s wealth and crown he craved;
No cure he wished, but existence deathless,
No succor for his queen, forever breathless;
His soul was dark, his mind depraved.

And yet his bride had one last curse.
A fatal spell of bitter verse.
Justice sought with dying breath,
Set the Spear of Vengeance on the hunt
To punish him for such great affront
And bring about his bloody death.

The mist closed in and called his name,
A huntress aglow in mist-wreathed flame.
Her spears of light pierced his breast,
A cold ground yawned wide and deep,
The Princeling fell to blackest sleep,
Never to wake from his victim’s bequest.

Smothered in darkness, dying in pain,
No crown for his brow, never to reign.
Buried forever in earth’s dark womb,
Heed the price of ambition’s dark call
Be not ensnared by its artful thrall,
The Princeling’s greed was his doom.

A pallid light waxed cold and bright,
Borne up through the earth, his soul took flight.
No reprieve was this, but torment afresh,
The Warden of Chains drawn by his scent.
Dancing to the Deathsinger’s lament.
“Your soul is mine,” said the beast called Thresh.

So heed this fate and learn it well,
Shun the Isles where the dead still dwell.
Seek ye all the things to cherish,
And pass the years in time well spent.
A life full-lived, a soul content.
And know you all are doomed to perish...

The last survivor of a long-forgotten religious order, Yorick is both blessed and cursed with power over the dead. Trapped on the Shadow Isles, his only companions are the rotting corpses and shrieking spirits that he gathers to him. Yorick’s monstrous actions belie his noble purpose: to free his home from the curse of the Ruination.

Even as a child, Yorick’s life was never normal. Raised in a fishing village at the very edge of the Blessed Isles, he always struggled to find acceptance. While most children his age were playing hide-and-seek, young Yorick was making friends of a different kind—the spirits of the recently deceased.

At first, Yorick was terrified of his ability to see and hear the dead. Whenever someone in the village passed away, Yorick would lie awake all night, waiting for the chilling cry of a new visitor. He could not understand why they chose to haunt him, and why his parents believed the spirits to be nothing more than nightmares.

In time, he came to realize the souls were not there to harm him. They were simply lost and needed help finding their way to the beyond. Since only Yorick was able to see these spirits, he took it upon himself to be their guide, escorting them to whatever awaited in eternity.

The task was bittersweet. Yorick found that he enjoyed the company of ghosts, but each one he brought to rest meant saying farewell to another friend. To the dead, he was a savior, but to the living, he was a pariah. The villagers only saw a disturbed little boy who spoke to people who weren’t there.

Tales of Yorick’s visions soon spread beyond his village, and drew the attention of a small order of monks who dwelled at the heart of the Blessed Isles. Its envoys traveled to Yorick’s island, believing he could become an asset to their faith.

Yorick agreed to journey to their monastery, and there, he learned the ways of the Brethren of the Dusk and the true significance of their trappings. Every monk carried a spade as a symbol of their duty to conduct proper burial rites, which ensured souls would not lose their way. And each brother wore a vial of water drawn from the Blessed Isles’ sacred spring. These Tears of Life represented the monks’ duty to heal the living.

Yet, no matter how he tried, Yorick could never gain the acceptance of the other monks. To them, he was tangible proof of things that should only be known through faith. They resented his power to easily perceive what they themselves had struggled their entire lives to understand. Shunned by his brothers, Yorick found himself alone again.

One morning, as he tended to his duties in the cemetery, Yorick was interrupted by the sight of a pitch-black cloud roiling across the surface of the Blessed Isles, devouring everything in its path. Yorick tried to run, but the cloud quickly enveloped him and plunged him into shadow.

All around Yorick, living things began to writhe and contort, corrupted by the foul magic in the Black Mist. People, animals, even plants began to transform into vile, ghoulish mockeries of their former selves. Whispers emanated from the turbulent air around him, and his brothers began ripping the vials of healing water from their necks, as if the objects were causing them great anguish. A moment later, Yorick watched in abject horror as the monks’ souls were ripped from their bodies, leaving cold, pale corpses behind.

Among the quieting screams of his brethren, Yorick alone could hear voices within the mist.

“Remove it. Join us. We will become one.”

He felt his fingers grasping for the vial at his neck. Mustering all his resolve, Yorick forced his hands away from his throat and commanded the howling souls to stop. The Black Mist writhed violently, and darkness overtook him.

When Yorick awoke, the winds had calmed, and the once-fertile lands had transformed into the grotesque hellscape of the Shadow Isles. Isolated tendrils of the Black Mist clung to him, trying to overtake the one living thing not yet corrupted. As the Mist wrapped itself around him, Yorick saw it suddenly recoil from the vial at his neck. Yorick clutched the blessed water, realizing it was all that kept him alive.

In the days that followed, Yorick scoured the islands for survivors, but found only the twisted remnants of what once lived there. Everywhere he walked, he witnessed wretched spirits rising from the bodies of the dead.

As he searched, Yorick slowly pieced together the events that led to the cataclysm: A king had arrived seeking to resurrect his queen, but instead, had doomed the Isles and everything on them.

Yorick wished to find this “Ruined King” and undo the curse he had unleashed. But he felt powerless in the face of the seemingly endless death that surrounded him.

Almost lost within his grief, Yorick began to speak to the spirits around him, attempting to find solace with them as he had as a child. Instead, as he communed with the Mist, corpses left their graves, guided by his voice. He realized the bodies he once laid to rest were now his to command.

A glimmer of hope shone from the heart of his despair. To free the dead of the Shadow Isles, Yorick would wield their power and their strength.

In order to end the curse, he would be forced to use it.

Karma is the living embodiment of an ancient Ionian soul, who serves as a spiritual beacon to each generation of her people. Her most recent incarnation came in the form of a 12-year-old girl named Darha. Raised in the northern highlands of Shon-Xan, she was headstrong and independent, always dreaming of a life beyond her provincial village.

But Darha began to suffer strange, fitful visions. The images were curious—they felt like memories, yet the girl was certain they had not happened to her. At first, the problem was easy enough to conceal, but the visions grew in intensity until Darha was convinced she was descending into madness.

Just when it seemed she would be confined to the healing huts forever, a group of monks visited her village. They had come from a place known as the Lasting Altar, where the divine leader Karma had passed away some months earlier. The monks were in search of the old man’s next incarnation, believing him to be among the villagers. They applied a series of tests to everyone they met, but eventually prepared to leave empty handed.

As they passed the healing huts, Darha threw herself out of her cot and ran to stop them. She wept, telling them of her visions, and that she had known the monks’ voices from the babble in her head.

They recognized the signs immediately. This was their Karma. The visions were past lives rushing to fill a new vessel.

In that moment, Darha’s life changed forever. She bid farewell to all she’d ever known, and journeyed to the Lasting Altar to learn from the monks. Over the years, they taught her to connect with her ancient soul, and to commune with thousands of previous incarnations, each espousing the wisdom of ages past. Karma had always advocated peace and harmony, teaching that any act of evil would bring about its own repercussions, and so required no response.

But Darha questioned these principles, even as she became Karma. Some of her followers were confused. How could she be invested with the Spirit of Ionia, the First Lands’ most sacred manifestation, and yet disagree with their most self-evident philosophies?

Indeed, these beliefs were truly tested when Noxus invaded Ionia. Many thousands were killed as the enemy warbands advanced inland, and Karma was forced to face the harsh realities of war. She could feel the immense destructive potential that swelled in her soul, and wondered what the point of this power could be, if it was not to be used.

The voices of the past urged her to remain at the Lasting Altar, to comfort her people and allow this conflict to pass. And yet, a far deeper truth compelled her to act...

Karma agonized over this, until she could stand it no longer. She confronted a Noxian commander on the deck of his own war frigate, and unleashed her divine fury. This was no single, measured attack—she obliterated the entire vessel and its crew in a heartbeat.

Though many Ionians rejoiced at this apparent victory, the monks believed she had made a huge mistake. She had upset the spiritual harmony of their homeland, disgracing all who had borne the name of Karma before her, and tarnished her own undying soul along with those of her followers. Even if it meant a life of solitary meditation and penance, they implored her to do no further injury.

Karma silenced them with a raised hand. Though she could still hear the voices in her head, it was the Spirit of Ionia in her heart that guided her… and the First Lands were stirring to defend themselves. She did not know if she had been chosen for her courage and strength of will, but Karma knew that sometimes harmony came only at a great cost. Their world was changing, and true wisdom lay not in resisting that fact, but accepting it.

Though the war with Noxus is now long over, there are still many in Ionia who have become only too glad to meet violence with violence, even against their own neighbors. Karma has pledged to guide as many of them as she can to a more enlightened path—to peace when possible, to action when necessary.

Far above, Udyr heard the cries of an eagle riding the gale. Its voice was strong, confident, but not close enough to get in the way of his own thoughts. It was a relief to feel this human.

The voices were never silent, but Udyr knew not to be ungrateful. Even a moment’s reprieve was rare.

I can hear myself breathe… for now, at least.

Today, he walked alone. He hiked up the mountain slopes, a chill wind following him, carrying away his lingering memory of Ionia’s ethereal beauty with every gust. The monks at Hirana had offered him a parting gift a few moons past when he left their lands—a riddle intended to guide him on his path to mastering his spiritual powers.

It read more beautifully in their tongue than his own, but it had not taken him long to solve. After spending months traveling with the blind monk, Udyr had learned to decipher the meaning behind Ionian speech.

Reaching the precipitous eastern slopes of Winterspike, Udyr paused to gaze out at the lake before him, frozen in all its majesty. At the edges of the lake laid the bones and corpses of wild beasts, as well as those of dead shamans and priests who had come to this place, months, years, and lifetimes before him.

Udyr stood still, his chest bare, eyes closed, bracing against the brisk morning air.

This land was my home…

He looked down at his reflection on the ice. It showed the face of a man, ragged and worn from his travels.

My rest ends. I hear them coming.

The ice stirred. A crack at first, as Udyr saw his image splinter into disparate pieces. Soon, entire slabs broke off, drifting apart. Udyr waited, respectfully.

The frigid water bubbled. Slowly to begin with, and then rapidly all at once. Steam rose from the surface, filling the air with heat.

Udyr took in a quiet breath, his shoulders rising, to ready himself.

Out of the mist leapt an ice-formed beast, carved by the land’s magic and birthed from the lake. The ground trembled as it took a thundering step toward Udyr.

Udyr looked up at the wild spirit towering above him, three times his height.

The murmurs started low, soft—leaves falling on fresh snow. Yet quickly, they grew.

Bitter. Restless.

There they are.

Grunts turned into snarls, mutters into barks, one swallowing another. Their rage seized his mind, shattering his every thought. At first, the voices competed for dominance—elnüks, drüvasks, and others. Udyr had heard these voices within himself many times. Soon, they joined together, into the shape he had most feared.

The ravenous tiger.

“Spirit walker. Step closer,” it growled. “Raise your voice and show us why you have returned.”

Udyr only just mustered the strength to stifle a gasp. His knees buckled under the weight of the noise in his head. His hands shot toward the soil to steady his body. Straining his neck, he glared up at the savage creature, not willing to answer.

The voices rose at the sight of Udyr’s inaction, with the tiger roaring above the rest.

“You do not deserve to call the Freljord home. You are weak.”

Udyr braced himself as the spirit rammed its head into him, shards of its icy body cutting into his skin. Tumbling far across the ground, Udyr landed against hard rock.

I must not give in.

Regaining his balance, he wiped the blood off his face and forced his hands into fists. He punched his knuckles into the frosty ground, and the throbbing in his arms overtook him. Veins pulsated from his hands to his shoulders. Getting back to his feet, Udyr readied himself to deflect another blow.

The spirit roared once more. “The strong fight! Instead, you stifle your voice and cower!”

The spirit charged headfirst. Udyr tried dodging out of the way, but his foe was quicker and stronger. As he rolled to the side, the tiger swiped his leg with its claws, spraying the spirit walker’s blood across the frosted ground.

Udyr knelt on one knee in pain. He felt his own anger building, but still he held back.

I must not give in.

The spirit loomed closer, letting out a feral cry before pouncing toward Udyr. Realizing he could not dodge in time, he crossed his arms before him and clenched his fists. Magical energy surrounded him, blocking the tiger spirit’s lethal blow.

The spirit slid backward. After regaining its footing, it grinned through its fangs. Its icy body crackled with vicious energy, splintering the bones of its past victims beneath its feet. Death was all this place knew.

Udyr knelt on both knees now, his head down, his body pounding with pain while the spirit paced around him. He felt the ground shake with its every step.

This is not the way.

He gritted his teeth, their points drawing blood from his lips as he felt the ground tremble once more.

The voices boomed. “The weak… are prey!”

Udyr looked up, seeing the spirit charge toward him, its eyes lusting for blood—so wide he could see himself staring back, with the same lust for violence.

I must embrace who I am.

Golden flames erupted from Udyr’s skin like wildfire, the anger coursing through his body matching the fury of the tiger spirit before him.

“Finally, the prey has decided to fight!”

Udyr roared as he rushed straight at the tiger spirit. Vaulting onto the beast’s leg, he climbed its craggy surface, smashing his bleeding hands into whatever piece of ice he could to pull himself upward. The creature shook, the sharp edges of its body piercing the spirit walker’s skin. Udyr screamed, relishing in his might. At last, his wrath matched the fire in his foe, as the two reveled in their savage violence.

With a brutal lunge, he reached the spirit’s back, trails of his blood dripping down its sides. Spirit energy surged through him, a force strong enough to drown out any pain. The voices of wild beasts clamored unchecked in his mind—the bitter cries of those consumed by the tiger, and his own unbridled anger—merging as one.

“I am no prey!”

Udyr brought his fists down in a flurry of explosive blows, creating a web of cracks running down the creature’s body. He clawed and slashed with abandon, tearing away at his foe. Howling in pure rage, he threw back his head and sank his fangs deep into the spirit’s neck.

He expected the spirit to tumble over, its body to break apart, giant lumps of ice disappearing to dust.

But it was already gone, along with its voices. Had they shrieked? Had they cried?

High above, he heard the eagle call.

Focus. Calm.

Udyr fell and staggered onto solid ground. Breathing heavily, he lay next to the lake, and watched the last of his enemy vanish. Suddenly, he heard another rumbling and stumbled to his feet. The lake, as if celebrating his victory, began to thaw. Piece by piece, the remaining ice melted, raising the water level to wash over the cold, hard land.

Remembering the ritual he had repeated countless times at Hirana, Udyr limped forth. Cupping his hands, he splashed cool water across his head, shoulders, and back, rinsing his wounds clean. Then, gently, he took a drink.

He stared at his reflection, seeing a man looking back. Wounded, tested, alive.

I am who I am.

Udyr heard only the sound of flowing water—and yet, he did not smile.

But this fight is far from over.

Sona’s earliest memories are of the Ionian monastery where she was raised, in the province of Galrin. The monks, along with kindhearted volunteers from the local villages, took in any orphans or foundlings left at the front gates, and made sure that they would want for nothing.

As a young girl, Sona was considered shy and quiet, until it became apparent that she couldn’t speak at all. But she was unusually thoughtful and attentive, and the other children tended to seek her out whenever they needed comfort, their playful smiles quickly restored.

And Sona discovered other ways to express herself.

Unlike her playmates, she had one possession when she was first found—a curiously strung instrument, packed into a plain wooden case. None of the visiting musicians or teachers knew what it was… though that did not stop several of them from attempting to procure it for themselves, one way or another. Instead, Sona taught herself how to play it, and her simple, beautiful melodies moved even the most skeptical listener to tears of joy.

However, dark times were approaching. The foreign empire of Noxus had begun landing troops in the northern provinces, and the monks decided to evacuate their young charges to safety before the invasion reached Galrin. After their caretakers struck a deal with a Demacian trader, Sona and a handful of her friends found themselves bundled onto one of the last ships to escape before the Noxian blockade of Ionia’s western coast. She looked back in anguish, knowing that she would not be able to return for many years, if at all.

After months at sea, they arrived in Demacia—a strange, dour land where magic was widely distrusted. Their monks were called “Illuminators”, and they worshipped no gods or spirits, yet still placed great value on showing kindness to strangers and the needy.

So it was that Sona was taken in by the Buvelle family. Lord Barrett and his wife, Lestara, were prominent supporters of the Illuminator order, and renowned patrons of the arts in the Great City. Sona became like a sister to their daughter, Kahina, and Lestara in particular grew very attached to her. The Demacian language was often difficult to learn, but the Buvelles developed a personalized sign language that enabled Sona to communicate easily with her new family, and their friends.

Yet she yearned to express so much more. To show her appreciation to her adopted countrymen, she decided to use her gift to delight and soothe them, and returned to her music with renewed passion.

Soon, word spread of her virtuoso talents. Her performances captivated audiences, bringing them from sorrow to bliss, from righteous martial pride to almost exquisite peace… and Lestara became intrigued by the mysterious instrument that made this possible.

Delving deep into the libraries of the Illuminators, she came to believe it was one of the fabled etwahls—wondrous artifacts dating back thousands of years before Demacia’s founding, and now exceedingly rare in the world. If that were true, then this was an object of magic, and Sona’s preternatural connection to it was a dangerous gift indeed. Lestara urged her to keep it secret, to avoid bringing unwanted attention from the Demacian mageseekers.

Sona obeyed, though she wondered how something that brought people peace could be seen as a threat.

Some years later, Lord Barrett Buvelle was slain fighting Noxus at the Gates of Mourning. When Kahina took up her father’s blade and military commission, the heartbroken Lestara decided the time had come for Sona to return to Ionia, and the two of them withdrew from all courtly engagements to make the journey together.

In the war’s aftermath, a great “restoration” was underway across the First Lands, but the people were much changed by what they had endured, and Sona realized there was no longer any place for her there. Saying farewell to Ionia once again, she went back to Demacia with Lestara.

Even so, her chosen homeland is not without its own problems. In the wake of King Jarvan III’s assassination, the mageseekers have gained significant power, and many innocent citizens are persecuted for any supposed connection to magic.

As a child of two wildly different cultures, Sona increasingly finds herself at odds with her family’s political allegiances. With etwahl in hand, her melodies now serve not only to provide comfort, but also to defend what she knows is right and just.

There existed, among the multitude of disgusting Bilgewater shipping warehouses filled with rusted knives and arms-length carnivorous rats, one Bilgewater shipping warehouse devoid of such things. Owned by a Piltovan arms dealer whose relative was recently murdered (and skinned and stuffed into a dockside horror house), it was primarily used to ship large quantities of high explosives—both powder and hex—to various enemies of peace across the continent. Most notably, the Noxians in Ionia, the Noxians in Shurima, the Noxians in Demacia, and, very occasionally, the Noxians in Noxus—the latter having recently sent a letter threatening to murder “the cheap bastard who was gouging them with their bomb prices.”

Said Piltovan owner-slash-bastard, deciding it was no longer safe to be the consigliere of colonial evil, therefore employed a group of heavily armed Azure Way mercenaries to guard his warehouse while simultaneously hiring a different group of heavily armed mercenaries to steal the entire hoard from under the first group’s noses. A great sum of coin was spent insuring this hoard so that in the event of a colossal chain explosion during a violent, hypothetical gunfight, the owner would walk away an ever-so-slightly wealthier arms dealer. A forward-thinking business decision, considering his heist crew consisted of notorious con artist Twisted Fate, and notorious bath-avoider Malcolm Graves.

Collateral damage was intended.

“What the blue hells is this? Some kinda setup?” Malcolm Graves correctly guessed from behind a second-floor catwalk, his large, meaty body only barely concealed by a double-wide pillar. Gunfire rained upward all around him, chewing away thick pieces of his cover and punching holes into nearby shipping containers—many of which displayed prominent illustrations of a frowning cartoon man being blown apart.

“Seems that way,” Twisted Fate replied, crouched nearby as he flipped a playing card over in his fingers. With each turn, its hues shifted from blue, to red, to gold—though when he got especially nervous, he couldn’t get the order right. This was a problem, considering the red ones caused large flaming explosions, the gold ones caused large glittering explosions, and the blue ones were not really that useful right now.

“Why aren’t you doing anything, ya jackass? I can’t even take a shot!” yelled Graves, his finger twitching over the trigger of his human-sized shotgun. He didn’t mind being shot at as long as he could return the favor.

“They’re set up behind a crate of gunpowder,” Fate snapped back, motioning around the room that was stacked floor to ceiling with volatile dry-pack explosives. “Unless you want to go down like the Dead Pool, we might need to figure out a plan B.”

“I don’t wanna do that!” whinged Graves, not specifying whether he meant dying or thinking. “This sucks! Why do we always gotta pick the weird jobs?”

“Because they pay the best,” replied Fate, perhaps more nonchalantly than the moment called for. “Ain’t a reflection on us.”

“Huh. Makes sense when you say it like that.” Graves pondered their predicament, wondering if his smoke bombs would cause the pair to immediately die by igniting some stray black powder on the warehouse floor, or if they’d die half a second later when one of the blinded fish-men accidentally fired his gun into a crate of dynamite. The second option sounded good. Really good. Really, really good.

“I’ve got a really, really, really good plan!” Graves announced, confidently holding out a live grenade. He glanced at the tiny frowning cartoon man on the boxes in front of him. “Don’t judge me,” he told him.

“What are you doin’?” Fate protested, his eyes widening in horror as Graves’ arm arced back for the throw. In his mind, he saw the two of them disintegrating along with a good portion of the Slaughter Docks—or at least Graves disintegrating, which would be inconvenient at best. “Malcolm, what are you doin’?”

“Wait!” boomed a voice from below. “Do not throw that!”

Graves, somewhat disheartened by the order, but equally grateful the gunfire had suddenly ebbed, lowered his smoke bomb. Fate, who in a state of panic had forgotten the color of the card he held, gripped a red one, which would have accidentally killed everyone if he’d mistakenly activated it to try and escape the warehouse.

The partners locked eyes for a moment, looked at their respective explosives, then back at each other.

“Mine was better,” gloated Graves. “Safer.”

The voice from below, now near hysterical, busied itself commanding the other mercenaries to stop firing wildly into a warehouse stuffed with bombs, specifically lambasting someone named Kouign who “should know better after last time.” The gunmen grumbled in turn. Or burbled, or blubbed, depending on the size and configuration of their prominently fishy heads.

As the unseen voice in charge moved about, Fate leaned over to Graves, pointing at his interior coat pocket. “You still got that blue card I gave you?” he whispered.

“What, the one from the Sentinels? Yeah, I still got it,” Graves answered at a normal volume.

“Quiet. Now what say we pop that sucker and get out of here? These guys are distracted. They’ll never know we left.”

“Nuh-uh, you already told me what all this is worth. You think I’m just gonna leave a score that big on the table? I got a mouth to feed: mine.”

“We shoulda died at least a hundred times already. Now’s the chance to cut our losses.”

“I’ll never die, because I’m the handsome protagonist. Everyone knows that.”

“Everyone knows squat. One stray bullet, and we’re all portraits at a funeral.”

“Your funeral, maybe. I beat Viego. That makes me the male lead.”

“The male lead? I am so tired of this damn story!” yelled Fate, immediately attracting the attention of everybody in the room.

“See? That’s your fault. Real deuteragonist behavior,” Graves gloated, about forty percent sure he used the word “deuteragonist” right.

Everyone collectively hesitated, each glancing around nervously as the realization of where they were and what, exactly, they had gotten themselves into began to sink in. Yet neither the pair of bumblers nor the rank and file Azure Way castoffs had the authority to end this standoff... Or really any standoff, as immediate and violent escalation is a rich Bilgewater tradition.

The tall hammerhead-shark man with a menacing harpoon gun and no shirt was also unable to end this standoff, but he did not know it yet. His name was Bombolini, and the two things he knew best were how to project an understated elegance for a creature of his stature, and how to know exactly what to say to command a room.

“What are you doing, you buncha ding dongs?” he shouted toward the catwalk. “You tryna vaporize half of Bilgewater? What kind of heist crew brings live ammunition to a powder job?”

Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate both (unwisely) poked their heads out from their cover, each looking into a different monocular eye of their newfound opponent. His steely gaze, his muscular figure, his mean-looking weapon that was clearly intended to skewer sea serpents. A second of recognition passed. Two seconds. And then, for some reason, three.

“Bombolini?” Graves asked.

“Malcolm?” Bombolini asked back. “Malcolm Graves? Is that you? Are... Are you robbing me?”

Graves let out a sigh of relief, relaxing his shoulders. This wasn’t just any dumb fish. This was a dumb fish friend.

“I’m not robbing you. I’m robbing the guy who hired you,” Graves explained. “I think he hired us, too. Which makes what we’re doin’ up here morally sound.”

“Us?”

“Hey, Bombolini,” Fate waved. “I’m robbing you, too.”

“Wha—” protested Bombolini. “Now wait a damn minute! You two blew me up! You blew me up on my own ship! We were partners, and you double-crossed me for the worst score this city has ever seen!”

“It wasn’t the worst,” retorted Graves.

“One jewel,” Fate corrected. “Ended up being glass.”

“Nah, that’s not right,” Graves said. “Had to be more.”

But it wasn’t.

Many years prior, Bombolini had been the unappreciated third member of the Graves & Fate crime duo back when they pulled small jobs for bad pay, and their posters were somewhat... unfortunately worded.

“Two men who will do anything (and we mean anything) to anybody (and we mean anybody) for the right price (any price),” the leaflets used to say, which, in addition to Bombolini’s complete erasure from the group, led to a number of rather avoidable miscommunications with prospective clientele. And thanks to Bilgewater’s rich tradition of violent escalation, these mishaps tended to end in bloodshed or minor dock explosions—ironically drawing enough attention to the upstart criminals that they became a popular mercenary outfit.

The leaflets remained unchanged for years, which made a young Bombolini deeply bitter. He eventually used his portion of the group’s earnings to buy a modest schooner, retire from criminality, and start a solo wreck-diving operation in the Blue Flame Isles that paid much better than robbery and coincidentally did not bill itself as some sort of pirate flesh carnival in bar flyers.

Also coincidentally, success tends to draw eyes, and two of those eyes eventually hired Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate to rob their former companion at a dive site near a Buhru ruin. Lacking any moral fiber whatsoever, the pair immediately accepted. The robbery instantly led to a small oil fire, then a large oil fire, then bloodshed followed by a minor schooner explosion. All the treasure sank with the ship... save, of course, for a single piece of sea glass.

Bombolini was assumed dead, the client was furious, and nobody got paid. All in all, it was one of the duo’s more successful heists.

“Didn’t you die?” asked Fate. “I’m pretty sure you died.”

Bombolini tilted his head, unable to see any part of himself thanks to the wide setting of his predatory eyes—though the attempt was quite valiant. “Does it look like I’m dead?”

“I dunno,” replied Graves. “Maybe.”

“Are we going to kill them, boss?” asked a fishman impatiently, this one a spotter resembling a large, bipedal goby.

“I second Goby,” said his partner, a hunched-over humanoid pistol shrimp with a rather impressive long gun. “You said these guys double-crossed you before, right? What’s their deal?”

Bombolini blinked, his walnut-sized brain chugging along as he attempted to remember what exactly their deal had been. After a few decades, one tends to forget the intricacies of their archnemeses.

Graves. Fate. Graves... but also... Fate. What is their deal?

Eureka.

He had arrived at something interesting. Something he could use. Something that would turn the entire confrontation on its head.

“They’re together,” he guessed confidently.

A pause.

“We know that,” replied Goby.

“No, they’re together,” Bombolini repeated, even more confidently. “I knew they’d end up with each other. Graves always had the worst taste in men, and Fate is the worst man I’ve ever met. It all makes sense!”

Goby shrugged. Shrimp sighed and turned back toward the pair of thieves above, adjusting the sight on his gun as he wondered why, exactly, he’d agreed to any of this in the first place.

Up on the catwalk, however, the mood was decidedly different.

“He thinks we’re together,” whispered Fate. “Like, together-together. A couple. Romantically.”

“I know what ‘together’ means, Tobias,” Graves whispered back, now decidedly more discreet than before. “But how do we use it? What’s the play? And why was he so mean?”

Fate stroked his chin with his free hand, flipping the errant red card into a gold card as he turned the question over in his head. The chance of everyone dying in a colossal fireball was still higher than he liked, but with Bombolini and his men off guard, now was the time for bold action. He needed something big. Something dumb. Something that would turn the entire confrontation on its head. He needed...

“I cannot believe you got us into this mess again!” Fate shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Graves while making sure most of his body remained hidden from the sniper. “This is just like you, never thinking before you show up! You’re too big, you have no finesse, and you packed hex-shots and grenades for a powder job! My ma was right, we shouldn’t have stayed together!”

Graves was taken aback for several reasons. The first of which is that he had never met Fate’s mother, and, up until this point, had not been sure she even existed. The second was that Fate had not explained the plan to him and was now making jabs at Graves’ rugged burliness and masterful heist preparation—both of which made him a statuesque prince among thieves.

“Hey, what are you sayin’? You’re the one always goin’ on about how you’re so clever, and yet here we are, pullin’ another garbage job where you’re gonna die and I gotta save you! If it were up to me, we’d be doin’ easy jobs, like individual murders and light-to-heavy extortion!”

“Yeah, because you have no vision!” Fate continued, emphasizing the word “vision” while winking prominently.

Graves did not register this right away, and continued to bluster about his partner’s many shortcomings.

“That’s why we always fight,” Fate winked again. This one broke through.

Down below, Bombolini was ecstatic among an otherwise bored or confused crew.

When one is double-crossed by an old friend, their emotional chemistry is irreversibly altered. It makes them paranoid, delusional, and most importantly, occasionally taken with intricate revenge fantasies.

Bombolini embodied all of this. He often liked to entertain one of these fantasies wherein his two most hated enemies had an immediate falling out in front of his steely shark eyes. This falling out would take place in some sort of room or vessel with a heavy explosive payload that would, at the apex of the argument, burst into flames and detonate, killing them both as the smoke spelled out “We’re sorry, Bombolini.” Then everyone would cheer, and he would be given a crown and a sash. Possibly a scepter.

It was a very intricate fantasy.

What was not part of the fantasy was being hit squarely in the chest by a well-aimed gold card and flying out of the shipping door into the sea.

“Now!” said Fate, dashing out from his cover and into an adjoining office as he splashed the bare walls with gold cards wherever the explosives weren’t stacked high enough to ignite. Each card burst with a dazzling spray of golden filament, temporarily stunning Bombolini’s mercenaries who then immediately began firing in all directions.

As Graves followed Fate through the suite and into the guts of the larger warehouse, a stray bullet buried itself in the crate Goby and Shrimp were using for cover, and the two fish-men froze. With bullets whizzing through the air, Goby looked at Shrimp, and Shrimp looked at Goby. What felt like an eternity passed between them.

“I think we’re sa—” said Goby, exploding.

The first blast rocked the entire structure as Fate and Graves stumbled along a flimsy metal suspension bridge over far more crates of black powder than their client had originally described.

“That’s not good,” said Fate with a glance below.

“It really isn’t,” replied Graves. “I know we was doing a bit, but on a personal and professional level, I am not happy with you right now.”

“You’re never happy with me, anyway! We gotta move!” exclaimed Fate as several armed mercenaries looked up from the gloom, suddenly noticing the two distinctly non-fishlike criminals above them.

Graves, now more emotionally wounded than he wanted to let on, tossed a smoke grenade over the side of the catwalk, enveloping the first floor in a thick cloud of caustic fog. “That’s usually fun, but my heart’s just not in it right now,” he explained over the sound of dry-heaving mercenaries.

“Why are you being such a big baby? You’re a grown man!” shouted Fate, attempting to move the action along as stray shots rang out across the powder storage floor.

“Stop calling me a big baby! You’re always taking shots at my size. I’m the muscle that saves the day every time you get your goose cooked. You’re ungrateful as hell, Fate!”

“I’m ungrateful? I’m not the one who disappeared for months to go fight some Camavor ghost prince, then rolled back into town one night like he owned the place.”

“He was a ghost king, and you’re lucky I fought him or we’d all be ghosts! You’d be a ghost, I’d be a ghost. Everyone would be a ghost!”

“You weren’t even there! You think I don’t read Shauna’s letters? Graves, I’m a con man, you can’t trick me. They left you outside while scissors doll and the shirtless wonder saved the day.”

“That ain’t how it went down, Fate,” said Graves darkly. “That’s just the story. We don’t talk about what really happened.”

“Oh, please! Your delusions of grandeur were annoying decades before you became Valoran’s number-one hero.”

“Is this still a fake fight or are we having a real fight? Because if it’s a real fight, I will punch that stupid hat through your mouth.”

“I think it’s a real fight! And you know what else? You do stink, and you don’t think things through, and live grenades were not the best call here!”

“Yeah, well, this is why we stopped working together the first damn time! Because you think you’re better than me, and you think you’re better than this!”

“And what if I am?” yelled Fate, only realizing what he’d said after he had said it.

From the burning, rupturing front of the warehouse, Bombolini’s surviving mercenaries poured through the service door and onto the catwalk, its bolts decoupling from the walls under their combined weight. Many of the gunmen were badly singed and filled with a roiling anger fit to match their newfound crispiness.

“We can fight later, dammit! Get yer behind out that door!” Graves commanded as he and Fate dropped their argument and made a run for the exit with a rapidly sinking catwalk buckling underfoot.

Six strides from the doorway, another blast tore upward from the powder floor, consuming the Azure Way mercenaries in a pillar of raging flame as the crates beneath them began to blow one by one. The smoke from Graves’ grenade, a highly flammable mix of stinging, blinding, and stinking components deployed for tactical measures, immediately caught fire—something Graves did not account for, despite his supplier telling him several dozen times that the smoke was flammable. This, of course, ignited and exploded even more crates of black powder, launching both the slick card-sharp and the daring bath-avoider through a crumbling brick wall, down one floor, and into a grimy foyer—also filled wall-to-wall with explosives.

Among their heists, it still counted as one of the more successful ones.

“Ugh,” groaned Graves. “That sucked.”

Fate fumbled above his head to make sure his hat was still there, and only when he confirmed its safety did he hold his screaming ribs. “Yeah, it did.”

“Tobias, if we don’t make it out of this... I just wanna say one thing.”

“What is it, friend?” smiled Fate.

“I hope you die first,” Graves cough-laughed.

“Aw, shucks, that’s sweet.”

The warehouse shook again as debris and chunks of roof smacked hard against the floor, smoke poured through the gaping second-story hole in the wall, and flames licked tightly packed boxes of hexplosives—these emblazoned with a different frowning cartoon man in the process of blowing up.

“Did no one notice how wildly unsafe this was?” asked Graves, hobbling toward what appeared to be a service exit.

“It’s Bilgewater, Malcolm. Nobody notices anything.”

“Nobody... except for me!” said a familiar, if slightly raspier, voice.

Bombolini, now sporting a thick purple bruise in the center of his torso, stepped theatrically before the duo, his harpoon gun primed as his large, sharky shape stood between Bilgewater’s most-noticed mercenaries and the only way out. Graves caught sight of a damp, shark-shaped spot on the dock outside. Bombolini had likely been hiding there, waiting minutes for this reveal.

“Gods, not this donut again,” Fate muttered.

“And yet, it is!” Bombolini exclaimed, stifling a cough. “Do you know what I thought when I saw you two after all these years? After all that time, all that—”

“Not interested,” said Graves, pointing his massive shotgun at a container of explosives directly next to the shark-man. Graves pulled the trigger, the gun fired, and everything went up in smoke.

Several hundred arm spans from the rupturing warehouse once filled with far too many explosives to actually steal, Malcolm Graves and Twisted Fate suddenly appeared in the air a length and a half above a quaint little fishing pier... along with some residual smoke and flame, as Fate’s teleportation timing had not been perfect. The two crashed onto the ground with Graves’ gun landing squarely on his stomach. The sound he made was a bit like “uhbloof,” though it could have been any number of other expletives.

“Those blue cards sure are useful,” Fate bragged from flat on his newly injured back, dusting off his hat with the arm that wasn’t cradling his possibly broken ribs. It had been a long day.

“Yeah, but they’re never useful in the beginning,” wheezed Graves, a little toasty and bruised, but otherwise none the worse for wear. “We should use them before a gunfight breaks out. For stealing and whatnot.”

“That takes the artistry out of it. You don’t build a name for yourself by sticking to the shadows—you have to give the people a show!” Fate replied as the warehouse’s frame sagged in the distance and flames erupted furiously from still-unexploded payloads. He theatrically twirled his hand a bit, as if to underline the point.

“Fair,” said Graves, unconvinced.

The pair sat up in their blackened clothes, watching everything explode and then explode some more. It was almost romantic. If one considered that sort of thing romantic. Which, interestingly enough, they did.

“So, uh... what now?” Fate said, breaking the silence as quickly as possible. “Double-cross our dirty client? Dig a grave for whatever’s left of Bombolini?”

Graves chuckled. “Oh, we’re definitely doing that first thing. Nobody tries to blow me up without me blowing them up. As for Bombolini... I’d bet good money the shark is still out there. He’s like me. Too dumb to explode.”

“My friend, you’re the most brilliant dummy I ever did meet,” smiled Fate. “You’ll never explode. And I mean that sincerely.”

“Damn right,” puffed Graves. “Though, now that we’ve had it out... you and I need to have a conversation.”

“Right,” Fate sighed. He was tired of looking for ways to avoid apologizing, and all the adrenaline made him feel better about breaking his cardinal rule of never doing it for any reason.

He still wouldn’t say the word “sorry,” though. That was a bridge too far.

“Malcolm, I did not mean to imply that I was better than you. When we dissolved the business—”

“Stop, stop, stop,” said Graves, laying his shotgun behind himself as he dangled his legs over the water. “I already hate this. Apology accepted—next round’s on you.”

“Good man,” replied Fate thankfully, gazing across the sea as the sun began to set.

Graves looked over at his partner to add another quip, but noticed, perhaps for the first time, that there was a certain angularity to Tobias’ features that he had thus far failed to appreciate. A strong jaw, a shockingly unbroken nose, a bold choice in semi-fashionable hats. He was an objectively terrible person, but maybe the right kind of terrible for...

Uh-oh, he thought.

Malcolm Graves, now much older, only somewhat wiser, but infinitely more worldly, measured his next words more carefully than most things he did or said on any given day. Which was especially surprising to him, since navigating the complex relationship between two criminal masterminds such as themselves was not really his strong suit, nor had he ever given it much thought. He wondered... Why worry so much about Tobias’ opinion of him? It wasn’t like it mattered. They had their roles, after all, and—

“Malcolm,” Fate interrupted. “Do you have a concussion?”

“It’s possible,” Graves sighed, but not in a sad or tired way. More of a concussed way.

“Alright, let me look,” said the very injured Fate, brushing Graves’ hair aside as he looked for signs of a bruise. “We both know you’re a durable fella, but neither of us is invincible.”

“Not like Bombolini,” said Graves, confused by the welling excitement over Fate playing with his hair.

“I am legitimately dumbfounded by that,” Fate offered. “I remember that boat heist. Our old friend was caught in the middle of a deeply vicious detonation.”

“Deserved it, though. I do not have terrible taste in men. I have good taste in terrible men, and there is absolutely a difference.”

Fate finished inspecting his partner’s head, which didn’t exactly produce any new information, as he didn’t know what a concussion was supposed to look like. He gazed at Graves’ rugged features as the setting sun danced across his boyishly unkempt hair, and then considered all of those words together in a sentence, and then immediately recoiled at the complete thought. “Your taste isn’t terrible, Malcolm. It’s catastrophic.”

“Catastrophic?” Graves fired back. “Name one example. You can’t.”

“The Northman,” Fate said almost instantly. “The trader with the cockroach tattoo. That Buhru cultist—”

“Not a cultist.”

“Tried to sacrifice us both, but sure, not a cultist. The whale guy. The octopus guy. The second whale guy.”

“Orca.”

“An orca is a kind of whale. The monk. The vastaya. The Noxian.”

Graves winced. “Alright, he was bad.”

“A Noxian, Malcolm. From Noxus. People talked about that one.”

“More racist than I would have preferred in a man, in hindsight,” Graves allowed. “But it ain’t like you’re bringing home the greatest lovers in history. You ain’t that slick.”

“Excuse me, I am very slick,” Fate protested. “No matter the size, shape, make, or model, none can resist the charms of Tobias Felix. I have conned hundreds—nay, thousands—of dew-eyed tourists across the whole of this vast and gullible land.”

“Not this one,” laughed Graves, a little too forcefully. “Or, uh... you know.”

“Y... yes, of course, I am aware,” Fate responded, not making eye contact as he fiddled with his hat.

The two sat in silence for a while. Or relative silence, considering the towering flames and brutal detonations and screaming and shouting in the distance.

“Sweet Tommy Kench, look at that sucker burn,” said Graves, still dangling his legs off the pier like the world’s grungiest adult child. “Tobias, I’ve been thinking. And don’t get me wrong, I do love a crime or twenty, and you’ll be there for literally all of them—”

“What about Shauna? Or that lady with the laughing jar?” asked Fate with a tinge of poorly concealed jealousy, despite Graves having been gay for the better part of four decades.

“Vayne,” Graves corrected, more deliberately than was necessary for such a normal and casual conversation between platonic business associates, “is a good friend. But she’ll only help if we’re killing monsters. And for the love of all that’s sacred, never call her ‘Shauna.’ She will break your neck by looking at it. As for the other one... I don’t even want to deal with that right now.”

“She’s scary,” said Fate. “Never seen clothes like that before. So many hands.”

“She’s very scary,” Graves agreed. “I’m afraid she’s gonna kick me through a wall or something.

“Point is, I’m meeting new people. I’m seeing the world. Piltover. The Shadow Isles. I saw Camavor, Tobias. I’m expanding my horizons. I might even want to expand ‘em more. Hear Ixtal’s opening up. Could be good money out there... you know... if you wanted to come along for the ride.”

He rustled through his coat, producing a familiar blue playing card. “In which case, I probably wouldn’t need this anymore. Since you’d be around.”

Fate chuckled. “Why don’t you hold onto that for now? Think of it as... a souvenir.”

Graves grinned, slipping it back into his pocket. “I do like the sound of that.”

The partners smiled foolishly at this, each imagining various swashbuckling criminal misadventures while sitting at an awkward physical distance apart.

“But, you know, as, uh... partners,” Graves specified.

“Yes, obviously. Partners. In crime,” Fate added.

“Nothing else.”

“Nope.”

“Nada.”

“No sir.”

They concluded this exchange with a simultaneous fake cough. Graves looked unblinking at the water, and Fate looked at the underside of his hat. Far off in the distance, the warehouse burned and burned.

It was, all in all, one of their better heists.

Anivia is an ancient Freljordian demi-god who represents the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth, intrinsically associated with the changing seasons. To those who venerate her, she is the elemental soul of the Freljord—a symbol of hope, and a sacred catalyst of change.

Stories passed down through the ages often tell of how she rewards those who are kind and humble. On the rare occasion a mortal glimpses her—or at least claims to—she is described as a noble spirit-bird of ice, with glittering wings that span the heavens, and a piercing cry that can be heard over even the fiercest storm.

The songs of the nomadic Notai tribe tell how Anivia’s birth first brought snow into the world. When she burst from her giant egg of ice, tiny pieces of it were hurled into the sky, and it has fallen as snow ever since. And, according to the sagas of the Mourncrow tribe, the frigid winds that scour the Freljord originate from the first beats of her wings.

Indeed, the full power of winter is Anivia’s to command, and to those who seek to desecrate her homeland, she is a bitter foe. When roused to anger, she can cleave fortresses and mountains, and her screech can summon blizzards cold enough to shatter steel.

One of the most enduring and respected beliefs is that Anivia’s greatest gift to the Freljord was the creation of True Ice. Infused with elemental magic, this unmelting substance is pure and potent, and the greatest seers and ice-mages have long strived to use shards of True Ice to amplify their might, while weapons that have even a tiny sliver forged into them are deadly beyond belief.

When mortals first arrived in the Freljord, Anivia welcomed them. Seeing that they could not withstand the cold, she guided them to secluded valleys where they could shelter, become established, and slowly harden themselves against the elements. She nurtured and watched over them for those first precarious centuries—and they, in turn, worshipped her.

Anivia hoped that these newly arrived tribes would remain unified in defending the Freljord from outsiders… but slowly, infighting and blood-feuds became all too common, making an invasion inevitable. According to legend, a greedy southern king marched his warriors up through the mountains, seeking to claim dominion over the northlands and shackle their wild magic for himself. So enraged was Anivia at the outsiders’ hubris and disrespect that she blasted them with a snowstorm that lasted a century and a day. Scattered standing stones can still be seen on the Scouring Plain, which the locals claim are all that remain of that ancient army.

Other tales include the Avarosan legend of Ulla Shatter-Spear, an Iceborn warmother who was favored by Anivia for saving a young hawk from a rimefang wolf. Across her lifetime, the Cryophoenix protected Ulla from harm, and when she finally fell in battle, having witnessed almost a hundred winters, it is said that Anivia welcomed her with wings spread wide.

If all these legends are true, then Anivia must have witnessed the rise and fall of countless mortal civilizations. While there are still some dwindling remnants of those earlier times, most have long been forgotten, and buried beneath millennia of ice.

But death cannot touch Anivia herself. The sagas speak of how she has been struck down and slain a handful of times throughout history, though she is always reborn—for as long as the Freljord exists, her soul is immortal. While it may be hundreds or even thousands of years before she rises again, each rebirth coincides with the dawning of a new era. Thus, her appearance, while regarded as a wondrous blessing, is often the harbinger of something terrible on the horizon.

Once, it is said, she sacrificed herself against a march of towering Balestriders. Anvia knew she could not slay these colossal creatures, and so she plunged into the ice beneath their feet, shattering her own body in order to entomb them.

Recently, some claim Anivia has hatched from the egg once more, and that she has appeared before the new leader of the Avarosans—the Warmother Ashe. In her, perhaps Anivia sees one who may be able to finally reunite the Freljord.

Yet if the Cryophoenix has indeed returned, as more and more shamans and spirit walkers proclaim, then it must be asked: what great threat has she come to face?