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To be exiled is to be erased.

You are not forgotten. You never existed at all. Each beat of your heart is judged unworthy of counting. Even a slave wears chains, proving their value. Even the dead are mourned.

I am nothing to the Kiilash who birthed me. The name Rengar no longer recalls the face of their kin, son of Chieftain Ponjaf. I am outcast from their hearts as much as their hearths.

There is no return from such a fate.

Or so I was told. Years and blood can change such things.

My heart still beats, and so I went to them with trophies gathered on the hunter’s path. Wordlessly I was brought before my father’s gaze. He offered me a return to the tribe, where my name would be spoken and face remembered, where my heart’s beating would be counted again.

And he named the cost for such a thing.

I must track a shadow. Bladed shard of moonless night. Abomination.

Return from the jungle with its head, and I shall be exiled no more.

I melt between the trees. I hear, smell, feel. I parse the spoor of a thousand creatures, big and small. This comes from instinct, sharpened by the cold teachings of the human who found an outcast, and set him down the path of the hunt. I still bear the knife Markon gave me.

I search for the wrong-thing that dwells here, unable to belong.

The trophies that hang and rattle from my coat are gone, left behind at my camp. There is only the blade, a layer of grease to slicken my fur, and the slow, measured beat of a hunter’s heart in my chest.

There is nothing, amid the teeming life of the rainforest… until there is something. It is faint, but stark, slithering over my senses. The sickly sweet unfamiliarity of it halts me for a moment as I take it in. It is wrong in every way. Repulsive. An enemy to life in ways I cannot describe. It defies everything around it.

The true hunt begins. I follow the trail.

I snake around it, never touching. I endure the wrong-thing’s scent, until the sounds of bloodletting reward me.

Something is dying. Through the trees ahead. It is not dying well.

A pack of jungle raptors. Far from the apex, raptors are still capable predators, and rarely ever prey. Their attacker is either desperate with hunger, or unconcerned by their lethality.

I bare my teeth in a grin. It may be a challenge after all.

The reek of the wrong-thing is overpowering. It clings to the clumps of bright, bloody plumage strewn about the forest floor. I surge up a thick, rugged tree trunk, my claws carrying me silently into the canopy. I crouch there in the leafy shadows, tasting the humidity of the air, narrowing my eyes, seeking my quarry.

It has speed. That is a weapon it has honed to a fine edge. I catch only glimpses as it darts back and forth, finishing its kills and preparing to feast.

The promise of trophies does not spur it to hunt. I sense a greater hunger in its movements, something beyond the primal urge to survive.

When the last raptor dies, the wrong-thing slows. Even so, it is never still. It leaps and slides across the ground like smoke. I can see it more clearly now. It makes my brain itch.

It is like an insect, but not completely. Its parts do not make sense. Limbs and flesh and shell and claws that cannot belong to the same single creature—all inside a glistening outer skeleton, blackish-purple like rotten fruit. The air and light writhe around it. They do not want to touch it either.

That gives me the understanding I seek. The wrong-thing bears the mark of an exile, too. I am ready to send it back to whatever foulness spawned it.

With Markon’s knife light in my grip, I drop from the branches.

There is no sound when I land behind the creature. It pays my approach no heed. I know how to move unseen, unheard, until those sweet, adrenaline-filled moments after a killing blow is struck. I have risen to become an apex predator by adaptation, by instinct… and in this moment my instinct screams that something is not right.

Hesitation saves my lifeblood from joining that of the raptors. I barely see the claw as it slices the air I would have occupied. It knew I was coming. Had I not stopped short, it would have ended me then.

Everything has been too clean. Too easy. I should have recognized this sooner. Ponjaf’s promise has blinded me, confidence soured to hubris, leaving me exposed.

A slick chittering comes from the monster’s throat. Ichor flecks its jaws. There is movement on its back, straining against the carapace. It hisses, a noise I cannot tell is of pain or pleasure, as a pair of new limbs erupt and unfurl into hideous, dripping wings. It has seen the threat I pose, and so it changes. It is unwilling to submit as prey.

I lunge.

Too slow. The creature’s riposte sends Markon’s knife spinning from my grip. Foolishly, sentimentally, my eyes follow it for an instant. The error opens the way for the wrong-thing to strike.

Another bladed claw flicks out. Hot, stinging pain. A roaring between my ears.

I fall back. Blood slicks my face.

I scramble to gain distance, trying to blink the red from my vision. The right eye is a blur. The left remains dark. The roaring will not fade.

I reach for my cheek. I realize what the beast has taken.

Beating the last of the vile slime from its wings, the wrong-thing rises to hover over me. It bares its fangs, either in further challenge or a cruel grin, and holds my left eye up for me to see. Slowly it lowers the blood-slick orb over its fangs, and drops it down its gullet.

My gorge rises. I clench my fists, rubbing at my remaining eye.

The defilement of it. The symbolic shift as this foul creature snatches the role of hunter away from me. I no longer feel any pain. Only rage.

I hurl myself at it. I need no knife. I have the claws I was born with, and the triumphal roar I learned for myself. I will not be defeated.

We collide.

The red dance of violence seems unending. We each give chase in turn. The abomination is cold darkness. I am the core of a vengeful sun. We cut away at each other, over and over, and the rest of the world no longer matters.

Finally, as night falls, my enemy flees.

Or… is that just as I wish to see it? Maybe it learned all it can from me, and instinct guides it on to greater things. Exhaustion takes hold. I collapse, left with bloody wounds and a new, terrible sense of connection to this monster. It is a bond forged in the moment it ate of my flesh.

The Kiilash know the wrong-thing as Kha’Zix.

In the old mortal tongue, it means, “You Face Yourself”.

True enough, it changed as we fought, growing and twisting. It went forward, always forward to find its edge, where I looked back into myself, back into the past and the tribe of my birth, to summon my exile’s fury.

This was not enough. As it has adapted, now so must I.

For I will have my kill.

Rengar smelled the blood before he saw the dead humans. Six or so, he estimated, but it was tough to get an exact count thanks to the number of pieces they’d been torn into. Their swords were strewn about the meadow, as useful as dulled cutlery.

He knelt, licking blood from the ground.

Cold to the tongue. Still sweet, yet bitter with the taste of iron.

It had been spilled less than an hour ago.

Turning over one of the stray limbs in his hand, Rengar found a line of greenish saliva dangling from where the arm had been ripped from its body. He raised the stump to his nose and sniffed.

The saliva smelled foul, like a corpse that had rotted in a puddle of excrement. Just raising it to his nose nearly made Rengar want to vomit, and he had a stronger stomach than most.

He smiled his wide, toothy smile. The creature who inflicted these wounds would be easy to track.

Rengar watched from the brush as the razorhide worked its claws around an old man’s skull and crushed it between its boneteeth. It howled in disappointment, evidently unimpressed by the lack of a crunch.

The giant, four-legged beast stomped through the elderly man’s tent, crushing it with a single step, then biting at the canvas and tearing it apart.

Tossing aside the man’s bedroll, it howled in delight as Rengar heard the scream of a young boy.

Little one.

Frightened. Good fear. Delicious fear.

Time to eat. Time to silence screams. Time to—

Pain.

Pain on the back of its neck. Sharp and hot. Something bit it? No. Another pain, then another. Sharp stabs. Something with a weapon. Something with some fight in it.

Maybe something tasty.

Rengar held onto the kirai saber with one hand as the razorhide bucked back and forth, trying to dislodge him. With his other hand, he grabbed a knife and punctured the beast’s leathery hide over and over. He knew he’d never kill the beast this way, but he’d get it bleeding. Confuse it.

With any luck, panic it.

The razorhide dropped to its stomach and rolled over, taking Rengar with it. It was fast—much faster than Rengar would have thought for a creature of its size. He barely had time to dislodge his blades and jump away.

The two combatants got to their feet. Blood trickled down the razorhide’s scales, each one sharp enough to sever a limb. Combined, the scales made for a nigh-impenetrable defense and a thousand small weapons all at the same time. It circled Rengar, sniffing the air. Rengar could tell he’d never win a straight fight against it. It was too big, too quick, too strong.

A lifetime of scars had taught Rengar the secret of hunting. It wasn’t about being strong. It was about knowing when to withdraw, and when to attack.

Right now? It was time to withdraw.

He sprinted away from the village toward the tall grass surrounding it. The razorhide leapt after him in pursuit, its feet pounding the earth. Rengar could hear it behind him. He could be hidden in the grass soon enough, but the razorhide would catch up to him long before then.

He just needed a few extra seconds.

One-eyed vastaya will be delicious. Only one thing tastier than something young: something that just tried to kill you.

Stomp the cat-beast to death before eating? No. Better to swallow him whole, feel thrashing grow weaker and weaker until it deliciously stops.

Unhinge jaw. Bite down, feel warm spurts of blood—

Tripping. Falling. What?

Some sort of weapon—three balls, tied together with leather—tangled around legs.

Bad.

Still. Broke free easily. But cat-beast gone. Only slight rustle in tall grass to show where he went.

Bound into field after it. Cat-beast: small, scared.

Me: big, fast.

Will stomp all tallgrass down if it takes—

Pain.

Warmth running down hind legs. From where? Behind?

No cat-beast. Ran away again.

Pain. New pain, in side. Annoying. Not problem. Just annoying.

Start running. Doesn’t matter which direction. Put distance between us. Regroup.

Turn around. Where vastaya? Maybe ran away. Maybe hiding, waiting.

This was the best part. Invisible within the tall grass. His prey cautious, but not smart enough to be terrified.

The momentary silence before the attack. Before the quarry realized just how helpless it was. Before the howls of pain, and the blood, and the adrenaline, and the joy.

Rengar threw his head back and roared.

Where roar coming from? Sounds like everywhere. Not roar of anger. Not roar of fear.

Excitement.

Getting closer.

No. This was a mistake. Out in the open. Run. Run back.

Hard to breathe. Why?

The wound in the side. Deeper than it felt? Throat wet. Choking. Blood.

Don’t slow down.

Where is village? This way? No. The other.

Vastaya still roaring. Still getting closer.

Run. Doesn’t matter where. Just r—

Flash of metal. Cool air blowing on stomach.

No, inside stomach.

Feel self growing lighter. Sound of something wet and heavy hitting the ground. Many wet and heavy things.

Look back. Guts. Fluid. A trail of red and green.

Pain. Stinging pain, throbbing pain, stabbing pain. Everywhere.

Can’t stand up. Legs buckle. Breathing hard. Hear footsteps coming closer.

Sound of knife leaving sheath.

Feel something. Something new. Something terrible. Not hunger, anger, joy.

Fear.

Rengar approached the prone razorhide, its feet still kicking at the air as blood poured from the massive slash across its belly. Its eyes were dilated.

What trophy would he take? The skull? The mane?

The creature lifted its head and worked its jaw, biting at the air out of anger or confusion.

Rengar smiled. The creature’s boneteeth were sharp. Smooth.

One of those would make an impressive addition to his necklace.

Far, far from the harsh deserts of the Great Sai, over savanna plains and mountain steppes, lie the great jungles on the border of Ixtal and Shurima. Swathed in mystery, they are home to wild, fantastical beasts, and dense forests blooming with life. But while there is overwhelming beauty to be found there, danger and death lurk nearby in equal measure.

No one knows how Nidalee—in the form of a cub—came to be alone in the heart of the jungle, but it was her cries echoing through the trees that captured the attention of the jungle's fiercest cats: the pakaa.

A mother, roaming with her cubs, approached Nidalee. Perhaps it was her scent, or a mother’s intuition, that led the great cat to accept this strange kit without hesitation, half-leading, half-dragging her back to their den. 

Nidalee was raised in the company of the pakaa, who treated her as one of their own—a creature of the jungle. She grew up playing alongside the other cubs, learning to hunt with tooth and claw and to stalk the jungles for her prey. She grew into her role as a member of the pack and as a capable huntress.

Even so, at times Nidalee began to lose control of her own body. Without warning, her paws would change to strange hairless hands and feet, her sharp fangs to blunted teeth. Occasionally she would stumble from the den, delirious with fever, her body caught in a state of half-transformation as she followed the hazy silhouettes of two strange figures—they whispered after her, their voices jumbled but sweet. They brought Nidalee a sense of comfort and warmth, even though her feline family had taught her to be wary of outsiders.

And with good cause.

It was at the height of the summer rains when she first encountered the Kiilash. These vastayan hunters ranged into the forests every season in search of prestigious kills and trophies to show their prowess. Nidalee's mother tried to chase them away, but fell, wounded by their blades and spears.

But before the Kiilash could finish the aging wildcat, Nidalee lunged from the undergrowth, howling with grief and rage. As she tore into them with razor sharp claws and fangs, they rounded on her with even stronger weapons. 

But something had changed.

She felt the spirit of another heritage, long forgotten, rise up within her. Transforming from pakaa to something resembling a human, she grabbed a hunter's lunging weapons with cat-like reflexes and nimble fingers and turned it upon her enemies. The Kiilash growled and hissed at this sight, and to her surprise Nidalee found she understood some of their speech.

They cursed her, invoking the name of their Vastayashai'rei ancestors as they retreated from the fight, empty-handed.

Hurling the spear aside, Nidalee held her dying mother close. Her siblings approached, wary of her new form but comforted by her familiar scent. With the passing of their mother they came to accept this shapechanger as their new leader—from that day forth, she vowed to defend her adopted home against any who would seek to plunder it.

Over time, she learned to better control her powers, eventually shifting between both forms with ease. She also became more adept with her new form, learning to take advantage of her surroundings while building traps and weapons unknown to the pakaa, crafting healing salves from honeyfruit, and utilizing seeds and flowers to protect and illuminate her territory. And in the back of her mind, she wondered whether she was the only one of the pakaa who could change their shape.

Perhaps it was a yearning to find others of her kind that led her to the chameleon-like wanderer Neeko, and the two became inseparable for a time. Nidalee delighted in mentoring her inquisitive new companion, and they reveled in exploring the jungle's numerous wonders together, before Neeko eventually departed to follow her own destiny beyond Shurima's shores.

Even now, the dense forests remain the last truly untamed wilderness in the known world, and something of an enigma even to Nidalee. Still, in rare, quiet moments, the huntress finds herself dwelling on her own origins—and her encounter with the Kiilash—and whether she will learn the truth behind any of it…

Trolls are, for the most part, hulking and brutish creatures, found in many of Runeterra’s least hospitable environments. Though not invulnerable, they are blessed with a hardy constitution and the ability to heal more quickly than other mortal races—especially the feeble humans. This means they can endure extremes of climate and scarce resources merely by out-surviving their rivals, and this is the most likely reason some of the largest known tribes still call the mountains of the Freljord home.

Trundle was whelped in a filthy cave, along with a brood of fifteen brothers and sisters. Times were particularly hard, so that only seven of them grew strong enough to join the ranks of their chieftain’s warband… and only three remained after their first winter of raiding.

As the warband feasted, the chieftain spoke of his intention to circle back and raid the same lands again. All would fear them. It would get easier every time.

Frowning, Trundle stood up, and said this plan was no good. The people they had crushed had nothing left for the tribe to take—they should return next winter when the granaries were full again, and the livestock grown big enough to make more than a single mouthful.

Many of the other trolls did not like this at all. They ground their teeth and thumped the sides of their heads, trying to comprehend what Trundle was suggesting. Was he a coward? Had the cold got into his brain and turned it to slush? The chieftain beat Trundle with a rock, and threw him away down the mountainside. Fools had no place in his warband.

Trundle wandered far, for he knew he would not be welcome anywhere nearby. He avoided other troll tribes scattered across the tundra, and was careful to keep his distance from the feral yetis that roamed the highlands. By night, he gazed up at the stars and remembered all the stories he had been told as a pup—legends of Grubgrack the Wise, and other ancient troll kings, who followed the old gods and were gifted powerful weapons as symbols of their right to rule the world.

Eventually, Trundle came to a great crack in the ground. While he was glad to be out of the wind, he soon found himself lost in a maze of twisted, howling canyons that seemed to sink deeper beneath the Freljord than the mountains rose above it.

And at the very bottom of that abyss, he met the Ice Witch.

She waited for him on a shimmering, frozen lake, surrounded by little human warriors skinned in furs and metal. Trundle was not daunted by any of this; but the Ice Witch wanted to know how he had found his way here, into the very heart of her domain, and how he was able to walk upon her lake.

Trundle looked down. The ice beneath his feet was darker than the night sky, far overhead. It made his brain want to squirm around inside his skull.

The Ice Witch told him he was special—something called “Iceborn”, which meant he should stay there with her. But Trundle did not want this, and told her how he had been cast out by the chieftain, and that he wanted to find a great weapon and become a troll king like Grubgrack and all the others. To his surprise, the Ice Witch agreed, and handed him a mighty club of ice called Boneshiver. With this, he could become king of all trolls, and form a great alliance with her human tribe.

He eagerly agreed, and began the long journey home.

When Trundle arrived, the chieftain laughed in his face… until Trundle bashed him over the head with Boneshiver. In an instant, the old troll was frozen solid by the club’s icy magic, and a second blow shattered his body into tiny pieces.

Awed by Trundle’s newfound strength, the rest of the warband listened to his tale of the Ice Witch, and the alliance she had promised. Trundle was smart. Trundle had been chosen to wield great power. Trundle would be their king.

And with Trundle leading the charge, the time of the trolls is surely coming.

If there was one thing Marcin knew how to do, it was to keep his head down.

Before him, rowdy voices intermingled with the clatter of tankards and the sloshing of beer. Every once in a while, someone barked a drink order, and just as soon as their coin landed on the bar, a drink slid in front of their waiting hands. His quick and silent service kept him unnoticed—and as such, uninvolved in any trouble.

And there was always trouble.

It took on many forms. A belligerent brawler, itching for a fight. A transaction among cloaked figures that ended with a dagger through a throat. Or, perhaps most unexpectedly, a little girl, pushing through the heavy tavern door.

Marcin watched the girl hum and skip her way toward the bar. Behind her, the door slammed shut, one last swirl of winter air blasting across the room, the loud bang grabbing the last few eyes that weren’t already following her, baffled by her presence.

The girl clambered up a stool, barely peeking over the edge of the bar. Marcin took in the child’s bright red hair, the tattered toy clutched in her grip, the frayed satchel on her back, and the ragged, unseasonably short-sleeved, dress.

“What can I get for you?” he asked.

The girl stood on the stool and plopped her toy on the counter, peering at the many bottles on shelves. Marcin could see it was a stuffed bear, once well crafted, since well loved. The stitching at its limbs were visible after many years of stress. Somewhere in its life it had lost one of its button eyes.

“Could I get a glass of milk, please?”

Marcin raised an eyebrow but said nothing. He walked toward the far end of the bar to fetch the ceramic jug.

“Awfully late for you to be out by yourself, ain’t it?” a deep voice rumbled.

Marcin sighed. Trouble always attracted more trouble. He pulled the jug down from the shelf and gazed back down the bar. A large man next to the girl had turned to peer down at her with his one good eye. Seated in front of him, the girl looked like a pebble at the foot of a mountain. He was a pile of muscles criss-crossed with scars. The loops of ropes, chains, and hooks at his belt, along with the massive blade slung across his back, loudly announced him as a bounty hunter.

The girl looked up at him and flashed a smile. “I’m not alone. Tibbers is here with me. Aren’t you, Tibbers?” She held up the bear, beaming.

The bounty hunter laughed out loud. “Surely your parents must be missing you.”

The girl’s hands dropped to her side as her eyes drifted down and away. “I don’t think so,” she replied.

“Aw, but I do think so. Would pay a pretty penny to see you home safe, I imagine.” Marcin could practically hear the coins clinking in the bounty hunter’s mind, the man already tallying up the prize for her safe return.

“They can’t. They’re dead.” The girl plopped back down on the stool, staring into the button eye of her bear.

The bounty hunter started to speak again just as Marcin placed the mug down on the counter with a percussive thud.

“Your milk,” he said.

The girl turned and beamed at him, breaking from her sullen mood.

“Thank you, sir!”

She set her bear on the table and reached back into her knapsack. Marcin waited, prepared to accept any coin she put down as payment enough.

He did not expect the massive purse that landed with a clatter.

A few golden coins bounced onto the counter, one rolling toward the edge. Marcin stopped it on reflex, one finger pinning the escapee. Slowly, he lifted it from the bar, its heft and texture proclaiming it as authentic Noxian mint.

“Oopsie!” the little girl giggled.

Marcin swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. He reached over, hoping to shove the coin and the purse back into the girl’s satchel before anyone else noticed—

“That’s a mighty big purse for a mighty small girl,” the bounty hunter growled, far too loudly.

“Tibbers found it,” the girl replied.

The bounty hunter snorted. “Is that so?”

“It was on the man who stopped me in the road. He was a real meanie.” The girl took a sip of her milk, her attention back on her bear.

“That’s too bad…” The bounty hunter leaned in closer on his stool, hand sliding towards the purse.

The girl looked up at him, a playful smile dancing across her face.

“Tibbers ate him.”

For a moment, everything stood still. Then the bounty hunter’s laugh cut across the room.

“I’m sure he did,” he roared. He thrust a meaty hand forward, grasping the toy by the head and yanking it away from the girl. “This big ol’ scary monster.”

“Let Tibbers go!” the girl cried out, reaching up for the bear. “He doesn’t like being pulled.” The bounty hunter just laughed harder.

Marcin pocketed the coin in his hand and turned away, walking unnoticed toward the back. He wished he could help, but he hadn’t survived this long by sticking around longer than he should.

Her voice stopped him cold.

“I said. Let. Tibbers. Go.”

The words rumbled with gravel and rage, cutting through the din. Against all his better judgement, Marcin paused and looked back. The girl stood on the bar, staring at the bounty hunter, fury smoldering in her eyes.

Then chaos erupted.

A flare of light and a burst of heat erupted from the girl. Too late, Marcin threw his arms up, crying out in pain. He stumbled back, knocking into the shelves behind him. Several bottles crashed around him as he ducked beneath the bar, cursing his idiotic hesitation. The screams of men and the sound of breaking wood punctuated a growing roar of flame. A guttural, impossible sound reverberated through the air, rattling his bones. Marcin crawled, still half-blinded, toward where he hoped the doors to the kitchens were. Around him, the screams heightened—then stopped with a stomach-turning crack.

For the second time that day, Marcin forgot all his honed skills of avoiding trouble and peered over the edge of the bar.

A hulking beast loomed, silhouetted against the firelight. Thick strands of sinew bound its limbs to its torso like stitching. With a start, Marcin realized the beast itself burned, unharmed by the hungry tongues of flame that danced across its fur. In its claws it held aloft, by the head, the slumped, bloody form of the bounty hunter, a limp rag doll in the massive paws of the monster.

Before it, the little girl stood wreathed in fire.

“You’re right, Tibbers,” she said. “He didn’t like being pulled either.”

Marcin looked around the room in horror. Throughout his tavern, overturned chairs and tables ignited, raising a thick, black smoke. The smell of blood and burning flesh crawled inside his nose, and Marcin choked back a cough, his stomach turning.

The beast turned and looked at him.

A whimper escaped Marcin’s lips. He gazed into the glowing abyss of the bear’s eyes, and swallowed in the certainty of his end.

A peal of laughter rang out over the crackle of flames.

“Don’t worry,” the little girl said, peering around the monstrosity. “Tibbers likes you.”

Marcin watched, frozen, as the girl hopped, skipped, jumped her way through the burning tavern, the beast lumbering behind her. He stared as it smashed the heavy door off its hinges. He gaped as the little girl turned back one last time, a sweet smile back on her face.

“Thanks for the milk, sir.”

And then, the girl walked out into the snowy night as the tavern collapsed behind her.

There’s light under the earth, if you know where to look.

If you know how to look.

I don’t need light to see. Not anymore.

My eyes only ever saw in degrees of darkness, but the sight I now have shows me much more than I ever knew was possible. Now, I perceive colors that don’t exist in nature, as well as hues and shades that reveal how the walls keeping the monsters out aren’t solid at all—they’re as thin as a painted backcloth hung by a performing troupe.

Sometimes I wish I didn’t see the things I do, but then I remember that I’d have died a long time ago if I hadn’t adapted to life down here.

And sometimes I wonder if dying would have been better.

The man I’m dragging behind me doesn’t see like I do. In fact, he’s pretty much blind in the darkness. The only light is the faint glow smoldering in the bulbous pods growing out of my shoulders.

Not nearly enough light for human eyes to see clearly, at least not at the speed we’re moving.

He’s scared and stumbling with every step he takes.

Down here he’s nothing, but on the surface he’s a leader, the hetman of a desert settlement.

That’s why I took him. He needs to see the danger of what’s down here, to fully understand how much danger his people are in.

I’m half dragging, half lifting him, which would be hard if it wasn’t for the strength my living armor gives me.

It clings to my skin, all across my body, as if a thousand tiny hooks are digging into my flesh. I’m not even sure where its undulant yet rigid surface ends and I begin, anymore. It used to be painful, and I used to hate the rasping, cat’s-tongue feel of it enfolding me.

But now I don’t mind it at all, because it means I’m never truly alone.

I used to think I could hear it whispering in my head as it grew and spread across my body, but I think that was just my own voice trying to keep me from going mad from pain and loneliness.

At least, I hope that’s what it was.

The rock beneath me is smooth and glassy, made so not by the flow of molten rock, but by the passage of the things that live deep in the earth as they ooze up from below like worms through a rotten honeyfruit.

The people on the surface name this underworld by what it does, by what it is.

Void.

I’ve been down here long enough to know that name doesn’t even begin to capture the true threat and horror of what lurks in the darkness below—of what the Void really is. The monsters that reach the surface to hunt and kill are just the vanguard of what lives beyond, and they aren’t like anything the people above can understand.

If they really knew the truth, they’d never come within a thousand miles of where Icathia once stood, but mortals are so very good at forgetting. The passing of years lessens the horrors of the past. What was learned in blood and suffering now lingers mostly in travelers’ scary stories told around a fire, or in folk traditions. Hang some Pearls of the Moon over your hearth, say a prayer to Nasus to watch over your home, or leave some goats out to appease the beasts’ monstrous hunger.

But the creatures of the Void aren’t like ordinary predators.

When I was little more than a babe in arms, I remember seeing a swarm of pack-hunting kmiros bring down a wounded skallashi. I cried my eyes out, but I didn’t hate the kmiros for killing the gentle giant. It was just their nature. The creatures of the surface kill to eat. They’re hungry, not evil.

The Voidborn will kill you just because you’re alive.

“Please,” begs the man behind me. I’d almost forgotten I had hold of him. “Please let me go.”

He lets out a wracking sob as I stop and press him hard against the wall.

I can’t decide if he thinks I’m going to kill him or let him go.

A violet glow swells around my hands, lambent blades of killing light.

Their sudden appearance shifts my vision and I see the radiant threads of magic in his blood as it flows around his body.

Wisps of it lift into the air with every panicked breath and every tear that rolls down his cheeks. It’s faint, almost nothing, but the Void predators will sense it, and be drawn like sand-flies to dung.

My armored skin wants to feed on him, and I recoil as I realize a part of me wants to as well.

He’s weak, like everyone on the surface. It would be a mercy to just plunge my blades of light into his body than to have his soul be unmade by the monsters below.

No! I protect the people on the surface. That’s why I’m the girl who came back.

I push down the murderous urges of the suit, and the glow fades from my stiffened fingers. I take a shuddering breath, closing them into fists.

My vision returns to normal, and I look around to see we’re not where I thought we’d be.

We’re much closer to the surface than I expected, which makes what I’m seeing doubly dangerous. The rock of the tunnel shimmers like a cave ceiling over an underground lake, rippling with light from a dimension unknown to the races of the surface.

We’re at the edge of a depthless abyss where the boundaries of two realms ebb and flow like the sand seas at Zoantha. It looks like a glowing ocean of sickly light, swirling in a constant state of unraveling and renewal. It churns with titanic energies that sometimes form hideous outlines—like the submerged leviathans said to dwell beneath oceans I’ve only ever heard about in stories.

It’s dangerous to be this close, but I need this man to see.

Soulless, black eyes coalesce to stare up from below.

Spirals of matter take horrid shape.

Hunched spines unfold, grasping limbs stretch, and hooked claws form in the liquid insanity, lunatic evolution weaving translucent monsters into being with shrieking, piercing birth-screams.

They’re here…

“Open your eyes,” I tell the hetman.

My voice is distorted through the molded mask of the suit—a wet, animal snarl that sounds like no mortal tongue. He shakes his head. He can’t understand me.

The words sound like I’m choking on blood.

With a thought, the chitinous plates of my helm peel back, sliding over one another as they unfold like the carapace of an insect retracting its wings.

“Open your eyes,” I say again, and this time he understands.

He lets out a cry of fear as he sees my human face.

What do I look like now?

Am I so different than I was? Do I look like I belong down here?

I have not seen my face in such a long time. I hope it still looks like I remember.

The light swells and he turns toward the abyss.The swarming, growing things within it are reaching up to us, and his eyes widen in fear as he finally sees why I brought him here.

Thousands of chittering monsters, rising from an ocean of madness that reaches to the heart of the world and beyond. I don’t know what it really is or where it comes from.

All I know is that it births an endless horde of misbegotten nightmares that claw their way up through the rock with the implacable urge to kill and unmake the world above.

Their tide is on the rise, and I’m the only one who can stop it.

I lean close to the man and say, “Do you see them? Do you understand?”

He nods in terror and I let him go.

I watch the hetman scramble up to the light of the surface, then turn as I hear the scrape of claws on rock behind me. Arms that would be impossible in nature hook over the edge of the abyss, dragging a monstrous horror of rasping armor plates, bony protrusions, and flesh the color of something stillborn. It’s still wet and glistening from its arrival into this world, but it has infinite malice in the black eyes that ripple to life on its upper carapace. Blade limbs unfold from its pallid belly, and a lipless mouth tears open across its throat, a wide gash of gleaming white fangs and drooling ichor.

Others quickly follow it, smaller, but just as vicious. Their very presence distorts the air, and slivers of dissolving matter rise like black smoke from the rock beneath their claws.

The stink of their nearness is horrifying, and furnace heat spreads throughout my body.

Threat response fills my limbs with power.

Once, I fought such urges, but I understand now that they kept me alive, that they allow me to fight back.

The carapace mask draws down over my face. My vision shifts again.

It used to be jarring, this transition, but now I welcome it.

I see in light. In life and my prey’s vulnerabilities. I am a predator again.

The plates molded to my shoulders shift and reshape as the glowing pods snap up. Blinding light builds within them, and I shriek as a painful flurry of searing bolts streak toward the creatures.

The smaller ones instantly detonate in explosions of purple fluids and unnatural flesh.

Their blood splashes me, and the curved plates of my armor greedily drink it in.

My gorge rises in disgust, even as it nourishes me.

I sprint forward, snapping my arms out and wreathing my hands in blades of light. I vault into the air, pushing off the tunnel wall to blast the larger horror with pulsing streams of violet fire. Its body tears open and tar-black ichor spills out.

It screeches in pain, lashing out with its impossibly angled limbs.

I land in their midst and roll under its blades, rising to a crouch and unleashing another stream of bolts. They burn its flesh with incandescent fury, as though fire conjured from their own kind is more lethal than any other.

I flip backward as its body crashes down, but it’s not dead… whatever that means to the Voidborn.

It draws the blood of the smaller creatures up into its limbs, drinking their very essence. Webs of light and twitching matter knit its flesh together, like a weaver sewing a torn blanket. Its huge bulk convulses, rippling as it reforms wounded flesh and pushes out new limbs, hardening areas of weakness. Burning tendrils of dark light spray from its splitting flesh, cracking like whips against the ground.

Solid rock runs like wax as its very permanence is undone. One lash glances against my knee, and I stumble as a portion of my armor bleeds off in a bloom of black smoke.

I see my skin beneath, bleached of life and vitality, like the blind reptiles that make their burrows beneath the desert crags. It sickens me to see it, but I can’t tell if that’s because the flesh looks dead, or because it reminds me of what I used to be.

The thought has slowed me.

Only for an instant, but that’s enough. The Voidlings and hunter creatures swarm me.

A thing almost twice my size barrels me from my feet. Its claws tear at my chest, its teeth snapping shut over my head. Its teeth cut deep grooves in my faceplate, and I look down its thrashing, tooth-filled gullet as its proboscis tongue seeks a way in.

I jam my fists against its body and blast a torrent of purple fire into its body until it can contain no more. It explodes in a welter of bony cartilage and unnatural meat, and my suit feeds on the unleashed energies of its death.

Claws and teeth slash and bite. I roll aside, more violet flame jetting from my hands. I leap and twist away from their attacks. Sheer weight of numbers works in their favor, and more of the creatures are swarming over the edge of the abyss.

A boiling tide of organic plates, claws and fury that will swiftly overwhelm me.

My shoulder pods erupt with increasingly powerful streams of killing fire, but it won’t be enough to stop them. I don’t know if the Void is capable of hate, but I feel like these monsters hate me. They see me as something of their world, but also as something they must destroy.

I wonder if their perception of me is so different from that of the people above.

They surround me, and I remember the skallashi brought down by the kmiros.

But I am no prey animal. I can fight back.

I spin on my heel, drawing a ring of purple fire around me with my burning fists.

Its power drives them back, giving me space to breathe. I see a path, and take it. I weave through them, leaving a trail of sundered bodies in my wake. My speed is uncanny. I see the creatures around me moving as if they’re in a stupor. They can’t keep up with me, and I kill them with every pummeling blast of flame and every strike of my fire-bladed hands.

Then I’m clear.

Turning, I sprint from the abyss.

Not so fast as to lose them, but fast enough to stay ahead.

I lose track of time.

Down in the dark, that’s easy to do.

I sometimes forget what the sun looks like, or how we used to follow the shadows to know what part of the day we were in.

For someone born of the burning sands to forget the sun makes me want to cry. I have memories of its blazing light reflecting on water, of a golden eye in the sky, and joyous heat filling my chest with every breath.

But they don’t feel connected to me anymore.

It’s like I’m remembering a thing someone told me, not something I knew or felt myself.

I push the memories away.

They’re distractions that’ll slow me down and get me killed.

But I can’t help it. The core of me, the part that’s still a little girl, keeps showing me these things, keeps trying to remind me of who I used to be.

The creatures from the abyss are still after me, filling the tunnels behind me with their screeching, clawing bodies. I’ve been leading them away from where I let the hetman go, drawing them into the deeper desert, back toward the lost land they came from.

I’ve done this many times before, and this won’t be the last time.

I fight and I run, never letting them surround me.

It’s a dance.One that never ends.

Their hunger is palpable. I’ve killed so many of them, but there’s always more.

I try not to think of their endless numbers. To think too much about that would sap my will to fight, and I can’t let that happen. Not while there’s still people in the world above I care about.

Like the sun, their names and faces are drifting further away from me.

But I know they’re still above me. I go there sometimes, just to remember what it feels like to see the sky above me. Or to breathe air that isn’t wet with the bitter flavor of somewhere terrible and utterly hostile. It’s been a long time since I ventured to the surface. The longer I spend there, the more I feel its air start to burn me. I’m afraid I’m becoming more used to the darkness, that the sunlit world above doesn’t want me anymore.

I remember when I met a girl up there.

She was young, like I was once, and she didn’t hate me. She saw what I was and she didn’t run in terror like most people do. She saw who I used to be, but that’s not what most people see.

They see the suit, and feel its primal urge to unmake them simmering behind my eyes.

They can’t help it, and I don’t hate them for it, but it hurts.

It hurts to know I used to be just like them, and now…

Now I don’t know what I am.

But for all that I’ve changed and become something they hate and fear, I’m still holding on to what makes me human. If I can just hold on to the part of me that was a little girl once, I can turn the awful things that have happened to me into something good, something noble.

But I can feel it slipping away.

What will I be when I can’t remember her?

A change comes over the Void creatures.

I sense it almost immediately, a turn in their purpose. It’s hard to know what changes, but it’s clear that their pursuit of me has shifted, like they don’t care about me anymore.

Like they have better target for their ferocious urge to destroy.

A terrible suspicion fills me, and I surge away from the creatures behind me.

My armor makes me faster than them, and I move through the tunnels like a ghost, taking the crooked paths that only I know about. I feel the ferocity of the chase fade as I circle around, climbing back to the surface and feeling the hot tension of the world above.

I’d been trying to keep the monsters close to me, trying to lure them away from the settlements on the surface, but when I emerge into the sunlight through a hidden cleft at the top of a solitary spire of bare rock, I see how horribly wrong I’ve been.

I thought I was leading the monsters away, truly I did.

A giant skull has been set upon a boulder atop the spire, a marker of sorts.

It’s a warning. A sign that these lands are not safe.

I know that’s what it is, because I put it here.

One foot on the skull, I look down at a settlement full of people.

My helm unfolds from over my face, and I see with my own eyes.

Beneath me are neat and ordered streets, running between finely made buildings of sun-baked bricks. At the settlement’s southern end are the silken awnings of a bustling market, and I see a disc of gold on the roof of what I think is a temple. The sounds of laughter drift up to me on the spire.

I smell roasting meat, animal dung, and the heady aroma of spices.

They are the smells of life, the everyday texture of the world above.

For a second I’m transported back to my half-forgotten youth, and the corners of my mouth curl in what might be a smile.

Then I remember what lurks beneath the sands, and the half-formed smile falls from my face.

My heart pounds in my chest and I fight to draw breath.

Don’t they know the danger they’re in?

The inner surfaces of my armor clamp down hard on my flesh, and I sink to one knee with the pain of it. It’s hungry to feed, and I wonder how much of my path has been chosen by me, how much by its design.

My senses are finely tuned to the denizens of the Void.

They’re close, so very close, and rising to the surface. Somewhere out in the desert.

I feel the imminence of a breach like the pressure in the air before a storm.

The mask slams back into place, filling my vision with patterns of light and heat.

I look back to the settlement as I hear the clash of steel, and a shouting voice.

My gaze drifts to a martial field set at the settlement’s edge, where scores of armed men and women are lined up. I watch them, confused as to what they’re doing until it hits me.

They’re training to fight.

A man is shouting at them, filling their hearts with courage and their souls with fire.

I can’t hear his words, but I can see his face as clearly as if he were standing right next to me.

It’s the hetman I dragged below the earth.

I vault from rock to rock as I make my way down to the settlement.

The nearness of the Void creatures is a building pressure in my skull.

It won’t be long before they’re here.

I leap through an animal enclosure, scattering the livestock as they catch my scent, and panic.

The people of the settlement don’t notice me at first. Then I hear the cries of alarm spread as they see my armored form in their midst. I’m heading straight for the hetman, and I already feel anger pounding in my veins.

I showed him! Why didn’t he listen? I took him to see the horrors below. I wanted him to feel the terror of their very existence and to carry that terror back to his people.

But all I’ve done is strengthened his resolve to stand and fight.

Every person that dies here will be my fault. Their blood will be on my hands.

I wanted to prevent this, but I’ve made their deaths inevitable.

Men and women scatter before me, terrified despite the weapons they carry. The hetman’s face hardens. The last time I saw him, he was terrified, but his terror has turned to hate.

His eyes tell me he thinks I’m here to kill him, and maybe I am.

My mask snaps open as I come to a halt before him.

“Why are you still here?” I scream, tasting the hot desert air. Underneath the smells of the settlement, I feel the growing presence of the Void. It’s like biting on a copper coin. “Go!”

“Back, demon!” he snarls. “You are a herald of the beasts!”

For a moment, his meaning is lost on me. Then I understand.

“You think I bring the monsters…?”

“I know you,” he spits, advancing on me. “You are the Void’s daughter. Wherever you walk, the monsters follow.”

I shake my head, ready to throw his accusation back in his face…

Then I wonder if he’s right.

I fight the Voidborn wherever I can, wherever I find them.

I hold my hand up before me, seeing the hair-fine threads of violet light shimmering in the sculpted plates of my armor. Until now, I have always thought it was part of me, that I controlled it, but what if my control isn’t so complete as I thought? I assert my will, and the veins of light fade.

Is it possible? Are the creatures of the Void drawn to me?

No, I would know. I’d know if I was somehow drawing them deeper into the world.

My doubt turns to anger, and the blades of light brighten around my hands.

“I escaped you once before,” said the hetman, raising his sword. “And we will fight the beasts you command.”

“You escaped me?” I say, incredulous. “Is that what you think happened?”

He swings his sword, but I block it easily. He’s not skilled with a blade, and it’s easy for me to dodge his attacks. I circle him as he swings again and again. The townsfolk are gathered around me, screaming at their leader to strike a deathblow. My armor responds to his every attack and their aggression, filling my body with the urge to fight, to kill.

They see the second skin I wear, but they don’t realize how much danger they’re in right now.

Not from the Void. From me.

They can’t see the girl beneath. They don’t want to see her.

It’s easier for them to believe I’m a monster.

I feel anger and betrayal harden my heart to them. Why should I fight to save them? Why do I fight to hold on to my humanity, when it hurts so much to remember all I’ve lost?

Why not just become the monster they think I am?

Wouldn’t that be easier?

But then I look beyond the hetman’s angry face, to the grandparents watching from the doorways of the homes they built with their own two hands. To the young mothers clutching newborns to their breasts. And beyond even them, to the thousand daily displays of love and the small acts of kindness that go unnoticed every day in the world.

That’s why I fight the monsters.

I stand for the people who cannot stand, because there’s no one who fights quite like me.

Because if I don’t stand for them, who will?

And what will be left of the girl who came back if I don’t?

But every war requires sacrifice. I’ve made so many already—now I know I need to make yet another. This time it won’t be me that pays the blood price, but I’ll carry it all the same.

I turn a full circle. Everyone is looking to the hetman. He’s their strength, the only reason they’re still here. He’s filled their hearts with courage and the will to fight an enemy that can’t be fought, can’t be bargained with, and which only gets stronger with every life it consumes.

There’s only one way to end this without everybody dying.

I block yet another clumsy swing, and as his sword goes wide, I spin inside his guard to hammer my light-bladed fists against his chest.

Searing energy pours into him, filling his body with light. His every vein, nerve ending, and bone burns with searing brilliance for an instant before his body explodes.

It’s awful, but I can’t stop now. I feel the nearness of the Void as a terrible, twisting pain in my gut. The texture of the air abruptly changes, and I know the Void has climbed to the world above.

It’s on the surface and it’s coming here now.

I turn away from the molten, disintegrating ruin of the hetman as his body falls to the sand, barely recognizable as something that was once human. People scatter in terror as my shoulder pods slide up and fill with killing light. I feel the fiery pressure build within me, aching for release.

I unleash a salvo of spiraling light, blasting a deserted grain store to blazing rubble. Burning seeds and baskets spill from the ruins. I obliterate the market with more flashing bolts, and the silk awnings rise up like the burning sails of a sand-clipper as they catch light.

Purple-white fire streaks through the settlement and explodes with devastating force. People run screaming as I destroy their homes. They think I’m trying to kill them, that I’m doing this because I’ve become something monstrous, but that’s just not true.

I only destroy buildings my helm’s vision shows me are empty.

I demolish unmanned walls and barricades—anything that might give them hope they have a chance against the Void.

I’m not trying to kill them. I just want them to run.

Night has fallen as I watch from the spire of rock above the burning settlement, one foot braced on the skull I left as a warning marker. The horde of Voidborn climbs toward me in a rush of snapping fangs, misshapen limbs, and inhuman forms.

It sounds like a swarm of voracious insects devouring a harvest crop.

There’s too many to count, almost no way to tell where one beast ends and the next begins. It’s just a mass of teeth and claws. Unbridled destruction given form.

They sense my presence here, and I make no attempt to run.

Because if they’re coming for me, they’re not going after the people of the settlement.

The horizon burns with a sick light that doesn’t belong in this world, and forking traceries of vivid, purple lightning flash up from the sundered ground deep in the desert.

The settlement’s inhabitants have long since fled, leading their animals behind colorful wagons bearing what possessions they couldn’t bear to leave behind. They’re already many miles west, moving in a long column like the dormun-riders of old.

They’ll follow the sand roads to the new-flowing waters, moving on until they can begin again.

And that’s the point. To begin again they need to be alive.

I remember their faces as they looked back at their lost homes. They pointed to me high up on the spire, and cursed me. The memory of their faces still pains me. So full of fear and hatred.

They’ll carry that hate with them, telling stories of the forsaken girl who isn’t a girl anymore. They’ll tell how she killed their heroic leader before destroying their homes. The tale will grow in the telling, as Shuriman tales are wont to do, until I’ll be known as a heartless murderer, a killer of women and children.

The carapace slides back across my face as the first of the monsters scramble onto the ledge. Violet fire sheathes my hands. I feel the familiar rush of excitement as my body fills with heat.

If this is what I need to be to keep my people alive, then so be it.

That’s a burden I’m willing to bear.

I’ll be their monster.

Urgot always believed he was worthy.

As a headsman, an executioner of the weak, he was a living embodiment of the Noxian ideal that strength should rule, making it a reality with every swing of his axe. His pride swelled as the bodies piled ever higher behind him, and his intimidating presence kept countless warbands in line.

Even so, a single word was all it took to seal his fate. Sent to distant Zaun to eliminate a supposed conspiracy against the ruler of Noxus, Urgot realized too late the mission was a setup, removing him from the capital even as the usurper Swain seized control of it. Surrounded by agents of the chem-barons, and enraged that everything he believed was a lie, Urgot was dragged down into the chemtech mines beneath Zaun. He was defeated. He was enslaved. He was not worthy after all. He endured the mine’s hellish conditions in grim silence, waiting for death.

In the Dredge, death came in many forms…

The mine’s warden, Baron Voss, would sometimes offer freedom in return for a prisoner’s tortured confession—granting it with the edge of her blade. From the screams that echoed through the tunnels, Urgot learned about the wonders of Zaun. There was something special about the city, something marvelous and evident even in the secrets that spilled from slit throats. Urgot didn’t know what it was until he was finally brought before Voss, fearing that she would break him.

But as the baron’s blade cut into his flesh, Urgot realized that his body was already wracked with agony, far beyond anything Voss could inflict. The Dredge had made him stronger than he’d ever been as a headsman.

Pain was Zaun’s secret. His laughter drove Voss back to the surface, and a reign of anarchy began in the depths.

Seizing control of the prison, Urgot reveled in new trials of survival. He found the parts of his body that were weakest, and replaced them with scavenged machinery, technology created by those who would die without it—necessity being the mother of pain.

The guards could no longer enter the areas Urgot had carved out of Voss’ grasp. The prisoners themselves were more afraid of their new master than they were of her. Many even grew to hold a fanatical respect for Urgot, as they were forced to hear his feverish sermons on the nature of power, his grip tightening around the necks of those who would not listen.

Only when a Noxian agent arrived in the Dredge was Urgot finally forced to confront his own past. Though the spy recognized him and sought his aid in escaping, Urgot beat him mercilessly, and hurled his broken body into the darkness.

It was not strength that ruled Noxus, Urgot now realized, but men… and men were weak. There should be no rulers, no lies, nothing to interfere with the pure chaos of survival. Starting a riot that ignited a chemtech vein within the mine, Urgot shook the city above, and cracked the prison open in an explosion that rivaled the birth of Zaun itself. Many prisoners died, with thousands fleeing into the Sump—but the worthy, as ever, survived.

From that day, Urgot’s reign of terror only grew. A hideous fusion of industrial machinery and Noxian brutality, he slaughtered chem-barons and their lackeys one by one, gathering a following among Zaun’s downtrodden masses. He was said to be a new savior, one who would lift the boot of the oppressor from the neck of every common Zaunite.

However, his actions did not make such distinctions, as Urgot tested the worthiness of the meek and the powerful alike. To any who found themselves spared in his deadly trials, his message was clear: he was not there to lead, but to survive. If others were worthy, they would survive, too.

When Urgot finally struck at representatives of the Piltovan merchant clans, the Wardens were forced to intervene, hauling him in chains to a fortified prison cell—though this merely seemed to confirm “the Dreadnought” as a legend among the gangers, the sump-snipes, and the forgotten.

For Piltover is not the first to shackle Urgot, and one must wonder if any cage can ever hope to hold him for long…

Poppy had nothing against the briar wolf, aside from the fact that it was about to maul her. Its muzzle was stained crimson from a previous kill, and the yordle wouldn’t chance being its next. She was hot on the trail of a renowned monster slayer, and she didn’t intend to die before she found the man and judged his worth.

“You should step back. You won’t survive this,” Poppy told the wolf, holding her hammer aloft as a deterrent.

But the briar wolf was not discouraged. It padded toward her, propelled by some strange desperation that Poppy couldn’t identify. Then she saw the telltale foam at the corners of its mouth. This animal was not driven by hunger or territorial instincts. It was in pain, and it wanted release. The wolf leapt at her, as if it had made up its mind that its next act would be to kill or be killed.

Poppy swung the hammer, using every ounce of her strength to move the weapon’s considerable weight. The blow she delivered collapsed the animal’s skull in an instant, ending its torment. Poppy took no pleasure in the kill, but she supposed it was the best possible outcome, for her and the wolf.

The yordle looked around at the empty meadow, but sensed no trace of the monster slayer she’d come to find. She had roamed the countryside, following rumors of his activities, hoping this mysterious hunter might be the fabled hero she had sought for so many years. But thus far, all she’d found were wolves and wyverns and highwaymen, most of whom she’d been forced to kill in self-defense.

She had spent weeks traveling from hamlet to hamlet in the far-flung corners of Demacia. She walked as fast as her tiny gait would allow, but the monster slayer always seemed to be one step ahead of her, leaving naught but tales of heroic exploits in his wake. For a yordle, time is a curious thing whose passing is seldom felt, but even for Poppy, the search was beginning to grow long.

One day, just when she was beginning to doubt herself and her mission, she spied a notice nailed to a roadside post:

“All are invited to attend the Festival of the Slayer!”

It was a celebration to honor the very monster hunter Poppy had been seeking. If there was any hope of locating this elusive hero, she would certainly find it there. He might even make an appearance, and then she could size him up in person to determine if he was worthy to carry the hammer Orlon had bequeathed her. The prospect put a spring in her step, and she marched with renewed purpose toward the celebration.

Poppy was anxious when she arrived at the village, its banners and streamers gaudily proclaiming the day’s festivities. Ideally, she would have arrived early at such a public event and claimed a spot in the rear of the crowd, so as not to draw attention. But the main market was already packed with spectators, and Poppy found it hard to maneuver through the press of bodies. She squeezed through the legs of the townsfolk, most of whom were too inebriated to notice her.

“I’d buy ’im a pint if ’e were here,” slurred one voice above her. “Saved my goats by killing that monster.”

Poppy’s heart raced, as it always did when she heard tales of the hunter.

What if he turns out to be the one? she thought.

But deep inside, Poppy asked a different question. What would she do once she was rid of the weapon? Would she find an entirely new purpose? A yordle without one was a pathetic sight indeed. She stopped her mind from wandering and brought it back to the task at hand.

The tiny warrior finally managed to weave her way to the back of the market. She found a tall lamppost both easy to climb and behind the eyes of the crowd. She then shimmied up the post, just high enough to see over the throng.

Poppy was just in time. On the far side of the market, a speaker stood with several Demacian officials on a dais, and behind him, something tall was draped in a ceremonial veil.

Even with her keen yordle senses, Poppy could barely hear the man’s words. He was talking about the monster hunter, and how he had saved numerous farms and villages from wyverns, rabid wolves, and bandits. He said that although this revered warrior had chosen to remain anonymous, it shouldn’t stop them from celebrating his deeds. The slayer had been spotted several weeks ago near the town of Uwendale, leaving the first eyewitness accounts of his appearance. With that, the speaker pulled off the veil to reveal a stone statue.

Poppy grew faint with excitement as she saw the hunter’s likeness for the first time. He was the paragon of a Demacian warrior—seven feet tall, armored in heavy plate mail, and rippling with sharply defined muscles. Beneath him lay the corpse of a wolf he had presumably slain.

Just as the image had begun to settle in Poppy’s mind, she heard the sound of a child’s voice a few yards away.

“Look, Da. It’s the slayer! The one from the statue!” declared the wide-eyed girl.

Poppy saw the girl was pointing in her direction. She whirled around to see if the slayer was standing behind her. But no one was there.

“No, lass,” said the girl’s father. “That one’s no monster slayer. Too small by half.”

The girl and her father quickly lost interest and strolled through the village to partake in the various amusements.

As the crowd in front of the statue dispersed, Poppy moved in for a closer inspection. Now she could see the fine details of the hunter’s marble depiction. His hair was long, fair, and bound in two separate side knots. His hands were gnarled from a hundred battles, and in them, he held a massive battle hammer not unlike the one Orlon had given her. If there was a truer hero in the kingdom, Poppy had never seen him.

“He has to be the one,” Poppy said. “Hope I’m not too late.”

She turned and left the festival as fast as her legs could carry her, taking the swiftest route to Uwendale.

As unpredictable as he is brutal, the dethroned reaver king known as Gangplank is feared far and wide. Where he goes, death and ruin follow, and such is his infamy and reputation that the merest sight of his black sails on the horizon causes panic among even the hardiest crew.

Having grown rich preying upon the trade routes of the Twelve Seas, Gangplank has made himself many powerful enemies. In Ionia, he incurred the wrath of the deadly Order of Shadow after ransacking the Temple of the Jagged Knife, and it is said that the Grand General of Noxus himself has sworn to see Gangplank torn asunder after the pirate stole the Leviathan, Swain’s personal warship and the pride of the Noxian fleet.

While Gangplank has incurred the wrath of many, none have yet been able to bring him to justice, despite assassins, bounty hunters, and entire armadas being sent after him. He takes grim pleasure in the ever-increasing rewards posted for his head, and makes sure to nail them to the Bounty Board in Bilgewater for all to see whenever he returns to port, his ships heavy with loot.

In recent times, Gangplank has been brought down by the machinations of the bounty hunter Miss Fortune. His ship was destroyed with all of Bilgewater watching, killing his crew and shattering his aura of invincibility. Now that they have seen he is vulnerable, the gangs of Bilgewater have risen up, fighting amongst themselves to claim dominion over the port city.

Despite receiving horrific injuries in the explosion, Gangplank survived. Sporting a multitude of fresh scars, and with a newly crafted metal arm to replace his amputated limb, he is now determined to rebuild his strength, reclaim what he sees as rightfully his – and to ruthlessly punish all those who turned against him.