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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

—From The Twenty Wisdoms of Nagakabouros

Born into a wealthy and influential merchant clan, Caitlyn Kiramman swiftly learned the social graces of life in Piltover, but preferred to spend her time in the wilder lands outside it. Equally adept at mingling with the moneyed elite of the City of Progress or stalking a deer through the mud of the forest, she could confidently track a bird on the wing over the merchant districts, or put a shot through the eye of a hare at a hundred paces with her father’s repeater musket.

Caitlyn’s greatest assets, however, were her intelligence and willingness to learn from her parents, who reinforced her understanding of right and wrong, even within a life of comfort and privilege. Her mother was one of the highest comptrollers in Clan Kiramman, and would always warn Caitlyn of Piltover’s seductions, and its gilded promises that could harden the kindest heart. At first, Caitlyn paid little heed—to her, Piltover was a place of beauty and order that she cherished after each trip into the wild.

All that was to change one Progress Day, some years later.

Caitlyn returned to find her home ransacked and empty. The family retainers were all dead, and there was no trace of her parents. Caitlyn secured the house, and immediately set out to find them.

Tracking within the confines of a city was very different from hunting in the wild but, one by one, Caitlyn located the thugs who had invaded her family home. The trail eventually led her to a hidden safehouse, where her mother and father were being tortured for information. She rescued them under cover of darkness, and alerted the Piltover Wardens… though not one of the kidnappers they arrested knew the identity of the individual who had hired them—only a proxy with the initial C.

Caitlyn and her parents began to rebuild their lives… but something fundamental had changed. Her mother in particular could no longer face the politics and duplicity of clan life, and gave up her prestigious role, leaving something of a vacuum in the Kiramman leadership. And, though she loved her parents dearly, Caitlyn had no desire to take her mother’s place, nor to learn her father’s trade as an artificer.

Instead, her focus turned toward breaking through the web of intrigue surrounding the mysterious "C". Utilizing her hunting skills, she established herself as a private investigator, and quickly made a name for herself as someone who could find anything or anyone. In recognition of her self-made success, Caitlyn’s parents crafted her a hextech rifle of exquisite artifice, with greater accuracy than any musket. The weapon could take a variety of specialized shells, and be easily modified in the field.

After a particularly traumatic case involving a missing hextech device and a series of child abductions, Caitlyn was summoned by the Wardens.

She had been recommended by one of their number who had also developed something of an affinity for stranger cases—and their battle with a host of rogue chimerics in the employ of a lunatic chem-researcher driven mad by his own concoctions led to her being offered a formal position as a sheriff. At first, Caitlyn refused, but eventually came to realize that the Wardens’ resources could potentially get her closer to discovering the true identity of “C".

Caitlyn has since become a highly respected officer within the ranks of the Wardens, always striving to make the City of Progress a better and safer place. She recently partnered with a new recruit from Zaun, the brash and reckless Vi. How such an unlikely pairing came about—and been proven so effective—is the subject of wild rumor and tavern speculation among their fellow Wardens, as well as those they haul away to jail.

What Caitlyn doesn't know, however, is that "C" is also keeping tabs on her... especially as her investigations bring her ever closer to the truth.

An age ago, when time itself was young, the inhabitants of the celestial realm regarded the fledgling races of Runeterra with growing concern.

These creatures deviated wildly, unpredictably, and dangerously from the great designs intended for them by those above. The guidance and fates that had been woven into the night sky often went unseen—or worse, were misinterpreted by their simple mortal minds, leading to chaos, uncertainty, and suffering.

No longer able to merely watch, one celestial being chose to descend to the mortal realm, determined to untangle the knots in the tapestry of the world. This child of the stars took on a form of flesh and blood, and though the powerful magic coursing through her veins burned this new body from the inside out, she knew her suffering meant little if she could help to heal all that was broken and incomplete.

And so Soraka came to be, and set upon her journey to soothe the mortals she encountered.

Even so, she quickly learned the capacity for cruelty that the peoples of Runeterra possessed. Whether on the battlefields of inescapable conflicts, in the seedy underbellies of sprawling cities, or on the frontiers of the untamed wilderness beyond them, there seemed to be no end to the fighting, betrayal, and suffering Soraka witnessed. She watched, helpless, as mortals ignorantly broke the threads of destiny they could have woven together. Their lives were too short, she reasoned. They were simply unable to see the greater patterns, now lost.

But as Soraka lived among them, as one of them, trying to repair what little of the damage she could… something incredible and wholly unforeseen happened.

From the snarls and tangles and knots, the messy breaks in the great patterns, Soraka noticed a new, unintended design emerging—intertwined, and of a staggering complexity.

Unintended and wild, the mortals were forging new and unknown futures for themselves. From the celestial realm above, it had seemed like pure chaos; but with her new perspective, and blessed by the stars to stand against the erosion of time, Soraka now beheld an almost perfect beauty. Just as mortals had the deepest capacity for cruelty, so too did they possess infinite potential for kindness, and inspiration to rival anything among the stars.

Soraka realized her place was not to repair or replicate the celestial pattern. While a part of her craved the fixed, comforting destinies of the stars, she knew in her heart that static fates could not contain the unbridled, dynamic potential of mortality.

And so her work took on renewed vigor, driven to unlock the untapped possibilities of all she met. Soraka sought now to inspire and guide rather than shepherd, to see what unblazed trails each mortal would discover for themselves in their brief, radiant moment.

Over the millennia, legends of the Starchild have filtered through all the lands of Runeterra. Some tribes of the Freljord still speak of a far wanderer, a horned healer who soothed the icy bite of the most brutal winters. In the depths beneath Zaun, rumors float of a lilac skinned medic who would purify weary lungs from the ravages of the alchemical Gray. In troubled Ionia, the oldest myths of the Vastayashai’rei recall a seer who communed with the stars themselves, and called upon their light both to heal the wounded and scorch those who would do further harm to the First Lands.

Currently, Soraka calls the westernmost peaks of Targon her home. She watches over an isolated tribe of vastaya, teaching them her healing ways, and tending quietly to her own needs—though what brings her so close to the great mountain, or how long she will stay, only Soraka knows.

Many times, she has watched entire civilizations dance close to the brink of destruction, and she has learned that she cannot save those who do not wish it, nor force them to see what they will not.

All the same, Soraka is determined never to stop trying.

Warwick is a monster who hunts the gray alleys of Zaun. Transformed by agonizing experiments, his body is fused with an intricate system of chambers and pumps, machinery filling his veins with alchemical rage. Bursting out of the shadows, he preys upon those criminals who terrorize the city’s depths. Warwick is drawn to blood, and driven mad by its scent. None who spill it can escape him.

Though many think of Warwick as no more than a beast, buried beneath the fury lies the mind of a man—a gangster who put down his blade and took up a new name to live a better life. But no matter how hard he tried to move on, he could never escape the sins of his past.

Memories of that time come to Warwick in flashes before they’re inevitably lost, replaced by searing echoes of the days he spent strapped to a table in Singed’s lab, the mad chemist’s face looming above him.

His world a haze of pain, Warwick could not recall how he fell into Singed’s grasp… and even struggled to remember a time before the suffering began. The scientist patiently carved into him, installing pumps and hoses to inject chemicals into his veins, seeking what an alchemist always seeks: transmutation.

Singed would reveal his subject’s true nature—the deadly beast hidden within a “good man.”

The chemicals pumped into Warwick’s veins boosted his healing, allowing Singed to gradually and painfully reshape the man. When his hand was severed in the course of the experiment, Singed was able to reattach it, augmenting it with powerful, pneumatic claws, and bringing Warwick ever closer to his true potential.

A chemical chamber was installed on Warwick’s back and integrated with his nervous system. Whenever he felt rage, or hate, or fear, it would drive liquid fury deeper into his veins, fully awakening the beast within.

He was forced to endure it all, every cut of the mad chemist’s scalpel. Pain, Singed assured his subject, was necessary; it would prove to be the “great catalyst” of his transformation. Though the chemicals enabled Warwick’s body to heal through most of the physical damage, his mind was shattered by the unending agony.

Warwick struggled to recall a single memory from his past... All he could see was blood. But then he heard a little girl screaming. Screaming something he couldn’t understand. It sounded like a name.

He’d already forgotten his. He sensed that was for the best.

Pain soon overwhelmed all other thoughts. Blood was the only thing left.

Though his body and mind were broken after weeks on the slab, Warwick stubbornly resisted the chemicals transmuting him. Toxins leaked from his eyes in place of tears. He coughed up gobs of caustic phlegm that sizzled against his chest, before burning shallow holes in the floor of the lab. Restrained against the cold steel of the table, Warwick writhed in agony for hours on end, until his body finally gave out.

With the untimely death of his subject, Singed disposed of the corpse in a charnel pit deep in Zaun’s Sump, before turning his mind to the next experiment.

But death proved to be the true catalyst needed for Warwick’s transformation. As he lay cooling atop the pile of corpses, the chemicals could finally complete their work. The chamber on his back began to pump.

His body contorted unnaturally, bones bending and snapping, teeth growing, sinews tearing and then healing with a faint alchemical glow, dead flesh replaced by something new and powerful. By the time his heart started beating once again, the man Warwick had been and the lives he’d lived were gone.

He awoke to hunger. Everything hurt. Only one thing mattered.

He needed blood.

First, it was the blood of a nearby sump-scrapper, rooting through the charnel pile. And then a priestess of the Glorious Evolved, seeking a member of her flock. Then a Piltovan apprenta taking a shortcut, and a philter-faced merchant avoiding a gang, and a dram-dealer, and a tallyman, and a chem punk...

He set up a den not far from a place that itched at the back of his now-animal mind. There, he continued the slaughter, not caring who fell to his claws. So long as blood dripped from gnashing teeth, he would feel nothing but a smear of red on his conscience, the hunger in his gut overwhelming any concern for his random victims.

Yet, even as he surrendered to the beast, glimpses of his past began to haunt him. He saw a bearded man reflected in the eyes of a beggar as he tore out his throat. The other man looked somber, somehow familiar; there were scars on his arms. Sometimes, as he fed in dark alleys on stray gangers, the flash of knives would remind him of an old blade covered in blood. Blood passing from the blade to his hands. From his hands, to everything he touched. Sometimes, he remembered the girl again.

And still there was blood.

It had always been there, he realized, his entire life, and nothing he did could wash it off. He’d left so many scars that even if he didn’t remember his past, the city would. When he peered into the eyes of Zaun’s criminals—the gang bosses, murderers, and thieves—he saw himself. The chamber on his back would fill his body with hate. His claws tore out of his fingers.

He hunted.

No longer content to kill indiscriminately, Warwick now pursues those already covered in the stench of blood. Just as he was the day he was dragged to Singed’s door.

He still wonders if he’d truly wanted this. He can’t remember details, but he remembers enough. Enough to know Singed had been right all along—the good man had been a lie, before disaster had burned it away, revealing the truth.

He is Warwick. He is a killer.

And there are so many killers to hunt.

Okay, I’ll admit slamming the door in their faces was a bit of an overreaction.

“Lulu.” I make the words come out calm and easy, but I can feel my palms go sweaty in the oven mitts I’m still wearing. Can’t forget about dinner. I keep my white-knuckle grip on the front door handle. Lulu stops her absent-minded twirl in the hallway, coming up to stand next to me. I take one more breath in and out before turning towards her. “Do you know why Ahri’s teammates are standing on the porch?”

“Yep,” she says, nodding her head. She draws herself up a little taller, “You said, ‘This is a man-da-tory Star Guardian council meeting.’”

Just my luck. I instinctively release the door handle, as I hear Lulu do an extra bubbly—but very stern—Lux impression enunciating each of those syllables.

I definitely said that.

To Jinx.

Who still isn’t here yet.

Lulu makes for the handle, the smile on her face positively beaming. “They’re Star Guardians, right?”

I nod dumbly.

“Super,” she says as she opens the door wide.

The three of them are still standing on the porch where I left them, although in decidedly different positions. Ez looks like he was mid-sentence trying to calm down a much more annoyed Sarah Fortune.

No, not ‘Sarah’, I remind myself. Sarah’s for friends. I learned that all too well from last summer’s outdoor adventure.

Miss Fortune’s usual smirk is now an angry grimace as she furiously texts something on her phone. Behind her, the quiet girl with mint green hair—Soraka—is carrying a bakery box from Pantheon’s Pastries. They look at me intently, probably wondering if I’m going to slam the door again. I can actually hear crickets in the bushes.

Lulu reaches out into the uncomfortable silence and takes Ezreal and Fortune by the wrists, pulling them inside. Fortune’s so surprised, she goes along with it, nearly dropping her phone. I can feel the pink climb up my cheeks as Ezreal flashes his trademark grin in my direction as he passes by. I wave meekly with one oven mitt.

Soraka leans in close and whispers “Cinnamon rolls” in my ear, like a spy password. She smiles, hands the heavy bakery box to me, and walks quickly to catch up with the others.

“Welcome,” I hear Lulu announce from the living room, “to our Star Guardian sleepover party!”

This is awkward.

I can hear the second hand of the clock in the kitchen tick off another minute that we’ve been uncomfortably quiet. Ezreal is wedged on the small couch between Fortune—still texting on her phone—and Soraka, who’s quietly watching Lulu while nibbling on a cinnamon roll. Janna and Poppy are sitting on the stiff dining chairs Lulu dragged in from the other room. Lulu is bent over the coffee table, folding a piece of paper into some complicated shape. I have no idea what she’s making, but her soft humming is the only other sound besides the clock.

And me, well, I’m pacing a well-worn path in the carpet.

The first to break the silence is Fortune. She stops texting, lets out a disgusted sigh, and finally puts her phone face down on her lap, the small pistol charms on the end jingling loudly. She looks around, taking in everything in the room from the faded pattern on the curtains to the beige-colored couch for the first time. Her disappointment is evident. As she sinks back into the cushion behind her, Ez leans forward.

“You all do this regularly?” he says. “Get together like this?”

Poppy and Janna stare at him. Poppy still doesn’t understand why Ez was chosen as a Guardian. I keep telling her the First Star chooses each of us for a reason. She crosses her arms and watches him, clearly still not convinced.

“Yes, doesn’t your team?” Janna asks. She’s calm, at least on the outside, but there’s a slight breeze circling the room even though the ceiling fan isn’t on. I can tell she’s just as on edge about them being here as I am.

“Ahri…” Ez starts and then looks at Fortune. Fortune rolls her eyes, her perfectly feathered bangs rippling as she shakes her head. “Well,” Ez continues. “Ahri prefers to be out and about where there are people. She’s not much of a homebody herself, and she figures most trouble wouldn’t be either.”

Great. They think we’re homebodies. Could this get any worse?

“Is that why she and Syndra didn’t come? They have something better to do?” Poppy asks, her foot tapping out an impatient rhythm against the foot of her chair. Janna stiffens at the mention of Syndra.

Soraka jumps in and tries to change the subject. “Your friend, the one with the long red pigtails—”

“The loud one,” Fortune interrupts. “The one with a rocket launcher.”

“Yes, the one with the glitter bombs,” Soraka finishes. “Is she coming tonight?”

“Jinx? She’s always fashionably late.” I look at my watch. ”She just loves to make an entrance.” The words are barely out of my mouth when the front door opens and slams loudly. I hear the familiar sound of a tote bag full of Shiro, Kuro, and a handful of fireworks hitting the ground in the hallway.

“Luxy-Poo! Windchimes! Shortstop!” Jinx calls out in a sing-song voice. “I’m home!”

Jinx saunters into the living room just as Lulu triumphantly finishes the last fold in her project. Jinx lowers her sunglasses to the end of her nose. It’s dark outside. It has been dark outside for more than an hour. “Looks like you got the party started without me.” Jinx smiles, obviously enjoying all eyes on her, until her gaze finds Ez stuffed in the middle of the couch.

“Oh, he’s here too,” she says, the enthusiasm sucked out of her like a fast-leaking balloon. She tugs on the bow in Lulu’s hair and focuses on what looks like an oversized paper pincher in the young Guardian’s hands. “Whatcha got there, Loops?”

Lulu takes her hands out of the folds of paper and hugs Jinx around the waist. “I need another number.”

I stop my pacing to take a better look at the star-shaped object Lulu’s made. It’s a paper fortune teller. I haven’t seen one since primary school. The numbers on the flap show how many times the fortune teller should open and close it, with the last number chosen revealing some kind of mysterious destiny. My fortunes always ended in doom. Maybe because I always played with Jinx.

“Four,” I say. Maybe Lulu’s paper project can be over quickly.

“Twelve,” Jinx says.

“Two hundred forty-six,” Fortune says. Her satisfied smirk is back.

“Two hundred and forty-six it is.” Lulu smiles at Fortune and grabs a pen off the coffee table, scribbling the number onto one of the flaps. Lulu sits down at Soraka’s feet, offering up the paper oracle, encouraging her to pick a number to start the game.

“Do you braid each other’s hair too?” Fortune asks watching Lulu and Soraka, her words dripping with sarcasm.

“No—” I begin.

“Sometimes,” Poppy says at the same time, rushing to defend the unaware Lulu. Janna nods enthusiastically.

Ugh. Can neither of them play it cool?

“What I mean is, no, not all the time. We don’t braid each other’s hair all the time,” I stammer. “I mean, we discuss team stuff. Important Star Guardian matters.” I cough. “You know, saving the universe.”

“And braid each other’s hair,” Poppy adds truthfully.

Fortune rolls her eyes and goes back to her phone.

“How about we skip the usual slumber party stuff and talk serious Star Guardian matters?” I offer.

“Bor-ing,” Jinx says. She eyes Lulu as she slowly opens and closes the paper fortune teller for Soraka. “How about we play a faster game with more consequences?” I hear the trigger click of Shiro and Kuro waking up.

Ezreal claps his hands and rubs them together excitedly. “Sounds dangerous, I’m in.”

“Great. Let’s start.” Jinx smiles, but then quickly turns on Ez. “Truth. Or. Dare. Is it true that you have romantic intentions towards our Luxanna?”

“Jinx!” I shout.

Ez opens his mouth like a beached fish, definitely not having prepared for this particular game.

“Truth,” Janna says loudly, diffusing the rising energy in the room as if blowing out a candle. All heads snap towards her.

“Ez has to answer,” Jinx says watching the color rise in Ez’s face.

“First person to volunteer goes first,” Poppy says. “That’s the rule.”

“Fine,” Jinx says, obviously dissatisfied. “Is it true that you are older than Poppy’s hammer?”

I watch Janna’s look from Jinx to Poppy. Jinx is thrilled to see Janna momentarily flustered, while Poppy absently touches the handle of the hammer where she’s set it against her chair. Janna’s gaze settles on Soraka for a moment and then moves on. “False.”

Poppy eyes her hammer with a newfound awe and respect.

“Really?” Jinx raises an eyebrow. “But, it’s true that Short Stack’s hammer has more personality, right?”

“You can’t ask her another question, Jinx.” Poppy points out. “It’s Janna’s turn to ask a question. That’s the rule. Janna, go on, who are you going to pick?”

“Soraka,” Janna says gently. “Truth or Dare?”

Soraka is halfway through a cinnamon roll, staring attentively at Lulu opening and closing the paper fortune teller while counting under her breath. Shisa sits on Soraka’s shoulder monitoring the whole operation with a focused frown, at once completely confused at what Lulu is doing, but intent on making sure it happens with the utmost efficiency. Without missing a number—and to Shisa’s satisfied approval—Lulu nudges her elbow into Soraka’s knee, letting her know she’s been tapped into the group game.

“Yes,” Soraka smiles, a bit absent-minded. “That’s me.”

“Truth or dare?” Poppy repeats, taking her self-appointed position of game referee very seriously.

“Uh, truth,” Soraka says.

Janna thinks for a minute. “What do you remember—”

“Well,” Soraka jumps in, excited to be included in the game. “Ezreal and I went to Pantheon’s earlier. I had a cinnamon roll. He had an iced coffee, no milk because his tummy doesn’t like dairy—”

Poppy clucks her tongue. “Janna, it has to be an ‘Is it true’ question.”

Soraka sits up straight on the couch, tucking her legs beneath her, and waits. Zephyr floats in from the dining room and curls up in Janna’s lap. Janna rests a hand on her companion, a slight breeze rustling its fur.

“Soraka.” Janna’s voice is low and calm, barely above a whisper. “Is it true you can remember a time when the First Light was whole?”

“Oh, yes.” Soraka nods with her whole body. “I mean, true.”

The room goes eerily silent. She looks around. All of us are staring at her. Jinx can’t remember what she had for lunch today. Even Poppy and Lulu can only say what it was like when they were called. I’ve asked Janna about the First Light and especially its guidance, but the memories, even for her, are murky and broken.

“Wait, you all can’t remember?” Soraka’s voice wavers a bit. “But—”

“You have to pick one person to ask a question, Soraka,” Poppy says cutting her off with the rules of the game. “And they have to pick truth, and—”

“We get it, Smalls,” Jinx jumps in, changing the subject before Janna or I can ask more questions about Soraka’s memories. I’ll have to find a quiet moment later to talk to her.

“My turn to pick. Okay, mmm…” Soraka bites her bottom lip and then turns in her seat to face Ezreal. “Ez. I pick Ez!”

“No fair. I wanted to pick Ez,” Jinx pouts.

Poppy shakes her head. “You already went.”

“Ladies, please. There’s enough adventure to go around.” Ez tucks both hands behind his head and settles back on the couch. Fortune pulls out one the small throw pillows from behind her, fluffs it, and slams it back into the sofa and Ezreal, conveniently knocking the literal wind out his gallant sails in the process. I stifle a giggle into one of the oven mitts I’m still wearing.

Ez blushes and tries to recover his normal breathing gracefully.

“Dare,” he chokes on the words. “I choose dare.”

“I… dare… you…” Soraka pauses between each word, watching Poppy to make sure she’s getting it right. Poppy nods. Ez waits expectantly. “I dare you to do that thing you do,” she says finally.

Ez shrugs, totally not following whatever Soraka is talking about.

“You know, that thing you do. With Yuuto,” Soraka continues, clapping excitedly for him. “And the portal thing.”

“Oh, yeah. Cool. I can totally do that.” Ez reaches into his backpack and taps on the bright blue of his Guardian emblem. “Hey, bud—wake up. It’s showtime.”

“Portals? Portals sound dangerous.” Poppy asks as a white-winged familiar pounces into the room. It leaps into the air, wings spread, its bright blue eyes the same color as Ezreal’s.

“Portals are dangerous. Very dangerous. But lucky for you, you’ve got me. And this isn’t quite a portal. Technically it’s a shortcut through another dimension.” Ez flashes a lopsided grin at Poppy and starts looking around the room, eyeing a black ceramic bookend and a small potted plant. “Alright, Soraka, do you think that bookend is good enough for a demonstration of a little arcane magic?”

Soraka shakes her head, wrinkling her nose. Between Yuuto’s chirping loops, I can hear Lulu deep in concentration.

“Two hundred and forty-four. Two hundred and forty-five,” she counts. “Two hundred and forty-six!” she announces triumphantly. “It’s done, Soraka.” Lulu waves the paper oracle around in her hand.

“The fortune maker!” Soraka lets out a giggle. “I almost forgot.”

“Fortune maker it is!” Ez says, “Yuuto, let’s go. Time for a true display of skill.”

Yuuto arcs in the air, turning towards Ez. It looks like Yuuto is going to crash right into Ez, but at the last minute, Ez and Yuuto combine, granting Ez a brilliant set of white feathered wings that fill the room. Less than a second later, Ez disappears through a wavering portal to reappear hovering over Lulu. He plucks the paper fortune maker out of her hands.

“Just going to borrow this for a second,” he says and then a moment later he blinks back to the sofa, leaning comfortably back against the couch cushions with no wings and a happily purring Yuuto. He unfolds the flap and reads the fortune aloud. “‘Opportunity can’t knock if you don’t build a door.’ Huh. I like it, Lulu.”

Poppy groans. “She copied that from our takeout cookies last night.”

“That’s not her fortune,” Lulu says. She gestures to the flap to the right. “It’s the next one.”

Ez unfolds the second flap and reads it to the group. “Only in darkness can the light shine brightly.”

“The First Star told me that,” Lulu says.

“The First Star talks to you?” Fortune cocks her head in disbelief. “Still?”

“Yes,” Lulu’s face is a serene smile. “Ezreal, when you open a portal like that, where did you say you go?”

“Uh-oh,” Ezreal whispers.

“What’s ‘uh-oh’, champ?” Jinx leans over Ez as he struggles to keep a grip on the folded paper.

“We may need to get rid of this.” Ez gives a weak smile. “Like right now.”

Before anyone can make good on that suggestion, the paper oracle rips itself out of Ez’s hands. It tumbles around the room like a possessed autumn leaf. A high-pitched whine begins to grow. It seems like it’s coming from the fortune teller itself.

The paper folds and unfolds a dozen times, finally dumping out a small but squat, black and green, glowing creature. Everyone is on their feet.

“Did you just bring an annoying, interdimensional hitchhiking demon into Lux’s living room using your not-a-portal portal power?” says Jinx, watching the unruly little monster jump from the arm of the sofa to the carpet.

“I might have,” Ez whispers. “Arcane magic doesn’t come with an instruction manual.”

“Cool,” Jinx says.

Ez looks at me, mouthing the word Sorry.

“This has only happened once before,” he says.

Fortune elbows Ez in the side.

“Okay,” Ez corrects himself, “This may have happened more than once. Possibly six or seven times, but it’s totally not a big deal.”

The little creature jumps on the coffee table. All I can see is Poppy’s hammer rear back and take a wide swing. There’s a crack of wood and the coffee table splinters. That is definitely not going back together ever again. The dark shape darts away unscathed.

Janna stands up, her arms lifting in the direction of the creature. A breeze starts to build, shifting the debris of the coffee table and fluttering the pages of one of the books that had been sitting on it just a moment ago.

“I got this, Janna.” Jinx is returning from the hall, Shiro and Kuro nipping at her heels.

“No,” Fortune says. I snap my head around to see one of Fortune’s shiny white pistols leveled at my face.

“Woah, Sarah. Not so fast. That’s a little close quarters, don’t you think?” Ez tries to step closer to her to push her guns off their mark. I feel my stomach drop as adrenaline coats my insides. This was her plan all along. My luck’s run out. She is going to end me.

“Fortune—”

The words barely leave my lips before I hear the pull of a trigger.

“Time to say goodbye,” she says. There’s a sharp pop like a balloon. My hands go up to my nose and eyes, quickly checking them out that they’re all intact and where they belong. A second later, there is no demon, and fine bits of paper start to rain down on everyone as the fortune teller explodes into confetti. It looks like it is snowing in my living room. Lulu is dancing in it, of course.

“Look, now it’s a party,” she exclaims. Shiro and Kuro tumble each other in the remains of the coffee table, while Shisa looks very disturbed at their delight in wanton destruction.

Unfortunately, my relief at being whole is short-lived. An angry, beeping alarm begins to wail as a smoky haze creeps throughout the house, originating from the kitchen.

“Smells like burning,” Jinx says.

Oh, no. Dinner.

The air is thicker in the kitchen. What was dinner for the team is now charred ruins stuck to a metal baking sheet. I cough and wave the oven mitts I’m still wearing, trying to move the smoke haze around. I open the window, letting the cool fall air in. The alarm finally shuts itself off.

My eyes are starting to water. I tell myself it’s from the smoke and the mess in the oven, but I’m pretty sure it’s from the mess of things going on in the living room.

“Everything’s ruined.” My voice is small and pathetic even to my own ears.

Then I hear a shuffle of footsteps on the tile floor. Janna or Ez must have braved the smoke to offer some comfort. I wipe my eyes quickly, surprised as I turn around.

It’s Fortune.

“Well that’s definitely not edible,” she says.

I nod my head in agreement. “Definitely not.”

Fortune’s phone vibrates with a text message. Ahri, I’m sure, telling her what all the cool kids are doing.

“This is probably not the way you wanted to spend your Friday night,” I offer.

I pick at the burned bits of what was dinner on the aluminum foil. “Sorry Lulu dragged you into all this. Dinner’s ruined. The party’s ruined. I totally understand if you want to go. We’ll figure things out by ourselves.”

Ugh. Too many words. Why can I not stop talking around her? I take a deep breath and try to start more clearly.

“Fortune—”

“Sarah,” she interrupts. “You can call me Sarah.”

“I thought Sarah was for friends,” I say.

Fortune’s phone vibrates again. Instead of looking at it, she puts it in her back pocket. “I came in here to apologize. You looked pretty freaked out back there.”

“Have you ever been on the other side of one of your pistols?”

“No, I guess not,” she chuckles. Her voice takes a serious turn. “You need to understand I would never hurt another Guardian. Not ever.”

I nod. There’s something more behind her declaration, a pain she hasn’t quite put away.

“I know Ez kinda made a mess of things, he does that sometimes, but would you mind if we stayed? Soraka would be fine if dinner was nothing but cinnamon rolls, but Ez ordered some pizzas to say sorry for the little portal mishap. But I totally get it if you want us to go—”

I hold up an oven mitt-clad hand. It’s Sarah who seems to have too many words now.

“Wait, you want to stay?”

Sarah opens her mouth, but is interrupted by an ecstatic Lulu skipping into the kitchen, a bouquet of pastel fabric and ribbons spilling out onto the floor around her. She shoves an armful of trimmed white flannel into both Sarah and my hands.

“These are for you,” she chirps before skipping back out of the kitchen.

“Lulu, dear,” I call after her. “What are these?”

Sarah holds hers up by its shoulders, inspecting Lulu’s handiwork.

“You’re right,” she says, smiling. “This is not how I usually spend my Friday nights, but I think this whole pajama party thing might actually be a little fun.”

“Really?”

“Well, yeah.” Her grin takes on a particularly mischievous bend. “And, I’ve always wanted to see what Ezreal looks like with braided hair.”

The Northern Steppes ain’t the place for fancy undies and golden piss pots. It’s tough land. Ain’t nothing go here but barbarian raiders, poison grass, and harsh winds. To survive, you gotta eat rocks and crap lava. And I’m the toughest, meanest, killingest bastard in these parts. So I figure that makes these plains mine.

“But how did I end up here? And why am I alone with yer dumb yella hide?” I say out loud, starting it off again.

Skaarl snorts her response from the rock she’s sunning herself on. Her scales is dark metal with hints of gold. Ain’t nothing can break that drakalops’s skin. I’ve seen a steel sword shatter against her leg.

Don’t make her farts smell any better though.

“I’m callin’ you a damn coward. You got somethin’ to say about that?”

“Greefrglarg,” it says as it looks up and yawns.

“It was a hooked grouse! No bigger than my hand. And you run… Darn dumb, stupid animal!”

“Greef…rglarg?” Skaarl asks as it swats the flies away from its half-opened eyes.

“Oh, good retort! Yeah, real funny, right? Ha ha ha! I’m damn tired of yer heretical pontifications. I should leave ya here to die. That’s what I should do. You’d die o’ loneliness. Hell, you wouldn’t last a day without me.”

Skaarl lays its head back down on the rock.

There ain’t no use communicating with her. I should forgive her—but then, and no doubt to mock me, her sphincter splutters rhythmically as she breaks wind. The smell hits me like a frying pan.

“That’s it, you bastard!” I throw my stinking hat onto the ground and march away from the campsite, swearing I’ll never set eyes on that foul-mouthed drakalops again. ’Course, it was my good hat, so I have to trot back and snatch it off the ground.

“Yeah, keep sleeping, ya lazy flaprat,” I say as I walk away. “I’ll do the patrol!”

Being ten moons from any farmstead don’t preclude doing the patrol. It’s my land. And I aim to keep it that way. With or without that treason-ish lizard’s help.

The sun’s dragging its way down to the horizon by the time I reach the hills. This time of day, the light plays tricks on you. I meet a snake who wants to discuss pie crusts. Except it ain’t a snake, it’s the shadow of a rock.

Damn shame. I have some durn specific notions about pie crusts. At least when I remember what they are again. I ain’t had a proper conversation about the subject in years.

I’m about to take a swig of my mushroom juice and explain my views to the snake, when I hear them.

Drake hounds howling and braying. It’s the sounds those beasts make when they is herding elmarks. And if there’s elmarks, then there is humans. And those humans is trespassers.

I scramble up a nearby boulder and check north first.

The rolling hills of my grasslands is empty, save for the iron buttes scattered across the horizon. The braying sounds might be the mushroom juice playing tricks on my head… But then I turn south.

They is about a half day’s walk from this hill. Three hundred elmarks grazing. Grazing on my land.

The drake hounds circle around the herd, but there’s no horses. A few humans walk around them on foot. Humans don’t like walking. So it don’t take a genius to figure they must be part of some larger convoy then. ’Course, I am a genius. So that was easy to figure.

My blood begins to boil. That means more damn trespassers, disturbing my peace. Here, when I was about to have a lovely conversation about pie crusts with that snake.

I take another sip of mush-juice and head back to the campsite.

“Get up, lizard!” I say as I grab my saddle.

It raises its head, grunts a response, and returns to lying in the cool grass.

“Get up! Get up! GIT UP!” I yell. “There’s trespassers, invading the peaceful serenity of our environs.”

It looks at me blankly. I forget sometimes she don’t understand me when I’m speaking.

I buckle the saddle onto its back. “There’s humans on our land!”

It stands, and its ears perk up nervously. Humans. That word it knows. I jump into the saddle.

“Let’s get those humans!” I roar, indicating our southward destination. But the damn beast immediately starts going north.

“No, No, NO! They’s that way! That way!” I say, using my reins to pull the cowardly beast back in the right direction.

“Greefrglaaarg!” the drakolops cries as it kicks off. In an instant, she’s running. The insane speed of it makes my eyes close. Scrub grass whips painfully against my legs. A cloud of dust billows behind us. What’d take me half a day of walking is past before I can get my hat tied down.

“Greefrglorg!” the drakolops screeches.

“Now, don’t be like that! Weren’t you saying you wanted company last night?”

The sun is just starting to dip below the horizon when we reach the herd. I slow Skaarl to a trot as we approach the humans’ campsite. They’d already started a fire and have a stew going.

“Hold, stranger. Show your hands before you approach,” a human in a red hat says. Their leader, I figure.

I slowly take my hands off the reins. But instead of putting them up, I pull my long axe from its saddle loop.

“I don’t think you understand me, old timer,” the human in the red hat says again. His fellows ready weapons: swords, lassos, and a dozen repeater crossbows.

“Greefrglooorg,” Skaarl growls, ready to leave already.

“I got it under control,” I tell my lizard, before turning my attention back to the humans. “I ain’t impressed with your fancy, city-folk weapons. Now I’m giving you one warning. Get off my land. Or else.”

“Or else what?” a younger human asks.

“You boys best know who you’re dealing with,” I say. “This is Skaarl. She’s a drakalops. And I’m Kled, Lord Major Admiral of the Second Legion’s forward artillery—cavalry multiplication.”

Several of the humans start snickering. I’ll learn them soon enough—once I’m done talking.

“And what makes you think this is your land?” asks the human in the red hat, smirking.

“It’s mine. I took it from them barbarians.”

“It’s property of Lord Vakhul. He was granted it by the High Command. It’s his by rightful dispensation.”

“Well, High Command! Why didn’t you say so?!” I say before spitting on the ground. “The only law a true Noxian respects is strength. He can have it. If he can take it from me.”

“You and your pony best be moving on, while you still can.”

I forget sometimes humans don’t see us like we see them. It’s the last straw though.

“CHARGE!!!!” I scream, and snap the reins. The drakolops kicks off, and we rush them. I meant to make a clever retort first, but I got ahead of myself.

The humans let loose their first volley, but Skaarl raises her ears. Like giant bronze fans, they shield us as the crossbow bolts ricochet off her impenetrable flesh.

She roars happily as we dive through their camp at the leader in the red hat. Swords clang against Skaarl’s hide, while my axe swings. I turn two of them humans into confetti. The bastard in the red hat’s quick. He ducks under my blade as we pass by. Another volley of crossbow bolts hits us.

Skaarl screams in fear. Damn thing’s unkillable and immortal, but easily spooked. Problem with magical beasties, they don’t make no sense.

I yank the reins, and we ride back into the middle of the humans. I easily kill the rest of his men, but the red-hat bastard’s a tough one. My blade slams into him—but the blow clangs dully against his heavy breast plate. That should give him something to think about, anyway.

That’s when the ballista fires. The bolt is longer than a wagon. It smashes into the drakolops, knocking my long axe from my hand, and sends us rolling to the ground. Skaarl ain’t hurt. But she shakes me off the saddle and runs for the hills.

“You ungrateful bastard! We had the frassa-gimps in the razabutts!” I mean to scream more insults, but my words start tripping over themselves.

I roll to my feet. Dust and grass cover my face. I throw my hat toward the cowardly lizard’s path, then turn back to kill the man in the red hat.

But behind him, on the hill line, is another hundred of them humans. Iron warriors, bloodrunners, and a wagon-mounted ballista. Red-hatted blurf-herder brought most of a legion with him.

“You ain’t nothing but a durn sneaky-sneak!” I scream.

“You don’t look like much,” he says, “but I guess you’re the one who’s been giving Lord Vakhul’s ranchers so much trouble.”

“Vakhul ain’t no real Noxian. Your lordship can kiss my lizard’s puckered mudflap!”

“Maybe I’ll let you end your days in Lord Vakhul’s fighting pits. If you can learn to keep your mouth shut.”

“I’m gonna rip your lips off and use them to wipe my butt!” I roar.

I guess he don’t like that, ’cause him and his hundred friends start running at me, weapons drawn. I could run. But I don’t. They’ll pay dearly to kill me.

Red Hat’s fast. He’s nearly on me before I can recover my weapon from the ground. His blade is high. He’s got the killing stroke. But I’ve got my hidden scattergun.

The blast sends him to the ground. It knocks me back, too. I tumble end over end. The single shot buys me some time. But not much.

The bloodrunners are closing fast. Their hooked blades is ready. I’m gonna die in this turd-stain. Well, if it’s my last stand, might as well make it a good one.

I dust myself off as the first line of bloodrunners attacks. I’m carving those dark magical bastards apart, but they’re cutting me to ribbons. I’m beginning to tire from the effort and loss of blood.

Then the iron warriors scream their battle cries, as they charge in their thick black armor. They’ve split into two groups, doing one of those “pinching” maneuvers. Plan on using those two walls of metal to crush me flatter than a Noxian coin.

Damn it.

Any hope I got of surviving this, it’s gone…

And that’s when I see her. The most loyal, trustworthy, honorable friend an undeserving bastard like me could ever have.

Skaarl.

Riding like hell toward me. Faster than I’ve ever seen her run. A rooster tail of dust is shooting up behind her. The damn lizard even picks up my hat on her way to me. I run to her just as those black-clad warriors are about to crush me.

I leap into the saddle, and we circle around the iron warriors. There’ll be time to kill them after we get rid of that ballista.

“It’s been a while since we took on a whole army together,” I say.

“Greefrglarg,” Skaarl screeches happily.

“Back at you, buddy,” I say with a smile wider than a croxagor’s.

’Cause there ain’t nothing I love more than this dang lizard.

I have too many questions I want to ask her. I sneak a side-glance as we walk. She’s looking straight ahead. I watch her gaze sweep back and forth across the far perimeter of the park, her red hair catching the last scraps of the afternoon light with each step. Does she see something? Is this the way she normally patrols? Is she bored? Why is she here? I can’t believe she wanted to come. Why did she come? I quicken my pace to keep up.

“Fortun—Sarah,” I say, remembering.

She doesn’t look away from the path ahead, so I keep going.

“Ez really does have detention, Lux,” she says.

“Oh,” I stammer. “It’s cool.” I can feel the pink in my cheeks. I tug on the tips of my gloves. She turns to look at me, a smug grin softening her face.

“He wanted to be here,” she says. “Soraka too, but Pantheon’s was short staffed. And tonight is Syndra’s astronomy class at the university—”

“—And Ahri?” I blurt out too quickly.

Sarah’s smile tightens. “She’s been busy.”

“No worries,” I say, looking for a way to change the subject. In the middle of the park, Janna pushes Poppy and a free-loading Jinx on a squeaky merry-go-round. Lulu sways idly in a close-by swing set, its metal chains clang softly, like lonely windchimes. There’s no one else in the park besides us. “It’s pretty quiet.”

“Like you said, it’s probably nothing,” she says casually.

I take the folded slip of paper out of my pocket. The frayed edge where I tore it out of Lulu’s notebook flutters in the breeze. The shapes of the playground equipment and power lines surrounding Valoran City’s metro park were clear enough, but it was the dozens of circles in the sky that worried me. Poppy said that it was too warm in physics class, and Lulu was just doodling to stay awake.

“Look!” Lulu shouts from the swing, snapping me out of my thoughts. She is at the top of the swing’s arc, gesturing excitedly at the horizon. A bright spot has risen just over the silhouette of the skyline. “Twilight star! I saw it first.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. It’s just a star. Stars can’t hurt us.

“The twilight star is not a real star,” Poppy groans. “Technically it’s a planet.”

“Janna said everything has starlight in it,” Lulu argues back.

Janna nods her head in agreement.

“What are you gonna wish for, Loops?” Jinx juggles Shiro and Kuro absently as the merry-go-round spins. Lulu pumps her legs on the swing, pushing it higher.

“More stars!” she shouts. “I want to see more stars.”

“But it’s not dark yet,” Jinx says. “The other stars aren’t out yet.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Lulu pumps her legs harder. “The other stars are always there no matter what. Even if you can’t see them.”

“Rocket-breath is right,” Poppy says, hiding her reluctant agreement with Jinx by examining a non-existent scuff on her hammer. “It needs to get really dark before you can see the stars in the city. It’s not like at the camp.”

I cup my hands together and shout back to them, “You’re all right.” Jinx opens her mouth to argue, but shrugs and takes the win.

I turn back to Sarah.

“Are they always like this?” she asks. I’m sure she’s thinking about us compared to her own team. How this kind of talk would never happen if it was only them. They would just get right down to business. Search the park and be done. I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or annoyed or both.

“You mean are they always this argumentative?” I offer. “No, I mean, well, yes… sometimes—”

“This innocent,” she says, quietly.

“Well, you have Ahri to lead you. Of course you always know what you’re doing. Us, well… All they’ve had is me.”

“Innocent isn’t always a bad thing.” She has that faraway look on her face again, like she’s trying to remember a dream she had a long time ago. She nods her head slowly as if agreeing on the memory. “Yes, that’s who you remind me of.”

“Me? Remind you of Ahri?!” I ask, trying desperately to not sound desperate. Does she really think I’m like Ahri? Which part? Maybe a younger Ahri? I mean, she should know, she’s Ahri’s lieutenant. Did Ahri have multiple lieutenants on her old team? Maybe if our teams join, I can be another one, like Sarah?

“No.” Sarah lets out a sharp laugh. I don’t know if she can read minds, but my hope deflates like an untied balloon.

“Someone else. You remind me of someone else,” she says, softening. “Someone I lost a long time ago. She had pink hair too.” She looks me over again, and I try not to squirm under the scrutiny. “Come to think of it, you’re also too loyal for your own good… and such a dreamer. You’re kinda a mix of all of them,” she says.

Them? The team you lost? Is this a bad thing? Who were they? I add ten more questions I want to ask her to the list running constantly in my head.

How did it happen?

“Lux! Sarah! Look.” Lulu yells happily, interrupting my thoughts before I can get any further. “My wish!”

We look back at the distant playground. I run through a quick check. Lulu. Jinx. Poppy. Janna. Still safe and sound. The twilight has softened all of them, making them seem younger than they really are. The street lamps in the park click on in an unsettling coincidence. Hovering above the team are a swarm of twinkling lights. The team looks like they’re caught in a magical dream.

“Loops, It’s like Short Stop said, it’s not dark enough…” The creaking of the merry-go-round slows to a stop as Janna, Poppy, and Jinx look up as well. It’s getting darker fast. Too fast. I can barely see the trees around the edge of the park. Sarah and I start walking back toward the playground more quickly.

“Those aren’t stars,” Sarah says. I squint to get a better look. The points of light waver, almost glistening. As we get closer I can see what Sarah means. Dozens of thin translucent spheres reflect the light from the street lamps. Bubbles? They were… bubbles? I stuff Lulu’s drawing into the cuff of my glove.

“I don’t think the twilight star heard you right, Lulu,” Poppy says. “Those are bubbles.”

They aren’t just bubbles. One of them floats down toward Poppy, almost as if it was following the sound of her voice. Poppy steps back, letting it drift toward the metal railing of the merry-go-round.

The hushed silence is interrupted by a snort-laugh from Jinx. “C’mon. They’re harmless—”

A trail of bubbles begins to close in on her. I reach for my wand as I start running. “Jinx!”

I throw the staff out ahead of me. It and a prismatic rainbow of starlight just graze the top of Jinx’s pigtails before returning to my hand. A sphere of multicolored light covers Jinx and Poppy. A few bubbles bounce off the barrier and pop against the swing set leaving behind a swirl of dark mist, fluttering black shapes—bugs perhaps, or moths?—and a long, high-pitched laugh, like the delighted cackle of a child.

“That can’t be good, right?” Jinx whisper-yells. “Let’s pop these bad boys!”

“My thoughts exactly.” A double shot of Sarah’s twin pistols fire before she can finish her sentence. A wave of bubbles pop in a shower of black haze and twisted butterflies.

“What’s inside doesn’t look that great either,” Poppy says.

The high-pitched laugh stops short and is quickly replaced by an annoyed groan. The noise echoes around us, setting my teeth on edge. In the center of the pack of toxic bubbles that Janna gathered, a thin circle takes shape. The circle opens into a portal, letting long tendrils snake out from some dark dimension. One unsettling squid eye opens, followed by a second. The gelatinous blob unfolds into some cross between an evil octopus and demonic jellyfish.

“Take it down,” Sarah yells. Shiro and Kuro fire eagerly. Poppy twists around, pulling her hammer back for a long, arcing hit. She growls through the effort as the hammer swings around. In a resounding smack, it connects with the bubble mass, knocking the now angry and disoriented jellyfish out of the center. The malcontent blob drifts for a moment, but collects itself and the scattered bubble pack. They move purposefully toward Sarah.

“Sarah, get down,” I yell. I can feel the heavy power of pure starlight channel through my staff, vibrating the bones in my fingers and arm. The creature darts around, hiding behind bubbles. I fire in a beam of white-hot light. The little jellyfish slips between the bubbles and I miss. I try to get closer, but it feels like time is standing still.

“Loops, no!” Jinx yells.

It’s too late. From out of nowhere, a tiny Lulu pushes Sarah out of the way. Sarah lands hard, but rolls onto her back, both barrels blasting above her.

One bubble escapes the pack above. It floats down, straining to get closer. It breaks against Lulu’s cheek in a wet pop. The darkness seeps out, expanding, and in the space of two heartbeats, Lulu is enveloped by an inky cloud. Her eyes close as she crumples to the ground in a small heap. I dive for Lulu, scooping her up in my arms. More bubbles pop above me as Sarah and Jinx finish off the last of them. A portal opens above the dark jellyfish. The maniacal laughter gets louder and the little beast floats toward the opening, almost as if was buoyed by the sound. As it crosses the portal’s threshold, it disappears, taking the remains of the dark magic with it.

I bring my ear down to Lulu’s face. She’s breathing, slow and even… is she asleep?

“Lulu!” I shake her by the shoulders. Lulu lets out a soft moan and her eyes flutter for a second. I bring my wand up, the brightness is near blinding. Lulu’s closed eyes flinch. “Lulu, by Starlight, wake up!”

“Lost. They were lost.” Lulu’s voice is barely a whisper. Her eyes close tighter against the light, and her lip quivers. It’s as if she’s stuck in a nightmare. “Dark now,” she says.

Lulu sits bolt upright, her blue eyes wide open now. She looks past all of us, like we’re not there, like she’s seeing through us to somewhere else. Like she’s somewhere else.

“She’s on her way,” Lulu says.

“She? Who, Lulu? Who’s on their way?” This is big. One blaring thought shuts out all the others in my brain. Could it be her? Is Ahri on her way? I bite my lip. I look around at Janna, Poppy, Jinx, and finally Sarah.

“Ahri!” I say. “Ahri will know.”

“No,” Sarah says.

“Of course she will.” I push off her muted reply, trying to keep a smile of optimism for the others. “Can you call her, Sarah?”

“I can’t.” Sarah won’t look at me.

“Wait, why?”

“We’re not talking right now,” she says quietly.

“Sarah, I think this is more important than—”

“—The slumber party.” Sarah interrupts looking me straight in the eye. “That night. She was supposed to come. At the last minute, she said there was something she had to take care of. Something she wouldn’t let me help with. I thought she was just being…”

“Ahri,” I finish as she nods her head in confirmation. “You haven’t seen her since?”

Sarah shakes her head no, tightening her grip on the pair of pistols in her lap. Just before Sarah looks away, I see it—a flicker of panic. I can feel my heart thump harder in my chest.

A hundred more questions flood my brain. My stomach tightens.

What could make Sarah panic like this? Where did Ahri go? What’s coming?

Are we strong enough to face it?

Am I strong enough?

I want to ask her, but I can’t.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Very.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have not heard back from him since.

Icy waves crashed on the bleak shore, red with the blood of the men Hecarim had already butchered. The mortals he had yet to kill were retreating over the beach in terror. Black rain doused them and stormclouds boiled in from the mourning heart of the island. He heard them shouting to one another. The words were a guttural battle-cant he did not recognize, but the meaning was clear; they actually thought they might live to reach their ship. True, they had some skill. They moved as one, wooden shields interlocked. But they were mortal and Hecarim savored the meat-stink of their fear.

He circled them, threading crumbling ruins and unseen in the shadowed mist rising from the ashen sand. The echoing thunder of his hooves struck sparks from black rocks. It gnawed at their courage. He watched the mortals through the slitted visor of his helm. The weak light of their wretched spirits was flickering corposant in their flesh. It repulsed him even as he craved it.

“No-one lives,” he said.

His voice was muffled by the dread iron of his helm, like the corpse-rasp of a hanged man. The sound scraped along their nerves like rusted blades. He drank in their terror and grinned as one man threw down his shield and ran for the ship in desperation.

He bellowed as he galloped from the weed-choked ruins, lowering his hooked glaive and feeling the old thrill of the charge. A memory flickered, riding at the head of a silver host. Winning glory and honor. The memory faded as the man reached the dark surf of cold breakers and looked over his shoulder.

“Please! No!” he cried.

Hecarim split him from collarbone to pelvis in one thunderous blow.

His ebon-bladed glaive pulsed as it bathed in blood. The fragile wisp of the man’s spirit sought to fly free, but the mist’s hunger would not be cheated. Hecarim watched as the soul was twisted into a dark reflection of the man’s life.

Hecarim drew the power of the island to him and the bloody surf churned with motion as a host of dark knights wreathed in shimmering light rose from the water. Sealed within archaic plates of ghostly iron, they drew black swords that glimmered with dark radiance. He should know these men. They had served him once and served him still, but he had no memory of them. He turned back towards the mortals on the beach. He parted the mists, revelling in their terror as they saw him clearly for the first time.

His colossal form was a nightmarish hybrid of man and horse, a chimeric juggernaut of brazen iron. The plates of his body were dark and stamped with etchings whose meanings he only vaguely recalled. Bale-fire smouldered behind his visor, the spirit within cold and dead yet hatefully vital.

Hecarim reared as forking traceries of lightning split the sky. He lowered his glaive and led his knights in the charge, throwing up giant clumps of blood-sodden sand and bone fragments as he went. The mortals screamed and brought up their shields, but the ghost-knights charge was unstoppable. Hecarim struck first as was his right as their master, and the thunderous impact splintered the shieldwall wide open. Men were trampled to bloody gruel beneath his iron-shod bulk. His glaive struck out left and right, killing with every strike. The ghost knights crushed all before them, slaughtering the living in a fury of thrashing hooves, stabbing lances and chopping blades. Bones cracked and blood sprayed as mortal spirits fled broken bodies, already trapped between life and death by the fell magic of the Ruined King.

The spirits of the dead circled Hecarim, beholden to him as their killer and he revelled in the surging joy of battle. He ignored the wailing spirits. He had no interest in enslaving them. Leave such petty cruelties to the Chain Warden.

All Hecarim cared for was killing.

The first sound I heard was the scrape of sharp metal against rock. My sight was blurred, my vision still swimming in murky darkness, but something in the back of my mind registered it, that knife-edge slide on wet stone. The rasp was the same as my mason when he marks out which rock to cut away from the cliff. It set my teeth on edge. The fog in my brain receded, but it left me with only one panicked thought as I strained at the ropes binding my hands:

I was a dead man.

In front of me, there was a grunt and a heavy wooden creak. If I squinted, I could make out the bulk of what I guessed was Gordon Ansel sitting across from me. So much for hired muscle. It looked like he was coming around as well.

“Oh good. You're both awake.” A woman's voice, refined, polished. “I was just about to put the tea on.”

I turned toward her. Half of my face felt fat and bruised. The corners of my mouth were stuck together. I tried to move my swollen jaw and a coppery taste pooled on my tongue. I should have been thankful I was still breathing. The air had a lingering chemical smell, like it would singe off your nose hair if you inhaled too deeply.

Just my luck. I was still in Zaun.

“One of you knows who is responsible for the explosion at the docks,” the woman continued. She had her back to us; a flickering bluish light illuminated her slim waist and inhumanly long legs. There was a faint slosh of water as she set a glass kettle above the near-invisible flame of a chem-burner.

“Go pound a sump, lady,” Ansel groaned.

Leave it to Ansel to make a bad situation worse.

“Baron Grime's men always have such a way with words.”

The woman turned to face us: It wasn't a lamp that lit her figure, but something within her that gave off an unsettling light. “You will tell me what I want to know as if your life depends on it.”

“I ain't saying nothing,” Ansel snarled.

Metal scraped the floor as she shifted her weight. She was deciding which of us to carve from the quarry first. The sound made no sense until she began walking toward Ansel, and then I understood. Her velvet shadow separated from the silhouette of the table. Mystifying blue light pulsed from her hips, leading my eye down her lithe form... to twin blades. She was a high-end chimeric, unlike any I'd seen in Piltover or Zaun.

“Do not insult my courtesy, Mr. Ansel. Others have. They are dead now.”

“You think them legs of yours scare me?”

The woman stood in front of my thick-headed acquaintance. I could hear the water in the kettle start to boil. I blinked and there was a flash of silver and blue. The rope that bound Ansel's hands fell to the floor.

A hoarse laugh escaped my bodyguard. “You missed, darling.” Our captor seemed to be waiting patiently. Ansel leaned forward a few inches, an arrogant smirk plastered across his weather-beaten face.

“You can lick my—”

The woman spun around. This time, the razor-sharp blade of her leg sliced cleanly through Ansel's neck.

The severed head rolled to a stop in front of me just as the kettle whistle blew. Ansel always had a big mouth. Now it lolled open, silenced at last.

I kept telling myself Ansel was dead, but his eyes still stared at me in horrified surprise. The fear in my brain climbed down my spine, stopping to throttle my gut until I was convinced whatever was left inside was going to end up on the floor.

“Now, Mr. Turek, we are going to have a cup of tea, and you will tell me what I wish to know,” she said, her words unhurried.

The woman sat down at her table and smiled. A whisper of steam escaped as she poured the boiling water into her porcelain teapot. She looked at me with an imperious pity, like I was a schoolboy too slow at his figures. It was that smile that I couldn't look away from. Deadly. Knowing. It scared the piss out of me.

“Tea?” I nearly choked on the word.

“Oh, my boy,” she said. “There is always time for tea.”