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The river brings memories from a dead world. I wonder if I’m the only one able to find them.

Across the water, I see the vines my father tends, curling protectively around Ixtal and its people, the last of Runeterra. Leaves and branches hang in ragged loops all up and downstream, disappearing into gloom past dawn’s limited reach. Each visit, I wonder if the dark hides serpent or jaguar, or some other danger. My mother hunts those beasts, providing meat and protecting our village of Semchul. My parents expected I would follow in their footsteps. That I would grow into Aliay the gardener, or Aliay the hunter.

I chose neither, but their lessons combined to shape my path.

I shrug off my robe and wrap my windcord’s braid of translucent silk once around each hand. Twenty-three years’ study of the Axiomata have done much to imprint them into my mind—with the cord as my focus, I wield the elements they describe. My studies have gifted me control, understanding, wisdom. But without the cord I possess no more mastery than any other Ixtali.

I step into the river, bare feet squelching in the mud, until the water rises to my exposed waist. I quest out with my foot, searching for the submerged tree roots that serve to capture my quarry. When I find them, I set to work with the cord.

Raising my hands, I trace the lines of the Fifth Axiom from memory, whipping the cord like a paintbrush across canvas. In turn, the water churns as a bubble of air slowly widens around me, from the river’s surface to its bed. Passing water rushes and pushes against my crafted currents, straining against unnatural displacement, but my work holds. The riverbed reveals mud and stone and gnarled roots. Debris catches in the tangle, objects from somewhere beyond Ixtal. These ancient reminders are all that remain of the lost world.

These civilizations must have been astounding, for often their craftsmanship remains untouched by time or tide. Such is the case today, as something shining and silver catches a feeble ray of sun. My studied concentration turns to joy at the sight. I grin and plop right into the mud, cross-legged before the roots. I dig, revealing a short-handled axe crafted from a single piece of steel. It’s beautiful.

I envision a battle, millennia ago. Some brave warrior standing against the monsters that consumed Runeterra, and I’m grateful for the chance to memorialize that noble, doomed struggle. I scoot forward and bury my fingers into the mud, searching for my waterproof treasure box.

I find it and touch the latch, which requires a certain measure of axiomatic mastery to move—an old precaution in case I were discovered. It is filled with everything I felt worth saving—and hiding—over the years. When I am Yun Tal, I will bring these treasures to Ixaocan, to register with our historians and share with other scholars. Mivasim, my dear mentor and one of Ixtal’s greatest natural elementalists, often chastises me for my interest in the Nasiana, the World Beyond, so I keep my secrets for now. I place the axe beside a bronze helmet, then shut the box with a flick of my wrist.

And then my heart leaps into my throat.

My windcord is gone.

I never imagined it was possible. I resealed the latch on my own, without a thought. Only the Yun Tal are capable—are worthy—of such action. I scramble in the mud, but it’s nowhere to be seen. Panic, joy, and fear war within me. Then I notice the river remains parted. I am in control.

I turn toward the vined wall, the borders of Ixtal, and think a manic thought: myself, wrapped in a cocoon of protective currents of my making, wandering a landscape that’s empty of life but full of answers.

I’ve taken two steps forward when a blast of water kicks into the air, filling the space around me with a thunderclap of sound. My eyes dart instinctively, scanning for threats. I expect the ripple of jaws in the water or a hawk overhead, when I see a figure, imposing from the riverbank. It’s Mivasim, my mentor, her Yun Tal robes dark even in shadow, her frame unbent by age. Her eyes gleam like lightning on jade, and my bubble of shaped air shrinks. The water roars as Mivasim, without so much as a wave of her hand, accelerates the river’s flow from a burble to a rush. I had thought myself clever, that I’d had a secret place of my own. Had she always known?

Water whooshes by as the currents protecting me weaken and shrink. Soon I’ll be swept away. But I feel no anger from her. She thrusts an open palm toward me, a gesture I’ve become familiar with. I may avoid punishment with a clever enough argument.

Wind and spray batter me, but I see the pattern. She’s traced the lines of an axiomatic extrapolation into the air between us.

This is no punishment. It’s a test. A puzzle, one I’ve trained for years to solve. I imagine myself walking a circuit around Semchul’s modest athenaeum, and set to work against my mentor.

When I reach her side, my spirit is buoyed by her triumphant smile, but my body is in tatters. She opens her arms just in time to catch my collapsing form.

“It is time, my student,” she whispers as my consciousness fades. “In Ixaocan, you will defend yourself beneath the Vidalion, and we will judge whether you are worthy of becoming Yun Tal.”

A week of walking has put us deeper into Ixtal’s interior than I’ve ever been, yet the villages we stop at for rest seem more provincial than my own.

“Do they truly have so much to fear?” I ask Mivasim, after we say farewell to our gracious hosts in Peslan. “My father tends the borders themselves, and he fears nothing.”

“A hunter shies not from the jaguar’s charge,” she responds, absently raising and lowering the pack that floats beside her as we walk, “but a roar in the distance sends even the boldest smith fleeing.”

A pair of children tumble into view along the path, racing back toward the village. “I suppose it’s that they fear the unknown. The potential for change.”

I could sense my teacher struggling with something. I push at the broad, waxy leaves hanging just over either side of our heads. “Our situation is unique in history,” she sighs. “Tell me again how your father describes the value of his work.”

My family’s faces swim into view, around the first fire of my memory. Their stories spurred my life’s pursuit. I put on a storyteller’s whisper. “In the years following the Final War, there was much chaos. The world boiled and churned with monsters and death.”

I let the last word linger in the air, but Mivasim is unmoved. I press on.

“We were pushed almost to extinction, when the wisest of us—the first of the Yun—turned the Axiomata of Ixaocan into a weapon, quelling every foe and sealing our borders. And so, this is the only land to have survived those cataclysmic days.

“The world that’s left is poisoned. Beneath Ixtal’s canopies, we are protected from the doom that consumed all else.” I grin, and thump the bottom of my ribcage with a fist. “And so, truly, it is the great gardeners of Semchul who now keep Ixtal from that same dark fate!”

Mivasim’s smile creases the soft lines that I and her other students helped etch over the years. “And for those gardeners, the dreaded machines that cut into our jungles are merely an extension of that poison, yes? Miasma with metal legs.”

The path before us turns and opens, pale sunlight gleaming unfiltered and warm on my face. “I suppose, yes,” I reply, “though the Yun Tal are far more equipped to fight them.”

“Still. A practical problem, with a practical solution.”

“Indeed.”

“And you are a scholar, trained to argue from a perspective that is not yours, to understand that which may be foreign to you?”

I beam. “Yes.”

“So a villager—a trader, perhaps—who has neither the pride nor experience of a border-gardener…”

“...Would see the problem as an abstract, to which their reaction is rooted in emotion.”

“Exactly right.”

“Unless...” I draw out the word, gesturing with my hands at nothing in particular. “Unless we could describe the situation for them in a way which accounts for their various ignorances.”

Mivasim shakes her head. “The trader has energy to trade. Perhaps some for entertainment, the rest for family. All else is distraction.” A wryness creeps around her voice, signaling a return to more companionable chatter. “They do not have the benefit of decades at the feet of a wise and cunning master.”

I lack the words or wisdom to counter. “Nor the experience that might provide comfort. I understand. Thank you, Mivasim.”

We pass a moment in silence. “Ixtal is better for this distinction. I am glad you are not a hunter, my dear sumqa.”

My smile matches the sun.

Ixaocan is vast. It seems to span the sunlit horizon, the tallest arcologies polished and angular and sculpted above the trees. Each step toward the great capital of Ixtal reveals new vistas, new shapes.

And while the cardinal arcology imposes from a distance, it overwhelms in person.

Within minutes of striding through its proud northern gates, we are mobbed by color and noise. Youngsters rush this way and that, chased by caretakers, themselves hounded by peddlers, beauticians, scryers, and craftspeople. Mivasim’s black boots click against the stone road, more imposing here than when we were in the jungle. The crowd gives full deference to the rich blacks and purples of Mivasim’s Yun Tal weave. For all the differences between Ixaocan and Semchul, they share this: absolute respect for the Yun Tal.

“Miv? Miv!” A voice booms from ahead.

“Oh, pin’kan,” my teacher mutters, and in the same breath returns to the very picture of civility. Before us is a crossroads, canopied by a criss-crossing bridge where diners lounge in elegant chairs. A burly old man waves madly. Green eyes, no hair—and black Yun Tal robes. “Dearest Chiuq!” Mivasim calls out to him. “You’ve arrived ahead of schedule!”

Chiuq—whom I am careful not to address, without knowing his full name—lumbers toward us, trailed by a dozen bright-eyed aspirants wearing students’ robes like my own. “Aha, just as I always have, no? Taarqen is not half so far as the wilds of Semchul.”

He barrels in for an embrace, which she returns with practiced grace.

“Ah, Miv. Too long since we saw you last. Been training…” He trails off, searching undoubtedly for Mivasim’s stable of students. His eyes are slow to settle on me. “Been, uh, training?”

“And tending to Semchul, yes.” Mivasim takes an almost imperceptible step back, a signal Chiuq mirrors without seeming to notice. “Students have less time for study in the villages, and they soon leave for more achievable pursuits.”

“Ahh, to have been raised in the wilds. I’d have made the finest hunter!” He sweeps a broad arm out toward the gaggle of students in his wake. “But I’ve made a good enough teacher, if I say so myself.”

Mivasim eyes them as Chiuq laughs, and they, fawn-like, laugh after him. “The Vidalion will speak to that, I am certain,” she replies evenly.

A smallish aspirant with false-red hair flicks his elemental focus just as he trips on his too-large robes. A flame casts out and lights on a poor merchant's feather dusters. The merchant yelps, struggling to channel his own magic with an ornate jug of water. The flames only snap in response.

“Chiuqeslan!” Mivasim calls out sharply. A graceful curl of her hand draws the air from the flame.

The merchant approaches with hands clasped. “I am— Oh, dear. Bright Ones, a thousand pardons. Forgive the untidiness of my wares, it is… I mean—”

“Peace,” Mivasim says, as Chiuqeslan bellows “Hah!” and claps his student on the back.

“My boy here is gifted! See how quickly the flame consumed!” He ushers his students back, onward into the city. Over his shoulder, he calls back to me. “Good luck, student of Miv!”

The merchant stares, horrified, at Mivasim. “Apologies, honored merchant,” she says, pulling a pair of sweet papayas from her robes, a gift from the last village. She hands them to him, and then pulls me to her side.

“That man, that Chiuqeslan—” I begin, before Mivasim’s words cut into my own.

“—is Yun Tal, whatever else he may be. You have met only a handful in your life, sumqa.” She urges me down the crowded boulevard. “His is a cruel lesson, one you will learn shortly. Do not let him—nor Ixaocan itself—compel focus from your task.”

Chiuqeslan’s firestarting student fails. Tradition says he must depart Ixaocan in silence.

He had given his life to study. Perhaps he will become a merchant or a tailor or a storyteller. I hope he will be happy, but he will never be Yun Tal. His peers are hollow, their eyes sunken, their hearts torn. His example serves only to extinguish their spirit, though it steels my resolve.

Within days I am able to surmise which students will pass, which will fail, which will break. The understanding makes me want to weep for them.

But I think only of the trial ahead of me.

Finally, the moment comes. I step into the heart of Ixaocan, and see that the floor has been etched with thousands of curving lines. Hidden within this intricate geometry is the language of the elements. I feel myself growing lost amidst them, catching glimpses of one Axiom or another that I might recognize…

Careful.

I focus my thoughts. The Yun Tal stand above me in the gallery around the massive space, their robes every shade and quality of night. Each a perfect philosopher. Each a master of their elemental discipline.

The arcology’s central chamber appears to be split in two. Below, the arena where I will defend myself. Above, a wide ring of the heaviest stone, its load borne more by thaumaturgy than engineering. Where the chamber splits swirls a wide ring of magic. I cannot see how deep it goes, how far it pushes into the earth.

Floating high above the circle is the Vidalion, the great loom, itself haloed by a band of some golden alloy, its threads spinning ceaselessly. I will defend myself beneath its warp and weft. If successful, it will weave a set of robes to mark me as Yun Tal.

I will master the currents, today. I step into the center of the pattern.

I’m blinded by the surge of power, the sheer elemental might focused by the Axiomata into this single spot. It’s overwhelming. I am a hummingbird, skimming a stormcloud. I blink, and the chamber returns.

Mivasim stands somewhere above. I cannot meet her gaze; my mind is a taut wire. Eyes bore into me from all directions. They are Yun Tal, the most-wise.

“Aliay Qunlan.” My name echoes across the chamber, perhaps across all Ixtal. “You stand at the heart of all things. You are watched through the eyes of all people. Defend yourself.”

The Vidalion spins, setting loose tendrils of fabric. I reach out and let a midnight thread fall to my grasp.

“You’ve cut off that secant,” a voice, firm and disapproving, floats into my consciousness, and a section of thread lights up. “Now it will affect temperature, not pressure.”

I ignore the voice, willing more thread into my grip and directing it along the next line. After seconds of intense concentration, I hear myself respond. “Pressure and temperature are sisters. While I control the space, this effect is more powerful.” I lift the ghostly light the Yun Tal shone upon my not-error and return to my work. Distantly, I’m horrified at the ease with which I dismiss a critique of my betters.

Presently, I discard the feeling.

Another voice. “I count eleven tangents in your Axiomata. Accepted practice is to give each tangent a parallel. Not doing so risks an imbalance when non-sequential patterns are joined.”

I think of Mivasim. This was an invention of her own, discovered with the aid of my youthful rebelliousness.

“Accepted practice is not mastery, but rhetoric,” I reply. “This connection complements the Third Axiom, and empowers the Fifth. Together, they negate the imbalance.”

Silence is the only response I receive, but a shift of cloth to my right catches my attention. A woman, robes of smoke and jade, eyes of fired steel. A member of the Yunalai, the revered new generation. Her appreciative smirk claws at my heart.

I press on.

The existing Axiomata are complete, and holding. My initial anxiety and fear are fading echoes in my mind, as I become much more than the confines of my form. I am Ixaocan itself, and I wield more power in this moment than I could ever have guessed lay in all the world. I follow the shape of my design, seeking the next—

Thump-thump.

—and stop. A heartbeat, a stutter in time. I lift my gaze to the mystical swirling in the chamber’s outer wall. It churns, like threads in a mad tapestry.

In the abstract snarl, something calls to me.

Without thinking, I reach out for it.

I am not in the cardinal arcology. I soar across the jungle, across Ixtal.

I look down, and I see the Axiomata. Not a pattern focused upon a single arcology, nor many—they are a pattern encompassing the whole world. I ride along one of the lines ringing Ixaocan, and it leads me home to Semchul in an instant. I smile as I see its familiar arches, the nooks where I stole naps, the—

Semchul is behind me. Something is wrong.

My eyes widen, heels dig into nothingness as I crash into the net of tended vines that separate death from life. I brace for obliteration, squinting against the end. Instead I soar past lush greenery. Creatures buck and sprint across a too-open field. I skim a river as wide as Ixtal itself.

I am mad, surely. Are these the spiraling thoughts of a mind’s final moments?

Have I failed the test?

I see mountains, valleys—people. I see people. I—

I’ve stopped, somewhere cold. White. Blinding, with gale-driven snow.

Behind it, there is power. Axiomata cross here. This should not be.

A group of men and women draped in fur and bone spar with one another. No—they war. A club caves a skull. I reach out. Clouds of powder swirl, and they flee the phenomenon, flee me. One, taller than the others, stares into my eyes. I can feel him twist, searching for me. He crafts a spear from frost.

This brute is not Ixtali. How is it that he taps the Axiomata?

His magic is different. It comes from elsewhere, and does not touch me. But where his spear misses the mark, his being strikes me down. His very existence is wrong.

There is nothing beyond Ixtal. There is noth—

The scene disappears in an instant, leaving a vacuum inside of me. The thunder of blood in my veins rushes to fill it, and a keening pierces my ears as my mind makes connections faster than I can keep up.

Of course. Of course the world isn’t dead. Of course Ixtal alone didn’t stave off apocalypse with a thin, illusory veil of vines. Of course I wasn’t going to be a lone adventurer, trekking across the world in a cocoon of air. Foolish. I think of my father, of the gardeners, so proud of the work they do. So ignorant of their true purpose.

I feel my eyes throbbing within my skull. Chills race over my skin as part of me delights in a new discovery, even as the rest revolts. The Yun Tal can surely hear my heart, hammering a tremulous staccato. But they remain motionless.

A sudden childhood memory steals whatever’s left of my mind. In it, I reverently present Mivasim with the first artifact I discovered in the river. I remember her hesitation; I thought her impressed with my relentless curiosity. She accepted me as a student that day. I had such fondness for sharing my little theories, was so excited to become Yun Tal and chart the uncharted with the likes of most-wise Mivasim.

I must have seemed so stupid.

Ixaocan’s power stills my shuddering frame. The chills settle, my heartbeat slows. But anger crashes into the empty space, and even Ixaocan cannot stop it. A river flooding with betrayal and embarrassment and grief.

Something ugly captures me. I hold the might of Ixaocan in my trembling fists. I’ll crush this chamber, and trap us all like insects in amber. Enmeshed in Ixtal’s ancient center of power, that feels like it would be the easiest thing in the world.

I’m saved by decades of rhetorical and philosophical debate. Simple, practiced reflex to an emotional appeal: what is the truth behind that emotion? I must credit Mivasim for how quickly I retreat from the edge of madness, and arrive at the only possible conclusion.

This is the test.

The Yun Tal have maintained this illusion for generations. The world cannot be simply explained or described; one must see it for themselves, must be wise enough to move past reaction and reach understanding. I internalize a helpless laugh as I realize the purpose for so many gathered Yun Tal. Surely together they would find it trivial to destroy or confound anyone who reached this point and fell prey to their emotion, even wielding Ixaocan’s power as their own.

My rage cools to determination. I scan the room, meet the gaze of each of the most-wise above me. My eyes have words: I have passed your test, the rest is ritual.

I won’t be crushed by this reality. I return to the pattern, and the unfinished extrusion.

The Yun Tal are silent as I work.

It is finished. The Axiomata mark my full understanding of—and control over—air, water, and all the ways they might be combined. I think of the man, of the World Beyond. Above, the Yun Tal roam the threads of my work, searching for error. They will find none.

Something shifts in the air as they make their decision. I rise up, spinning slowly, absurdly, free of the earth’s pull. I look, again, into my mentor’s eyes. I hope to see shame, or guilt, or sorrow for her decades of lies. But there is only pride.

I laugh. I can’t help it, even as the Vidalion spins faster, as the threads I laid upon the etched floor ensnare me now like prey in a spider’s cruel web.

Pain takes me as the magic bleeds from my body. The Yun Tal chant as one. I cannot understand their words, but threads of light trail and curl around me, and shimmering rainbows spin their way down my arms and legs.

I float, trapped between the Vidalion and the nascent fabric. I feel power creep back into me, like waking a sleeping limb.

As the threads resolve into cloth, I feel it. I am Yun Tal.

Their chant crescendos as I float to the ground. Impassive faces break into joyous smiles, but I cannot feel any warmth from them.

I dream of my treasure box, of ancient things.

My foolish passion. Decades spent imagining the World Beyond, eager to share with the Yun Tal things I thought I knew. I think of young, foolish Aliay, so eager to discover. Vengeance is the wrong name for what I wish for him, but it’s close.

“You’re awake,” comes a familiar voice, somewhere outside of time. I don’t feel awake, but there is a comfortable bed, a warming brazier, a concerned mentor. I want to ask her so much, but I fear I already know all the answers.

“I’m awake, Mivasim.” My voice is smoother than I expect, free of the choke of tears or the roughness of anger.

“Miv, now,” she responds. “We are peers.”

Silence follows. So many years together, and only today is she at a loss for words.

Finally, she speaks. “I was furious with my own teacher, you know. We didn't speak for days. I… I just wanted to be sure you were comfortable, but I can leave you to your rest.”

I don’t want rest. I want action.

But outwardly, I am calm. “You prepared me well.”

“Oh? Please, tell me your thoughts.” This is a question I’ve heard in study, but which now sounds strangely free of expectation. Peers after all.

I have not had the time to practice deception the way the other Yun Tal have, but I don’t need it. I understand the great lie of which I am now a part. I can provide the basic shape of it, and Mivasim’s relief and pride will fill in the details well enough to conclude this conversation.

“The Yun Tal preserve Ixtal,” I confirm. “Every Ixtali understands the finality of their decisions, once made.”

I feel more myself as I speak. The familiarity of rhetoric is comforting.

Still, I resent the feeling. Just a little.

“A million small threads comprise each decision, learned through argument, discovery, and new perspectives. If you understand the threads, you will make the perfect decision.”

It's hard for me not to look to Mivasim for approval, to suggest I'm on the right path, so I continue staring into the brazier’s fire even as it stings my eyes. “So the Yun Tal bear the burden of decision. To the Ixtali—to myself, until recently—our land is a closed realm. We reveal to each only those threads that they are capable of processing, as we discussed on the road. And…”

I turn, finally, to seek the brief but firm nod that signals the rightness of my thinking. “The early Yun were faced with this unimaginable dilemma. How best to protect their people from the world outside. They chose to cloister us. Anyone without sufficient wisdom might have misstepped, caused Ixtal’s end. Hence the distinction, the rigor of study that produces the Yun Tal.”

It’s a defensible argument. Still, I loathe it.

I conclude. “Which must mean that the Yun Tal have argued among themselves for countless centuries, and not a single one of them has brought forth a suggestion worthy of reversing that choice.”

A peaceful status quo, awaiting the brightest mind to ensure the next step is the right one. It’s wrong, somewhere, beyond its cruel deception.

I suppose I will have all my life to put words to that wrongness. To make the status quo my enemy.

Mivasim inclines her head toward me in a gesture of respect. “It took me rather longer to draw the same conclusion after I faced the Vidalion.” She stands, and offers me her hand. I take it, and limp to a standing position. “Come. Eat. We elders must celebrate with those who can stand to look the rest of us in the eye.”

I think again of my old treasure box.

I imagine myself lifting the lid, placing my anger within it, and sealing it away.

A tired smile forms on my face. “Let’s go.”

I watch from the mezzanine as noise fills the hall. Tables full of food drift between small groups entrenched in discussion, storytelling, and dancing. A few of the other new initiates seem as angry as I, but their frustration is soothed by camaraderie and assurances that this outrage is nothing new. Nowhere in Ixtal are the elements under such firm command, and most seem quick to embrace the opulence of their new lives.

We idolize the Yun Tal. Perfect philosophers, I once called them. Seekers of truth. I collected trinkets, eager to share in the study and exploration of another world. I studied, hoping to make myself worthy of debating with the brightest minds to grace Runeterra.

Now when I look at them, they seem… frail.

“Pah, you are right to brood.” I hear the clatter of metal as braceleted wrists drape against the balustrade. “I have seen better celebrations for the birth of mules.”

The Yunalai from my test. Her presence fills the narrow space despite her small stature, and her imperious tone demands a respect I don’t know how to give.

I opt for a simple bow. “I am happier to listen from here, honored Yunalai.”

Her laughter brings forth a small snort. “It is not my family bringing me honor.” She stares a moment, and when I fail to respond she says, “I do not mind saying, it pains me that you do not know of this. Of Qiyana.”

Qiyana. She speaks her own name with acerbic reverence, and my face burns with embarrassment. “Forgive me. I live far from Ixaocan.”

“Yes, well. Now you are aware. Come. May I call you Aya?”

It seemed to not be a question. I follow her to the balcony’s open doors and step into the night. Even now Ixaocan is bright with activity and firelight.

“During my test, Aya, I saw the most resplendent thing. An almost primal thing, clawing for the skies, and of such power as I have only seen in the arcologies! It is so far from us, and many people have warred for control of it.”

“I saw something similar,” I respond, and she nods enthusiastically.

“Yes! And I could think only, ‘This should not be so!’ For such a place to exist outside of Ixtal, with no Yun Tal to be its shepherd? Aya, it was horrible.”

I find kinship in her words.

Here is an enemy of the status quo.

“The Yun Tal, we are respected for our mastery of this world. Aya, how much more there is of the world than Ixtal! We lead, but we do not act. Maybe some are wise enough to recognize they can’t bear that decision alone. Maybe others are afraid?”

I listen, and I know Qiyana is not afraid. Whatever buoys her step, whatever fuels her unshaken confidence, it is unique among the Ixtali.

“It should not be so,” I murmur. The words feel heavy, significant.

She looks at me, the light of Ixaocan reflected in her eyes. “Well then. You and I, Aya, will be the ones to change it.”

My robes feel strange for the first time since I donned them, a year past. Perhaps it’s the other Yun Tal. Perhaps it’s the chamber. This is the first time I have returned since my test.

Magic still swirls in a ring along the walls, and in its depths I see what I know now to be the Freljord, from our oldest histories. I will walk its mountain paths in person one day.

A student strides through the doors. Her confident grin reminds me of my mother, who was so proud with her Yun Tal child so many months ago.

I want to weep for her.

The collected Yun Tal share silent affirmations. Mivasim, ahead and to my left across the gallery, nods at me, pride still sparking her gaze. I return the gesture, and look over to Qiyana. Her face betrays nothing, but her presence is a comfort. I am not alone in recognizing the failings of those assembled.

Thank you, Mivasim, for your lessons. I will use them to correct our mistakes. Alongside Qiyana, I will build the perfect argument, one that honors even the frustration of your first days among the Yun Tal.

I hope, when the time comes, you are prepared to hear it.

The student strides forward. The chamber stills.

Milio's story began generations ago with his grandmother, Lupé, and her twin sister, Luné—two elemental masters who wove their respective earth and fire axioms together to overcome the Vidalion’s trials and join the Yun Tal. But after Luné was caught plotting against the Yun Tal, both sisters were convicted of her crime and punished as twins. Lupé was banished to the farthest reaches of Ixtal and Luné all but vanished, taking with her the last of Lupé's trust.

By the time Milio was born, his family had done all they could to make the best of their new lives. He knew only love and laughter, and to him, life in the village was paradise—what more could they ever need?

When Milio was old enough, Lupé tried to teach her grandson the axiomata. Where the rest of her family had failed her, Milio showed promise and took to the elements naturally, but struggled to grasp the rules and rigidity of the discipline. Disappointed, Lupé gave up hope, abandoning Milio's teachings.

Milio, however, continued to learn on his own. Away from the guidance of his grandmother, he abandoned the restrictions she had tried to impose on him. Studying nature itself, he intuited his own set of rules and eventually mastered fire—the one axiom his grandmother wouldn't teach him.

But something bothered Milio about fire. Did it have to be so destructive, especially when he saw the potential for it to do more?

The answer revealed itself one night while Milio was chasing the glow of summer fireflies. They led him to one of the village’s hunters who was injured and unable to move. Milio tried to keep her stable with his fire axiom, but it wasn't enough. Knowing the village healer was too far, he tried desperately to adapt the axiom into a force that could heal.

As he placed his hands on the hunter's stomach to support her wound, he felt a flicker of warmth.. It was so familiar and soothing, like he was touching her soul. Her inner flame. Then Milio began to feel that same flame within himself. He could feel it within the trees, within the leaves—as if each part of the jungle was coming to life like a cozy bonfire.

Focusing all of his energy into that feeling, he used what nature had taught him to manifest that fire. What emerged was a creature—small and timid with wide, friendly eyes. Milio placed it on the hunter's wound and felt the creature—his inner flame—heal her from the inside out.

That night, he’d discovered an entirely new axiom, which he affectionately named “soothing fire.”

Milio ran home to show his family what he'd done. Before their eyes, he manifested another soothing flame that danced happily in the palm of his hand—his "fuemigo"—and his family celebrated.

Grandmother Lupé, however, was unsettled by this achievement.

Seeing Milio’s mastery of the axiomata at such a young age, Lupé knew that her grandson had done what the rest of her family failed to do. With his abilities, he could finally end their exile and restore them to their rightful place among Ixtal's ruling caste. However, she was troubled by his fascination with fire and how his burgeoning skills went against the traditional teachings of the axiomata.

Despite this, Lupé threw everything into her last chance at redemption. Milio became her sole focus as she nurtured and shaped his abilities, preparing him to leave home, travel to Ixaocan, and finally free her from the burden of her sister's failures. Milio felt this weight upon his shoulders, and the thought of leaving home on his own terrified him. But because Milio loved his family more than anything, he would find the courage if it meant ensuring their happiness.

In preparation for the journey, he and his grandmother fashioned a special backpack that Milio called his "furnasita," inside of which he could keep his ever-burning fuemigo. Then, with a heavy heart and a wide smile, Milio—at only twelve years old—left his village behind, outfitted with only his trusty furnasita and some new clothes made by his family.

He traveled the entirety of Ixtal, forging his way through the jungle, camping underneath the stars, and making friends along the way, all while sending frequent letters home that detailed his exciting adventures. After a long journey, Milio finally made it to Ixaocan, where he's since begun his training to challenge the Vidalion.

"The boy with the soothing flames" has caught the eye of more than a few—including Luné, currently imprisoned beneath the city and biding her time. Even Milio notices the whispering that accompanies him around the city, but his focus is on joining the Yun Tal and making his family proud.

The youngest child in a ruling family, Qiyana grew up believing she would never inherit the high seat of the Yun Tal. As her parents governed Ixaocan, a city-state hidden deep in the jungles of Ixtal, they raised their children to succeed them, schooling them in the proud traditions of their isolated nation. Primed to rule before her, Qiyana’s nine older sisters received most of the attention, and she often longed to find her own meaningful place in the family.

That place became clear the day young Qiyana began to learn the ancient elemental magic of Ixtal. Soon after she took up lessons, she realized she was blessed with extraordinary talent. Though Qiyana was only seven years old, she mastered advanced techniques within weeks, while some of her older sisters had yet to grasp the basics after years of study.

One by one, Qiyana surpassed her sisters in the elemental arts, and the more she progressed, the more resentful she became. Why did her parents waste so much effort grooming her inferior siblings? Each time they were chosen to preside over the grand rituals that shrouded Ixtal from the outside world, Qiyana lashed out in frustration, picking fights to prove her worth. It wasn’t long before Inessa, the eldest sister and immediate successor, became the target for Qiyana’s aggression.

Rather than defusing the conflict, Inessa bristled at the disrespect from her sister, who was twelve years her junior. As both grew older, their words became increasingly heated, culminating in physical threats from Inessa, and a challenge from Qiyana: they should decide who was strongest in ritual combat, for all of Ixaocan to see—and for the right to succeed their parents. Inessa accepted the challenge to teach her sister some much needed humility.

When the contest was over, Inessa was never to walk again, while Qiyana stood unscathed.

She was eager to take her place as the rightful heir, but Qiyana’s parents were furious at her actions. They denied her the prize—tradition decreed that Qiyana would always be tenth in line to inherit the high seat of the Yun Tal. Though the news was bitter, Qiyana soon discovered that the duel had made her elemental prowess known across all of Ixaocan. At last, she had found what had long eluded her: respect.

That respect quickly became an addiction. Qiyana felt a burning need to be recognized for her exceptional skill. In fact, all of Ixaocan should stand proud with her, and put the world in its place with their powerful elemental magic. Instead, they were hiding from foreign explorers, and miners who were uprooting the jungle on their borders.

In her parents’ court, Qiyana laid out her ambitions—to drive off the miners and restore the lands. Qiyana’s parents rejected the idea. Contact with the “outlanders” would bring hatred, war, and disease, jeopardizing what their dynasty had protected for centuries. Qiyana stewed, impatient to prove her strength to the world, and determined to prove her parents wrong.

Acting against their will, Qiyana raided the mining site, killing all the miners but one. As the man’s eyes shone brightly with fear, Qiyana knew he would spread her message—he would tell everyone in his Pilt-over about the grand elementalist who destroyed their mine.

In Ixaocan, Qiyana gladly took credit for the slaughter, infuriating her mother and father. They told her the Piltovan merchants were sending fresh miners and armsmen into the jungle. Qiyana’s parents would not risk their insubordinate daughter drawing even more outlanders toward their borders, and regretfully ordered her imprisoned for her crime.

Just as she was detained, several elementalists of the court came to Qiyana’s defense. The elemental talent displayed in the jungle was unheard of, and they convinced her parents that Qiyana should aid them in powering and defending the city. Qiyana was released, once she swore renewed fealty to her elders, and vowed to never cross paths with an outlander again.

As a growing number of admirers throw their support behind Qiyana, she has finally realized her true place in the world. She holds a power stronger than tradition, and she will climb the ladder of succession by any means necessary.

She is the greatest elementalist the world has ever seen. She is the inevitable ruler of Ixaocan, and the future empress of all Ixtal.

“I’m starting to sweat, Bayal. Please, do not let me sweat.”

Qiyana’s servant fretted at the words. He mustered what little control he had over the elements, concentrating on forming a magical cloud of mist. In seconds, the mist surrounded Qiyana and grew cooler, dispelling the heat of the jungle.

“That’s better,” said Qiyana. “If I am to do this, I must be able to focus.”

She began to swivel her ohmlatl slowly around her body, causing the jungle thicket to bend and part with each rotation of the ring-blade. Roots and stems popped, tossing up bits of soil until, at last, a narrow trail revealed itself in the brush.

“Here it is,” Qiyana said, and promptly started down the winding path.

With each twist of her ohmlatl, the thick vines of the rainforest receded before her. Behind her, they slithered back across the path to conceal it. Bayal fell behind just long enough to be caught in the growth of the writhing plants.

“Keep up, Bayal,” said Qiyana. “Honestly, you have one task.”

The servant hurdled the freshly grown thicket, struggling to catch up to Qiyana, and to maintain the temperature of her mist cloud.

When the two finally emerged from the forest, the sun had sunk low in the sky, its golden dusklight shining on a small village. Qiyana took one last look behind her to see the secret path was now completely buried in jungle. Three village elders greeted her with a respectful Ixtali salute, arms held tightly across their chests, and led her into a plaza just inside the settlement.

At the far end of the plaza, a great Piltovan machine sat lifeless and defeated—spoils from a recent skirmish in the jungle. Qiyana paid it little mind as she took the seat presented to her at a small table, modestly set with fruits and nuts.

“To what do we owe this honor, Child of the Yun?” asked an elderly woman, leaning forward to get a better look at Qiyana.

“I have heard the news of your prefect’s passing. You have my condolences,” said Qiyana.

“Killed by the outlanders,” said an old man, pointing at the Piltovan machine to his rear. “Tried to stop one of those from felling trees for their mine.”

“So I was told,” said Qiyana. She sat perfectly upright as she arrived at the purpose of her visit.

“It seems that Tikras needs a more capable governor. One who is strong enough to stand up to the outlanders, and their toys,” said Qiyana with confidence. “Someone like me.”

The elders turned to each other, confusion showing through their weathered faces.

“But Yunalai, respectfully, we already have… someone like you,” said the old woman. “Your sister is here.”

“What?” fumed Qiyana.

As if on cue, a procession of local servants marched across the plaza toward Qiyana. Four of them carried a palanquin on their shoulders.

As the palanquin came closer, Qiyana could see a plush bed, several fine silk pillows, and her sister Mara, reclining with a goblet of wine in her hand. A silver tray of exquisite dishes rested beside her, and two servants cooled her with elemental magic far stronger than Bayal’s. As Qiyana wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, she glared bitterly at her servant.

“Qiyana. So… good to see you,” said Mara uneasily, as her palanquin came to rest on the ground.

“Mara. You seem to be enjoying yourself,” said Qiyana.

Mara squirmed under her sister’s penetrating stare, seemingly trying to retreat into the plush bedding.

“Would you care for some wine?” offered Mara, as she took a tense, joyless sip from her goblet.

“You’re supposed to protect this village, not empty its larders,” said Qiyana, declining the drink. “You should step down. Let me be prefect.”

Mara froze as she forced wine down her rigid throat.

“I cannot do that,” she said. “You know this. I am older than you.”

“A whole year older,” replied Qiyana. “Yet so far behind.”

She approached her sister’s bed, her smug expression slowly transforming into a scowl.

“I say this only as a statement of fact. You know it is true. What would happen if these miners discovered this village?”

“I would defend it,” said Mara meekly.

“You would die. So would everyone in this village. This we both know,” said Qiyana, for everyone in the plaza to hear. “I can protect them.”

A murmur spread about the plaza. Mara bit her bottom lip—something she had done since childhood, particularly when her younger sister had gotten the better of her.

“I… cannot give it to you. The Yun Tal will not allow it,” said Mara timidly.

“They will if you resign,” said Qiyana. “Go home to Ixaocan. Tend your water garden. I will assume your responsibilities here.”

She watched Mara’s eyes dart around at the elders, as if looking for some way to save face.

“The law is clear,” said Mara. “No one else may be prefect, as long as I am capable of governing.”

Clenching her jaw in anger, Qiyana turned toward the great machine resting at the far end of the plaza. She spun her ohmlatl around her body, startling the elders from their seats. Drawing elements from all around the plaza to the blade, she launched them toward the machine. In an instant, the great metal behemoth was entombed in ice, battered by rocks, and ripped apart by vines—all at the command of the young Yunalai.

The elders and servants in the plaza gave an audible gasp at the display of power.

“You think you already have ‘someone like me,’” said Qiyana. “But there is no one like me.”

The elders frowned at her, reaffirming the decision. “As long as Yunalai Mara is capable of governing, the position belongs to her.”

The words rang in Qiyana’s head as she turned and silently left the plaza, dejected. She led Bayal back to the edge of the village, where they were met by two elementalist wardens.

“No need to see us off,” said Qiyana. “I know the way, and what to do with it.”

With a turn of her ohmlatl, she parted the brush to reveal the path that lead back through the jungle. With her servant struggling to cool her, she walked back toward the grand arcologies of Ixaocan, uncovering the secret path, and re-covering it behind her.

As soon as they were out of sight of the village, Qiyana’s ohmlatl slowed. Behind them, the path was now unconcealed, laid bare in the late day sun.

“My Yunalai—you’ve forgotten to cover the path,” said Bayal.

“Bayal, does your one task have anything to do with tending the path?” asked Qiyana.

“No, my Yunalai. But… what if someone finds the village?”

“Not to worry. I’m sure the new prefect will defend it.” said Qiyana.

The following morning, Qiyana awoke in Ixaocan to the sound of sobs.

“Outlanders. They found Tikras!”

Her sister’s cries came from the hallway outside her bedroom. Qiyana put on her robe, and opened the bedroom door to find Mara, weeping in Bayal’s arms.

“Mara. What’s the matter?” asked Qiyana, making some effort to sound concerned.

Her sister turned to her, red-faced and trembling, covered in scratches from running through the jungle.

“The miners… they leveled the village. Half the people are dead. The other half are hiding. I barely escaped—”

Qiyana embraced her sister, suppressing a smile over her shoulder.

“Do you see now? I was only looking out for you,” said Qiyana. “Being a prefect is a dangerous responsibility.”

“I should’ve listened. You… You would have crushed the Piltovans,” lamented Mara.

“Yes. I would have,” said Qiyana. She beamed as she thought of the miners and mercenaries that had plundered the village—how easily she would slaughter them, and how the surviving elders would grovel in thanks to her as they came to the same realization her sister was now reaching.

“You should be prefect of Tikras,” said Mara.

I should, thought Qiyana. I deserve it.

Clan Ferros understands sacrifice.

Most of the family’s wealth came through harvesting a rare crystal from the brackern, a creature native to Shurima. These hex-crystals—or “first crystals”—contained power normally only wielded by those born with innate magical ability. After Camille’s great-great aunt lost an arm during an early expedition, her sacrifice inspired the Ferros family motto: “For family, will I give.”

The brackern were a limited resource, and Camille's family had to augment the crystals they’d accumulated. Utilizing shadow investments in chemtech and runic alchemy, they developed less powerful, but easier to make, synthetic hex-crystals.

Yet there were consequences—synthetic crystal manufacturing has long been rumored to heavily contribute to the Zaun Gray. Furthermore, it was only through espionage, intimidation, and murder that Clan Ferros held its monopoly on this priceless commodity, and ensured its uninterrupted production in Zaun, maintaining the family’s place in Piltover’s illustrious Bluewind Court.

As the eldest surviving child of Clan Ferros’ masters, Camille received every educational advantage. She had exceptional tutors, learning to speak several foreign languages and play the cellovinna at a concert-master level. Camille also learned to read and write Ancient Shuriman while assisting her father on digs in the Odyn Valley.

Traditionally, one of the younger children would become their family's principal intelligencer, working with the clan master to secure their family’s success by any means necessary. However, Camille's younger brother, Stevan, had a weak constitution, and so Camille took his place. He jealously watched her embrace her additional training, and she became quite adept in combat, reconnaissance, and interrogation.

When Camille was twenty-five, augmented Zaunite thugs attacked her and her father, intent on stealing lucrative trade secrets. Camille’s father succumbed to his wounds, and in anguish, her mother died soon after. Stevan became clan master, and he doubled the clan’s research in human hextech augmentation, eager to prove himself as a strong leader.

After a year of mourning, Stevan oversaw the induction of Hakim Naderi—a promising young crystallographer from the Shuriman coastal city of Bel'zhun—as the family’s lead artificer.

Camille requested hextech augmentation from Hakim to push her beyond her human limitations. Hakim was instantly enamored with her, and they bonded over the preparations and late night stories of Shurima… and eventually, Camille returned Hakim's feelings. Their affair grew reckless, as they knew the surgery would conclude their time together. Hakim would move onto other projects, and Camille would once again be fully committed to the principal intelligencer’s duties. More than that, Hakim worried that in carving away Camille's heart, he might remove her humanity.

Days before Camille's operation, Hakim proposed marriage and begged her to run away with him. For the first time in her life, Camille was torn.

Stevan had no such conflict, as he needed Camille to execute his vision. When he learned of the secret proposal, he devised a plan—the next time Camille and Hakim were together, Stevan set himself up to be attacked. When she saw her brother bruised and bloodied, Camille recognized what could happen when her attention was divided.

Hakim pleaded with Camille, but she wouldn’t listen. For family, she would give. She ended her relationship with Hakim, insisting her surgery go forward.

He was the only one who could safely perform the operation, and so he excised Camille’s heart and replaced it with hextech—then resigned. When she awoke, the lab she and Hakim had shared was abandoned.

Camille focused on her work. She took on further refinements, including bladed legs, grapple-spindled hips, and other, minor hex-augmentations, leading some to wonder how much of the woman was left. And as Clan Ferros amassed more power and wealth, Camille’s missions became darker and more deadly.

Thanks to her hextech heart, she did not age—but the years were not so kind to her brother. Yet even as Stevan's body grew more frail, his iron grip on the clan remained.

Eventually, Camille uncovered the depth of Stevan's betrayal, and realized his machinations were no longer in the family’s best interests. In that moment, she discarded the last sentiment she felt toward her brother.

After installing her favorite grand-niece as clan master, Camille now runs the family's public affairs as well as its more shady operations. As a solver of… difficult problems, she embraces her more-than-human transformation and the cutting judgment it affords her—but a strange, mournful keening in her hextech heart may yet prove a troubling portent.

Regardless, Camille refuses to sit idle, and gains invigoration from well-executed industrial espionage, a fresh-brewed cup of tea, and long walks in the Gray.

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

Until the day Icathia fell.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings, family! It is I, Milio, with my first official Adventure Report!

I can't believe it's been three whole days since I left home. I made it safely to my first village and I'm ready to sleep in a REAL bed tonight. No more jungle floor! I can smell dinner too, mmm... (But your cooking is way better, Mamá! Yours too, Meli!)

When I got to the village, your letters were waiting for me! I miss you all SO MUCH. How's Cousin Javi? Is Tomasin helping Papá with the farm? How are the animals doing? Cousin Jaime, I can't believe your and Xalvadora's baby is coming soon! How is she doing? Tell me everything! Also, Luca, you're not allowed to get married until I get home, okay? (Say hi to Cedro for me!)

ANYWAY, I bet you're all wondering about my journey. Well, guess what? Your favorite Milio has become super tough and rugged camping under the stars, hehe. The jungle isn't as scary as it looks, especially when I have my fuemigos to keep me warm at night. Plus, now I don't have to share my bedroom anymore!

The fuemigos are doing really well! My furnasita is keeping them nice and cozy, and they've done so much good work, lighting my path and even healing little jungle critters. (I helped too, of course!) Omele Lupé, I've been practicing my axiom every day and I'm getting stronger, just like you told me. The Vidalion won't stand a chance!

This is the farthest I've ever been from home... but every day has been new and exciting! I'm doing REEEEEEALLY well too, by the way. I already made three new friends in the village, and we're eating together tonight!

Speaking of, I gotta go eat. My fuemigos and I are STAAAAARVING. I'm leaving again tomorrow morning, but I'll write you as soon as I reach the next village.

Love you all! My next letter is coming soon!

The Tough and Rugged Milio

Hi, family! It's Milio again, safe in the next village and ready to tell you all about my newest adventures!

Thank you all for your letters. I wish I could write more often... Maybe I could train one of my fuemigos to deliver my letters for me? Can they even travel that far? Let's find out!

I'm back! They can't...

So Cousin Isabella was injured? How's she doing? I bet she'll be back on her feet in no time with one of Cousin Junot's poultices. Auntie Alba, I wish I could hear your new songs! I bet the whole village loved them.

OH, you'll never guess who I met today! Okay, so picture this: I was wandering through the jungle when I saw an injured kitten. It was so cute and soft and fluffy, and it needed my help, so my fuemigos and I jumped into action and healed it! I got so many cuddles, and it was purring SOOOO much. We were napping in a sun spot when Nidalee found us!

You remember the stories about the "Kashdaji Queen," right? About how she's half-woman, half-cat, and half-ghost? How she stalks the jungle at night, waiting to pounce on kids out past their bedtime? Well, her real name is Nidalee, and she's the best EVER. Definitely not a scary ghost who eats kids! Actually, she doesn't even like people that much. But she CAN turn into a cat! Isn't that amazing?

Omele Lupé, I think you’d really like her. She's super strong, just like you!

She didn't really like me at first, but I won her over. So she let me travel with her pack for a little bit, because I helped one of their kittens! (She taught me they're called "pakiti," and the Kashdaji are actually called "pakaa.") It was really fun getting to travel with Nidalee and her pack.

We're kinda like a pack, right? We might not be pakaa, but we have each other. It would be fun if we were traveling together, too. Also, cuddle puddles!

I hope I see Nidalee again. If you ever see her, say hi for me! She might SEEM distant at first, but she's actually super sweet, hehe.

Time for me to go! The village is having a bonfire tonight and I wanna check it out.

Love you all!

Milio, the Honorary Pakaa

Hi, family, it's Milio again! I miss you all a ton... You miss me too, right?

I'm so glad I got your letters. Hearing what you've all been up to makes me REALLY happy, almost like you're traveling with me! And it gives me something to look forward to when I reach each stop on my way to Ixaocan.

I definitely needed them today... When I got to the village last night, there was a lot going on. A bunch of people were hurt pretty bad. Luckily, me and my fuemigos were there to help! But... one person didn't make it.

His family told me there wasn't anything I could have done. That I did SO much and made his last moments warm, but...

I should have been able to save him.

I guess it was pretty amazing helping everyone and showing them just how comfy and cozy fire can be. My fuemigos love being in the spotlight, too! And I helped a lot of people... But, I dunno...

OH, Cousin Jaime, Xalvadora, I read about your baby! I'm so happy for you!!! I wish I could be there to meet her. Tell her all about Uncle Milio, okay? And give her a bajillion kisses and cuddles for me until I get home!

Omele Lupé, I'm sorry. Next time, I'll do better. I promise.

I'm gonna go now! I wanna check on everyone before I leave.

Love you all!

Milio

Co-'om se-henna, family!

"Milio, what does that mean?" Good question! It means "smile forever." I learned it from a new friend, hehe. (I'll tell you more soon!)

It's been FOREVER since my last letter! My fuemigos and I are marching on, meeting so many new people and seeing so many new things.

First, did you know there's a lady made of PLANTS in the jungle? I heard a lot of whispers about her in the last village, but I thought it was just scary stories for babies or something. Boy, was I wrong!

I actually saw her one night! She was covered in petals and vines and leaves and everything! But her little seed friends looked really sharp... Don't worry, Mamá, Papá, I didn't go say hi. But I kinda wish I had...

Also, I saw a mountain? Or at least a giant, moving rock! I noticed it through the trees and I was so confused, because it wasn't on my trusty map, so I went to investigate. And it seemed like a normal rock-mountain until I noticed... it had a FACE! And it was... moving? I reeeeeeally wanted to say hi, but I think it would’ve stepped on me if I’d tried. Next time!

I made a new best friend, too. Her name is Neeko! She's so cute and nice and can shapeshift! She tried to play a prank on me by turning into ME, but my fuemigos knew it was a trick. I'm so proud of them.

So yeah, Neeko smelled Nidalee's pakaa on me and wanted to investigate. (Apparently they're super-duper close!) (Also, Mamá, Papá, I PROMISE I shower every night. Well, most nights...)

I learned a lot from Neeko, like how to say a bunch of new things and how she's trying to form a tribe for anyone who needs a home. I wish I could help her, but I gotta join the Yun Tal, first. Maybe one day?

I've been traveling through Ixtal for so long now. It feels like I never run out of new things to see. Every day is fun and different, even if the jungle floor still isn't all that comfortable, hehe.

Anyway, me and my fuemigos are pooped. It's so late here... What time is it for you? How's my new niece? (I can't believe I'm not the baby of the family anymore!) Tell Tomasin that she better be talking to the animals every night. They sleep better after you read them a bedtime story.

Omele Lupé, I'm almost at Ixaocan! I'm training every day so I can face the Vidalion and make you proud.

Also, I'm doing okay, I promise. I'm big and strong, so you don't need to worry about me.

Love you all!

Your Best Friend, Milio

Greetings from Ixaocan, family!

Can you believe I finally made it? I was starting to think I'd be traveling through the jungle FOREVER. Is it weird I kinda miss it?

There's so much to tell you! But now that I can write to you every day, I'll send even more letters about what I’m up to in the capital. (Still no luck with my fuemigo delivery service... but more about that some other time.)

The capital is HUGE. Omele Lupé, I can't believe you used to live here! I've already gotten lost a couple times... oops. Everything is ginormous, and there are a ton of people. I've seen so many things and learned a bunch of new ways to use the axiomata, too!

At first, I was worried about finding a place to stay, but a super kind family took me in! They're earth elementalists and use the axiomata to make ceramics. Isn't that amazing? They're letting me stay in their spare room for free as long as I help them with chores in their ceramics shop. Good thing I’ve got lots of practice helping people!

Even though Ixaocan is so different from our cozy village, there are some things that remind me of home, too. All the people in my neighborhood are really friendly and welcoming. Almost like a family! And there's a daily market nearby with food that tastes almost like Mamá’s! Almost.

I keep getting this weird feeling in the pit of my stomach, though. Kind of like when I was back with the pakiti, and they were all play-hunting and tracking me through the forest, but I feel it... here? I mean, it's probably just me getting used to my new life, right?

Anyway, I'll be facing the Vidalion any day now! Until then, I'm gonna keep training and exploring.

Wish me luck!

Love you all!

Milio, the Vidalion's Next Challenger

Icathia, most desolate and cursed of lands, was not always so. Theirs was a rich and diverse civilization, ruled by benevolent Axamuk, last of the Mage Kings of old. As the Shuriman empire expanded across the continent, Axamuk’s calls for peaceful coexistence were ignored, and his armies destroyed by the god-warriors of the Ascended Host.

Though humbled by this defeat, many Icathians saw an opportunity for mutual advancement. Accepting an offer of autonomous satrapy, they installed a governing council of distinguished mages, philosophers, and lawmakers to oversee the transition of power.

After almost nine centuries of imperial rule, a young man named Zilean joined the council’s ranks. He was an elemental mage with a prodigious understanding of physical reality, who had studied under the greatest minds of the age—from the great Yun of Ixtal, to the astromancers of Faraj, and countless others besides.

There was one component of the material realm that few had ever truly grasped, but Zilean was determined to master.

Time.

Time was the one inescapable constant, in all things. Even the mighty god-warriors were not immune to its passage… though they were revered above all others in Shuriman culture.

As part of the political establishment, Zilean now saw more clearly the smoldering discontent among the citizens of Icathia. While their land was home to some of the most heroic leaders and revolutionary thinkers in the empire, not one had ever been deemed worthy of Ascension. Again and again, the council submitted petitions to the distant emperor, yet access to the Sun Disc was denied, without explanation. For all they gave, it seemed Icathians would never be seen as equals.

Zilean’s own resentment grew, yet he was worried by open talk of secession among his peers. He was a patriot through and through, but in the face of the Ascended Host, any rebellion could only end in calamity for his people. Seeking a diplomatic solution, he went as an envoy to neighboring Kahleek, Kalduga, and Ixtal. He had made many allies in his lifetime, and he implored them to stand with Icathia.

Each time, the answer was the same. They would not defy Shurima. If Zilean’s people wanted to, they would do so alone.

Returning home, he was shocked to find the council had decided to crown a new Mage King. Breathlessly, joyously, they told Zilean of the ancient and forbidden power they had discovered—a power so great, it would all but guarantee Icathia’s victory.

They told Zilean of the power of the Void.

He looked to these reasoned, wise Icathians, but saw only madness in their eyes. As much as it grieved him, Zilean would rather his homeland’s revolution be crushed, than to let this abomination be set loose.

Zilean’s worst fears proved true. Once unleashed in battle, the Void overwhelmed the mages attempting to control it, and Icathia was doomed.

As he tried to escape the capital, the ground shook. Buildings toppled. Such horrors as had no place in this world or the next erupted from the depths, driving terrified citizens before them.

They were trapped. Hundreds of thousands of innocents would die. In desperation, Zilean urged as many as he could to take refuge in his tower, and did the impossible.

He removed the entire structure from time.

Crashing to the cold floor, his power spent, Zilean looked at the frozen figures all around him. The Void was halted, but only within those walls—outside, where Icathia once stood, there was nothing.

Zilean had spent decades trying to comprehend the mysteries of time and causality, and it seemed only he could move freely back and forth within the anomaly he had somehow created. These people had been saved, true enough. He just didn’t know how to undo what he had done to achieve it. Through deep meditations and esoteric devices of his own design, he began to divine the strands of past and present that led to this moment, gradually learning how to move back and forth along them, looking for a future where his efforts had already succeeded…

It was there that he found the true threat: the end of everything. The great unmaking that awaits Runeterra.

Effectively, Zilean now exists everywhere, and always has. Even so, he is only too aware of the consequences of trying to bring about change in the world and sparking other unexpected destinies—often conflicting, and almost always more dangerous. Perhaps if he can find a way to save his own people, then the greater disaster might also be averted.

The only question is, what might he be willing to sacrifice along the way?

In Piltover, where anyone’s dream can become everyone’s progress, a star is born.

As a child, Seraphine always loved music, especially her father’s lullabies. The songs were beautiful, but sad. He’d brought them up to Piltover as he and Seraphine’s mother—two lifelong Zaunites—sought a better life in the City of Progress.

Leaning out the window of their hexcoustics workshop, where broken sound tech was made to play again, Seraphine sang along with the streets. The shanties of the Sun Gates, the whistling of apprentices, even the melody of conversation—in a bustling city like Piltover, she was never alone.

Over time, Seraphine realized she could sense songs too private, too personal, for any ordinary person to hear. And as she grew, so did the intensity of her gifts. She heard every person’s soul, loving or cruel—turning the streets she’d once loved into an overwhelming cacophony of conflicting desires. How could she make sense of the voices if none of them harmonized? Some days, she hid shivering in a corner, hands over her ears, unable to hear herself above the chaos.

Seraphine’s parents had left everything behind so she could be born in Piltover; they couldn’t bear seeing her struggle. Scraping together their savings to purchase a shard of a rare hextech crystal, they crafted a device that dampened her magical hearing. For the first time in years, there was silence.

Within that quiet, though, Seraphine heard something—someone. The crystal had a consciousness, born of brackern blood. Though hard to hear, and harder to comprehend, the voice was kind. In a hymn of distant deserts and ancient conflicts of ancestors, a thousand years of history sang in unison.

Seraphine, awed, asked for guidance. Overwhelmed by the yearnings around her, she worried she may have no song of her own. What if she was merely the voices of others?

“We are all forged through others’ voices,” the presence sang back.

And slowly, she learned to manage the noise. The voice rarely spoke clearly, but Seraphine felt its influence as it helped her understand how to resonate with a crowd, to sing with them, using her dampener less each day. The first time she performed in front of an audience, testing her skills, she was nervous beyond words. But she kept singing, and the crowds swelled. Soon, the biggest venues in Piltover had Seraphine’s fans spilling into the streets. Still, something was missing—in the crowds, and in herself. She resolved to seek perspective in the city her parents had worked so hard to leave: Zaun.

The first time she rode the clanging lift down, Seraphine felt somehow at home but still a stranger. In Zaun, she heard refrains of resilience and ambition much like above, yet with a thrum of freedom that was all their own. But as she spent more time below, she also sensed pain. Fear of the chem-barons who controlled every opportunity. Hatred of the spoiled, arrogant Pilties above. There was so much discord. She began to perform, and listened to these new crowds, their hearts singing their struggles. The two cities were divided by more than simple misunderstanding. She wanted to mend, to unite. But she kept hearing the same refrain: “It’s not that simple in Zaun.”

Eventually, Piltover started to feel less like home.

Her hextech crystal had sung an elegy of what hatred left unchecked could accomplish. Seraphine couldn’t let that happen to the cities she loved. Persuading her parents to help, she dismantled her dampener, and together, they gave the crystal a new home in its opposite—a platform that would amplify her gifts, not repress them, allowing her to hear others in all their complexity. Seraphine hoped the crystal’s voice would be among them. She rode this platform down as a stage of sorts, stepping out onto the Entresol between Piltover and Zaun. As the crowds gathered and the lights dazzled, she heard citizens from both worlds, mingled together to hear her.

This was a new song. Not just understanding—unity.

It wasn’t perfect. It might never be. But her voice mattered. And so, Seraphine realized, maybe she could help others find their voice, too.

Seraphine has become the premier star in both Piltover and Zaun. Empowered by her gifts and her hextech, she amplifies the voices of all with a fresh force of optimism, because to her, everyone deserves to be heard—especially those who are struggling. They inspire her, and she will do her best to inspire them in return.

Long, long ago, in a tower by the edge of the sea, a foolish young mage summoned something into the world that he was not prepared to control. What stepped before the boy was something older than recorded history. Something darker than a yawning, starless night. Something the world had desperately tried to forget—and in an instant, the mage, the creature, and the tower itself were lost to all of time.

At least, that’s what the stories say.

In the Freljord, children frighten each other around the fire with tales of a monster that raises itself from untended graves in the ice, its body a shambling mass of helmets, bucklers, furs, and wood. In Bilgewater, drunken sailors trade accounts of something standing alone on a tiny, distant atoll from which no one has ever returned. An old Targonian legend speaks of how a child of twilight stole the only joy from a ragged, whispering horror, while veteran Noxian soldiers prefer the fable of a lonely farmhand who was blamed for a poor harvest and fed to the crows, later returning to the world as a demon.

Demacia. Ixtal. Piltover. Ionia. Shurima. In every corner of Runeterra, these myths persist—reshaped, respun, and passed down by countless generations of storytellers. Stories of a thing that looks almost human and stalks places thick with fear.

But these are simply fables to frighten young children. No one would ever be afraid of a silly old monster called Fiddlesticks…

Until now.

Something has awoken in the Demacian hinterlands, drawn by the climate of rising fear and paranoia. Rural protectorates, separated from the capital by hundreds of miles of farmland, are emptying in mere days. Travelers vanish from the old footpaths. Guard patrols fail to report back from the edges of the kingdom. And wild-eyed survivors claw at their faces from the safety of roadside taverns, wailing of crows that aren’t crows, sounds that aren’t sounds, and a lopsided horror in the shape of a scarecrow that croaks in the stolen voices of the dead.

Most blame rogue mages. Such accusations are common in these days of rebellion.

Yet the truth is far worse. Something has returned, just as it had in the fictitious tale of the young mage in his seaside tower. An evil gone from the world for numberless centuries—long enough that the warnings of a nascent humanity passed into rumor, then myth, then legend… until all that remained were simple fables. An entity so utterly alien that it defies almost all contemporary knowledge of magic. So impossibly ancient that it has always been. So universally feared that even animals grow nervous when someone speaks its name.

In the wake of this revival, another tale, nearly lost to memory, has seen a resurgence throughout the hinterlands. A legend of a great evil that has no form, no thoughts, and no understanding of the world it inhabits, instead building itself into the crude shape of those that fear it. The terror of all living things, given life in that first terrible scream of creation. A demon before demons were known.

At least, that’s what the stories say.

But Fiddlesticks is real.