Chapter 2: Whispers in the dark
The dirty streets of outer Noxus are home to many terrible things: evils that prey on the weak in the dark, the more subtle horrors of disease and poverty, the cruel hand of the corrupt. In the overcrowded slums and homesteads that sit like a rotting maze around the mighty city state there are many things that people have to fear - but none so much as the man of metal. There in the dank darkness, there in some alley deep within the labyrinth of homes – there within the thick of the musky fog of desperation and suffering sits he.
He is, as many of the terrors of this world are, a creature not from this world. None know from whence he came, none know why he came; none even know what he is. He is known only as 'Mordekaiser: the master of metal', the hulking terrible form of steel and shadow – and there in the slums of Noxus he sits, there he waits, feeding off sickness, revelling serenely in the suffering. That is, when he isn't fighting in the league of legends. Calling down his dark powers upon champions on the fields of justice, caring little for who he fights for and why they wish it of him.
But this night his silent residence would be interrupted, as he would have a caller: a floating figure clad in purple, a dark skinned man with glowing eyes: a mad prophet.
"Why have you come here?"
Malzahar chuckled, "Always so formal, I've always liked that, you know?"
"Do not waste my time with your foolish comments human. Answer my question."
The floating wizard descended to a standing position and bowed. "I have come to offer a proposition to you."
The hulking form of obsidian sighed and turned his head away. "What could a madman as you possibly offer me?" He then shifted in his seat, the sound of steel on steel clawing at the air. "Leave me Malzahar; go back to your senseless dreams."
But the prophet of the void did not move, he did not smile and he did not laugh. He took a small moment of pause, and then in a solemn tone, he spoke. "I can bring you your people."
I I I
"We must prepare for all-out war!" shouted one of the most senior and embittered of the summoners now within the grand conference room. His face was a mix of scars and wrinkles, his tone a mix of hatred and cynicism.
"Do not be so stupid Helaran, we cannot jump to such conclusions," replied a much younger summoner sitting at the other end of the large round table, one hand upon his forehead.
"I have jumped to nowhere! We are being thrown these conclusions, and you might learn your place, young one!" The old man slammed his fist against the table and rose. "War will consume this land if we do not act quickly. We are charged with keeping peace, and now that an hour of need comes, what do we do: sit here and argue! We have little time to act my brothers… especially if we fear that Nocturne may return to old habits." At Heleran's last phrase the entire room fell to a deathly silence. They all remembered the days of the night culling, the fear the darkness had instilled in them. Many summoners still could not sleep in total shadow, not without a light: without a flame to ward of that black monster.
Finally through the terrified silence one voice rose. "Four of the most powerful beings in all of Runeterra are roaming free. Noxus and Demacia still lie in unrest. Injustice and violence rampage across the land. There is only so much we can do. But this, this we can stop. Something is happening, I feel it in my soul, something is being played out here, some long since forged plan." Altaarn spoke with a wisdom that few owned; he had a presence about him, a way that made the air stand still: a voice that made each word seem more important than it was.
"You predict some plot? Of what kind?" asked a summoner near the back of the room. She was fairly young, her expression wracked with worry.
"Perhaps to some extent Heleran is right. Perhaps whoever has done this, whether it be Malzahar or not, they plan to force some all-consuming war. I fear someone has planned the destruction of order." The old man replied with a hint of fear in his tone; but only hint, he was careful to not have those around him hear the terror that haunted their leader's mind.
"But why, why would anyone want that?" Voices within the room began to rise. They were disgusted, confused, they needed to know, and to Altaarn they pleaded for answers.
"Why else?" interjected Heleran. "For control! Someone with much darker intentions than we wishes to claim the power we have earned. I believe they wish to abolish the league!" At this there was even more shouting. People argued, others simply gasped. This was all far too much, even for the wise and intellectual senior mages and summoners.
Altaarn himself was helpless to hush the chaos, he had no more answers, he had no more wisdom; all that was left within him now was worry – worry and uncertainty. Why today, why the escape and the creation of that being? Why would anyone free those monsters, even to cause war? None of it made sense; it was all as confusing and disorganized within his mind as it was within his room of council.
But then another spoke. A figure that was sat in the back, shrouded by shadow, draped in a brown hooded cloak. The strange form stepped forward and with two words banished all sound. "SHUT UP!" Every head turned to the figure that now stood in the centre of the room; the shabbily dressed man of shadow whose face none could see, but whose voice all had clearly heard.
"And what say you stranger?" asked the young summoner who had first questioned Heleran.
"What say I?" he replied, his tone tinged with sarcasm. "I say, that you're all acting like idiots. You have no idea what is going on."
Heleran promptly stepped forward. "And you do? What are you even doing in here? You are no summoner I know! Who are you? Show yourself!"
The stranger chuckled. "I may not be a summoner, but I assure you I have more right to be here than most of you do."
Heleran laughed, attempting to patronise the hooded man before him. But he showed no sign of irritation; he just ignored the old man, which he knew very well would only offend him even further. "Get out!"
At this the figure removed his hood, and with his alabaster gaze piercing through and shattering Heleran's threatening disposition, Ryze replied, "Say that again."
Heleran sank into himself; he took two steps backward and in a mousy voice said "What… What are you doing here?"
"I have come because you need to know the truth. But I sat in the back because I was interested to see whether you'd figure it out for yourselves. Obviously that was giving you all far too much credit. Although…" the blue skinned mage paused and scratched his bald head, "I suppose it would have been difficult for you to know what's going out without first having the right information."
"Ryze" said Altaarn as he re-joined the discussion at hand. "What are you talking about? You are making no sense my friend."
"None of this makes any seeming sense, does it? You haven't been paying attention that's why! None of you pay attention! You sit in here high up on your chairs, watching the matches and discussing politics and reading your books, but you don't pay attention – not to magic." Ryze was frantic as he spoke, but this was always his way, it was as if his mind worked at double the speed of everyone else's and his mouth struggled to keep up with it. His robe lay on the floor now, his naked blue chest and pink tattoos on display to everyone. He hated wearing a robe.
"We are mages! You may be a champion of the league but that gives you no right to criticise us true academi…" But Ryze would not let the middle aged man in the silver robe finish. He had no time for ignorance.
"You don't pay attention! There's something wrong, and you should know this! You should feel it! I could feel it, I can feel it… but I was unsure, until I asked him: until I investigated."
Altaarn tried his best to follow along to Ryze's disjointed speech, but he couldn't. "Ryze, slow down. Ask who? Investigate what?"
The blue mage sighed and shook his head. "KASSADIN!" Then in a purple flash another stranger appeared. A man clad in armour and tubing, a figure of black metal and stained skin. Kassadin, ever floating, stood within the air by Ryze's side. "Tell them."
"I am sorry for the intrusion Arch summoner, this was all his plan. He wanted to make an impression." As the dark figure before him apologised, Altaarn smiled. He had always found the contrast of Kassadin's appearance to his demeanour amusing.
"And made one you have. Now explain yourselves. What exactly is going on?"
Kassadin looked at the ground before he spoke, as if he needed to prepare himself for the words that were about to leave his lips – and thus, as he spoke, everyone in the room understood why. "The void is coming."
Altaarn stared with wide frightened eyes: eyes that refused to believe. "What? What do you mean?"
"It is as the madman preached, as I believed I saw once, long ago. The dark gods of Icathia come, the space between worlds is bleeding into the air, Altaarn; the void is come." Kassadin spoke with a solemn sadness, he truly comprehended the weight of his words, and he felt them sink as lead within the air.
"This is why, Altaarn! This is why he has freed those creatures, this is why your monster was born this morning!" shouted Ryze, almost excited by it all.
"You know about that?"
"I know everything!" he snapped, offended by implication that he didn't.
Altaarn took a moment to think about it all, then he looked at Kassadin and with one moment given to hope he asked "Are you sure?" Kassadin nodded, and the moment died. Foolish hope was buried within the arch summoner's mind and the need for action born. "Ok. Then what do we do?" He did not ask this so much because he thought he needed advice, but more because the expression on Ryze's face needed to be satisfied. The blue mage stared at Altaarn eagerly waiting to be sort for counsel; it was clear to Altaarn that Ryze already had a plan, he already knew precisely what had to be done.
"We need time. They will come, we cannot stop them, but when they do we will need an army bigger than ever seen before in order to only hold them back."
Heleran stepped forward for the first time in several minutes. "Hold them back for what?"
"What needs to be done – in order to stop them consuming everything. In order to save life itself."
I I I
"How will you do this?" questioned the booming voice of the master of metal.
"When the gap between worlds has broken its own boundaries… it is far easier to get from one world to another." Malzahar stared with mad ambition at the colossal form that now stood before him: his purple eyes longing for an agreement - glowing through the shadow that masked the rest of his body.
"Why would you do this for me?"
"I explained, when the tides come, at first the will come slow. I will need your forces as allies, we will need time. And…" Mordekaiser chuckled then, knowing there would be an 'and.'
"And what?" Malzahar smiled at him, he could see it all coming together.
"They will try to stop me; somehow they may find a way to prevent the inevitable. You would be amazed how well mortals can stall fate. I will need forces ready to counteract any operation that threatens the joining. Icathia beckons my friend, but they… those wretched summoners and their pathetic champions, they want to silence her callings. I can see it now; I can feel it all fall apart. We must stop them. Together." At this the crazed prophet stretched out one hand. But Mordekaiser was still reluctant.
"And when they all lie dead…" the metal one began.
"This world will be yours." The fleshy one finished.
"And then what of you and your creatures?" This was what Mordekaiser was uncertain about. Why would Malzahar not simply just take the world he destroyed, what else could he want.
"We will return to the void. There are other worlds that need cleansing." Mordekaiser chuckled once more, but now he did with sick glee, imaging all the death and destruction, all the sorrow and suffering.
"Then we are at an accord. I await your return." With that the master of metal sat back down, and had he a face he would have smiled, had he the capacity to feel warmth he would have surged with it.
"You await your people."
I I I
"I will need a team" insisted Ryze.
"What for?"
"I will need a team!" he repeated.
"Yes, very well, of whom?"
"I shall decide! I have decided. It is no one here, you will be needed in the fight."
The summoner's probed and probed, but Ryze would never explain. Eventually Altaarn had enough of it, and so he made that clear. "Ryze! We. Need. To. Know."
The blue mage sighed, his erraticism calming momentarily. "Very well. When I was first a student of magic many years ago…"
"What does this have to do with…" began a summoner attempting to interrupt before being counter-interrupted.
"Listen! See, this is what I mean, you don't pay attention, you need to pay…" And then Altaarn continued the interruption chain.
"Ryze! Please, just go on."
"Fine." He rubbed his large brow a moment and then continued. "When I was first a student of magic, a long, long time ago, my master told my class of a legend. He spoke of an ancient spell, one no one is certain to have truly existed. And sure, we were told these kinds of story all the time, all mages tell these tales, of legendary spells and ancient techniques and long since dead masters whose power will never be matched. But this, this stuck with me. He told us about a spell once created by an ancient cabal of wizards, a spell used to travel to other worlds; a technique that allowed them to seek far off planes of existence and go to them, to traverse these strange worlds and study them. You summoners have created spells that can, at random, draw creatures from other worlds to this one. Quote in point, we have our Taric, our Anivia. But nothing, nothing like this. Nothing that could allow you to view all the worlds in existence and then pick one and travel to it."
"Now, I became obsessed with this legend, and as I travelled across the land and as I studied under one master and another, I would ask them, I would always ask if they knew of the legend, and none did. Until one day, many, many years after, while studying under the watchful eye of an old crone who lived just outside of Freljord, I brought up the legend and she told me she knew of it. But the version she knew differed greatly to mine. She told me there was a cabal of wizards long ago who attempted to develop such a spell, but what they created in the end was nothing that they had planned. You see they had planned to create a bridge of powerful energy, one that would penetrate the barrier between worlds and allow them to pass from one place to another. But when it came to testing it, the outcome was not as they had expected."
"They made their bridge, they penetrated through the barrier, and they struck their other world with force so powerful, with a beam of energy so focused and so unrelenting, that rather than creating a connection, rather than joining with the other world, it did not stop. They destroyed that world, and killed every creature that lived there. The crone went on to explain that the cabal then split up, each wizard taking a torn piece of the scroll that the spell was written upon: for certainly it could never be used again, but to utterly destroy such a masterpiece would be an insult to magic. I asked her where these pieces were now. She told me they were scattered, and that I should not go looking for them. I told her I needed to know, that I needed proof that it was true, that I just needed to know. And that's when she told me; that's when she took me to a small room of her house and opened an ancient black box. There before me, given to her by her father, from his father, and his, in the wake of many, many generations before, lay a piece of the scroll. So it was true, and with me pretending my appetite was sated I returned to study."
"But it was not over. That night I broke into that room and I stole that piece of scroll, and those many years I searched the globe for the rest of them."
Ryze stopped, a strange calmness hanging over his body, a kind of regret, an almost sadness. Altaarn stared at the blue mage, half amazed and half terrified. "Did you find them?"
"Of course I found them, and here on my back they lie fixed together, here on my back lies the words of the most dangerous spell ever created."
"So your original master was wrong then?" asked a female voice that came from behind Ryze.
"In theory I believe they both were right, and that is why the spell is so dangerous. It does not only create a bridge, it does not only destroy, it can do both. This is why, I believe, the cabal went their separate ways; some wanted the spell to cause destruction and others did not." He sighed once more, "This is why ignorance is bliss."
"But what does this have to do with our situation?"
Ryze stared at Altaarn, his expression grave for the first time he had ever seen it: his white eyes bearing the burden of the truth that had to be realised. "There is no stopping the void Altaarn. It will come, it will consume, this world will become nothing – and if it is not stopped the void will destroy every world in existence."
"So what must we do?" asked the old man, ready for the answer he already knew.
"We must leave this place. I and my team must ready a bridge while you and your army stem the tide. And then, once those we can make safe are safe, we must destroy Runeterra and all the foulness that remains on it."