The Alchemist
"We have a new arrival, general, they call him the Alchemist"
The velvet curtains parted to reveal two figures of Noxian apparel. Near the window, the moonlight shone through, illuminating the features of the
Noxian general.
A clean shaven head save for a very short tuft of hair that had cascaded vertically across his scalp. Velvet and gold trimmings had adorned his
overcoat,
a walking cane. A stocky build. Tall. the Noxian general carried the air of self assurance, the eyes of a ruthless ambitionist...
And a monstrosity of a crow that bore multiple pairs of eyes. It screeched loudly in response to the mans presence, who swallowed nervously behind
him.
A pause.
"I see, have you any other intel on the subject?"
The general spoke with a cold monotone that beheld impatience, the man shook his head, even though the general had his back turned and couldn't
possibly see the negative action. The crow eyed the man with its cruel eyes, scrutinizing him for the slightest sign of weakness, something done
many a time to disobedient and unreliable spies before him, and with deadly results.
"He has just an hour ago passed the judgement and has yet to make contact with anyone inside of the institution. That said, he was swift to deny
a tour of the area and requested an immediate escort to his chambers. Nothing else has been seen of him yet."
The general nodded absently, thoughts clearly had wondered off to something grander in scale, something involving a political standoff between
the leaders of Freljord and Noxus. He knew this fresh arrival could not be a threat, not yet anyway.
However, keeping eyes open for any and all incoming champions that could possibly be deemed fit for a Noxian assimilation was always favorable,
both for him and his faction.
Just another nobody I don't need to worry about.
With a wave, he dismissed the man, who's features were hidden under the hood of his purple robes.
"That is satisfactory, summoner, now return to your post, I have many things to attend to."
"Of course, General Swain, for Noxus." With a bow, the man retreated backwards and headed outside of the chamber room, letting the large double
doors close with a sharp creak.
Morning, The institution of war
A sharp, bell-like sound reverberated throughout the cozy room and jolted the young man from his peaceful slumber.
"Gah! Holy shit that's loud" With a groan, he reached over and slapped the contraption, knocking it off the wooden table it had been perched upon,
casting the resounding object to the ground, where it lay silently, turned off by his touch or from the sheer impact of the fall, Gawain was too tired
to care, simply cursed and mumbled for a bit before sitting up, groggy eyed.
Taking a moment to yawn, stretch and rub his eyes, Gawain took in his surroundings.
The room was nice, not much different from those hotels back at home, except more purple. Lots of purple actually.
Streams of purple cloth, purple decor, purple ceiling, purple patterns on the wall. Jesus, whoever was in charge of aesthetic design here sure
had a taste for the vibrant, or maybe he was color blind, who cares.
Outside, someone knocked politely on the chamber entrance doors.
*Tap tap*
"Hello?" The voice was recognizably male, characterized by a deep vocal baritone.
Gawain was not a morning person. To be forced out of sleep at this hour was insane. He looked outside of the
huge window view that graced the left side of his bed.
"It's morning all right" He muttered under his breath, more out of annoyance then an actual statement regarding what time it was.
Another knock on the door, this time slightly louder.
*Tap tap*
"Alright alright I'm coming, geeze I'm up guy."
He steeled himself for the uncomfortable sensation of getting up and staggered to the other side of the room. Still slightly groggy, and a little
annoyed, he pulled at a mysterious contraption that he imagined was the door knob, and slowly parted the entrance doors.
The first thing Gawain noticed was just how frail the man draped in purple robes was. Compared to this guy, Gawain might as well be an Olympic body builder.
Mind you, Gawain also never liked to do anything strenuous, more of the indoor type he had explained time and time again to others.
In terms of size, the summoner was also extremely tall, easily towering over Gawain by an entire head and a half. The guy was easily 6'8, like a behemoth or
something.
"Er, did you just call me a behemoth?"
The summoner frowned, Gawain had realized he was thinking out loud.
"Well damn, you're pretty tall to be honest..."
An awkward silence perspired. Swiftly broken by the summoner's professional mannerisms.
"Ahem, I was brought here to tour you throughout the institution. Seeing as you were too exhausted the other night, we had decided to allow you
a good portion of rest before carrying on with the initiation process."
Damn. Gawain was silently hoping that he had simply feigned sleep and never opened the door. Not that he disliked the summoner, he was pretty
curt. Gawain liked curt. The more short things were, the faster things could be done, and the less time was wasted.
However in this case, he was hoping that things were not curt. Things were happening too fast, he needed more sleep, hell, he had tossed and
turned for a good couple hours only to be woken up by that stupid alarm clock in the wee hours of the dawn.
That, and he was nervous.
Really nervous.
"Well, could I at least get a couple more hours of sleep?"
The summoner shook his head, features portraying no form of sympathy for the young man.
With a sigh of resignation, he stretched his neck and rolled his shoulder.
"Well damn, alright guy, give me a minute to put on some clothing, because uh, I don't want you staring at my junk."
It had come to both of their terms that Gawain slept nude. He liked nude, felt natural.
The summoner bashfully turned his face away hurriedly, attempted to save face and closed the door swiftly for Gawain to change into some clothing.
Gawain was unaware that he had caused the summoner years of mental scarring and psychological reestablishment, but upon opening the door
wearing blue Jeans and a white T Shirt, the summoner betrayed none of this and respectfully stepped out onto the hallway.
"Shall we proceed champion?"
At this, he could only scoff in apprehension of the title.
"Did you just call me champion? What'd I do save your sister from some guy on the street?"
There was no emotive response. It was like talking to a brick wall.
"The institution requires us to address our subjects with the title Champion or their first names if preferred by the subject." Came the impassive
reply.
Well there was no way he was going to walk around being called champion all the time. That shit just sounded stupid.
"Hey, just call me Gawain, guy, you can call me asshole if you like, since that's what people on the freeway usually call me anyway."
If there was a jest involved, the summoner did not catch wind of it.
"Jesus, you're like a stone."
"Actually, I am a summoner of the 30th rank, I-"
"Yeah, yeah I was just kidding, I know you work here obviously, do you guys even have freeways here?"
Again, no change or emotive response from the summoner, save for a small raise of the eyebrows.
"Freeway? I am not familiar with a "freeway" that you speak of."
He wanted to face palm himself and the summoner for the sake of sanity. It was clearly a joke, how did he not...
"Just lead on, I'll be right behind you buddy." With a swift nod, the robed man began a surprisingly brisk stride down the hallway, leaving Gawain
in tow, forced to jog a bit to catch up with the summoner.
"Holy hell this guy's fast."
As he strove to catch up in stride, he glimpsed several other similarly dressed figures going from place to place, hallway to hallway, door to door. It
seemed that each person here was extremely busy.
They walked for a couple minutes, the hallway scenery quickly faded as they strode out onto what seemed to be a courtyard. The morning sun
bathed the marble flooring white, the shrubbery surrounding the large fountain that had a statue depicting some unknown warrior with a hand
and a half short sword fighting an unseen threat bristled with life, birds flew from every which direction. The faint chattering of summoners and
the like, the chirping of the birds.
Gawain looked around in awe. In his entire life, he had never seen such a stereotypical fantasy setting.
"This is what we dreamed of, Gawain."
He shook his head, quickly clearing the thought. Now wasn't the time to get too caught up in stuff like that. Lose yourself in the unknown and you
very well might get dragged down and smothered.
They continued to walk through the courtyard, Gawain still trailing behind the summoner.
"Hey, guy, I never bothered to ask for your name, mind telling me? Calling you guy is getting pretty boring." They walked down a set of stairs, Gawain realized that he
was on the third floor of a huge building. Looking up, he realized just how massive the place was.
"It's a marvelous sight isn't it? A masterwork of human creation. Nothing even comes close to the architecture that has brought forth the institute of war."
It was bigger then the skyscrapers back in New York.
"Holy shit..." He tried to bring a thumb out in order to block the building, but it was impossible. The building was simply too massive to blot out.
"You may call me Sayble, although summoner will suffice."
As if reading his thoughts, the summoner continued
"Currently we are residing on the third floor, also known as the cafeteria. This is where you will eat and possibly converse with other members of the institution,
champion or otherwise."
At this, Gawain started.
He wasn't the kind of guy to socialize. Being an alchemist did that to people.
The mention of food, however, caused his stomach to growl, loudly.
"I see you haven't eaten recently, perhaps we should stay for breakfast, excuse my carelessness, they had neglected to mention this one small detail."
"Eh, sure, I could use a little bit of food, why not." He railed off casually, still following the summoner towards a large set of stone doors that led into a mess hall.
In truth, Gawain hadn't eaten anything save for yesterday's lunch, the prospect of food goaded him on eagerly.
The idea of conversing with other champions, however, sounded horrible. He hadn't even gotten used to his bed, let alone other people.
Runes began to glow on the stone door slabs as they slid soundlessly open.
As they walked into the mess hall, Gawain could see them.
Dozens of champions. All different shapes, sizes. They were an odd sort.
His eyes widened at the sight of a giant rock at the table, no... Rocks couldn't sit... rather...
The "rock" so happened to move and talk and have eyes and sat across from a peculiar looking...girl?
What the hell was going on here?
As they moved across the tables, Gawain could feel eyes boring into the back of his head.
He could hear them whisper as he slid around another table...
"Who is he?"
"Never seen him around before...is he the rookie?"
A loud, booming laugh ripped across the mess hall. Much to his surprise, no one paid any attention, as if this was simply the norm around these parts.
Turning towards the sound, Gawain eyed a huge, red faced man who's belt size was bursting with his girth, barely able to contain the amount of alcohol he had
obviously been consuming.
For he had not simply been drinking, there lay beside the man and another chuckling, albeit masked person was a barrel that he assumed was a keg.
"Here, take this voucher and hand it to the construct at the end of the mess hall. You're still not considered a champion and so you will need it to receive a meal."
The summoner's voice snapped him back into reality. Looking back, he realized that the summoner had left him and was probably waiting respectfully outside.
"Shit...Please don't ditch me now guy." A groan.
Another stomach growl. Gawain silently wished he had eaten the night before. Hastily, he began to approach the mechanical construct with the runic certificate.
"Errr, what can I get with this?" He didn't know what to expect as he waved the paper awkwardly in front of the pylon.
There was no response. The construct simply stood inanimate, completely oblivious to his attempts, much to Gawain's growing frustration.
"...Hello? Goddammit, what the hell am I supposed to do?" He tried looking for an opening in which to insert the voucher, however there was none in which he could
observe. The object lay completely unusable to Gawain.
He began to panic. Turning, he realized some persons had stopped conversing or eating and were looking directly at him.
A rising urge to kick the stupid thing was becoming an increasingly tempting matter, however, Gawain restrained himself and turned an exasperated head towards the
inanimate object.
He tried rubbing the paper on the construct. Nothing.
Pleading, asking, begging the construct for food. No response, only the cold metallic hum emanating from its core was fit for answer.
All the while, his actions had garnered more and more attention from the mess hall attendees, some of which eyed him nervously as he swore and psychotically
attempted to reason with the machine.
Minutes later, after exhausting all possible options, Gawain lost his temper.
"Gah!" With a frustrated stream of curses, he let loose with a kick that shook the entire construct.
Wrong thing to do. Gawain started as the thing whirred to life, instantly glowing red and spinning rapidly
"Hostile action detected, defensive protocols initiated"
His eyes widened at the statement, "Oh what the fu-"
A metal fist had knocked the wind out of his chest and he landed on his back, dazed from the blow.
"God...dammit." He allowed himself to lay, eyes directly facing the ceiling.
He silently cursed himself as he slowly returned to his senses."Serves you right, idiot, what did you expect from kicking the darn thing?"
Arching his neck back, he saw a couple of eyes returning his upside down stare, still sitting with food in hand and concern on their faces.
"Defeated by a food dispenser?! Hah! You really are something else knave!" Dully, Gawain knew the person was standing beside him, however he didn't bother to
look, or rather, was simply too embarrassed to.
The first thing he noted, however, was the shrillness of the voice. It sounded...off, like someone had a scratchy throat and decided to let it stick.
An odd way to talk.
"You know, you don't touch the thing you fool, you use the runic inscription on the paper, like this."
Turning, he made out a short figure picking up the paper that he had apparently dropped from the impact and had begun to say a stream of inaudible words.
Seconds later, the construct shook and turned blue. Much to his surprise, a metal fist did not appear and smite the small figure, rather, a cylindrical
opening appeared at the top of the metal object, in which a complete meal was ready made, steaming from whatever means was used to conjure such a thing.
Magic.
"Hey! What do you know! Thanks, that was pretty nice of you to help." But the figure had already huffed and was walking away.
He hastily grabbed his food and made for an isolated table in the corner of the room, much to avoid the attention
of everyone else, some of whom had eyed him wearily as he slid between chatting champions.
A quick glance gave him an idea of just how diverse the institute was. Half of these people didn't even look human, let alone sane.
There was a jester that was playing five finger filet with a rather wary looking female. Much to her protests, the jester placed her hand on the table and stabbed the
knife into her palm. With a yelp, she threw him off, only to realize the knife had no blade. The jester laughed loudly, while the female sighed and placed a hand
on her head.
"Did you see that guy? He couldn't even get the food dispenser to work, the thing whacked him good!" It was a blonde male, eagerly chatting with a burly figure
wielding a...lamppost? They averted his gaze as he walked by their table.
"Poor kid, I hope he isn't the new recruit, otherwise he's boned when the actual matches start"
He swallowed. "Matches? No one told me about fighting people in the institute. Jesus, what the hell is going on here?"
Finally, he found a secluded seat and took a spot next to the wall.
Placing the food down, he began to eat, taking a piece of meat here, chewing some green stuff there. He didn't recognize any of it, although for some reason it all
looked and apparently tasted pretty good. Gawain deduced that magic was probably involved.
Halfway throughout his meal, Gawain heard a voice.
"Have you found this place suitable?"
Looking up, he realized it was the summoner, his clear eyes made even contact as he slowly took a seat on the other side of the table, hands folded respectfully.
"Yeah, pretty dandy, you didn't tell me that would happen with the dispenser, though."
"Did it hit you?"
"Yeah, got a pretty good one in too." Gawain motioned towards his bruised chest
"I see, apologies, I was not aware that you were unable to utilize runic inscriptions."
"A what?"
"I was under the pretense that you were able to use magic."
Gawain took another bite from the salad, chewed slowly as he mulled over the statement, sagely holding a fork in the air as he swallowed.
"Is that what they told you?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm definitely not able to throw fireballs or summon some crazy shit if that's what you're after." He began to laugh, although the summoner's gaze did not waver
from the question.
"So what can you do?"
Gawain froze mid bite. Slowly placing the meat back onto the plate, he realized that the blonde champion and his lamp post wielding companion had coincidentally
changed tables and had taken the one adjacent to his and were "idly chatting" although he knew clear eavesdropping when he saw it.
"Stuff, I guess, I don't really know actually."
"They call you the alchemist, our Judgement overview tells us that you are capable of ripping through the walls of reality and bending the laws of physics to your will.
"It's not that simple."
"Nothing ever is."
"I know that, but look, you think doing stuff like that is an offhand thing? I just got my ass pasted by some food dispenser and now you expect me to go bending
reality and shit?"
The summoner remained unfazed as Gawain waved the fork around knowingly.
"Alchemy has rules, you know. The first thing is, you never do shit unless you have something to balance the scales, you know? You can't just fucking blow something
up for free, there's always a cost to something, same thing with alchemy."
"A tribute you mean?
"Yeah, like an eye for an eye. You ever try opening a door with another person pulling on the other side? If he's stronger then you, door's gonna stay shut, vice
versa, you get out, if you guys are equal strength, the door stays as is."
A pause as the summoner quietly digested the information, eyes facing the table while Gawain took another bite from his salad.
"So are you telling me that your abilities are limited by what you have at hand?"
"Wow you catch on pretty quick, that's exactly what I mean."
The summoner named Sayble continued to stare at the table, again processing the information while Gawain ravenously finished the rest of the meal.
"So you lied about not being able to throw fireballs?" There was a glint in his eye as he said this. The bastard was smart, he knew what he was capable of.
Another pause. Gawain realized that the blonde haired champion and the masked guy had stopped chatting, rather, they seemed to be eagerly listening, completely
aloof to any sort of subtlety at this point.
"Again, that depends on the resources I have at hand. Nothing in alchemy is free, everything requires a price."
"Equal exchange."
This guy was smart, really smart. How the hell did he know about that one law? Was alchemy a widespread thing here? Maybe he wasn't as unique as he thought.
Gawain looked down, only to realize that he had munched through all of his food.
The summoner saw this too, and had stood up.
"I'll show you through the rest of the institute, then we will prepare for your first match."
Match...
Gawain had heard someone saying that as he made his way over to the table...
"He's boned when the actual matches start."
Fighting...Gawain never liked fighting, but if it brought him that much closer to Jack, then he'd do it.
"Oh boy, alright, guy, lets go." They turned towards the exit, leaving the mess hall, and two very excited champions behind.