Arc I: Fall of the League
Phase I: Snake in the Grass
Great floating stands made of timber formed a stadium-esque border around the usually solitary rift, held aloft by summoner magicks approved by the League.
Soon those stands would soon fill with people of all walks - stuffy Noxian nobles, raucus Bilgewater sailors, gentle Ionian porcelain-figure women, and even those oddities like Yordles or boys from Rakkor who came to study the art of war as performed by Valoran's Michelangelos and Rafaels.
As people trickled into the stands, three figures sat in a singular boxed-in, throne-like area to the north of the Summoner's Rift Arena: the High Council of Equity, which oversaw the League and served as the head of operations, keeping it running smoothly. Their names were Vessaria Kulminye, Jacque Yvaeto, and Rhys Herris.
Vessaria glowered over the teeming forest, her jaded icy eyes darting from monster pit to monster pit – pocketed dens carved into the massive jungle of the rift where various wildlife from across Valoran were housed to enhance the thrill of the iconic political matches which took place in the Summoner's Rift battlefield. Nearest to one of the two battle-scarred fortresses which housed the opposing teams, lesser Murkwolves skirmished over the bones of some unfortunate feeder rat while the matron looked on in lackadaisical boredom. Beyond this camp, she couldn't see much else: the others were shrouded beneath a vibrant forest canopy.
Murkwolves appeared throughout many of Valoran's forests, and they had a history for vicious pack tactics. Skirmishes for leadership were rare, however: a Matron was born, not chosen. The two-headed females were rare indeed, but they didn't need the birthright they had to rule: Matrons almost always cost the wildlife bounty hunters their lives. Vessaria once insisted that she observe a hunt to ensure the methods of the contracted bounty hunters did not injure or otherwise hold back the monsters of the Rift from their full potential. She never repeated the mistake, having nearly been a meal for one Matron when the bounty hunters were baited trying to capture the lesser Murkwolves.
Not far from the Murkwolves preyed a Gromp in each half of the vast jungle: these massive toads came straight from Kumungu Jungle and had enough toxin in their skin and spit to put most of their would-be predators down for good. Opposite these poisonous monstrosities rested one of the prize "camps", as the Champions which so often skirmished here called them: the Blue Sentinels. These enigmatic creatures naturally resided within the Rift's walls, and seemed to come straight from the stony rises themselves. They were hulking golems held together by crystalline blue energy from the Rift's Nexus Stones, and they always had two smaller beings – which some theorized to be controlled by the Blue Sentinels – in their company.
A large river divided the battleground at this point. River didn't quite seem to be the right term, Vessaria frequently thought. It was shallow – perhaps no more than two feet, judging by the way Yordles could wander through relatively uninhibited. In the eastern half of the jungle, one of the few and mythical dragons made its home. The League was fortunate for this: when a handful of summoners came across an abandoned clutch of eggs, they began breeding the dragons in controlled batches, for wild ones were far too ambitious to reliably capture and maintain in the Rift. In the western half of the jungle, then, was the real gem which made the Rift such an iconic battleground: Nashor Baron.
Summoner's Rift was a discovered place, and Vessaria knew that. The League had not invented it. They had not placed the Nexus Stones there, either – though the small lifeless creatures – referred to as Minions – were certainly of their own devising. Nashor Baron, then, was the Rift's custodian long before the League's summoners harnessed it. This was something the League's officials had to accept. Anybody who had ever attempted to dislodge the Baron ended up as toxic green slag. The creature didn't even leave a body to recover. Many theorized about Nashor Baron's origins, but one this had been made clear by the creature: It was here to stay.
How fortunate, then, that the Baron made for interesting encounters during League matches.
Moving beyond the river, the second half of each jungle housed an equally vast array of wild-caught creatures: the reptilian yet oddly birdlike Raptors, the deceptive Krugs, and the Red Bramblebacks. The Raptors were another pack-animal, which made harvesting them from the Voodoo lands a simpler task. They followed an Alpha Male, usually one of the largest and nastiest Raptors in a territorial area. These creatures looked like oversized, heavily armed chickens, but fought with the tenacity and coordination which made them more than mere pests: the Raptors were hunted down whenever they were sighted north of Great Barrier that divided the ravaged southern half of Runeterra from the northern, more populated half. The Krugs, then, were creatures of Shuriman origin: turtle-like entities encased in heavy, near-impenetrable rock shells. Finally, not unlike the Blue Sentinels, the Red Bramblebacks appeared to come straight from the natural fauna of the rift itself, bound together by runic energies imbued within the Nexus Stones.
Vessaria allowed herself a pittance of respite: the Institute of War had worked hard to make this year's championship one to remember. The Noxus-born woman's smile belied any other thoughts that might be lingering behind her mind's eye.
The League's Champions would be far too embroiled in today's match to notice the snake in the grass until it had already lunged: and for this poison, there would be no antidote.