The College of Techmaturgy was surely a breathtaking view. Built in the middle of the valley and accessible by a long bridge, there was no surprise it became the most representative building of Zaun. There was also no surprise that it was one of the top schools in the whole of Runeterra, where students strive and work hard to earn a place in the College. The greatest scientists and inventors of Piltover and Zaun had all studied here in the College. Heimerdinger, the "Father of Hextech" as he was called, was once one of the students here. Theoretically, there should be a lot of students going in and out of the College.

But there was not a person at sight. If it wasn't for the modern-like appearance of the College, it surely would be mistaken as a long-abandoned place. A sudden gust of wind passed by, blowing up the dust that hid itself on the surface of the rocks of the bridge like a mini-sandstorm. Moreover, there wasn't a single noise around this place except the howling of winds. Very unusual.

"Shall we go in?" Lucian asked, breaking the silence. Jarvan was taken aback by the question—he was occupied by the spectacular view of the giant, hollow valley. "We're assuming this building is already sabotaged by the Noxians."

"Wait." Vayne was holding her Detector all along, pointing it at the College. "There's no sign of any monster in the building."

"Does that mean it's safe?"

"Not necessarily, but the risks are lower when dark creatures aren't involved," Lucian replied.

Vayne took out a rolled sheet of paper and opened it. It was the yellowish paper that was printed with the complete layout of the College in two-dimensional fashion.

"Hold on. I examined the map of the College, and there is a path that will supposedly lead to the Demon's portal as shown here. Its somewhere at the bottom of the building."

"The portal is right here? Then it's impossible that this building is unguarded!" Jarvan exclaimed. "They want to delude us into false security, and then strike us at our weakest." If his extensive experiences in battle had taught him anything over the years, it was that "deception is a great tool in successful warfare", and that the moment one gave away one's weakness would be the same moment that danger would strike.

"I have the same idea. But if we never step into the building, then we will never learn the truth. The grand scheme that Swain mentioned in the letter, the Demon's portal, and most importantly…your father's death."

"But, Lucian, we cannot just blindly step into enemy territory. Think about how many mines or bombs or traps of all kinds lie in there? Maybe Darius himself and the whole Noxian army is hiding inside! We don't know what truly lies behind those walls. We're probably the only ones who know their plot, so it's crucial that we don't die."

Lucian sighed.

"We've come so far, Jarvan, to the College. Sailed through the Conqueror's sea, drove out of Zaun from crazy police, broke our way through barriers of dark creatures…we've reached the point of no return. There is no guarantee that we can contact anyone in the College, and even if we could an attempt must be made to get in the building. No matter what, we have to get in the College. It's unavoidable. And if I saw that coming I would had asked for more help. Now it's forward or the end."

The Purifier was right. They didn't have much of a choice.

"I have my metal detector with me. If there are booby traps then they won't be a nuisance. We should be able to defend ourselves against any humans." Vayne assured.

Jarvan nodded. He felt adrenaline run through his body.

The four of them advanced towards the bridge. The bridge was wide, enough room for three carriages to pass concurrently side by side. Although currently there was sunlight and the atmosphere was way more pleasing than the darker version a while ago, Jarvan still kept on his guard. After all, no monsters didn't automatically imply "no enemies".

The only reason the College would run out of people would be an invasion. Something that would drive the students out of here. But why weren't there any news in Zaun about the College? Dale should be able to know if the students reached back to Zaun. If they didn't, then the only reason would be…the students didn't get to leave this place. Oh gods…could the Noxians have taken over this place?

The bridge was long, and it took a few minutes for them to reach the gate of the College. Jarvan didn't risk going near the edges of the bridge. The entrance to the College was, naturally, futuristic in design. Glass automatic sliding doors stood in front of them, and through the glass was a massive hall with a chandelier hung at the ceiling, and white tables with television screens standing on it—something the prince had yet to see before. Walls and the floor were completely made out of marble, and its design was quite similar to those in hotels, albeit without the reception desks. Very distinct when compared to the more traditional colleges in Demacia—the usage of Hextech was explicit.

Again, everything seemed normal except the fact that no one was using the facilities at all. When Dale stood in front of the glass door, it didn't budge.

"The door's not working here," the driver said.

"Dale knows the most about the College. He comes here often," Lucian explained. "He knows how this place works."

"Why do you know so much about him? You met him before?"

"No, but we had a little chat in the car when you were asleep."

"Guys, we have to break this door down."

"Let me do it, Dale." Jarvan volunteered. He smashed his lance into the window, instantly breaking it into shards and giving way for the group to enter.

"At least no one will know I broke this. No need to cover up the costs, cause this type of material mustn't be cheap."

The hall was big, comparable with the one in the College of Magic.

"What do people do here?" Jarvan asked.

"This is the entrance hall. Students check daily messages from the school here with virtual screens displayed on the table."

"What does 'virtual' mean?"

"Um…that's a bit hard to explain at the moment. For one, it involves Hextech."

There was a store which sold drinks (with no one lining up, of course), and a zone with tables, sofas and armchairs in special shapes. There was also a large screen on the wall, which was completely black, not displaying anything.

Below the screen were glass doors once again, two glass panes enclosed in the marble wall. As Jarvan walked closer, however, he noticed that behind the glass doors was a room, enclosed entirely by glass. The view of the valley could be seen through the transparent material, including the bridge.

"What are these glass rooms for?" came the prince's inevitable question.

"Those aren't glass rooms. Those are elevators."

"Elevators? The one in the hotel?"

"Yep."

"Jarvan, you're so outdated."

"…"

"Don't be such a jerk, Vayne."

"Hang on, guys. I'll try to activate the elevator system."

Dale's face looked down to a small black screen beside the elevator. He seemed to be more confident currently without any ghosts or monsters around.

"Hey, Siri!"

"Hello, sir. How can I help you?"

A mechanized sound came from the black screen. A yellow line appeared on the screen, like those on hospital monitors.

"I want an elevator, please."

"No problem. Elevator one coming up."

The yellow line went up and down when the system spoke.

Jarvan felt something vibrate under his toes for a split second.

"Siri? Who is that? And who is talking?"

"Siri is the artificial intelligence system here in the College. It is just like a person except without the physical body. He is in charge of almost every single facility here—wait, the other elevators are just right on this floor. Why didn't he open the others—"

Suddenly there came the sound of the shattering of glass, albeit quite distant. The sound was brief, and it was gone as quick as it came.

The unexpected sound certainly scared Jarvan out of his wits, however, and he was trying his very best to hide it. His heart was beating madly and his held his lance even more tightly.

The yellow line on the screen disappeared without a trace. The black screen remained as black as it was initially.

On the other hand, Vayne and Lucian were unmoved by the sound at all. They just stood where they were, without any movement.

These two certainly are flawless in acting calm. I wonder how long they have practised for that.

Dale was, of course, shaking once again.

"What…what the heck happened? Siri—Siri!"

No reply from the screen.

"We will not take the elevator," Vayne finally managed to say. "Dale, are there other ways to reach the lower levels?"

"Um…yes. Right over the restroom there are the emergency stairs. We can use them to get down to the…control room, to check out what happened with Siri. It looks like now that he is unable to operate, for some reason…"

"Or maybe he is forced to be unable to operate."

"…"

"Now that…is a terrifying possibility."

It could be likely that Siri had shut itself down. Or as Vayne suggested, someone deliberately turned off the system. No matter how much Jarvan tried to be optimistic, the latter always proved to be more believable than ever.

An unseen threat.

"Be vigilant, guys. We officially have an enemy right beneath us."

The group went towards the direction where Dale had pointed, which lead to a pathway labelled "restroom" and eventually to a spiral staircase. The bottom of the staircase could be easily seen—but it was very deep downwards. The staircase seemed to never end.

"Which floor is the Control room?"

"10 floors below us."

"Damn. That's quite a long way."

Beside the staircase was the glass that faced the valley directly. A crystal clear view, as if there were nothing that separated them from the outside. At one point Jarvan thought he could jump off the building from here.

He noticed only he and Dale made footsteps, and it was the sole sound in the entire staircase—Vayne and Lucian made none at all.

A while later, a hallway labelled with the number "10" was seen.

"The floors here go inversely? The highest floor is the first one?"

"Yes, since this design of the College itself is a bit…special."

The hallway was also made of marble, with multiple wooden doors along with handles and a small black screen underneath of each. There were no windows on the doors, so Jarvan didn't know what was behind them. Lamps were hung on the ceiling for every few meters, brightening the hallway up.

So far, not an enemy was to be seen—the College was empty, or so it seemed because the shut-down of Siri might possibly be due to someone. Hidden from sight, in that case.

"The labs are on this floor." Dale explained. "And by the way, the Control room is right in front of us."

There was a door with a sign "Control room—DO NOT ENTER".

"Unfortunately, we're going to ignore this sign," Lucian said. "Guess we're destroying a lot of property here."

Lucian aimed his gun at the door and fired. The wooden door blew up and descended into flames as it collapsed to the ground. Behind the door was total darkness.

Dale stepped in and flipped a switch nearby the door. Immediately the room was brightened, revealing it to be a large room, with a lot of computers on different tables, chairs and an exceptionally large black screen at the end of the room, taking up almost all the space of the entire wall. The light came from the ceiling, which turned out to be numerous light projectors.

The computers—Jarvan had only seen similar ones before, when a Piltover military general used it in Demacia during operations. This time it was a thin computer, with a black screen incorporated in a white monitor and a white keyboard in front of it. It appeared that the machine was not operating.

"I'll watch the door. You guys go figure out whatever's inside," said Lucian.

Jarvan took a quick look around and perceived that there were more than 50 identical computers in a single room. Impressive, in fact.

They had reached in front of the gargantuan screen. Again, there was a keyboard below the screen which resided on a relatively large stand. The length of the keyboard was as long as the screen, and thus other than the usual keys Jarvan recognized, such as "backspace" and the alphabet, there are others with different symbols that he did not understand.

Dale traced his fingers around the keyboard, key by key, until he stopped at a round red button at the edge of the keyboard

"What are we doing now, Dale?"

"I have to restart Siri. If we can restart him, all the facilities can be used once again, and the security cameras can be assessed. Any activity here is monitored at all times, and hopefully the data is still here."

"I thought he's shut down. How can you restart?"

"I'm trying to access the emergency back-up protocol. That will resupply the system with electricity."

Dale laid his index finger on the red button and pressed it without lifting for a few seconds. At first there seemed to be no change at all, as the screens were still black, but a while later the screen suddenly turned white in colour, while a black object was positioned right in the middle of the screen. The black object had an interesting shape, as it was shaped like a heart but not exactly the same. A thin line pointed upwards at the top of the object, and beside the line were two sharp-edged ovals.

"What's the symbol on the screen?"

"It's a peach."

"A peach? On a screen?"

"Yes. The organization that invented Siri is called 'Peach'."

"…"

An organization who associated itself with a fruit was surely intriguing.

"Why is it called 'Peach' then?"

"The head of the organization is an Ionian. In Ionia, peaches symbolize longevity, so my guess is they want their company to live long, perhaps."

"Hmph. Does everyone know the Ionian?"

"He's very famous and popular both in Ionia and Piltover. I guess his name doesn't reach the greatness of your nation, though."

"Don't worry, I believe technology is a good start. Do you mind telling me the name?"

"Oh. It's a 'he', and his name is—"

"System rebooted. Please insert your instructions," came a heavily computerized voice.

Dale returned to the keyboard with the alphabet and started typing very rapidly, pressing key after key with his fingers spread out.

"Give me a minute. I need to sort this out."

While waiting, Jarvan looked at the door. Lucian was there, leaning against the door while staring at his own guns as usual. Vayne was beside the prince, examining the keyboard with interest and curiosity.

"So Vayne, we haven't met any enemies up till now. Did you detect anything?"

"If I did, I would have alerted you. Now is not the case."

What if Siri really broke down because of itself? Because if it really was done manually, then the one responsible should strike them now. They were in a very vulnerable position, and Jarvan was half-expecting a surprise attack from nowhere.

"Artificial intelligence system reactivated."

A yellow line emerged from the giant screen, like the one beside the lift.

"Siri, I need recent security camera footage. Five days, perhaps."

"Please enter the passcode for this procedure."

Dale pressed a series of keys that Jarvan did not deliberately recite, because it was quite long. Suddenly, a screen appeared in front of Dale above the keyboard—a virtual keyboard in fact, as it was projected by blue light. Of course, Jarvan had never seen such things before and he had to "wow" when he witnessed it himself.

Again, Vayne didn't look surprised at all.

Jarvan had no idea what Dale was doing on the keyboard—he could only figure out that his fingers were "dragging" stuff in the virtual keyboard left and right, and occasionally tapping them.

Technology here sure evolves like a beast.

"I'm loading the footage. It should appear in a few seconds."

Jarvan turned to face the screen. It changed to a blurred screen, with lots and lots of grey like those on old televisions which he had once seen before.

An image was displayed on the screen. It was filming the hallway outside, which was noticeably absent of anyone or anything.

"Is this a video?"

"Yes. But there's no movement at all."

"I noticed that."

"I'm actually fast-forwarding the video, and still nothing changed."

"Probably watch the one showing footage of a few days ago. This place might have already been taken over for some time."

"I remember the day Gibson said the College started to have strange activity was around 12 days ago. We can investigate into that day," Jarvan suggested.

"Yes, sir. 12 days ago."

Dale continued his scrolling and dragging on the virtual screen. It was very convenient to own a security camera system—any activity could be monitored and it was an excellent way to keep places safe. Evidence could be easily found in these systems, used against criminals in the court. Jarvan had always wanted to introduce these modern concepts to a traditional Demacia—it was only a matter of "when".

"Here. Footage of 12 days ago."

This time, it was the overall view of the College, including the bridge—Jarvan guessed this camera was hung on a tree nearby the spot where they stopped briefly, as the image captured the entire view, as real as seeing it with his own eyes.

And he saw what was on the bridge—a line of military cars advancing towards the College. For a split second he was tricked into believing that the cars were there in reality, until he realized it was a 12-day old footage. The cars were easily distinguishable—Jarvan had seen these black vehicles before in a Noxian War-base. They were fully armored, running on wheels with two missile launchers on both sides. These menacing war machines surely packed a punch.

The cars reached the glass entrance. One by one, men climbed out of the car, dressed in black Noxian military uniform which shielded their whole body, not exposing any of their flesh. They held guns—machine guns, in fact—with swords on their waists. Jarvan noticed groups of them carrying sizable wooden crates towards the College.

The glass door opened automatically for the soldiers when they arrived. The men entered the College until what was left on the bridge were the empty Noxian cars.

"Dale, switch to another camera. I need to know what's happening inside."

"Yes, Madam."

Dale dragged and scrolled again. Then the screen transitioned to another view, this time displaying the area in front of the glass elevators, where the men stood.

"The College has already been taken over 12 days ago, it seems. Or else there couldn't be no one in the College," Vayne deduced.

The elevators arrived at the same time. The men went into the elevators along with their heavy load—the wooden crates.

I wonder what lies in those wooden crates.

The screen then switched to view inside one of the elevators, where the men stood. The elevator was almost purely made of glass, even including its floor. Still, Jarvan could not see the bottom of the elevator system.

One of the men reached for the buttons. It was then did the prince realize that there were a total of 50 floors in the College.

50 floors!

What if the elevators broke down? People at the bottom of the building would take ages to get to the lobby!

The man pressed the button labelled "50". That meant they were heading for the lowest floor.

The screen switched again to another view, this time also in front of an elevator exit but with the number "50" printed on a wall nearby. Jarvan assumed this was the 50th floor.

The prince waited. Theoretically, the men would eventually arrive at some point.

They did. When the elevator descended to the 50th floor, the men were still standing behind the glass door, void of any movement as the door opened. Jarvan thought the screen froze, until the men started to lift the wooden crate and leave the elevator.

The men ventured into the hallway. It was a hallway very similar to the one on the 10th floor, the one they were on. Again, there were multiple wooden doors with handles.

A little later, the men disappeared into the hallway as the camera stayed in its place.

"Dale, do you have footage of where they went?"

"I'm looking for it—it's here. I'll play it now."

The screen switched to another view—this time in front of a wall. The men were standing at the very end of the corridor, meeting a wall which obstructed them. In fact, it was a dead end, and they couldn't advance further.

But the Noxians had other plans.

One of the men had a greenish object in his hand. The others backed off from the dead end as the man placed the green object near the wall and ran away immediately. Seconds later, a fiery explosion followed, engulfing the camera in heavy smoke such that the view became severely obstructed.

Then the screen went black abruptly. Even the grey colour from the smoke disappeared.

"Wait—what happened?" asked the Prince.

"This camera is damaged and thus no further footage can be played." Siri explained.

"That's enough information we need," Vayne said. "The Noxians went to the 50th floor and blew up a wall. The footage ends here, but I guess we have a good idea where we will head to. It's also marked in the map." She looked at the map again. "The route points to the bottom of the building, then leads to the hallway, and…it points to the end of the corridor."

"Agreed," said the Prince. "Let's go down."

The prince wished he could use the elevator.

40 floors was not an easy task for even a sturdy person like Jarvan. When he reached the 30th floor he was already panting, and when he reached the 40th floor he had to stop and regain his breath. The other three took a break even earlier. What could have been done in less than a minute was prolonged to more than 15 minutes, thanks to a very unstable artificial system.

Of course, they managed to reach the 50th floor at last, but not without their legs worn out and tired.

"Hey, look!" Lucian said when he took a quick glance of the elevator. "That's what happened when we heard glass shatter up there."

In the place of the glass elevator was shards of broken glass, laying in pieces behind the glass door. The upper part of the elevator managed to stick together, but only in small portions.

"The lift dropped straight to the bottom," Vayne reckoned. "Must be a malfunction or something."

They headed into the hallway. There was no difference to the appearance of the hallway now to the one shown in the camera.

"This is another lab floor?"

"No. The 50th floor is one very few people go, as students are prohibited to reach here. You cannot press the button of the 50th floor without a passcode—only the professors and stuff are allowed."

They eventually reached the end of the corridor, the place where the footage halted.

And how different it was in stark contrast to the others.

A large hole remained in place of the wall. It was clearly the work of an explosion, as even the pieces of debris were left on the floor unattended. Behind the hole was something even more shocking—a dark passage leading deep into the unknown.

"A…a secret passage behind a wall?" mumbled Dale.

Lucian nodded. "Classic trick. That's why the Noxians blew up this wall." Then the Purifier took out his lantern and lead the way into the passageway.

Turned out that the passageway wasn't long, as the end of the passageway was no more than a few meters away from the entrance. Interestingly, the walls in the passageway were also made of marble, identical to the one outside.

At the end of the passageway was a metal door—sliced in half by a straight line in the middle. Or was it an ordinary door?

"That's very similar to…an elevator door," said Jarvan. "Isn't it?"

"Quite alike, if you say so. Hey look, there's a button here."

Beside the door was a small round black button. It was fairly hidden and it was only revealed when Lucian held the lantern close.

A button? Is it safe?

The others seemed to have the same thought. Jarvan looked at Vayne, who was contemplating while staring at the button. She looked at the map again.

"This is why the arrow points at the end of the corridor…then I suppose anything here is safe, or else Swain wouldn't have given a flawed instruction card to the General."

"But we don't know if they're aware of us. Just now you mentioned the possibility that someone deactivated Siri, so the very person could had set this up as a trap."

"Hmph, you're right. But we can test it out."

A while later the four of them stood far away from the metal door outside the secret passageway, while Vayne loaded her crossbow, stretching her arm back. Her target—the button, was illuminated by the lantern below it. She released, launching a silver bolt into the passageway and landing directly on the button.

"Did it hit?" asked Jarvan. "It did. But all seems calm now—"

The next second he saw the metal doors move sideways. As they moved aside, it revealed another room behind the doors.

Curious, Jarvan walked forward into the passageway. The room was quite small, with square walls and also built of metal. But Jarvan noticed a thin gap between the room and the passageway—it was black and hollow.

"This is…another elevator?" Dale exclaimed as he saw the sight.

"An elevator again?"

Dale walked into the room.

"Yep, the design is exactly like an elevator. There are four buttons here, 'open', 'close', '50' and '100'."

"50 is…the name of this floor." Vayne deduced. "And 100 is…it might mean that there is another floor this is leading to. Very deep, in fact."

"100…does that mean the distance is the same as the whole building?" Jarvan dropped his jaw. "That's…very deep."

What can possibly be there on the hidden 100th floor?

Author's note:

Unfortunately, I do not have any Apple devices. Anyway, an elevator that leads deep, deep into the ground! Mysteries…could it be that the massive army of unholy creatures, together with the Demon's portal, all lie under their very toes?