So, welcome to the Ruination Saga: A "fix-fic," if you will, of the Sentinel of Light event currently active for League of Legends. I have a great deal of adoration for the lore of Runeterra. I feel as though I am definitely not alone when it comes to a profound disappointment in how an event as world-shaking as the Ruination is being portrayed. So this is my attempt to rewrite the tale, delve deeper into the threat, wonder after the lost threads, and craft a narrative that people hopefully enjoy.
The Ruination Sage Part I
Introductions
Senna stared out across the open ocean, hugging herself a bit tighter as the cold wind whipped around the bow of the ship, seemingly drawn to her.
She turned her eyes to the stern, and she let a soft smile break through her general grief, as her eyes traced along the concentrated lines of her husband's face as he brought them into dock.
Miles from any true civilization, the rocky island before them rose as a lone sentinel, fitting in a way considering what they had come here for.
Lucien looked down at her, his eyebrows narrowing with concern as she hugged her cloak tighter to her.
"Senna?" his voice soft, drawing out all her problems just like it used to, allowing a deep sigh to finally escape her chest, "What's wrong?"
She turns to him and lifts a hand to the center of her chest, searching for the presence she has known her entire life and finding: nothing.
"It's strange. I just can't get used to it." she mutters, looking up at him, "She's gone."
Lucien's brow furrows further, and he leans forward, taking her hand, "Didn't you tell me that the mist was always hunting you, even when you were young, and it-she was the reason the whole time?"
Senna looks up at him, a hint of anger in her eyes, "She found me. She protected me through everything, and I didn't know until…I came back. She calmed my nerves, guided my aim, watched my flank in every fight we ever got into, and even before that. She was my guide, my friend, and I don't know what I am without her."
"You're not giving yourself much credit," Lucien mutters, stroking the back of her hand, "And...maybe, giving her a bit too much as well."
She sighs, looking up at the island, just the hint of polished white stone visible above the cliff's edge.
"You don't understand...you can't. She was part of my soul, Lucien." Senna remarks, "Even with you here, I have never felt more alone. All those years in Thresh's lantern, she was the only thing protecting me, the only reason I survived."
Lucien's eyes harden, "Not the only reason; I was never going to give up on you."
"I know." she mutters, raising a hand and cupping his cheek, "I know...but we need to get her back."
Lucien's eyes flick away from hers in uncertainty, "Well if we want to manage that, we need help."
As if on cue, far in the distance, a mixture of screaming wind and thunder crackles to life. The couple's heads whirl, spotting a mass of Black Mist roiling across the top of the waves, heading right in their direction.
"And it looks like we're running out of time." Senna states, surging to her feet and hefting her immense cannon onto her back, "Let's move."
Lucien draws his pistols, "Right behind you."
The pair surge up the cliffs. As the storm grows closer and closer, screams of fury, fear, and sadness carry on the wind as several streams of Mist detach from the main battery, lancing towards them.
"Incoming!" Lucien shouts, whirling and powdering a ghoul's head a second after it makes landfall.
Senna sprints ahead, going into a slide and unholstering her cannon, blasting apart a revenant with hooked claws that slashes at her.
This deadly dance continues, ghouls, wraiths, revenants, and other twisted creations of the Mist surging towards them, burning to ash under the barrage of Lucian's guns and tearing apart from Senna's cannon-fire and her spectral claws.
Eventually, the torrent dies as the pair crested to the top of the hill, the Mist drawing away momentarily.
Senna turns to look at the Sentinel Headquarters, their lingering hope in the fight against Viego and the Ruination and feels herself grow even more hollow than before.
Lucien moves before she does, darting for the slumped body that leans in front of the marred gateway that leads within the Headquarters. The keep was a mixture of dilapidated and glorious, the white stone untouched by the annuls of time, yet all around, long ruined wooden buildings and shattered stone seemed to hint at very little in the way of habitation for a very long time.
She turns as Lucien reaches the figure before the door and moves towards him. The figure is dressed in the uniform of a sentinel, young in countenance, but they had been dead for quite some time, their neck is contorted, and their chest has a large puncture wound, old blood staining their shirt a brownish-red, their one hand is contorted in a way that seems to hint it once held a weapon. Lucien lifts the individual's head, revealing sunken, partially blind eyes, sunken cheekbones, and a look of contorted fear and pain etched into their face.
"Damn it." Lucien spits, face contorted in guilt and rage.
"We need to look for survivors," Senna states, her eyes flicking to the horizon briefly where the Mist hung eerily, several tendrils slowly reaching towards the far beach with a level of caution she is not accustomed to.
"Right," Lucien agrees, closing the Sentinel's eyes and carefully drawing the pistol from their hands, "But we can't leave them like this. The Mist will take the opportunity."
Senna nods and continues to watch the Mist. Lucien builds a small pyre behind her from the remnants of the scattered driftwood and shattered barrels. After a moment more of careful observance, she turns and aids him in carrying the Sentinel's body, placing it on the pyre, and lighting it.
"You fought bravely; now I hope that you find rest," Senna states, hanging her head.
A screech interrupts the quiet moment, echoing off the cliffs, followed by a cry of excitement and anger.
The pair share a look, Senna hefting her cannon, "Go."
Lucian is off in an instant, magically propelling himself forward, spotting the mist swarming about a central point on the beach.
"They've cornered a survivor!" he calls back, leaping and sliding down the slide of the cliff as Senna darts after him, letting her corporeal form falter, gliding down after her husband.
Lucien opens fire as several of the undead turn and bolt for him; his first shot catches a wraith center mass, the other relieving a ghoul of their head. Whirling, his third shot explodes against the mist itself, eliciting an angry shriek, and briefly revealing a flash of long blue hair.
Senna glides to a stop and props her gun against her knee firing shot after shot, tearing into the sphere of mist, chunks dissipating in flashes of golden light.
Her eyes narrow, briefly spotting a twirling skirt and what appears to be a sizeable blue sword, the latter slicing through the Mist and Undead as if they are made of paper.
More Mist pours down onto the beach, enveloping the strange figure once more and roiling towards Senna and Lucian like a flood.
Lucien backs up, firing before and behind as the wraiths and ghouls came swarming in from all angles, making his way towards Senna.
A wraith lunges out of the mist, incinerating in a burst of light as Senna brings her cannon around behind her.
More undead fall in a flurry of golden light, but they keep coming, swarming across the beach in a seemingly endless horde.
Lucian looks towards Senna, opening his mouth to shout at her, only for him to be bulrushes by a massive ghoul, its form that of a skeletal Minotaur dressed partially in Demacian regalia.
Hitting the ground, his guns spin out of his hand, Senna feeling fear grip her heart as she fires into the ghoul, but even with a chunk missing from its body, it lifts its arms to crush Lucien under its immense bulk.
There is a flash of blue light, a sound of tearing flesh, and a clack of metal as the Minotaur's head is severed by not a single blade but a massive pair of glowing, spectral blue scissors. Holding the odd weapon is a young-looking woman, with long blue hair held back by a large bow into curling twin-tails, a fanciful dress with symbols resembling the mark of the Sentinals covering it, and shoes and poise resembling that of a ballerina. A wide smile crosses the strange woman's face, and as eyes flick over to Senna, revealing them to be a brilliant teal with star-shaped pupils, the right pupil a jarring violet. Across her arms and neck, several odd blue tattoos resembled stitching glowed against the Black Mist.
"I've got you." the girl says in a pleasant tone, sticking a hand down to Lucian, releasing the giant scissors which float about on their own, bisecting a lunging wraith as she lifts her other hand, a burst of silvery-blue mist pouring forth and enveloping the three of them.
Senna feels a jarring pain for a brief moment, quickly overwritten by a pleasant and familiar warmth.
Lucian, meanwhile, is staring up at the girl with a baffled expression as he reaches back for his guns and gets up on his own.
Senna turns and notices that the undead has stopped swarming.
"What, what did you do?" she asks, turning to look at the girl.
"Removed us from their sight." she states, with a nod of her head and a small curtsy, "You're quite welcome."
Lucian looks about, his face turning to recognition, "This...this is Hallowed Mist, from before the first Ruination."
"It's...familiar," Senna mutters.
"As it should, it is so good to meet you. I've been looking for you...well, not exactly you, for quite some time now." the girl states, moving closer to Senna.
Senna's eyes narrow slightly, noticing for the first time that outside of her outlandish weapon and fanciful fashion sense, there is something else odd about this girl. It hits in quick succession, the coached pattern of her movements, the bizarre tilt she holds her limbs at as she moves, and most jarringly, her unblinking stare. While Senna isn't exactly one to judge in her current state of being, it does put her a little bit ill at ease.
"You've been looking for us?" Lucian asks, scooping up his other gun, keeping one trained on the Mist, even as it begins to dissipate, the undead floating and stumbling back into it and vanishing from sight.
"You, her, any Sentinel truly, those that would stop the Ruined King." the girl states, gesturing to Senna and blinking for the first time as her face turns into a deep frown.
"Are you a Sentinel?" Senna asks, nodding at her weapon, "I've never seen a relic weapon quite like that before."
"Oh, no, not a Sentinel. I...simply seek aid in ending this Ruination, and Viego." a bit of genuine anger funnels into the girl's voice at the mention of that name.
"Who are you?" Lucian asks, eying her critically.
"What are you?" Senna corrects, tilting her head to the side, the girl mimicking it in turn.
"Gwen." the girl states with a smile, "A seamstress."
"Uh...huh," Lucian remarks, shooting his wife a confused look.
"You're looking to fight the Ruination?" Senna asks, feeling an odd stirring in her chest that tells her to trust this strange girl, despite the peculiar circumstances surrounding her. Senna pauses, reaching for that feeling, a wild hope in her mind, but it fades as quickly as it arrives.
"Absolutely," Gwen states, nodding her head emphatically.
"Senna…" Lucian starts, stopping at the slightly playful smile on his wife's face.
"You said we needed help, didn't you?" Senna remarks, "Welcome aboard, Gwen."
"Wonderful!" the girl shouts, pirouetting and accidentally kicking part of the minotaur's armor into Lucian's feet, "Oh, my apologies!"
"We'll need to make it a bit more official than that…." Lucian mutters, rolling his eyes at his wife as he bends down and picks up the Demacian regalia, "This-this is from Dawnhold, it's a port city...the Mist can't have gotten that far. Can it?"
Senna rests a hand on his shoulder and looks up at the keep atop the cliff, "I think it's past time we've gotten some answers."
Senna looked around with a sigh. The Headquarters was utterly run-down, long abandoned, no sign of any other bodies, but marred with what appeared to be an old battle, the walls chipped and marred detonations hinting at magic. Dust and cobwebs covered many corners, along with splintered wood. The only sign of habitation was an old cot, likely the bed of the Sentinel they had found at the door.
"What happened here?" Gwen asks, spinning about with a critical eye, "I had heard the Sentinels were great defenders."
"We are-we were-I, I don't know how this happened," Lucian mutters, giving Senna an ashamed glance.
"Lucian, how long has it been since you checked in with the Order," Senna asks, partially dreading the answer.
"I...when I lost you, I didn't think of anything else. I let a great deal get away from me, including the Order." Lucian mutters, looking down at the floor, "I'm sorry…."
She steps up to him, cupping his cheek and leaning into his chest, "It's alright."
Lucian scoffs but kisses her forehead regardless, "I thought I was supposed to own my mistakes."
"You are, but this isn't just on you," she mutters, looking around, "The Order isn't just the two of us, right."
"Hells, I hope not." Lucian remarks.
"Mr. Lucian, Ms. Senna, I believe I found something you'd like to see!" Gwen calls out, poking her head out from around a corner, having wandered off while they were talking.
Following her, the pair, take in a large central room, a sheet covering a large table in the center of the room. Gwen points at a doorway leading deeper into the keep while standing in the opening of another room.
"I believe I have found an armory, and this room is filled with Sentinel uniforms and materials to detail them if that interests you." Gwen states.
"I could probably use a bit of a patch job," Lucian remarks offhandedly, shrinking back slightly at the elated expression that crosses Gwen's face.
"Lovely!" she cries, darting away from them as Senna shakes her head and takes a look inside the armory, taken aback by the literal trove of relic weapons resting upon the plinths held within.
"All we need are hands to hold them," she remarks, running her hand along a sizable cannon and studying several blades.
"Skilled hands would be preferable," Lucian states, giving a cursory look about the room as a soft chime begins to echo from within the central chamber.
The pair move back into the central room, joined by Gwen, as a light flashes from a stone tablet at the back of the room.
"Hello, Headquarters, this is the Serpent Isle's base, can you hear me?" a deep voice asks as an image flickers to life a large, Buhru man, covered in golden tattoos dressed in Bilgewater-esque clothing and clutching an immense staff in one hand.
Senna steps forward into the eye-line of the figure, "We can."
"We've been trying to contact you all for days; where have you been?" the Sentinel demands.
"We just arrived, found the base largely deserted, seemed like an attack of some sort, only one person was left," Lucian states, stepping forward.
"And where are they?"
"Dead," Lucian remarks flatly.
"Damn." the Sentinel growls, as another voice calls out from somewhere in the background, which he turns to acknowledge, "I understand, High Priestess, yes, I will."
He points at someone else out of view, barking orders, "Go shore up the barrier, now!"
"What's happening?" Senna asks.
"The Black Mist, according to the Worldstone, is everywhere." the Sentinel states solemnly.
Gwen steps towards the central pedestal with a critical eye. She removes the sheet revealing a map of Runeterra, detailed in white marble to topographical perfection with black shadow pouring across much of Valoran and Shurima, tendrils snaking out to stab at Ionia, the Freljord, even Targon, and Demacia.
"It's everywhere," Lucian mutters, his face hardening.
"We're holding out here, but never in all my years have I seen a Harrowing this bad." the Buhru Sentinel remarks with a shake of his head, "Bearded Lady, be praised for what little salvation we've managed to create here. The Mist is moving quickly, with purpose enveloping entire countries overnight."
"What of the other bases?" Lucian demands, "The Crown and the Lightbearers backed the Sentinels in Demacia."
"I've had no word." the Sentinal states.
"Where is the Ruined King?" Gwen asks suddenly, "This is his doing."
"We don't know. Viego can be anywhere he damn well pleases as long as that Mist has wormed its way there." the Sentinel growl, his grasp tightening on his staff.
"We need to get out there." Senna states, "Stop him and the Mists before this can get any worse."
"The closest theater of the war is Demacia, to where you're currently holed up." the Sentinel states.
"It'll take us months to get there." Lucian remarks, "And that boat we came in on isn't exactly the sea-worthies vessel."
A realization seemed to hit him, "Gwen, how did you get here?"
"I flew." she returns nonchalantly. Lucian's eyebrows raise while Senna stays focused on the Buhru Sentinel.
"How much info have our sister branches lost…" the Buhru mutters more to himself than the trio before him, "The Worldstone can transport you to any Sentinel base in Runeterra."
"With a Wayfinder in hand, it should allow you to deploy where ever you are needed." he continues, an image of what resembles an intricate gun, with an odd lense atop it appearing beside him, "If it remains at the base, if not our jobs become much more difficult."
"The last Sentinel...they died holding their weapon, but it wasn't in their hand when I was looking over the body. I'd bet that was our Wayfinder."
"Well, pray to whatever gods you find holy that the Demacian base has a working World Stone, if not…."
"We make do." Senna interrupts, "We don't run from darkness, and we are going to start now."
"Spoken like a true Sentinel." the Buhru man remarks with a deep chuckle, "I will be in touch; good luck."
And with that, the image fades away.
"We're in for the long haul, aren't we?" Lucian remarks, giving his wife a concerned smile.
"Aren't we always." she returns, turning to Gwen, "So, still sure you want to be a Sentinel."
"Of course, we're going to win this, Miss, don't you think otherwise." Gwen said assuredly, "Viego and any other villain that crosses our path will come to regret it, I assure you."
Senna smiles, "I like the confidence, but before we head out, repeat after me."
"I swear by the light of the ancients...
I will not run from darkness.
I will light the way with a steadfast heart,
And face each shadow with a ready weapon
As a beacon, a warrior, a Sentinel,
I defend myself, my fellows, and my world.
May we stand together in the light, or fall in darkness.
Fight bravely and remember your oath."
Her eyes glimmered green as the words echoed about the marble chamber, Gwen repeating the Oath without taking a single breath and doing a little dance of excitement as she finished.
"I will remember my oath. I will always remember," she states, her smile faltering slightly as she lifts her hand to touch her chest in a fashion that Senna finds eerily similar.
"Right, let's get moving," Lucian states, tapping Demacia on the map, a shimmering portal appearing before them.
"But what about that patchwork?" Gwen asks, tilting her head.
"That can wait." Lucian states, drawing his pistols, "Demacia can't."
He steps through the portal without another word, Senna rolling her eyes as she looks back at Gwen, "He likes to be dramatic."
Gwen smiles, drawing her scissors from her belt, which immediately turn back into her absurd fighting implements, as she checks her other poaches, "Scissors, needles, thread, I'm good to go!"
With that, she darts through the portal, Senna a step behind, looking about the keep one final time, shrugging off the unspoken feeling of being watched that had permeated her time within the keep.
As the portal snaps shut, a shadow crosses over the Worldstone. There is a rush of wind as the door to the keep slides open, revealing a setting sun and another ship docked far below, with two figures disembarking, heads angled up to stare at the Sentinel Headquarters.
Demacia Sentinel Base
The trio emerges into darkness, the only light coming from Gwen's spectral scissors. The place looks barren, though thankfully, a Worldstone sits untouched, dust covering much of the surface.
"Well, we have a way back at least," Lucian remarks, looking for an exit, and spotting a door that is pushed slightly ajar.
The sound of someone softly sobbing catches their ears finally, Lucian sending his wife a concerned look.
The door shifts slightly as the sobbing gets a bit quieter.
"It's alright," Gwen remarks, taking a step towards the door, "We're not here to hurt you."
She reaches for the door, only to dodge backward as a crossbow bolt lances from the gab and punches into the wall an inch away from Senna's head.
A dark-haired woman with a long ponytail dressed in dark greys and reds emerges out of the darkness. Red glasses cover her eyes, her face set in a deep scowl. In her hands is a sizable crossbow, while another rests on the back of her right wrist.
Pushing up next to her is a Yordle with long white hair pulled back in pigtails, deep blue fur across her face, dressed in heavy armor with a shield in one hand and an immense hammer clutched in the other. Her face is one of determination, mixed with confusion, a counterpoint to the deep hatred seemingly etched on her companion's face.
"Don't take another step." the woman states, training her crossbow on Senna's head.
And so ends chapter 1, next time we delve deeper into Demacia's state during the Ruination, shift about the story some more, and give some other characters their deserved time to shine.
I don't understand why Senna and Lucian who are Sentinals are just utterly baffled by all things Sentinel, so I tried to change it a bit they at least seem to understand a good portion of what is going on.
I hope you enjoyed it, I plan on writing this till I run out of content to build around, and I'm thinking of writing chapters that deal with stuff that would never be hinted at in the Visual Novel.