Chapter 4: The Destroyer Approaches
An old man sat huddled near the blazing fireplace. He straightened the dark brown hood that overshadowed his head, only revealing his aged features. His arms outstretched, reaching for the flames that danced in the brick cavern that contained them. The heat beat against the palms of his scratched up hands. He stared grimly with dark brown eyes, restless bags circled around his eyes only making him older than he already looked. Since his time on the battlefield General Du Couteau had never felt so weary, so restless…so fearful. Perhaps he should have left a note to his daughters? No, that might have provided insight as to his whereabouts. The aged man heard the creaking of hinges, the wind outside rattled the wooden door to the residence. At the end of the violent rattling came another creak of the wooden door. The old man's breathing halted momentarily, so too did his heartbeat, as his dark brown eyes darted to the left. He huddled underneath the cloak, pulling the cape edges around his body. Without any warning the hooded man whirled about with a dagger in hand. The blade of the dagger was wickedly curved like the blade of the reaper's scythe.
Chimes of colliding steel sounded in the house, as two blades met in combat. With quick trained eyes the experienced general only needed a moment to scan the adversary before him. His dagger was being held in between a two pronged katar type weapon. The katar was the extension of a metal arm, the blades protruding out directly from the silver armguard. Both the katar and the armguard shared the same intricate design, or flavor of designs at least. The katar bore a beveled long sword design on it, each blade sporting one half of the sword. A similar sword striking through a crescent moon design was on the armguard. Most of the figure's attire features were hidden underneath a pitch black cloak…except for the head. Instead of man's face, he found himself staring against a faceless entity. A double plated mask that arched upwards, with the center being pointed slightly, stared back at the old man. He pulled his dagger away from the conflict.
The stranger stood in place for awhile, arm still flexed and blade still in front of him as if they were still locked in a struggle. Each blade on the katar separated, folding backwards and into two slots on the sides of the armguard. He lowered his arm and assumed a more approachable stance.
A grimace appeared on the old man's face, though his nerves still had not calmed down as he pointed the dagger at the newcomer, "You do not appear to be after my head. Were you sent by General Darkwill…or by them?" He gave the stranger a hard stare as he emphasized the word "them".
In a vague response, the enigmatic man reached inside his black cloak. General Du Couteau's dagger arm tensed up, a threat and indication of what would happen if he tried anything. He pulled out a scroll of paper and outstretched it towards the aged man. The scroll was tied up by a string with a black charcoal-like stone dangling off of it.
The tired general snatched the scroll and lowered the dagger, sheathing the dagger back underneath his cloak. He pulled his hood down, revealing white hair that was tied in a noble knot at the back, as he untied the string and unraveled the scroll. His eyes scanned the scroll quickly, he gave a quick glance at the stone, and then his hard gaze went back to the stranger. "This stone…so then that must mean you are…?"
He nodded in response.
Du Couteau ran his finger over the stone; one could still feel a pulse of power emoting from the rock. The old general chuckled hysterically as he turned towards the fire, "So it actually worked huh? And here I thought it was just a fairytale conjured up by my forefathers." He turned around to address the black figure, "I apologize for my aggression earlier, I had not thought you were truly the one. Allow me to introduce myself; I am the current General Du Couteau of the Du Couteau clan…and I am in dire need of your assistance."
A woman walked down descending steps that lead underground with a incandescent light emanating from the palm of her hand. Emerald eyes focused hard into the depths of the underground ruins to make out features of the complex. She wore a variation of the common violet Summoner's robe, a small cape extended from the shoulders down to the waist. Her shoulder length sandy hair settled onto her shoulders as she proceeded down the stairs. The Summoner was careful in her steps, making sure there were no traps ahead.
Dust and cobwebs littered the terrain made steps, an indication of the years these ruins had gone through. Upon reaching the bottom of the stairs, a long corridor stretched out before the woman's eyes.
Vwooosh. The wall off to her right opened up, revealing a rift of swirling violet energy. A figure slowly glided out of the portal as it closed. Eerie glowing yellow eyes scanned the corridor, "These are the ruins, Summoner Jessica?" Kassadin's voice seemed to ripple through the air.
"Yes, this is it Kassadin." Jessica nodded in confirmation. The Voidwalker looked around; his movements were somewhat erratic and edgy. It was surprising for the Summoner to see him like this. She felt inclined to ask about his strange mannerism, "…is there something wrong, Voidwalker?"
"Not wrong, Summoner. Something in these ruins feels strange…" Like a beating heart, he felt something thumping nearby. No, not his own heart, it was something much more ethereal. "…we should proceed with extreme caut-?" To his surprise the Summoner was not where she was a moment ago. Instead he found her already down the other end of the corridor.
"Look Kassadin! I don't think I've ever seen this glyph before!" She cried out in excitement. It was much akin to seeing a small child staring in awe in a toy store. The Voidwalker could only give a sigh of disbelief and slowly floated towards the Summoner. Still, he could fully understand Jessica's excitement.
Their last battle at the Institute ended with their victory. The spoils of victory? The rights to explore these newly discovered underground ruins. As location of the ruins was inside the League's territory, both Demacia and Noxus entered into a struggle over who would explore the ruins. The matter would be settled by a match on the Fields of Justice. The condition of being allowed to explore the ruins was that the League be privy to all information regarding the ruins.
Although this was not the only reason Jessica had been sent to investigate the ruins. The Summoner was also part of the League's own investigation team. The team consisted of a select few Summoners hailing from different city states who were tasked with investigating sites that were of interest to the League.
In this case, Jessica had been tasked to investigate the reported sightings of several mysterious figures having trespassed into the ruins yesterday.
Upon turning another corner, Jessica flinched at the sight before her. A body sat limply against a bloodied wall. The blood on the wall had already coagulated; causing it to look more like dark red paint had splattered over the wall. She could not hide the shock when eyeing the lifeless body. It was a soldier's body, bearing silver armor and wearing red clothes underneath the armor. His helmet bore two war hammers crossing over each other overlapping what appeared to be a horizontal stake.
Jessica recognized the emblem all too well; it was the insignia for Noxus's military. Though she was surprised at the fact that Noxus had sent soldiers down here, what had initially shocked her most was the wound the soldier had. A hole the size of yordle was gouged out in the soldier's chest. There were no signs of a blast wound or a puncture wound, just a gaping hole in his chest. She could not tear her eyes away from the terrifying sight.
"These soldiers too…they too suffer from similar wounds…" Kassadin's voice came from ahead. Jessica looked up from the corpse to find graveyard of more Noxian soldiers. Some of the bodies were missing limbs and even their heads.
The Summoner walked down the hallway, her legs feeling a bit weak as she carefully stepped over the bodies. She swallowed hard before being able to speak, "...so…aside from Noxians, others had also been down here?"
"I can only be certain that there was a struggle for whatever was down here." The further they travelled into the ruins, the more alert Kassadin became. He could now physically feel something pulsing with power. The power he felt was much like the one that had caused his powers to go ballistic yesterday.
Jessica took note of the Voidwalker's distress; she noticed a glow emanating from his right arm. "Kassadin! The Nether Blade!"
The otherworldly being lifted his arm in surprise; the Void Stone in his Nether Blade was resonating!
What? How can this be? The Void Stone would only react to Void energy or magic. Either the complex itself was generating magic or whatever it was that was being contained in this complex was emitting an astonishing amount of magic.
Kassadin lifted his gaze from the glowing blue stone. He saw a faint blue light coming from around another sharp corner. The light pulsed, in synch with the beating of the energy he felt. Along the ground, Jessica saw a fading trail of blood leading towards the very same light.
"…let's find out what they were after…" The path led to a large polygonal room, the end of the ruins. Small glyphs carved into the walls were giving off radiant blue glows that formed the eerie light they saw. In the center of the room stood a stone made podium, and at its front was an empty slot that resembled a five point star. A thick red book lay on the podium. Other than the dusty cover, the tome was perfectly fine.
Kassadin felt the energy most intense here, it was here that the magic was coming from. But for what reason was such magic used for?
Meanwhile, Jessica dusted off the ancient text and flipped through the pages to see if it held any relevant information.
"Through Sacrifice…" was the first statement that she came across. She flipped the page to find pages of calligraphic text printed onto the pages.
"Faustus Requisca…" Were the first words on the page, she continued reading down the pages.
"Icarus Heimguard, Zan Hiroko…" The pages were filled with names; she skimmed several pages to the writings ended. Oddly enough the text stopped midway through the book, the rest of the pages in the back were blank.
The last three names caught her attention, "Ernste Gaston, Abstell Merto, Terzer Mortis…" All three were recognized as Summoners of the League.