I open my eyes after a long period of darkness. I stand upon an ancient pedestal dominated a mystical fountain, it’s cool waters glittering white with unknowable arcane powers of renewal, casting an aura of life and replenishment across the vegetation strewn ground. Beyond the pedastal is an enormous fortification of war, a great magical keep built around an enormous purple crystal. It is flanked by immense stone towers, hewn in the image of wretched gargoyles, arcane gemstones clad in their clawed hands imbued with a dark and violent light. Beside me are five strangers- strangers whose names I do not know and have never met, but their forms I have seen and known a hundred times.
Ashe, the elvanesque archer of the bitterly cold Freljord mountains, her bows and arrows formed mystically of the very ice itself. Mundo, an enormous purple brute of hulking muscle and maddened eyes, his tongue lolling uselessly from a half senseless mouth, a cruel and bloodied meat cleaver clenched in his meaty paw. Singed, an emaciated shell of a man, the hair burned from his head and brow by a hundred chemical fires, fluorescently glowing bottles of alchemical nature dangling from his many belts and pouches casting an unnatural pallor across his pale face half concealed beneath a scarf. Veigar, the comically tiny dark lord of the yordles, his magically warped visage concealed by heavily buckled blue robes and a bent conical hat, a spiked scepter clutched imperiously in his heavily gloved hands.
And today, for now, I am Warwick- once a man of science and measure, whose great cruelty and evil caused him to be cursed from humanity itself, now a slavering wolf beast. My fur is stiff and snow white, and buckled to my hunched animalistic frame are plates of armor lacquered gold. My claws are tipped in steel, my teeth daggers.
A disembodied, vaguely feminine voice booms through our universe – “Welcome to Summoner’s Rift!” Instinctively I know that across the ancient and mystical forest, and the deep cold river that cuts between it, is another such fortification, with five other champions dwelt within. They were our enemies, and I had fought this war a thousand times. I knew them not, but again I instinctively knew their forms and their powers. Amongst them was my doppelganger, an imposter. Like me, his teeth were sharp, his claws deadly. Like me, he wielded mysterious arcane powers- the ability to ignite his enemies in mystical flames, and to summon a spear of light from the heavens that would smite lesser creatures to dust with its power. But his fur was grey with a blue tinge, his armor a dull brass.
He had the classic skin. Peasant.
I instinctively knew where he would go and what he would do. As I purchased equipment for myself from the mystical aether surrounding the ancient fountain, I sent my will through the tenebrous lines that connected me to my fellow champions – there was a clicking sound, then a ping, and a point of interest flashed across our minds, in the lower right corner of our collective vision. No words were exchanged – we had never met, these people and I, but we had all fought the same battles again and again. The intention was known without thought. “Thirty seconds until minions spawn!” declares the mellifluous voice.
I raced from our fortifications accompanied by my fellow champions, through twisting and choked ancient jungle grounds, and across a deep but gently flowing river. Veigar broke off from the group, diving into a large tuft of tall jungle brush that lay along the river’s edge, utterly concealed within its dense vegetation but able to see all that occurred around him.
The rest of our squad pressed on, into the very heart of the forest on the enemies side of the river, where we lay in wait in some brush beside a copse. Long seconds pass. Silence. The voice once against thunder across the universe – “Minions have spawned.”
Soon now. I can smell him coming.
The doppelganger comes running through the woods, towards the very brush we now occupy – to lay in wait for the ancient defenders of the wood that will soon awaken to the sound of our clashing armies, no doubt. Along the three central lanes of the jungle, magically summoned minions march- petty goblins shrouded in robes and armor, wielding spiked maces and magical scepters. Chaff. A necessary resource.
The doppelganger breaks the brush and is immediately confronted by us. A dozen things happen in an instant- Mundo hurls his filth encrusted cleaver, sinking it debilitating into the doppelgangers thigh. Ashe, cool and prepared, fires a single devastating arrow, followed immediately by a volley of five simultaneously which spread from the curve of her bow like the spray from a blunderbuss. Singed barrels forward, and with shocking strength for his spry form, grabs the battered grey wolf and hurls him bodily over his shoulder, clear over our heads.
And even as he lands with a painful thump, I whirl and lash out at him with a hungering strike. My claws gouge flesh from his back, which I immediately stuff into my maw and consumed. The doppelganger slumps with a groan of pain.
“First blood! An Enemy has been slain!” The voice cries out. The imposter is dead, and the world knows I killed him. I am rewarded. An invisible sum of gold is accredited to me, to buy more weapons, to kill more.
Even in our moment of triumph we begin to retreat, falling back across the river. Alerted by the battle, a visage hurries down river towards us. Pale skin, glittering with flecks of gold- elegant charms barely concealed by her gauzy garments. Torn, ripped wings, trailing streamers of blood and bone behind them, and a beautiful face twisted by cruelty and malice. Morgana.
But Veigar see’s. And what he sees, I see, and what I see he sees. As Morgana hurls her skill shot, a virulent purple orb streaming brimstone choked smoke screams through the air like the wails of the damned, I swerve at the last moment, juking the shot. As it lazily flies over my shoulder, I can smell the stench of death upon it, and for an instant everything tastes purple. We flee to the safety of our side of the river, briefly pursued by the enemy, who eventually break off to wage war upon the lanes, slaughtering our minions in vengeance. The gank squad splits, each heading to their assumed place. Positions are called. I press deeper into the jungle- an ancient golem awaits me, and it will die.
The clock reads two minutes, thirty seconds.
This is why I play League of Legends.
Brains,
Alfred Zeddington
Alters United
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