Shadows in the Wasteland

Chapter 1

A lone figure wandered the darkened forest of the Shadow Isles. Dead trees spread their strangled limbs to the sky and ghostly plants glowed with an eerie light which provided paltry illumination to the eternal darkness in this place. However, another source of light bloomed in this morbid forest, and then the sound of chains rattling approached. A lantern hovered from a skeletal hand while bobbing from its handle and the sepulchral tones of the damned could be heard within. Joining this chorus of agony was the humming of the Warden himself, singing a childhood nursery rhyme that was sung about him in ages past, long after he met his grisly end of being hanged by his own chains. His chains rattled as he spun the part where his sickle is attached, going round and round, clink clank go the chains.

However, something was amiss. The chain warden stopped spinning the chained sickle for a moment while his humming ceased. Even the souls of the damned within his lantern quiet their lamentations. Thresh then turned, his visage a perpetual sneer, a defiant expression mocking the futility of life, for death was always inevitable for all things. He then threw the part of his chains with the sickle at the end, throwing it to a nearby patch of bushes. He heard a startling clink! and he knew that he caught something. Like a worm on a hook.

Humming gleefully to himself, he then approached the bushes and entered inside. What he saw further amused him. “Why, what a surprise to find the Fist of Shadow here. Even if you bear such a title, I can’t say that the Shadow Isles welcome you here. Pray tell, what are you doing here?”

Akali stared defiantly towards Thresh.

Thresh enjoyed the fact she did not flinch or waver underneath his stare. This one had a particularly strong will. He liked that.

“You can do something for me,” Akali said. “Shen told me interesting things about you, Chain Warden.”

Thresh let out a laugh, which startled the crows from their roosting places in the trees. Oh, was this woman telling him what to do? What insolence! Thresh would have disciplined her under normal circumstances, though alas, the Summoners hold over them all prevented the Champions from fighting each other off the battlefield. Nor could Thresh keep the souls of the Champions he saw on the battlefield, either. Such a disappointment. He would have loved to keep this one’s soul, lock it tight into a special lantern where she would spend the rest of eternity with him and clip her wings.

Thresh decided he would entertain this woman. He had been suffering from ennui as of late. It also wasn’t common for people to approach the Shadow Isles of their own free will, either. “Oh? Do tell. Does the Eye of Twilight really see everything?”

Akali paused for a moment, before saying, “He said that you can summon spirits from the dead and let people talk with them.”

“Did he now?” Thresh said as he began to walk even closer to Akali, hovering over her. Up close, he stared into her eyes and there was still no sign of fear. Yet there was a hint of hesitation as well. Perhaps Thresh could stir up more uncertainty within her, perhaps fear. He then puts a skeletal hand on her shoulder, gently, like a lover would. “It might cost you more than your soul, dear.”

“I want to speak with my mother,” Akali said in a tone dead of emotion, breaking eye contact slightly to look at the hand on her shoulder and tensing the slightest bit. Good.

“Ah, of course,” Thresh said, before he retracts his hand from her shoulder, though he does pull Akali closer to him with his chains. “You do have a striking resemblance to her. Hm. Though what do I get in return for compensation?”

Akali glanced at Thresh warily. “You can’t have my soul, Thresh.”

“No, no…such a disappointment,” Thresh said. “But I have another proposal…”

Akali still said nothing, staying still as a statue. Thresh then went on to say, “I want you to harvest some souls for me. I know of your abilities, Fist of Shadow. You can easily give me one hundred souls, can’t you?”

“I could,” Akali said, her eyes narrowing before she gave him that defiant stare again.

Thresh laughed, finding maddening humor about the entire situation. Oh, this was too rich! The Fist of Shadow came to the Shadow Isles to approach him, the Chain Warden, a madman that tortured prisoners centuries past and lived on as a deathly specter to torment those before and after death. He heard stories about the Fist of Shadow, simply by listening to the gossip of the other Champions in the League. How she joined at a young age, at the tender age of fourteen, and chopped a hanging chain with her bare hand for her Judgment. She could have, in fact, cut off the chains that were binding her now, but she did not. So young…so impressionable. So easily corrupted, as long as Thresh coaxed her in the right direction.

He would elicit that bloodthirsty side of her, as her duty of the Pruning of the Tree. It all benefited him as well, of course. Thresh needed to harvest more souls for his dark bidding. But this young Ionian woman, barely at the age of womanhood at eighteen, was a ripe soul. So full of vitality, and there was a hidden violent aura radiating from her soul. However, there was the Eye of Twilight to deal with. And that troublesome pest Kennen. In fact, Thresh knew for certain that the Eye of Twilight probably lingered somewhere nearby, hidden in the shadows, keeping a silent vigil over Akali.

“Well then…” Thresh said as he unbound the chains from around Akali and gesturing her the way out with his lantern. “If that is all…then you know what to do…”

Akali gives a silent nod, before a smoke shroud enveloped the area where she had been. Once the smoke vanished, Akali, too, was gone. The Fist of Shadow was an apt title.

“You cannot cage her, Chain Warden,” The Eye of Twilight said as he made his presence known to Thresh.

Thresh turned with an amused look on his features, before saying, “Ah, so now you finally show yourself. Tell me, Shen…would you like to talk to your father?”

Shen’s expression remained the immoveable and stoic visage that he always bore. “I will be watching you.”

Then Shen disappeared, succinct as always. Though Thresh had other matters to attend to while the mechanisms of his mind began thinking of schemes. Oh, he had eternity on his side; he was patient, so patient. No matter how long it took, he will break her soul.