1101 AN (After Noxus)

So it was, that on the morn precursing a most anticipated aphelionic observation, the estate of my forefather’s laid down its loyalty to a blithering group of unbaptised criminals. Gone were the inefficacious servants, workmen of the house and also the gangly hired arms that I begrudgingly accepted into my service on the behest of my dear aunt Margot. Buffoons, the lot, tearing me at once, despite every effort, from my preliminary charting. And down onto the cycling, dizzying depths of the cellars under the estates, some of which hath been avoided for their stink of lime and dirty sand, others refounded now as I walk the ribbed tunnels to keep my mind afloat. Down and down I had tread but to the bitter end of a monstrous cave-in, of fat rubble and crushed ballasts, negating any curious notion in my mind of whether any wonder akin to the white horror my ancestor had ascribed could be replicated in the seemingly similar, but altogether unremarkable dark of ground.

The cellar door screamed to life, and Mathias Winslow Drollmann discarded his mind from the rough journal entry to scramble and beg to be released.

“This prison is measurably inadequate for one such as myself!”

Through the slight opening, he dodged a body hooded in sack-cloth. The kidnappers did not meet Mathias’s eyes.

“Would it not be more sensible to lock me in my study?” he argued again, “I could gather and answer any information you require. Every principal sum that my family might allow.”

“…close the fucking door, quickly,” was all he heard before Mathias was left once more in solitude from his life’s work, so close that he could sense his anemometer through the ceiling stones above.

In testament to his rage, Mathias buttoned and unbuttoned his waist jacket, flattening and straightening his lapels like an uncultured waiter’s first ball. He paced by the walls in the dark, mustering what he could remember about the oncoming meteorological events that were sure to proceed. If only he could see it for himself; a single window was all one required! All this time waiting, all this time searching, led on from his ancestor’s first pilgrimage to endow Mathias with this most purposeful cause. And yet these brigands had the gall, the wilding audacity to kidnap him right before his chance to prove himself no madman. To restore his grandfather’s legacy. Just as he cusped evidence of Others, beyond the piddly gods and legends of Runeterran myth. Outside of their universe, apart from the known understanding of the laws of magics and nature.

Suddenly, Mathias heard terror. Muffled rage. Naked toes on stone. With a start, he realized the sacked body was alive and running about the depths blindfolded -not that that would be a hindrance.

Poor breeding, Mathias thought as he called out to the other prisoner, moving towards the stomping and scratching sounds, hands mapping the walls with every pass of its protruding grains. “Stay still and I’ll get that bag off you,” he said, “Stop struggling. I’m a kidnappee, a victim, as I imagine you are.”

Mathias thought he had excellent perception, but each time he came to where the muffled cries seem to emanate from, he found it empty, the sounds flitting all the way back to where he was before -I must’ve passed them by at some point. This happened but twice, at which point Mathias sprouted hands onto his hips and refused to participate in this idiocy. “Look here, this is getting us nowhere. We’re both in the pitch of this unlikely gaol, I can just as well find you as you can. Thus, allow me to be the lesser fool and posit a standstill. You then, come to me and I shall help you escape your bonds.”

Infuriating as it was to be placed in such a position, this bagged fellow made it more so by likewise ceasing all movement. The two kept a terse silence in the underground. It may have been eerie were this location not a part of Mathias’s own inheritance, in any other situation lacking such sensational confluence surely would have wracked his nerves, but such as it was, it was merely another annoyance added to his already aggravating experience of being removed from his budding studies.

He snorted. “This is some practical joke to you? So be it, consider yourself fortunate that I cannot find your person, as once I do, you will feel the full brunt of an enraged Drollmann.” Raising his fists, Mathias leaned his ears in, anticipating a sudden rush, a surprise attack, some sort of tomfoolery from this kidnappee -if indeed they were such a thing and not a ploy by the kidnappers themselves.

Instead, he heard choking. Then a thud, and felt a sweeping of dust laden air brushing past his guarded knuckles.

He blushed at his dire misunderstanding. The poor lad was being gagged! Mathias immediately ran up, all the way to the top of the cellar where the entrance was, and rapped on it in urgent, commanding patterns of five. Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock

“You new prisoner is in need of immediate medical attention!”

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock

“Or do you not need that second ransom?”

After several rounds and no reply, Mathias was hoarse, and so turned his attention back. Now I really do need to find him. Crouching down into a waddle, he stuck his hands out and patted everything in front before proceeding. He wouldn’t haphazardly pass by this time. Staying quiet, he breathed through his nose and listened out for the far subtler noises, the last glugs and splutters of this choking victim. Where are you, you fool?

Thankfully the choking got louder -which made little sense. It got more violent, more like twigs snapping and cogs whirring than an obstructed attempt at speech. Mathias panned the darkness faster, his fingers scraping rock, his crouch dropping to a desperate crawl. Were they getting better, or worse?

At last he felt at material -soft cloth and supple leather- and heaving it caused the other prisoner to let out a breath. Mathias let go of his, too.

“You weren’t choking then, after all?” he laughed.

The muffled voice came again. Hand over the sacked-head, Mathias searched for a drawstring, a seam to pull away the fabric, only for the darkness to confound him once again. “Hold on slightly, there, my good pal.”

At the lack of reply, he held his hand over what should have been the victim’s mouth, but lo the fabric did not rise nor distend with his breath beneath it. With a surge of strength and panic, Mathias carried the poor feller to the cellar entrance once again, and shouted to the last fibre of his lungs for some bloody assistance.

At last when he settled, he could hear the barest scuffle of movement from the upper side -yet also from the body. He was not yet unconscious!

Mathias lay him down, placing his hands over his chest for resuscitation when the victim struggled out in a stuttered cackle,

“…your chase…is a lie…

“…a fantasy, you will…never find.”

As the cellar door creaked stubbornly ajar and the kidnappers arrived in all the frustration, Mathias crawled into the corner. That voice. Those words. How could he have known about Mathias’s ambition, his life’s work never realized? Uncanny, inhuman, it made little sense unless it was a personalized caw of murder. And how could it have been spoken, for the sack did not move from inside. In fact, he could see it now with the faint light unleashed upon the ravenous scene, as the kidnappers descended upon the victim, the only one they could see, that the brown sack was fused to the poor noble’s head, and had eyes.

He feared now for the kidnappers; Mathias, having verified all of his ancestor’s accounts of the magics of the world, was well-versed in Runeterran legend, but yet none of which came close to the power of that Other. The horror he felt at witnessing the grinding cackle, the helpless dark, it could be correctly described as a primal fear. The primal fear, known in small legends pocketed all across the history of known realms. But Mathias was yet hidden and closest to the entrance -or exit. He need only to get up and-

“Let go! You don’t know what his people did to me! Allow me to show you, that’s all, I’ll only do the same.” Of the three kidnappers that entered, this one was being held back by the others, knife outstretched, scalping the air in front of the sack. The primal hood. The cackling, maddening aspect of fear.

The light also revealed that this was no lie, that this kidnapper had indeed been greatly bloodied. And, also that the body possessed by this otherwise common sack was dressed in the northern blue of Freljord, faint swirling tattoos dripping like icy veins from his shoulders.

Both other kidnappers’ focus was on restraint, so Mathias began to edge out. His study called to him. The observation deck. He had spent so much time down here, what had he missed in the weather above? Was there finally a sign? Was there finally proof?

“He’s taunting me! He’s taunting me, can’t you see? Let me go!”

The bloodied kidnapper stared down the slit-eyed hood. From the tales, it was said the Primal had a nose for your most private fear. It preyed on it. Exposing them. It was said the most terrifying part was the truth of what it said. Like it knew.

Mathias stopped, caught by the words, one hand on the side of the door.

“…your chase…is a lie…”

With his touch, the door creaked, recoiling from him, slamming shut.

“…a fantasy, you will…never find.”

The kidnappers turned.

They didn’t see that the sack now had split open into a jaw. Conflagrating light came from inside. Like lit coals.

So, alone, Mathias saw it all. Unable to look away even as viscera plopped on his face, his cheek, the side of his lip.

The Fear feasted. All the while cackling. Yet when it was done with the kidnappers, it was, again, just a sack.

Mathias laughed. His gut-squeezed, torso twisted in the pain of disbelief.

He wasn’t mad. His grandfather had not wasted his life. He relived his last words, where he had told Mathias,

“Patience. Events most supernatural conceal others, beyond even the unseen worlds we do know. That what is outside our conjoined planes. Heed their becoming, and spot the loss, the strangeness that would be attributed to these causes, but which do not add up. It will not be consistent or logical, it will be unnatural beyond unnatural, not human nor bestial nor spiritual, lacking any life but at the same time be the basest, most pure form of it. Something our rules, the strictness of which we have observed for millennia bend easily to allow. That is where you will find it. But it will be the easiest thing to miss. Like a chip of diamond on a field of glass.”

The kidnappee took off the sack. “Fuck this dumb, game, man,” he said and crossed his arms, all with a look of annoyance, a chip on his shoulder far too small, so oblivious he was to the fact that a Primal had until now possessed him. “What are you laughing at, eh?”

Mathias kneeled. “You’re what I’ve waited for.”