Azra'il's POV
Transporting three unconscious, high-value bodies through the streets of Noxus is, in theory, an operation that requires meticulous planning. In other lives, I would have used dimensional portals, cloaked transport ships, or, in one particularly memorable case, a herd of semi-sentient pack-pachyderms. Here, in my current incarnation as a 'humble apothecary', my resources were decidedly more… rustic.
"And now, the victory parade," I announced into the silence of the chaotic workshop. "How are we going to move our three fleshy prizes without the city watch's welcome committee deciding to join the party?"
Morgana, who was standing over the three neutralised mages with the solemnity of a reaper surveying her harvest, looked at me. "We can't just carry them. It would attract the wrong kind of attention."
"A brilliant observation," I said, sarcastically clapping with two fingers. "Your ability to state the obvious is inspiring. What we need, my dear guardian, is not a diagnosis of the problem, but a solution. And one that preferably doesn't involve muscles. This body is still in its growth phase."
She ignored my sarcasm, as usual. Her eyes scanned the alleyway outside through the broken window frame. "We need transport. And a disguise."
"Perfect. I'll handle the transport." I left through the workshop's back door. The alley stank of refuse and piss. Two buildings down, leaning against a wall, was exactly what I was looking for: a turnip-seller's handcart, left out for the night. Likely stolen by someone, abandoned, and waiting for a new temporary owner. The Noxian economy in action. I returned to the workshop, pushing the cart, its wooden wheels creaking like a dying animal.
"I present to you our imperial carriage," I announced.
Morgana looked at the filthy cart, then at the three bodies, then back at me. There was a glint of amusement in her violet eyes. "And the disguise? Do we put party hats on them and pretend they fell asleep on their way back from a tavern?"
"Tempting," I admitted. "But I think I have a better idea. Morgana… have you ever considered a career in agriculture?"
A small smile, devoid of any real joy but present nonetheless, touched her lips. "Don't worry," she said. "They won't be seen as people."
She held out her hand, and the shadows in the workshop, which had retreated to the corners, seemed to awaken at her call. They moved like a veil of dark silk, not menacingly, but with an artistic fluidity. The shadows poured over each of the mages, enveloping them, distorting their forms, obscuring their distinct features. Where there had once been a man in scholar's robes, there was now a formless, oblong sack. In seconds, the three mages were no longer people. They were just bulky, irregular shapes, with the illusion of coarse, stained burlap covering them.
I prodded one of the 'sacks' with the toe of my boot. It was surprisingly solid. "Potato sacks," I commented, genuinely impressed. "Or perhaps turnips, to keep with the theme. A bit macabre, but frightfully efficient. I approve. You have a hidden talent for interior design… of a criminal nature."
We loaded the 'sacks' onto the cart. To any passing guard, we were just two women transporting supplies. The perfect distraction, ironically, was the chaos we ourselves had created. The sound of breaking glass, the smell of strange leaking chemicals, and the sudden plague of rats in the workshop had already drawn the first murmurs and distant lights. The guards who would inevitably come to investigate would be too busy trying to understand what happened in the workshop to notice two tired women disappearing into the night. We didn't need outside help; we had created our own smokescreen.
"This one could have eaten fewer pies," Morgana commented under her breath, as we pushed the cart up a slope.
"Don't criticise the archive, Morgana. Knowledge is heavy," I retorted.
The journey back through the labyrinthine alleys was a masterclass in forced normality. We passed a city guard patrol heading towards the workshop, their lanterns cutting through the darkness, drawn by the chaos we'd left behind. They didn't even give us a second glance. Two women, struggling with a heavy load. We were invisible.
Arriving at our walled fortress was the easy part. The tedious part came next: the bureaucracy of imprisonment. We dragged the three 'sacks' one by one and deposited them unceremoniously on the floor of the back room, the chamber that was about to be promoted from a simple storeroom to a maximum-security prison and interrogation centre.
While I checked the pulse and passive defences of each, ensuring they were still unconscious, she began her own work. I watched with clinical interest, leaning against the doorframe. In other lives, I had built prisons from quantum force fields and dimensional labyrinths. Her magic was… more organic. More artistic.
She wove the shadows like threads on a loom, her hands moving in graceful, complex patterns. First, a dense layer to muffle sound, pulling the silence into the room until the air felt thick and heavy. Acoustic insulation. Efficient. Then, a layer to confuse the vision at the door, an illusion that would make it look like just a cold stone wall to anyone passing by. Basic camouflage. Acceptable. And finally, the most complex: a web of containment magic, a tangle of wills that would latch onto any magical casting attempted within the room, smothering it before it could form. She hadn't built a cage; she had convinced the space to *become* one. Interesting. An empathy-based area denial method. It wastes energy, but it has a certain poetic flair.
"It's done," she said at last. The room was now isolated from the world, a separate pocket of reality, our own private theatre of pain and information.
The next step was to remove the shadow-disguise and bind the actual bodies to heavy iron chairs. The process was clumsy and far from glamorous. The academic mage was surprisingly heavy.
"Right. Your part is done," I said, wiping dusty hands. The atmosphere in the room shifted from preparation to anticipation. "Now, I need you to leave, Morgana."
She crossed her arms, her posture immediately defensive, as I knew it would be. "Why? What are you going to do to them?"
"The methods I'm going to use to… extract the information… are not pleasant," I said, choosing my words like someone walking through a minefield. "They are based on… exploiting fear. It's not something I want you to see."
"Will you hurt them, Azra'il? Will you torture them?" she asked, the question freighted with the weight of her entire being.
The question, in its moral simplicity, was irritating. Torture. Such a primitive word. Physical pain is a crude, imprecise tool that corrupts information. What I planned was more akin to surgery. A spiritual lobotomy.
I paused, not out of conflict, but to formulate the semantically perfect reply.
"I will not break a single bone that isn't already broken," I said, glancing at Kethan's hands. "I will not spill a single drop of blood. I will not torture them… physically."
She stared at me, weighing the giant loophole in my promise. She knew. She always knew. But she also saw the necessity in my eyes. She sighed, a sound of weary resignation. "Just… try to remember they are still people, Azra'il. Even them."
She turned and left, closing the door softly. The click of the lock was a final echo. The drama, oh, the eternal drama of moral beings. But I was alone. At last.
I turned to my three study subjects. The child's mask fell away. The patience vanished. Efficiency took its place.
[Initiating diagnostic scan. Subject 1: Isis, the Illusionist. Latent sentry rune detected on the palate… Payload: neurotoxic poison. Subject 2: Kethan, the Artisan. Mnemonic contingency spell detected… Effect: selective erasure. Subject 3: Corbin, the Archivist. Complex psionic defensive construct detected… Nomenclature: 'Firewall'.]
I approached them, still unconscious. The work had to be clean. First, Isis. Using the tip of my finger, charged with a minuscule, precise amount of Qi, I touched her jaw. I channelled a reverse energy frequency, severing the rune's connection to her nervous system. Next, Kethan. I bypassed his memory spell, adding a new parameter to its code: if the probe comes from my signature, self-destruct is deactivated. Lastly, Corbin. His 'Firewall' was the most robust. Instead of attacking it head-on, I found its anchor in his subconscious and, with the delicacy of a watchmaker unravelling a thread, I dismantled it, psychic-energy-fibre by psychic-energy-fibre.
They were disarmed. Defenceless. And still sleeping.
"Right. The traps are removed," I murmured. "Time to wake the patients."
I started with Kethan. A small dose of stimulant and his eyes flew open, filled with panic.
"Full name? Your function? Who recruited you?" I began, my voice flat.
"Go to hell, you little—"
I cut him off, bored. "I've been. Several times. Didn't care for the decor."
I closed my eyes. His mind was easy to access, its defences like a paper door. I didn't knock. I broke it down.
His most painful memory: his younger sister in Ixtal, dying. The Black Rose's promise.
While his conscious mind was still reeling from the shock of the invasion, I plunged into his work memories, rummaging through his runic knowledge.
"You build eyes for the Rose," my voice echoed inside his confusion, sounding like one of his own thoughts. "Beautiful brooches that see the world. Such important work. Surely you aren't the only craftsman talented enough for this. The network needs to be vast, doesn't it? Show me. Show me your colleagues. Where are they?"
His mind, already destabilised, tried to resist, tried to protect its secrets. He clung to the image of his sister as an anchor. A mistake.
"I see you need a little… encouragement," I murmured in the silent room.
I took that painful memory and put it on a loop. He saw her die. Again. And again. The sound of her cough becoming deafening in his mind. With each cycle, I amplified the pain, the despair.
"Are your secrets more important than her, Kethan?" I whispered into his psyche. "Is your loyalty to them worth her suffering? Show me the other artisans, and maybe her coughing will stop for a moment."
Under the unbearable pressure, his mind gave way. The information I wanted leaked from his mental barriers, mingling with the torturous memory. I clearly saw the faces and workshops of two other runic artisans in their network: one in Faskara, a southern port city, and another operating dangerously close to the Dauntless Vanguard, on the Demacian border.
With the information acquired, I did not give him the promised relief. Instead, I twisted the knife. I took the memory of his sister and corrupted it. I implanted a falsehood: the Black Rose had given him the cure, but he had dropped it out of sheer carelessness. The guilt became entirely his. And then, as a final punishment, I erased her face from his memory, leaving him forever with the sound of the cough, the smell of dying flowers, and the guilt of a failure that never happened.
He began to sob, a broken sound from a man who no longer owned his own history. Extraction complete.
I turned to Isis, the illusionist, who had woken up right in the middle of Kethan's mental breakdown with a mixture of horror and defiance in her eyes. She was trying to raise her own psychic defences, fragile as spiderwebs against my approach.
"Your turn," I said.
"You won't break me," she hissed, her voice trembling slightly. "My mind is my sanctuary. My art protects me."
"My dear, you mistake decoration for architecture," I replied, already pushing past her superficial defences. "Your mind is not a sanctuary. It's a stage. And today's performance… will be a tragedy."
Her art was illusion. So I used her own art as a weapon. First, the Warped Mirror. I projected the image of her own reflection directly onto her visual cortex. But the reflection was rotten, twisting into something monstrous, the beautiful illusions she loved so much leaking from her eyes like black, viscous tears.
"Every artist becomes their art eventually," I whispered in her mind. "Is this what you truly are inside, isn't it? A veil of beauty covering the rot."
She screamed, but the sound was trapped in her own throat. Her self-image, the pillar of her identity, began to crack. It was enough for me to get in.
"You yearn for belonging, Isis," my voice became that of her master in the Black Rose, seductive and demanding. "A place for your… 'art'. A safe place. Among friends. Show me your family. Show me your 'petal' to prove your loyalty."
Her mind, desperate for any validation amidst her nightmare of self-loathing, opened up. Images of secret meetings in hidden halls flooded her consciousness. Faces. Names.
I saw what I needed: the standard cell-structure the Black Rose employed to limit damage. And I saw the members of two other active cells in the capital, their specialities recorded in Isis's mind. The first, led by a minor noble named Lord Serevian, was a political infiltration cell, focused on bribing and manipulating bureaucrats in Darkwill's court. The second, far more dangerous, was an assassination cell, led by a nameless woman known only as "The Seamstress," who specialised in deaths that looked like accidents.
And most importantly, I saw the direct superior of their cell, the figure who gave the orders. The local 'petal leader'. I saw her image clearly in Isis's memories: a middle-aged noblewoman, her face stern and intelligent, known only by her title in the organisation and her name… Lady Cassian.
[Data extraction on cell structure complete.]
With the information gathered, it was time to salt the earth. I sifted through Isis's memories of triumph. The first grand court ball where her illusions enchanted a general. I rewound the scene. But in my version, the illusion failed catastrophically. Butterflies of light turned into swarms of cockroaches. The music became mocking laughter. The general's admiring face contorted in contempt. Every one of her successes, rewritten as a public humiliation. Her art was no longer a source of pride. It was the source of her eternal shame.
[Eos analysis: 'Warped Mirror' protocol complete. Subject's identity integrity: 12% and falling. The 'Phoenix Technique' demonstrates consistent efficacy.]
Eos's clinical comment pulled me from my thoughts for a moment. *Phoenix Technique*. It was how she had catalogued the set of psychic abilities I had acquired in a particularly volatile and cosmic lifetime, marked by red hair, fire, and powers that could move worlds. A life where my name resonated with the power of a flaming constellation. A good name, I admitted. Fitting for what I was about to do to the last living file in this room.
Finally, I turned to Corbin. The academic. He was looking at me with a defiant hatred and poorly disguised terror, having witnessed the dismantling of his two comrades. His mental defences were at their peak, a desperate wall against the inevitable.
"Your mind is an archive, isn't it?" I said, approaching slowly. "Ordered. Logical. Neat boxes of information. How tedious. Let's disorganise it a bit."
I didn't attack him with emotion or illusion. That would be an insult to his nature. With him, I used the weapon he prized most against him: logic, taken to the point of absurdity.
First, the Absolute Silence. I erased all his senses, plunging him into a complete psychic void. No sight. No sound. No touch. Total sensory deprivation, the ultimate torture for a mind that craves stimuli and data. Just the endless dark and the sound of my voice in his head.
"Where are you, Corbin?" my voice echoed in his void. "Without your books to read, without your colleagues to debate, without the weight of your robes to feel… how do you know you still exist? Who are you without your facts? You are just… a thought. An echo in a vacuum. And I own this vacuum."
His mind, deprived of any anchor to reality, began to fragment, to doubt its own existence. His logical pride became his prison. It was in this moment of existential panic that I began the harvest. His mental fortress was intact, but the guard had abandoned his post, too busy questioning if the ground beneath his feet was real.
"You collect knowledge," my voice commanded in the darkness. "Why? What is the final purpose? Your organisation's structure is admirable, but it lacks ambition. It isn't just for power in Noxus. There is a greater objective. A project."
His mind, already shaken, tried to resist, his shields of loyalty and training rising out of sheer instinct. *I will tell you nothing, demon! The Rose is eternal!*
"Admirable," I commented. "But a vault is still just a box. And every box has contents."
Instead of trying to pick the lock on his deepest secrets, I simply began to deconstruct the box around it. I used Identity Fragmentation. I started by erasing simple, yet fundamental, memories.
"What was your mother's name, Corbin?" I asked. He focused, and the memory was there. And then, I pulled it, leaving a grey void where there had once been a name and a face. He gasped mentally, terrified.
"What was the first book you ever read? The one that made you love knowledge?" The memory of an old tome of Shuriman history surfaced, and I erased that too.
"Where were you born? What is your real name? Who are you?"
With every question, a piece of his past was torn away, stolen. He could feel the pieces of himself disappearing. Without a past, his loyalty became an anchor without a chain. The vault of secrets fell open, not because it was forced, but because it no longer had an owner to protect it.
And inside, there was the master plan. And it was nothing like what I expected.
I saw the rituals, the stockpiling of power, the construction of a 'soul-anchor' in the deepest levels of the Bastion. The purpose, however, was not devotion. It was fear. A primal, ancient fear that permeated the entire organisation. They weren't trying to facilitate their master's return from the Death Realm. They were preparing for war *against* him.
The name echoed amidst the terror of his fractured memories, a name I had read in ancient scriptures, a legend of the end of times. Mordekaiser. The legend was real. And they, his former servants, were terrified.
The 'anchor' they were building was not a welcoming beacon. It was a weapon. A desperate attempt to usurp and control the power of the Death Realm, to create a counterbalance to Mordekaiser's might, or perhaps even seal him permanently when he tried to return. They didn't want to worship a god; they wanted to put a god in chains.
And, most crucially, I read of their search for the final component. The catalyst that would give their weapon the power necessary to harm something like him. A 'Living Heart' with an anomalous power, of a nature that bordered on the divine. A power capable of opposing the entropy of death with the force of immortal life. The description was precise. It was a description of the power they had sensed in Morgana. She wasn't the ingredient to bring him back. She was the ammunition they planned to use to destroy him. They wanted to turn her light and her life into a weapon of destruction.
But there was one missing piece. Why the hurry? I dove deeper into Corbin's archives. And then I found it.
A series of reports on the deepest levels of the Bastion's foundations. About pockets of residual energy, 'dead but hungry'. The dormant power of Mordekaiser. And the most recent report was terrifying. The energy was no longer dormant. It was… stirring. Slowly. Subtly.
The 'strange power' Lissandra had sensed. This was it. It was Mordekaiser himself beginning to stir in his ethereal tomb, and the Black Rose was in a desperate race against time, trying to forge a weapon before their former master came to collect on their debt of betrayal.
The Black Rose conspiracy weren't the foolish cultists I'd imagined. They were condemned prisoners desperately trying to build a key to their executioner's cell. And they planned to forge that key from Morgana's very soul.
With the last, most terrifying piece of the puzzle in place, I knew I had it all.