League of Legends The Shadow Pit

League of Legends The Shadow Pit

The walls move, the statues whisper. Zed is there, the King in black presiding over his dark order surrounding a lost warrior. Akali breathes heavily, tries to gather information, she struggles to maintain the balance between panic and stoicism. Zed, presiding proudly over the room, asks Akali to choose between a child and an old woman, both hostages are in cages, and one of them must die. Akali feels the intoxicating rush of fear rising to her head. She focuses on saving the child first, but as she attempts to break the lock, the trap springs, and the old woman is killed. She turns her attention back to the child and successfully frees him, but he has barely any time to get out before the Shadow Lord asks the young warrior to kill him. Akali is surrounded and cornered. She shifts her gaze back to the soot-covered child on the ground. One of Zed’s apprentices slips a shard of glass into Akali’s hands; she is trembling, her senses clouded by the heat and adrenaline. Growing weary, Zed uses one of his shadows to control Akali’s movements, forcing her to stab the child. As the child lies dying on the ground, and before Akali has fully grasped the magnitude of “her deed”—Zed delivers a joyless: “Welcome to the crew.”

Still by Sei’s side, Shen learns to wait and begins reading Sei’s books to pass the time in bed. Sei tells him that Akali has decided to leave. Shen panics and tries to stand up, but in vain. With some time to kill, Shen inquires about plants and sees that a doping plant could be useful to him, but Sei advises him against taking it. The shapeshifter tells him that the young warrior is resourceful now; she has grown up. Sei gives Shen more painkillers and carries him to his bed. The shapeshifter then sits on the ground, lost in thought. He watches a water fox that seems to be approaching him. Sei waves his hand, but the little one turns back. Sei decides to scatter food around the grass and watches, playing music to himself without enthusiasm. Back in the ash plains, Akali asks Zed why he trusts her. Zed doesn’t answer. She tries again, but Zed tells her that if she doesn’t want to go back into the pit, she’d better keep quiet. She then turns to the others, who either completely ignore her or spit at her. She approaches the last warrior, a young man named Kayn. He looks down on her and tells her that the Order of Shadow hunts down anyone to cause suffering. Zed says it attracts evil spirits, and then they get rid of them afterwards. She repeats her previous question and gets an answer. Zed uses fear as a motivator, and Kayn explains that he recruited him for his living weapon. He promised to heal him from his “possession”. Akali claims there are other ways, and that his leader may be wrong. Kayn seems to open up a little bit; Akali would swear she detected curiosity in a look that seemed self-assured just seconds before. She claims that she was able to “liberate” creatures of ash in a certain way. Kayn told her that the monsters fears him, that his weapon spoke to him in his dreams, telling him of plains of ash, of the obsidian throne, of the shadow pit, of souls that were lost, left in the hands of the vengeful fire. Akali then asks why he cares so little for the warrior she killed, and Kayn orders her to leave him alone. Zed then calls Akali over and tells her to face a horde of ash creatures alone. She does so, but in a surprising way. The creatures don’t evaporate; they merge with the vegetation. Once the dust has settled, Zed brutally questions Akali about the source of her knowledge and the books they found among her belongings. Akali refuses to reveal the origins of the books but she indicates that another path is possible, that the disciples of shadows can be masters of their own fate and no longer respond to a tyrannical madman obsessed with control. Zed orders her to be tied to a tree.

As Sei takes Shen outside for some fresh air, the shapeshifter reiterates his question about Shen’s past, and Shen, staring into space, tells him that he failed as a master with few students, that Akali represented the biggest challenge for him, and that like his master before him, he failed in his task. Shen said, half ironically, half sincerely, that Sei would make a better teacher. Sei replies that all is not lost, that without Shen’s teachings, Akali would probably have already lost her life. The warrior replies that he doesn’t know if she’s still alive, but Sei is sure that it is the case. Shen’s curiosity piqued, he asked Sei what had brought him to this place. Sei replies that he thinks he is more useful here than among his peers and others in general, to exist only for himself while doing a service to those he encounters. “I had grown weary of the city’s somber lights and of an existence stripped of movement.” After a brief moment, the two turned their attention back to the stream. “And do you like this life?” Shen asked him. After a long moment, Sei replied faintly, ”No.” Noticing that Shen seemed to have more energy, Sei asked him to be honest and tell him if he was taking performance-enhancing plants to stay upright. Shen replied that he was. Sei does not respond and returns his attention to the sound of the water.

Both notices that some water foxes have taken up residence in front of his hideout and seem to be waiting. The adult growls, and Shen, despite the pain, is ready to retaliate. Sei signals him to stop, waves a piece of food, and the adult backs away. Sei throws it, and the adult retrieves it to feed the cubs. A creature of ash then emerges from the forest and kills the family of water foxes. Shen instinctively throws a dead fox cub at the creature, and it seems to calm down. Sei does it again, and the creature appears to fall asleep. The shapeshifter decides to keep the corpses to extract the meat and try the experiment again later. The two companions hide and wait for the beast to awaken. Akali begs Kayn to release her, and although he seems slightly affected by her fate, he doesn’t move. Zed then begins using shadows on Akali to reveal her thoughts. But she is too defensive and not weak enough for her mind to be pierced. He then authorizes his warriors to physically torture her to weaken her further; one of them rushes at her and begins carving symbols into her stomach. Kayn asks Zed to stop the ritual, but Zed tells him that if he ever wants to possess his mind one day, he must obey him. Kayn then watches the scene unfold.

Shen and Sei watch; the creature is motionless, asleep. As Sei decides to leave the hiding place, Shen stops him, pointing at the creature. It begins to move again, waking up with difficulty. It seems to be searching for the two individuals who fed it, and also for the meat. It heads toward the lair, but before it can destroy everything, Sei comes out of the hiding place and tells it to stop. He takes a piece of meat from the reservoir and throws it to the creature. He repeats this with a berry and realizes that the ash colossus doesn’t seem to be exclusively carnivorous. He seasons the meat with several pain-relieving herbs and gives it to the creature. It calms down, and its breathing slows. Shen watches in amazement, and Sei plays a tune for the creature. The creature seems to like it. Shen goes to sleep.

While Akali lies weak, barely able to move or feel, Zed plays with his shadows; he makes two figures dance and twirl between his hands. Two human shapes dancing in his grasp, as he lets out a long sigh. Then, he turns back to his prisoner. Zed then used one of his shadows to probe Akali’s mind. He contemplates for a moment a memory of Akali as a child training with Shen. After searching her memories, he finally finds the one of Sei’s hideout. He then orders his men to scatter and scout the area. When the master of the shadows is alone with Akali, she asks him why he’s acting this way. Zed reveals that he’s been searching for a man for years, though he’s not sure if it’s an ordinary human. He says that suffering attracts him, that he “feeds” on it. Zed tells the young warrior about his past with Shen and his former master. How caution and calculation had made him weak and hesitant in his decisions. Zed no longer wanted to be under the thumb of anyone incapable of making strong decisions for him, of guiding his future. If the weak are to be targeted by the strong, then he might as well take his place at the top. Kayn and another member of the Shadow Order arrive stealthily at Sei’s hideout and see him standing before an ash creature, showing neither fear nor aggression. The member wants to attack now to bring the healer back to Zed, but Kayn stops him, saying it’s better to let Zed speak to him directly. The warrior refuses and wants to act now to impress his leader, so Kayn kills him with his weapon. He sees that the weapon seems to absorb the warrior’s energy, and after a moment of hesitation, he returns to his master.

As Kayn returns to the camp, Akali speaks to him before he can reach Zed, telling him that she can free him. He ignores her and says he saw someone standing near an ash creature as if nothing were amiss. Zed asks him why his companion isn’t there, and Kayn replies that he was tricked by a colossus. Zed asks him why he didn’t retrieve his weapon and why he has no injuries. Kayn is speechless and is taken prisoner along with Akali by the last two members of the Shadow Order. One of the two takes Kayn’s weapon for himself. Zed orders Akali and Kayn to lead him to the hideout, threatening the lives of both. Sei spots lights in the distance and tells Shen to hide. Shen wants to stay to protect him, but Sei tells him he’s too weak. The master obeys and hides, the shapeshifter gives him some books but before closing the basement hatch, he asks Sei what he’s going to do. He doesn’t reply. Sei goes up to the observatory and sees the lights approaching and sees a familiar face. Zed orders his men to stop. The hideout seems empty; only the colossus sleeps outside. Zed enters a trance and uses his shadows to scout. Sei is camouflaged against a wooden wall and observes. When the shadows detect nothing, they return to their master, and Zed advances. The two shadow warriors watch Akali and Kayn. Akali tries to talk them out of it, but one tells her to be quiet, and the other seems to be in a trance. As her comrade tries to wake him, Akali takes the opportunity to strike him in the knees and demands that Kayn untie her bonds. She then receives unexpected support... The shadow man, possessed by Kayn’s weapon, brutally impales his companion before plunging it into his own chest. Kayn hesitates before retrieving the weapon. Akali tries to heal quickly before joining Kayn.

As Zed enters the hideout, he states that he knows he’s not alone and that he’ll wait, forcing Sei out of hiding. The shapeshifter asks him what he’s looking for, and Zed replies that he wants him to teach him how to get rid of the ashes colossus. Sei responds that he’s been working on how to tame them somehow. Zed doesn’t believe a word of it. “You can’t tame the children of fire with plants and quack remedies.” He asserts that his master believed in a weak approach. “Looking where that got him, he probably doesn’t believe in it anymore.” “But at least through his failures as a teacher, the one I called my mentor showed me the way forward.” Sei thought he’d heard that somewhere before and asked Zed if he had a brother or a friend. Zed seemed taken aback by the abrupt question. He nodded slowly, and Sei asked if he knew what had become of them. “One is dead, the other is on my kill list.” Zed regained his composure and threatened the shapeshifter more directly. As the ash demon awoke, Sei attacked Zed, transforming into a larger, more bestial version of himself. He charged at Zed, who summoned shadows to attack Sei and the colossus. Kayn finally regained control but was reluctant to let Akali fight. Seeing the situation rapidly escalating, he decided to confront Zed head-on, his weapon seeming to grant him destructive energy and an immense rage. As the shadows finished off the colossus and greatly weakened Sei, Akali rushed to his aid. Kayn has the upper hand against Zed, but is temporarily surrounded by shadows and eventually defeated. Akali then attacks Zed and manages to destabilize him, but a fire breaks out around the tree and begins to consume the hideout. Too weak to fight, Akali starts to lose ground. Sei comes to her aid, he triggers traps but Zed skillfully avoids them all, passing through them as if it were a cornfield. The shadow master impales Sei in the side. He collapses, but passes Akali narcotic bombs, which she uses to put Zed to sleep.

Shen no longer hears any noises outside and tries to rush towards the hatch, but it is blocked by the burning collapsing ceiling. He then uses the emergency exit, a long tunnel. Kayn regains consciousness, seeing Akali with the shapeshifter. He passed away peacefully, gazing towards the sky and sighing deeply. As the fire rapidly intensifies, Kayn urges Akali to leave. She tells Kayn that her master is likely still inside, but Kayn forces her to retreat. After resisting, she reluctantly complies, and the two leave the hideout, which is soon engulfed in flames. As Zed slowly regains consciousness he feels the hot metal of his helmet scorching his cheeks, the tissues of his flesh begin to blacken. He is burned alive, and his final scream is heard by Shen, who finally reaches the end of the tunnel. He pauses for a moment, hoping it wasn’t Sei, and flees into the darkness.

At dawn, Akali and Kayn are chased by all sorts of forest creatures scattered by the fire. They are watched by a man dressed in white in the distance.