POV - Azra'il
Routine, I have discovered, has a rhythm. Like the tide, it has its ebbs and flows, its moments of calm and its peaks of chaotic activity. On that Tuesday, the tide was low. A fine, persistent rain was falling on the bridge, wrapping our little shop in a grey mist that fogged the windows and muffled the sounds of the outside world.
The salon was almost empty, a welcome lull after the weekend rush. A few academics were scattered at the tables, their faces lit by reading lamps, immersed in their tomes. A handful of Zaunite workers were seeking shelter from the rain, warming their hands on mugs of strong tea, the silence between them heavy with fatigue. It was a slow day. Perfect for contemplating the futility of existence or, in my case, for organising the herb stock.
And it was in this grey silence that a figure entered, as quiet as the rain itself.
He was a young adult, probably in the same age range as the Academy's golden boy, Jayce Talis, but where Jayce carried the sunlight and confidence of Piltover, this man carried the gloom and the weight of Zaun. He was thin, with a fragility in his frame that was belied by the intensity of his gaze. He leaned lightly on a simple metal cane, each step deliberate and careful, as if calculating the physics of every movement.
His clothes were those of a Piltovan academic, a functional white waistcoat over a simple dark shirt, without the golden adornments favoured by the elite, but they could not hide the truth of his origin. In his posture, in his melancholy, in the way he seemed to carry the invisible weight of the Sump on his shoulders. His dark, deep eyes absorbed every detail of the shop with an analytical intensity, as if he were dismantling the place in his mind to find its structural flaws.
I recognised him at once from the diagrams in the academic journal from weeks ago. It was Viktor. The prodigy from Zaun. Heimerdinger's taciturn pupil. The reluctant father of the automaton with feelings.
Lucien came to my counter, the order note trembling in his hand. "He… uh… asked for the strongest, most bitter tea we have. Something to 'keep the engine running'."
I nodded. A functional man asking for a functional drink. It made perfect sense. I went to the back and prepared the blend myself. Twice-toasted black leaves from Shurima, with a pinch of ground chicory root. It was something I personally used as a grease solvent in my experiments. Perfect. Instead of letting Lucien take it, I decided to deliver it myself. Curiosity, as always, was a character flaw of mine.
"I read about your creation in the journal," I said, placing the steaming cup on his table. "The automaton with feelings. A remarkable feat of engineering… or of accidental necromancy. I'm still deciding."
A trace of surprise crossed his face, but not of offence. He studied me for a moment, his head tilted. "There is nothing of necromancy," he replied with the direct honesty of a scientist. "Only logic and empathetic processing networks. He does not feel in the human sense. He calculates the most logical emotional response for each situation and emulates it. It is a form of life, yes, but one born of pure mathematics, not of mystery."
"Mathematics," I repeated, savouring the word. It was so… Piltovan. So naive. "Interesting. And its heart, the power source… you used a single, large brackern crystal, didn't you? A high-quality one." I saw him grow uncomfortable. "They are… noisy, those crystals. Full of echoes."
"Its… 'resonance'… was filtered and stabilised," he replied defensively. "Whatever was there before is now just pure energy."
"Ah, yes," I said with a humourless smile. "The old, reliable illusion that one can tear the soul from something and use its body as a battery without any consequences. Piltover's speciality."
Before he could respond to this little accusation of existential desecration, the shop door burst open with a crash. It was Jayce Talis, bringing with him the rain and the fury of a man on the verge of a genius-breakdown.
He marched to the counter, where Rixa eyed him with total disinterest. "Where is she?" he demanded.
"If you're referring to the creature of dubious temperament who makes the teas, she's right behind you," I said, my voice calm.
He spun around. "You. I need to talk to you. That thing you said… about harmony, about the river… about my stupidity. It happened. I mean, it didn't. It failed. Again. Worse."
It was then that he finally noticed the other young man in the room. Viktor looked up at him. Piltover's "Golden Boy" and Zaun's "Dark Prodigy" stared at each other across my tea room. They knew each other, of course. The silent rivalry between them was almost palpable.
"Well, since we're all here," I said with a wave of my hand, "why don't we turn this into a meeting of troubled minds? The small talk was beginning to bore me anyway."
I guided them to a larger table. Jayce, with the reluctance of a man admitting defeat, opened his notebook. It was filled with diagrams, crossed-out runes, and furious notes. He ignored Viktor, for now.
"I tried," he said, his voice low and tense, directed at me. "Your idea. Harmony, not containment. The rune you drew… it's too elegant, too complex. I can't replicate its intent. But I got close. I built a new matrix, with a different focus. And it worked." He pointed to a note. "I achieved a stabilisation of the synthetic gem for three-point-seven seconds. A record."
"But?" I asked, knowing there was always a "but".
"But there's an energy 'kickback'," he said, frustrated. "The energy becomes volatile, folds in on itself and overloads the matrix. I have to eject the core before it detonates."
Viktor, who had just been listening in silence, leaned forward, his melancholic eyes suddenly alight with the fire of analysis. The rivalry was forgotten in the face of a genuinely fascinating engineering problem.
"Synthetic hextech," he said, his voice almost a whisper. "Heimerdinger always considered it dangerously unstable." His eyes never left the diagrams. "Your problem isn't the rune."
Jayce stared at him, surprised and a little on the defensive. "What do you mean?"
Viktor pointed with a thin, ink-stained finger at the central gyroscopic structure in Jayce's diagram. "Your containment chamber. It's designed to isolate the energy. You're focusing on brute force, trying to build thicker walls to contain an ever-larger explosion. It's a classic Piltovan design: arrogant and inefficient."
"It's the most stable design in theory!" Jayce protested.
"In theory," Viktor agreed with a cutting coldness. "But it is not a question of containing. It is a question of processing the energy. Your 'energy kickback' isn't a flaw, it's a surplus. Like the waste heat from an engine. You don't build a thicker engine to deal with overheating; you build a cooling system." He took a pencil and, on another part of the napkin, drew a series of intricate channels and heat-sinks around a central chamber. "You don't need stronger walls. You need a ventilation system. Discharge circuits that redirect the excess energy back into the matrix in a cycle, instead of letting it build up and shatter the gem. You are building a bomb and trying to stop it from exploding. I would build an engine."
The conversation became a rapid ping-pong of jargon that would make most mortals' heads spin. Jayce spoke of "increasing the runic load-bearing capacity". Viktor replied with "optimising the energetic flow-rate". One wanted to build a more impenetrable fortress; the other, a fortress with a more efficient sewage system. And they were both so engrossed in their shared genius that they didn't notice the fundamental flaw in their premise: they were still discussing the best specifications for a cage.
It was then that I interrupted, tired of the spectacle of two brilliant hamsters running furiously on the same wheel.
"You are both brilliant," I said, in the tone of one complimenting the architecture of a prison. "And you are both completely wrong."
They stopped, turning to me, united for the first time in their shared indignation.
"His 'cooling system'," I said, nodding my chin at Viktor, "is just a clever plaster for a broken bone. And you," I looked at Jayce, "are trying to force the music to play in tune by hitting the instrument with a larger hammer. The problem is not in your chamber or your lack of a 'heat-sink'. The problem is in the gem itself. In your concept of it."
They stared at me, waiting.
"You are both thinking of the synthetic crystal as a solid block. A crystal cage, as Jayce is fond of calling it, designed to imprison the magic. That's why it fights to get out. You are trying to replicate a brackern, but all you are managing is to create an empty prison. A prison will always, and inevitably, be attacked from within by its prisoner."
I took the pencil from Viktor's hand and, on the same tea-stained napkin, which now held his drawings of channels and sinks, instead of a solid shape, I began to draw a rough sketch. Concentric rings. Independent. Orbiting an empty centre.
"What if the gem is not a block?" I asked, my voice low and deliberate. "What if it is a series of floating lenses or rings, each attuned to a single rune, spinning in harmony with each other, like a tiny solar system?"
I moved closer, and the two of them leaned over the napkin as if it were a holy text.
"Instead of a solid cage that absorbs all the pressure and reflects it back until it shatters," I continued, "you would have a dynamic system. An arcane engine. The outer rings, the slower ones, would stabilise. The inner ones, faster, would focus the energy. The energy wouldn't be contained; it would be channelled through a controlled, self-sustaining vortex. Not a dam, but a turbine. Not a prison, but a nest."
Jayce and Viktor stared at the drawing. The silence in the shop was absolute, broken only by the gentle sound of the rain outside. The idea. I could see it blooming in their minds, an impossible seed planted in the fertile soil of their genius. The idea of a multi-layered, spinning core, instead of a static crystal. It was the missing piece of both of their puzzles. It was the perfect bridge between Viktor's precise mechanical engineering and Jayce's pursuit of magic's raw power. I hadn't given them the answer. I had given them the right question, the path that they, with their brilliant minds, could now follow together.
It was Jayce, the idealist, who broke the silence. "That…" he whispered, awe completely overcoming his pride. "That could work." His frustration turned into a feverish energy, but then his expression faltered, doubt returning. "But it's not just about stability! It's about purpose! It's about recreating a miracle!" And he told Viktor, the pragmatist, his story about the mage who had saved him.
Viktor, instead of scoffing at the sentimentality, listened with a surprising calm. He waited until Jayce had finished, his gaze distant. "Miracles will not fix a miner's lungs or stop a roof from collapsing in the Sump," he said, his voice low but filled with a cold conviction. "Technology needs to be useful, Talis. It needs to serve a real and immediate purpose. And its beauty, for me, is not in the magic. It is in the fact that, if done correctly, it can help everyone, without needing a miracle."
They had reached a philosophical impasse, but a scientific synergy. They completed each other in an irritating and perfect way. Jayce had the bold vision; Viktor had the logical rigour to make it a reality. They were the fire and the forge.
It was Jayce, in a rare and painful moment of humility that must have cost him dearly, who finally made the offer. "My laboratory… has the Kirammans' patronage. The best equipment in Piltover." He looked at Viktor. "But it's missing… your perspective. It's missing your realism, your genius for efficiency. Come and work with me. Together… maybe we can make something more than just a lamp or a sun. Maybe we can make something that… truly works. For everyone."
Viktor did not accept immediately. The boy from the Sump who had fought for every scrap of recognition was being invited into the golden sanctuary of Piltover's Golden Boy. The offer was as much an opportunity as it was a test. He looked at the diagram, at Jayce, and then at me, as if asking for a final approval or a warning.
I shrugged, finishing my tea, which was now cold. "Don't look at me. It's your own potential catastrophe. Go on, build it together. At least the blame will be shared when it all inevitably explodes."
A faint smile, the first I had seen him give, touched Viktor's lips. He turned to Jayce. "I accept."