SHADOWS IN THE WASTELAND
Chapter 1: The Chain Warden
Something stirred in the Shadow Isle’s darkened forest. Crows cawed in the boughs of ghost-like trees that glowed with an eerie illumination. They startled from their roosting places in the evergreens and flew towards the darkened heavens as the sound of rattling chains clinked in the night. A furtive shadow stalked among the dead trees that grasped their strangled limbs to the sky as the ghostly plants shimmered with ethereal illumination.

A few feathers scattered down from the starless darkness. The remaining crows not startled by the sound of familiar chains ringing throughout the clearing cawed harshly, as though laughing at the futility of whatever mortal who dared venture here. A lantern hovered from a skeletal hand, bearing its handle in the constant coalescing of light and shadow in this morbid forest, the sepulchral tones of the damned wailing within. Joining this chorus of agony was the Warden’s humming, singing a childhood nursery sung about him ages past, long after he was hanged by his own chains. His chains rattled as he spun the part where the sickle was attached, going round in ground in a looping spiral, clink clank go the chains.

“The Chain Warden is on the loose. The Chain Warden has a noose. Tormented brains, broken in chains. Mortals beware, only enter the Shadows Isles if you dare,” a specter materialized and shimmered through the wraith-like mists of the Shadows Isles, forming the figure of the one known as the aforementioned Chain Warden from the childhood rhymes parents told to spook their children into obedience.

However, the legends were real, and the embodiment of fear and darkness the uncertainty of pouncing, dangerous creatures prowling the night were what the Chain Warden was. Like a natural catastrophe or force of nature, you just acknowledged him as is, instead of pleading and trying to cajole him into showing mercy.

This being was known as Thresh, and he hummed this nursery line about himself while he spun his kurisigama in circles, stalking the isles and patrolling for any intruders who might have wandered this path.

Thresh held the lantern close to his skeletal jaw and started to suck in the souls of his lantern into his very being. These souls, which screamed and wailed as the wispy things lamented their torment inside of his nonexistent stomach. While Thresh reminisced about days past long ago, he mused the souls within his lantern probably yearned for freedom rather than the eternal torment they received from him. There was no hiding from your sins in there, and every one of those damnable, feeble things deserved to be locked up in that lantern.

Thresh cackled to himself as memories of the souls he consumed filled his consciousness, the specter groping against the key that hung from his waistband and tattered trenchcoat. It was the very same key he used when he had been a mortal jailer, of course, but now, as an undead, he transcended the prisons of the flesh and became something not quite spiritual (nothing as holy and sacred as THAT) but something more unholy and defiled, but that was just fine with Thresh. He would be the scourge of people’s nightmares if he must—that was what his legend entailed.

Yet, something stalked these isles alongside him. They dared to follow him, tread his steps, match the flicker of his flames on his skulls with their breathing. But Thresh knew every nook and cranny of the shadow isles, and he knew that someone—not something—watched him.

Thresh paused, staying very still. Was it his imagination?

Surely.

No.

Something was amiss. The Chain Warden stopped spinning the chained sickle. His humming ceased. Even the souls of the damned quiet their lamentations. Thresh turned, his visage a perpetual sneer, a defiant expression mocking the futility of life, for death was inevitable for all things.

Someone followed him. He didn’t sense the auras of his Shadow Isles buddies. This distinctly human aura glowed with vitality and life, but which human it was…hm. He hurled the sickled part of his chains towards a nearby patch of bushes. He heard a startling clink! And he knew he caught something. Like a worm on a hook.

The Chain Warden has a noose, all right.

Humming gleefully to himself, he approached the bushes and entered. 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 the Shadow Isles welcome you here. Pray tell, what are you doing here?”

Akali glared defiantly towards Thresh. Thresh enjoyed the fact she did not flinch or waver underneath his stare. This one harbored a particularly strong will. He liked that. Her expression revealed no emotion or fright, though perhaps Thresh would fix that soon enough.

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

Thresh laughed, which startled the crows from their roosting places in the trees. Thresh wondered if it was a jest, though no, it seemed Akali was serious.

Akali kept her gaze trained on Thresh.

Did she seriously think he would be willing to give up his secrets and chatter with her? He wondered if she was alone…no, surely not. She couldn’t be alone, that would be too foolish.

Even if Akali was strong, not even an assassin like Akali could handle Thresh and all of the Shadow Isles Revenants that haunted them.

“What makes you inclined to think that I’m willing to do any favors for someone else?” Thresh said.

Akali still stared at him with defiance in her gaze. “I’m stronger than you, Thresh.”

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.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” Akali licked her lips behind her mask.

“Oh? Do tell. Does the Eye of Twilight really see everything?”

Akali paused. “He said that you can summon spirits from the dead and let people talk with them.”

“Did he now?” Thresh said as he stalked 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. Thresh could stir up more uncertainty within her, perhaps fear. He then put a skeletal hand on her shoulder, gently, as a lover would. “It might cost you more than your soul, dear.”

“I want to speak with my mother,” Akali in a toneless voice.

She only broke eye contact to glance at the hand on her shoulder. She tensed the slightest bit. Good.

“Ah, of course,” Thresh retracted his hand from her shoulder and pulled Akali closer to him. “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 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’s eyes defiantly glared at him in a challenge.

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 who 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 binding her now, but she did not. So young…so impressionable. So easily corrupted, as long as Thresh coaxed her in the right direction.

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.

Thresh would’ve grinned if his skeletal visage would’ve allowed it. Even the Eye of Twilight couldn’t flex his muscles here when Thresh was in his own element.

Shen couldn’t coddle and protect her forever, as much as he claimed that he didn’t have emotions or pretended not to.

He knew through careful observation what those two did together. He could see the way their gazes lingered a second too long on one another’s, or the subtle brush of a hand against the others that showed intimate expressions of caring.

How sweet.

Thresh was a man once, he keenly understood human nature and what bound people together.

Ah, was it love?

Thresh might have known it once. But he’s grown beyond such useless vestiges of emotion.

“Tell me, Akali,” Thresh said with a mocking tone in his voice. “How much do you trust Shen?”

No emotion flickered across her face. He would compliment her on her stoic demeanor. Perhaps Shen taught her to conceal her facial expressions and emotions, though Thresh could sense soul auras, and your soul aura did not lie about your emotions or what you felt. He glimpsed the glamorous warm colors the name Shen evoked as she said, “With my life.”

Thresh laughed again. This was too rich. A girls’ love was truly a pure-hearted thing, wasn’t it? How Thresh wondered if he could grasp it for his own. Or maybe perhaps not love, but something else. Loyalty. Doubts. The seeds of hesitation.

“You love him, do you?” Thresh crooned. “But if you’ve lived as long as I have—eternity comes to have a different meaning. Would you still be willing to spend eternity with Shen, if you could?”

“We’re not talking about that, Thresh,” Akali said, as she drew Thresh closer towards her by yanking his chain binding her with surprising strength.

“Haha, of course. Do forgive my intrusion. It’s just that I get very bored, sometimes, if you’ve lived as long as I have. Sometimes the idle gossip of Champions and what they say and the psychological mechanisms behind their minds are the only things that keep you going. If you understand my drift?”

Akali looked at him as though he were an oversized roach. Well, not that Thresh minded. He was used to the disdain of other Champions for his being. What he was. What he thought. His taste for blood and crunching of bones. Torture.

“If you really want to make it worth my while…If you want to make me do as you ask,” Thresh intoned. “Then…100 souls…”

“You’re not going to raise the bar higher and higher every time, are you Thresh?” Akali said.

Thresh cackled.

“I’m at least trustworthy in this regard. I only need 100 souls more. I could’ve harvested them myself, but with you in the picture, why, I could get someone else to do it for me. Efficient use of delegation, yes?”

“Fine.”

A hidden violent aura of her soul flared towards Thresh, though she calmed and soothed herself before worsened. He wondered if he should provoke the woman into fighting him on the spot right now. Even though Shen was there, watching to protect her—though Thresh had his Shadow Isles buddies to back him up should things get a little dicey? Though Thresh supposed they were in a stalemate, however. He would let this go.

“Well then…” Thresh unbound the chains from around Akali and gestured 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.

The Eye of Twilight made his presence known to Thresh.

“You cannot cage her, Chain Warden.”

Thresh turned, amusement evident in his posture, 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 stoic visage 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 schemed. Oh, he had eternity on his side; he was patient, so patient. No matter how long it took, he will break her soul.

Tormented brains, broken in chains.

What kind of soul would Akali prove to be, in the end?