“You- You can’t do it. Y- You won’t be able to… We tried! We really tried! And you of all people should know that. How much we sacrificed, how we unmade ourselves to protect, to safeguard, this world! There is nothing left to do, nothing we can do…

NOTHING!”

Valmer could almost hear them, even hunched over the sprawling, magical canvas as he was. Their echoes were true, unmitigated by the marble ruins around him and the maelstrom of cosmic power before him. Those were the voices of his compatriots. Of cherished comrades, of brothers and sisters in battle and science and magicks.

Alas, those were just that, whispers calling and beckoning, from a past gone to the ages. Memories' memories, almost forgotten. Yet, the voices pulled at his heartstrings, even as the invoked spellcraft swelled towards greater and greater heights. Each thrum and beat of this… artificial divinity greedily drew upon his essence, underlying his dessicated skin and housed in his crumbling bones.

"This- This is the end of us. Of all of us! We strip ourselves of control, freedom and flesh! And what do we get in turn?! Damned to be a footnote in the annals of history, if even that!

Valmer, look at me. Look me in my fucking eyes! This world… is it even worth saving!?"

He was past the point of feeling blood drip down his lips or stain the stone beneath. No more than a husk, that is what he was. He felt the emotions all the same though.

His mind rallied against the Arcane's assault, as scents poured around a face without a nose and taste lingered on a blackened tongue in a mouth with no teeth. The memories became increasingly vivid, facsimiles of a life once lived, and they lingered in his mind for seconds at a time now. They didn't flash, they festered.

"We tried so many times, Valmer… Again and again and again and again, AND AGAIN! Heroes, villains, dead and dying, mortal and immortal, in the end they all - WE ALL - have too many stakes in this world, because it is ours. It may just be… our nature after all."

Footfalls echoed along the frigid marble, shouts and the scuffling of steel followed closely behind. The stomping of a hundred boots was swiftly approaching. Valmer shelved the sensations even as his subconscious noted them as quite real.

The spell spun merrily, in cerulean and green and sanguine reds and sunny yellow and so many things at once… it bucked against his will, pressed through every chink of his metaphysical armour, however, he never let it slip.

Valmer dipped low at the edge of the runic circle, his right hand, contorted into inhuman shape since the last two nights, fell away in a cloud of grey dust that floated gently into the formation. A mesh of pure thaumaturgical energies replaced it.

"We toiled for too long! Broke ourselves and our spirits on this impossible task! This godforsaken pipedream! And it just hurts… Let it… let it burn Val. Don't you see? They want no saving……"

Although the insidious memories twisted their jagged blades within his soul, his resolve was firm, albeit the reason of such resolution had been forgotten ever since the pain of the ritual had consumed him.

"He is close. Quick!"

"Val… I… hope you can find what you are looking for. I sincerely do. You love this world more than anyone. More than… we do, after all. Maybe they'll manage without us… I know you will.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Goodbye Val. You… Ah, forget it. Good luck!"

"We have to kill him. NOW!"

Valmer thought he felt tears in his eyes, until he realised there were no eyes to spill them and no face to cry with.

An axe, all glimmering and tempered steel, cleaved his body, the stone, the rune circle and a dozen yards of the ground before him.

He watched the last remnants of his physical vessel scatter with the shockwave, like leaves in an autumnal breeze. Attuned to the magic on a level unknown to mortal-kind he remained unharmed, a spectre on the final steps of his quest - watching with passing interest the scuffle below.

Soldiers, decked in burnished red and black plate armor, filtered into the ruins. Some carefully stepped and tip-toed around the sigils burned into the stone while some brutes crashed through the ancient masonry with roars of challenge. No matter their approach, they were single-minded in their purpose. To bring the wayward cohort of magicians into the Empire's fold, and if that didn't work, to erradicate every last one of them.

Valmer hardly flinched at the sheer disregard the soldiers showed. His heart and soul paled the further he embossed his self in the arcane. Solely single-minded focus drove him from this point forth, so he closed his senses off from this world and went deeper still.

He hurried past the grey - the frontier of the material, celestial and spiritual realm. Where gods dwelled, yet with none of the... kindness, humane-ness, he expected from the tales.

Every step of this momentous journey, an instant for onlookers, undid the matrix of spells and magic Valmer had become.

He went past the void - perpetually encroaching. A hundred eyes, endlessly curious, watched him. They were endlessly hungry as well.

The fundamentals of reality, the things that made him and the power he drew upon, shook.

He struggled past the veil - a… realm of bent laws and paradoxes, the border of reality.

He… had become less, reduced in a sense. Although something told him he was whole and good now, a shudder kept him from dozing off. Who was he again...?

Words lost their meaning. A sputtering vestige of magic catapulted him further, spurred by his waning consciousness.

He stumbled past the crossroads and into the Overworld. This place eluded his understanding.

Here, wakefulness gripped him and a familiar face took over his vision.

“It is good to see you my friend, had me worried at the end there,” his brother by choice looked as he always did. Gaunt, a bit frazzled as if he just woke up, a smile skewed into wryness by the lame half of his face. Aged fingers pinched pince-nez on a hooked nose, he looked at him, waiting.

Valmer couldn’t quite tell, but he knew he was pulling a face at his oldest friend. So many words bubbled within his chest. Apologies left unspoken, horrors barred inside the deepest recesses of his mind that waited to be let out, secrets better shared.

In the end he let his hold on regrets and worries go.

“I… I… know you aren’t real, Cass. But... I wanted to apologise nevertheless. I may have lost myself in the end there, become the very thing I, nay, we all despised!” A proverbial weight dropped from Valmer’s chest.

Lincoln Al’Cass sucked on his teeth.

“That’s alright. Be forgiven, you incorrigible idiot. I didn’t want to keep you long either, we know you still have a final task ahead of you… So, go ahead.”

Valmer grinned, smiling up to his eyes for the first time in a while.

“Of course. I’ll see you all later then!”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t take too long now.” Cass picked the lint from his robes and sent him off with a brusque wave, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Nonexistent faded away, less by design and compelling of strength, but moreso as a favor given to a good friend.

Hurried and in part excited Valmer perused the higher realms, catching glimpses of things he had no understanding of. He didn’t need to.

The Summoner’s Order ultimate mission was the protection of Runeterra, and what better person to adjudicate the balance than a person completely unaffiliated with it.

Was it selfish? Was it borderline maniacal? Was it a fool’s errand? In every case, yes, but Valmer had concluded that he deserved a bit of all. What could he say? His friends were right. He was only human after all.

"I ask for help but I have nothing to give in return. I… beg of you who listens. Help us."

And so he sent the call into the void and waited with arms crossed.

"I... don't know how you got this number, but I mean… sure, sounds fun. What do you need?"

And something answered and a connection snapped into place.

Valmer gripped the tether and pulled.

“Bah, see for yourself! Live good, live true, don’t make the mistakes I did, but make mistakes plenty! Have fun and maybe it will all figure itself out,” he called back as the foreign soul dropped towards Runeterra like a shooting star.

Being irresponsible once in a while felt nice.

Its duty fulfilled, the spell fizzled out and Valmar, the last of the Summoners, Arbiter of both Stag and Owl, self-proclaimed protector of Runeterra, friend and family to those in need, died, his very essence cast into oblivion and a well-deserved rest given.