Respite 8.8

2005, July 18: Phoenix, AZ, USA

After almost two weeks of monitoring the town, I had a few more concrete ideas about who the "fae" could be. They didn't visit every night, or even every other night, but I had a few shadowy pictures of the culprit. Conrad was right: They were short, had a humanoid shape, and wore some kind of robe with pointy ears and either a big hat or horns.

A yordle. It had to be; there was no way it was anything else. Despite what Conrad said, there was only a single yordle of indeterminate gender.

One picture showed them making off with a bag of cookies slung over their shoulder like a reverse Santa Claus. Another had them posing right in front of a drone like a runway model. Yet, every single picture I'd acquired over the past few days were blurred by someone or something, as if the pictures were charcoal drawings and had been smudged back and forth with a colorful sponge that left glittery residue all over the paper.

That alone was a big clue: My cameras had excellent resolution. Day or night, the dragonfly drones I'd set up to patrol the village were highly accurate, which meant they were fooling my drones via magical means. Yordle glamor was good, but I didn't think many had glamor that good.

It had been a niggling hypothesis of mine, but one I'd dismissed early on as the least likely. But then again, when all other possibilities have been eliminated, whatever left, however improbable, must be the truth.

That was the rub: It was improbable, ridiculously so, but not impossible. Now that I was forced to truly entertain the possibility, facts and theories began to slot into a greater whole.

The Nexus was more than a giant mana crystal that stored energy for my projects. It was a bridge between my soul and the external world, a conduit that functioned without my direct input. In other words, it was the connecting point between a World Rune and the mana-starved world that was Babylon.

Mana was like water in some ways. It tended to flow from areas of higher concentration and pressure to areas of lower concentration and pressure. That rule wasn't absolute, but it did represent a general tendency. And I'd been encouraging this flow, actively spilling my mana into my surroundings. I'd cultivated a magical forest. I'd created a potions lab. Fortuna used one of my capacitors to power all of Cauldron.

All of the above had been going on for years, even before my coma. The forest of Babylon, perhaps the entirety of what would be Ukraine as a whole, boasted an exceedingly high concentration of ambient mana relative to the mana desert that was the rest of the local dimensional cluster. Perhaps, in my own way, I'd been "flavoring" the world around me with the World Rune, altering its reality.

After all, the World Rune was a fundamental aspect of creation given metaphysical form. It was a piece of the "programming language of existence." Perhaps, with Runeterra being another byproduct of said runes, this newly enchanted forest called to its sibling.

If I was right, and the world was turning into some kind of off-brand Runeterra, then a yordle being the first to discover this place made sense. They probably arrived via the Low Roads, a set of pathways that linked different locations on Runeterra to Bandle City in the Spirit Realm. It seemed that somehow, my Nexus had altered the land enough for a gateway to manifest somewhere in the forest.

That was a relief. Yordles were naturally benevolent. Many were pranksters, but they meant well and delighted in making others laugh. If I was truly fortunate, I might get an inquisitive yordle as brilliant as Professor Cecil B. Heimerdinger. Even if that wasn't the case, I could do a lot worse than a yordle.

"That's a lot of pastries, bro. Are you trying to make a whole bake sale?" Riley said as she trudged into the kitchen. She did her best to look nonchalant but couldn't quite get her hand into a bowl of cookie dough before I slapped it away. "Meanie. You have like ten pounds."

"You can have some when they're done baking, Riley," I chided. I dipped a finger into a bowl of sugar before giving my baby sister a boop on the nose. "If mom asks, you tinkered up some snow."

She was right. I had four different cookies, from shortbread to strawberry cream. I also had a set of blueberry muffins that I'd been experimenting with recently. Whatever a yordle, or a sugar-addled child, could possibly want, I had it.

Riley went cross-eyed trying to lick the bit of sugar on the tip of her nose. "Cookie dough is delicious though."

"Raw flour isn't good for you."

"Not even a little bit?"

"No."

"Jerk. Why are you making so many?"

"I need to take them to Babylon. Don't worry, I'll save you some."

"You better," she huffed.

X

2005, July 20: Lordsmith, Babylon

I jolted to attention, shutting off the alarm in my lab. It had taken a few days and more baking than I would have preferred, but the yordle had taken the bait. Now, all that was left was to confront the "fae child."

I bolted out of the lab, my white overcoat billowing behind me. A platform of clouds formed beneath my feet as I dashed down the hill towards Lordsmith. I was equipped for a fight but wasn't expecting one. Yordles were strong, they had some of the most potent and unpredictable magics of any race in Runeterra, but they were peaceful creatures. Truthfully, the opportunity to meet one was more enticing than intimidating.

As I got closer, I figured out why the cameras couldn't seem to get a good picture. A purple pixie was floating around, shedding his dust everywhere with each wingbeat. The dust seemed to have a strange effect on his surroundings, making them more somehow. The best way I could describe it was that he was filling the air around him with possibility, and the world around him wasn't quite sure how to settle on reality. He was also currently burying his face inside a blueberry muffin as big as his torso.

Next to him was a yordle I'd recognize anywhere. She was dressed in lots of reds and purples, something that resembled a witch's robes. On her head was a big, pointy hat that tapered off into a prehensile tip akin to a tail. Wavy, purple hair cascaded down her back and caught the moonlight. Two, large ears poked out of holes made in her oversized hat.

She had a strawberry cookie in each hand and looked to be having the time of her life. Even in the dark of night, I could see the cream and crumbs littering her big, delighted grin. A gnarled staff that was taller than she was laid temporarily forgotten on the ground.

I paused. This was Lulu, the Fae Sorceress, in all her three feet of adorable, purple glory. No one else wore such a distinctive hat, or had a fae companion. That realization sent a shiver up my spine, of dread and delight in equal measure.

On the plus side, Lulu possessed many of the qualities I admired in yordles. She was genuinely kind and loved to make others laugh. She was also immensely powerful, a mistress of wild magics that few could match.

On the down side, Lulu was abnormal, even for yordles. She was a bit of an outcast in Bandle City because her perspective was so different. Though kind, she didn't tend to think her solutions through and often went overboard with her magic, prioritizing having fun in the moment over any long-term plans. In short, she usually acted like a child, one whose sense of reality had been addled by her exposure to fae magics and her time in the Glade.

I felt somewhat apprehensive but shoved my emotions into the Ymelo. I stepped down from the sky at a steady gait so as to not alarm her. Once, she'd turned a Noxian soldier into a purple squirrel, only to gigantify said squirrel and buff it up until it looked like a bodybuilder. The Kindred felt reasonably sure they could overpower Lulu's enchantments, but startling the sorceress still seemed unwise.

"Hello there, enjoying my gift?" I asked with a cheery wave.

"Ah! Hi! Did you make this?" she squeaked, crumbs falling from her lips. Her cheeks were stuffed full like a chipmunk's.

"Yes, I did. Which is your favorite?"

"Ooh, the ones that are shaped like cupcakes! I love strawberries!"

I took a seat next to her. "So you're the one who's been taking all these offerings."

"Offerings? To who?" she asked. She peered up at me with vibrant, lime-green eyes full of curiosity. She was actually half a foot shorter than Riley. It was hard to remember that this was a grown yordle. Or rather, there was no such thing as a "child" yordle because they were more akin to personified ideas than organic beings.

"Technically, to the gods. This started as a tradition to offer food to Anivia, the Cryophoenix. Practically? To me, I suppose. Or maybe to the 'fae' in Neverland. It depends on who you ask. I don't think all the townsfolk are clear on why they're doing it either to tell you the truth."

"Fae? They're here? Pix! There are fae here!" she cheered. It was so tooth-achingly adorable that I didn't want to burst her bubble. Alas, the truth must intrude sometime.

"No, no, sorry. They're not real fae. That's just what the townsfolk call the people in Neverland."

"Aww," she sighed in disappointment. If I remembered right, Lulu wanted to find the Glade again, the home of the fae and one of the oldest locations formed in the Spirit Realm. Then, her eyes narrowed as she eyed me with suspicion. "Wait a minute… You said you made these. Are you a narcissist?"

"I'm not!"

"You made yourself offerings!"

"Yeah, but that was because someone kept eating these. I decided to investigate and then realized it was a yordle. What's your name?"

"I'm Lulu. And you're still suspicious."

"I'm Andy. Now you know my name so I can't be suspicious, right?"

"Hmm… I'm watching you… How do you feel about the color purple?"

"Not my favorite flavor personally. I like matcha, maybe Korean pears if I want something a bit more floral."

Her eyes sparkled with delight. She raised her hands in the air as if in prayer. "You understand! Purple is too a flavor!"

"You're adorable, Lulu. Say, did you come through a gateway? Across the Low Roads?"

"Gasp! You know about the Low Roads?"

"Yup. They have weird requirements to open them, right?" I asked.

I remembered reading that one only opened under the right star. Another was in a tidal cave and would only open during low tide, when water would recede and fill only certain inscriptions carved into the ground. Still others required unique hand motions or songs. Most required the language of yordles, making the inaccessible to the vast majority of people.

That was something to note for the future. I held a World Rune. What was a rune if not a language? Wasn't the language of creation thus the origin of all language?

Food for thought…

Lulu nodded guilelessly. "Yup. Pix and I were looking for the Glade. There was this weird branch in the Low Roads that wasn't there before. We followed it and, poof, here we are."

"So my hypothesis was right… It seems the Nexus bled enough mana into the forest that the ambient mana forged a connection to the Low Roads, not unlike how the Bandle Tree sprouted from the Glade, through Bandle City, and out into Runeterra proper back when the world was really young."

"You sound like Heimerdinger. You're not going to lecture me, are you?"

"No, of course not, though I feel very proud that you think I sound like the Revered Inventor himself. You look like a free-spirited, fun-loving kinda gal."

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Exactly! Do you know where the Glade is? You sound really smart, Andy."

I shrugged helplessly. "I'm sorry, Lulu. Even I don't know where that is. In fact, I think the only one who might is Pix over there."

"He doesn't remember either," Lulu pouted.

"I wish I could help you."

"It's okay… But… I know what might make me feel better."

"Is it more cookies?"

Lulu pretended to ponder that for a moment. Then, she hopped to her feet in a shower of violet and pink sparks. Her gnarled staff, inert until now, shot up between her legs as she mounted it like a broomstick. It hovered in the air, carrying her until her eyes met mine.

She reached out and tapped my nose before shooting off in a shower of sparks. "Tag! You're it!"

I watched her fly away, vanishing like a comet into the forest. I had two options here.

One, I could go home. I didn't need to play tag with her; my curiosity had been satisfied. The intruder was Lulu, a yordle sorceress of not inconsiderable skill and immaturity. And, for all her childishness, she was not malicious, quite the opposite. I could go back to my lab and nothing of consequence would happen to the village unless they antagonized her. Given their tendency to associate the supernatural with me and their reverence for me, I doubted that would happen.

That was the ideal scenario.

Unfortunately, another general truism about yordles was that nothing happened quite as one might expect when they were involved and this was doubly true with Lulu.

She stayed in the Glade for uncountable centuries, never realizing that so much time had passed until she rejoined Bandle City. Suffice to say, her grasp of time, or even reality in general, was a little skewed.

There was once a time when Lulu played hide and seek with a village's children. Technically speaking, no one was harmed, Lulu would never, but she did turn them into toadstools.

For a month.

"Nothing of consequence" really depended on the perspective in this case. What Lulu would think of as a funny, lighthearted prank could be the equivalent of psychological torture for mortals.

At this point, I doubted I could truly lose her interest. I'd showed up, she'd invited me to play, and I thus had her attention. I wasn't sure I wanted to know what she would do when she decided her new friend was ignoring her.

Which left the second option. It was time to make a new friend.

I molded the Hallowed Mist and kicked off, launching myself from the rooftop after the glittering comet tail.

Chasing after Lulu was an experience. She was fast, faster than me when I was relying only on mana to augment my speed. It was all I could do to keep her shimmering trail in sight.

She was an agile flyer. Her staff ferried her beneath the canopy and through the narrow gaps between branches. She wove a path so circuitous that up became down and west became east. It was like the very concept of direction lost its meaning.

Her glitter, an unending shower of purple and pink possibilities, illuminated the forest all the while. The darkness of night would retreat at her passing, revealing the crimson leaves of the petricite trees that made up the backbone of the Garden of Babylon.

And still she kept ahead of me, just out of my reach no matter how many twists and spirals she performed that brought her near. Once, I thought I could grasp the tip of her staff, only for her to twist out of reach.

No, that wasn't quite what happened. It wasn't mere acrobatics and aerial dexterity that kept her ahead in our little game. I was hardly lacking in those.

Something tugged at the edge of my senses, mana that was as foreign to me as Lulu was to this world. It lacked the concrete concept of an encoded spell. There was no defined purpose, nor an allotment of resources. Yet it was there, an ever-present current that ferried and caressed the little yordle like a cherished daughter.

'Wild magic,' I realized. It was what she was best known for, though I'd thought she needed to at least pretend to pay lip service to the act of casting. As silly as "hugify" or "cuteify" sounded, they were indeed spellwords.

'Yordles do not obey the laws of man,' Farya informed, her voice a melodious balm over my soul. 'They seldom comply with the laws of magic either. You would do well to abandon all expectations where one is concerned.'

'Or you can let me out to play,' Wolyo growled.

I could. I'd likely gain a measure of resistance to her nonsense then, probably enough conceptual mojo of my own to catch the little chaos gremlin. But… But I was having fun. Besides, 'Aren't they immortal? They're not really escaping death, right? So why would you chase them?'

'It would be an entertaining chase.'

'I'm trying to be her friend, not gnaw on her.'

Wolyo grumbled and withdrew as I tried to remember what I could about wild magic. It… wasn't much.

Wild magic was inherently something that defied easy description. From what I could recall, Lulu's magic was heavily influenced by her emotions and inner desires. This meant that she sometimes wasn't in control of her magic and she often subconsciously altered the world around her in subtle ways. It made her a nightmare to predict, contain, or fight against.

Containing a yordle wasn't impossible, even Malcolm Graves managed it for a time. He did it with something called runic iron, a material that dispersed magic, not unlike petricite. However, as his partner, Twisted Fate, pointed out, things just had a habit of going a yordle's way. It was like they were favored by the world, maybe even magic itself. Accidents, little slips and coincidences would happen that inevitably led to said yordle walking free.

In short, she was a limited reality warper whose power depended on her emotions and subconscious desires. So long as Lulu was having fun, normal means of catching her were unlikely to work.

The forest was filled with the sounds of her gleeful cackling. I wouldn't be surprised if new tales of a "forest witch" began to circle the village after this.

The chase went on until I stopped holding back. The World Rune roared to life, ignited by my competitive spirit. The runic tattoos engraved on the back of my right hand shone a brilliant azure as Hextech Flashtraption took hold.

"Woah, hey!" Lulu yelped as I materialized a foot away from her.

With one final lunge, I snagged her hat and put it on my own head. Laughing, I leaned against a nearby tree and shot her a smug grin. "I think this means you're 'it,' Lulu."

"Hey, that's my hat!"

"And what a lovely hat it is. I think I look good with it, don't you?" I teased, dipping down into a flourishing bow.

"Grr, fine, be that way." Lulu and Pix acted as one. Each thrust a hand into the air as mana coalesced around them to form a violet corona. "Zippy!"

Raw, unfiltered possibility settled around her like a shroud, taking on a more concrete principle. Now that she was drawing on her magic more deeply, I could recognize the nature of the spell. Her magic had a familiar tinge to it, one I experienced whenever I imbued any potion touched by Time Warp Tonic.

It was time, harnessed directly without any other medium. The Unsealed Spellbook gave me a general understanding of magic, enough to appreciate the difficulty of the spell Lulu was using so casually.

It was the Glade's influence on her. Lulu didn't typically acknowledge the passing of time because the Glade didn't acknowledge the passing of time. The fae didn't care and Lulu had the mentality of a fae.

In light of her newly revealed conceptual bullshit, it was all I could do to call upon the Hallowed Mist. I drew Isolde from its sheath and slammed it point-first into the ground even as it enlarged to the size of a greatsword. A plume of mist erupted to conceal my location, allowing me to dodge out of the way of the yordle-shaped missile.

We played this game for what felt like hours. She tricked me, using Pix's fairy dust to create an illusion of herself. It wasn't enough to fool my enchanted eyes for long, but that moment of confusion was enough for her to snatch her hat back.

Then our game began in earnest. We largely stopped holding back. I broke out the Unsealed Spellbook, another rune within Inspiration. Ghost. Flash. Exhaust. Just about the only thing I didn't use was Teleport, and that because we had an unspoken rule to not leave the forest's boundaries.

Lulu took it all in stride. She giggled like a schoolgirl and cackled like a witch, using her smaller size to great effect. Each time I managed to tag her, she did something else that fooled me for a moment, giving her just the right edge to let her take the lead once more.

A shrub became a cloud of butterflies to distract me. A boulder reared up into a stallion, only to fold on itself like pudding, the sheer bizarreness of that making me pause. An owl became a dragon, a griffon, a grand fluffle of bunnies. Reality itself became her plaything as she shot rays of transmutation magic like a flower girl tossing rose petals at a wedding.

Until finally, she was "it" again. I ran through the treetops like a man on a mission. There was a man-sized gap between the boughs. I tucked in my knees and flipped like a gymnast, form textbook-perfect.

I'd almost cleared it when I heard Lulu shout behind me. "Hugify!"

Her magic washed over me like a wave. Before I knew it, I was stuck, caught between two petricite branches over sixty feet off the ground. I coughed lightly as the wind was driven from my lungs.

"Really, Lulu?" I grumbled. I wasn't truly upset, but this was admittedly rather embarrassing. "Now I'm stuck."

She hopped across the branches and twirled with her staff before booping my nose. Again. "You're it."

"So I am. I'm tired though."

"Aww, already?"

"Can you turn me small again?"

"Small, hmm…?"

"Normal-sized," I hastily corrected myself. She was probably joking, but one could never be sure with her.

"Okie dokie."

I shrank back down to a more manageable size. With some of her energy expended, Lulu seemed to be in a better mood for conversation.

We hopped down from the sky and found ourselves in a moonlit glade surrounded by dozens of pale mushrooms. There were also much larger toadstools, ones big enough for grown men to sit on comfortably. They were unexpectedly comfy, springy yet firm like the best of sofas. Lulu and I sat down next to each other.

"Say, Lulu?"

"Yeah?"

"Where is the gateway? It's somewhere here in this forest, right?"

Lulu stared at me like I was an idiot. She waved around her at the ring of mushrooms that surrounded the glade. "Right here, silly. You stand in the center of the mushrooms, sing a song, and then poof!"

"Really? It's that easy to get to Bandle City?"

"Just the Low Roads. It only works on the full moon, and only if you speak Bandle," she explained. "Why? Do you want to come to Bandle City with me?"

"No, I have a lot of work I need to do."

"Aww, but then we can play all the time."

"We can play together here, Lulu. And if I left, lots of people would get hurt."

"Why?"

"There's a big, dumb man who gave everyone superpowers. Like magic, but much more limited," I explained, simplifying things immensely. I knew intellectually that she wasn't a child. Hell, she was probably older than human civilization. That said, her childlike demeanor had me speaking as if to Riley without even noticing. "He's going to destroy the world and everyone on it. A bunch of worlds, actually. My friends and I are trying to stop him."

"Really? Should I turn him into a squirrel?" she asked, completely innocent yet all the more terrifying because of it.

As far as she could tell, if this guy became a squirrel, he couldn't destroy the world. Which meant her new friend could play with her more often. Her thought process really was that simplistic.

Lulu wasn't stupid, she'd probably forgotten more about magic and the secrets of the fae than most mages on Runeterra ever learned, but she had a childish set of priorities that she didn't often deviate from. It was what made her both so endearing yet so unpredictable.

"No, I don't think that will work. He's not really here," I said. "He's… The body he's using is like a puppet, see? So unless we get to the real body, that won't work, and we can't get to the real body yet."

"He sounds like a big meanie."

"That he is," I chuckled. "Besides, his real body is as big as the planet."

"No way."

"Yes way. Can you transform the entire planet into a big squirrel?" That would solve a great many of our problems. Rebecca would worship the ground Lulu walked on if she could do that.

She scrunched her nose in concentration. "No, I don't think so. I'm sorry…"

I reached out and tousled her hair. "Don't worry about it. My friends and I are working on it. Say, did any other yordle ever come here?"

"Not this time? There was that one time when I brought Vex. She's a grump, but she's nice. She's weird. Oh, and Teemo also knows about this new branch in the Low Roads. I mean, he's the Swift Scout after all."

"That's true. How about Yumi and the Book? Or maybe Norra? I would have thought either of them might have been the first to explore this place."

"Nah, I don't know where Norra is, but Yumi went off to the Kumungu Jungle to look for her."

"If you say so. Say, do you even have a place to sleep?"

"Duh." She tapped the toadstool we were sitting on. With a flex of her magic, the toadstool's stalk became girthier and taller until it transformed into a small cottage. Its chimney barely touched my chest, but the height was perfect for a yordle. "Right here, silly."

"Huh. That's a neat trick. Was it hidden under an illusion or did you transform all that with just a tap?"

"Neither! Toadstools are great because they're so springy. They can be transformed and fold into other shapes."

"Like one of those space-saving furniture?"

"Like what now?"

"Never mind. I think I get the idea."

"Hey, Andy?"

"Yes?"

She peered up at me with delicate, vulnerable eyes. "Can we play again tomorrow?"

"We'll see. I'm very busy making things," I said. The look of dejection on her face reminded me of a kicked puppy. For all her power, she was, in the end, quite a lonely girl. I pulled her into a hug. "Maybe not tomorrow, but soon, okay?"

"Really?"

"Yup. And, I'll have more snacks."

"Ooh, can you make those strawberry cookies?"

"The ones shaped like cupcakes?"

"Yeah!"

"Of course. But you need to make me a promise."

She looked at me guardedly. "I-I can't go outside the forest?"

"No, that's not it." I'd considered it, but that sounded like a recipe for disaster. Trying to keep her fenced in would only make her resent me, and probably wouldn't work anyway. Yordles weren't known for their patience. "I want you to be very gentle with the people here, okay?"

"Gentle?"

"Right. And careful. They don't have magic, even if some of them look strange. If I really tried, I could probably force enough mana to break one of your enchantments, but the people here can't do that."

"They can't? Why not?"

"No, they can't. What's fun for you might not be fun for them. In fact, it could be very scary, being something you're not."

"But it can be so cool! Like, have you ever been a bunny for a day? Or a bluejay?"

"I haven't, but I wouldn't want to be one unless I already agreed to it and knew it was coming. Promise you won't turn people into other things without their permission?"

She nodded resolutely. "I can do that."

I held out my pinkie. "That's not a promise, Lulu. You said you can do that, not that you promised."

"I'm not Pix, you know," she huffed, cheeks puffing out in a cute pout.

"I know, but I have to make sure."

"Okay, fine. I promise not to transmodify people without their permission."

"And, when you do, you won't weave any enchantments that last longer than until sundown or sunrise, whichever is nearest."

"Fine, but I want a cake. A big one!"

"As big as your face?"

"Bigger!"

"Hmm, how about a cake big enough for us to share? And strawberry cupcake cookies too."

She hopped onto her toadstool cottage and held out a hand. "You have a deal, Andy."

I'd been the one to dictate terms. I was only losing some baked goods, goods I was happy to make anyway. And yet, looking into her big, emerald eyes with that delighted grin, I couldn't help but feel as if I'd been duped.

It was probably nothing.

Author's Note

Finally introduced Lulu. It's my headcanon that Lulu uses a limited form of time magic alongside nature magic. It'd make sense, what with her getting Rip Van Winkled.

She's a chaos gremlin and a ton of fun to write. I hope I did her justice here. Yes, she's got a lot of abilities that are only hinted at in the gameplay.

Mushroom Fact: Fairy rings are called that because old folk tales claim they are formed when fairies dance in circles in the moonlight. They are actually a single fungi organism. Their mycelium grow in a circle and sprout mushrooms that form the rings.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.