abraxaslogs | [open] january/february catchall

Entry tags:

[open] january/february catchall

Who: Viktor and special guests and YOU
When: January through early February
Where: Cadens, the Horizon
What: open stuff, closed stuff, dangerous and illicit magical surgery, the usual
Warnings: the usual references to terminal illness including a steep decline and medical procedures/surgery. will list additional warnings as needed.

[open and closed starters in comments! This is also a general catch-all for Viktor’s do-or-die attempt to cure himself, and the events leading up to it, and his recovery (to come later). If you want a custom starter or something specific, just hit me up. full horizon details are here for any and all wildcarding needs. For everything else, I’m on plurk at

whitticus and on discord at whitticus#8139.]

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[Kell's approach doesn't go unnoticed, though he waits for the other man to approach the ledge before he speaks up. Viktor is perched on the curve of the keyhole-shaped opening, gazing out on the ravines below. Slightly beyond that, across the river and seen through a chemical haze, are the spires of buildings.]

I used to come here to think.

[So that probably explains a great deal. Viktor raises a hand to gesture outward, at the skyline poking up from the fissures across the river.]

That's the Undercity. Where I'm from.

It's a good place to think. Peaceful.

[He had a few places like that. Places where he could go, when he needed to disappear. He comes closer to sit next to Viktor. His gaze follows Viktor's gesture over the river to the spires and the fog. It reminds him of London. The Grey one.]

What is it like to live there?

[Kell knows some. A little from what Jayce had told him, but this is a chance for Viktor to tell it his way. He owes at least that.]

And generally unknown.

[Which is the important part--Viktor valued time alone to think, especially given the fact that he started going there before he was technically allowed in Piltover. Kell asks him what the Undercity was like and Viktor gazes out over it again, seemingly formulating his answer.]

It is...unkind. [An understatement. Zaun shows no mercy to those who are physically weak, though it isn't as if Piltover was good to him, either. On the surface, maybe.] But there is a...scrappy ingenuity about it, that I miss. People doing and making incredible things, with so little.

[Whatever wistfulness he has at that sentiment, it fades after a moment. Vitkor's gaze drops to his shoes.]

The runoff from the mines poisons everything. People there spend their entire lives breathing fumes. If the work doesn't kill them, the pollution will, eventually.

[This is the hard part, even if he's sure that Kell, on some level, already knows.]

It's killing me.

Then why would they...I'm sorry.

[Kell cuts himself in time. He knows why, why people live there, why their rulers, their elites allow this. Jayce told him. Not in this much detail, but he did. The elites do not care. The Council does not care.

Even after months in Thorne, seeing how royalty here behaves. How they treat their own people. Kell can't really fight instinct to demand more of them. The rulers are responsible for their people. That's what he was taught since childhood. Himself being a part of said elite. That he has a responsibility. Seeing other examples, hearing other people's stories, Kell hates to admit that his home country is an exception.]

This what you are trying to find a cure for.

[He’ll certainly fill in the blanks for Kell, but it seems like he comes to the correct conclusion all on his own. Fighting back against decades of systemic neglect is not a task that he, personally, was up to. Viktor thought he could enact change from within Piltover’s systems, but that proved to be just as difficult, and then he’d run out of time.

Now, it’s uncertain that he’ll ever be able to return, and do what he set out to do. The most he can do is try to cure himself here, instead, and sort out the summoning ritual when he has the time to do so.]

Yes. [It sounds simple, but of course they’ve run into their own difficulties. Viktor wants to be optimistic, but he needs to hedge his bets, hence this talk.] I moved to Piltover as a young man, even, which is supposed to make me one of the lucky ones.

Still, not lucky enough to escape it completely.

[Kell has promised Rhy that he'll figure out a way to get them back home. He's been stalling on that promise. Honestly, he's not that certain if he really wants to go back. Sure, Thorne is not all roses. Actually, it's a pretty despicable place. But he most likely will be facing prison whenever he comes back. So he thinks he can understand complicated feelings Viktor might have about his own place of origin.]

And how did Piltover treat you? If I remember correctly, you were already quite accomplished when the two of you met.

No, not completely.

[It turns out that nearly two decades of breathing toxic fumes doesn't leave one unscathed, even if they do manage to leave. By the time Viktor gained admittance to the Academy, his fate was already sealed--it would just take another decade or so for that to become evident.

But maybe he'd always known. He's never been able to escape his origins, not really.]

I was the assistant to the Dean. [Viktor sounds surprised, that Kell might consider that accomplished.] A respectable position, for someone of my status, but not a career.

Oh, I'm sorry. I don't really know how higher education works. I was always taught by tutors... or priests. Mostly the latter, to be honest.

[Because studying magic was the most important. Everything else was treated as an afterthought. Maybe not combat. He was supposed to be a shield for his brother, so he had to know how to fight. Some etiquette, so he knew how to behave in official setting. Dancing. But that's all.]

That's unfair. They didn't realize you are brilliant?

[Kell has no idea what an assistant to the Dean does, but from Viktor's tone alone, he guesses that it's not cutting edge research. The compliment he states as matter of fact, barely realizing it's a complement at all. Because it's so obvious.]

I suppose they did.

[Heimerdinger wouldn’t have pulled him out of the Undercity if he didn’t recognize Viktor’s potential, but he’d been stifled from the start. An assistant was all he could hope to aspire to, given the politics of the Academy and the optics of someone from the Undercity achieving too much. If he hadn’t risked it all on Hextech, he doesn’t think he would have made it anywhere.

The truth of it is easier to admit, now.]

What patron would fund my research? No one would have taken that risk on someone like me. Financially, socially. That assistantship was the best I could have hoped for, until I found Jayce.

[Kell listens with furrowed brows. He understands. The Arnesian Empire was no beacon of sainthood, but he likes to think someone would have recognized true genius and gave him opportunities he deserved. Putting your most talented people to tasks they excel at is not only logical, but beneficial both for them and the crown.
Only when Viktor mentions Jayce, it's when Kell's scowl goes away. He smiles at the memory.]

I'm really glad that you did. You two make such a good team. It's a joy to watch.

[He offers a small, bittersweet laugh.]

You wouldn't find many back home who would share that opinion.

[As in, Viktor was generally inconvenient to Jayce's marketability, so it was for the best that he stayed in the shadows. Sometimes he wonders what might have happened if he'd pushed to share the spotlight, but given the rest of Piltover, he knows it wouldn't have amounted to anything good.]

I'm glad that you think so. Working with him has been...one of the greater privileges of my life.

Then they are fools.

[Kell spats his opinion with no hesitation. Well, he was the boring one always. Some said he makes Rhy look bad. His luck that such opinions always had been thoroughly and aggressively ignored by Rhy. But he's not blind or stupid not to realize that it could have been otherwise.]

Well, you're clearly happy together and it shows. And I don't mean just work. [Now he hesitates. Those are things he doesn't have clever words for.] It is a gift, and a privilege, to have a person in your life who gets you. It makes all the difference.

[For him, it's Rhy. It always has been and always will be Rhy.]

Yes, they were.

[He can say that freely about Piltover, now, without reservation. There are no social niceties to keep up with, here. He isn’t in danger of losing his tenuous station and everyone, Summoned and locals alike, don’t question his and Jayce’s partnership. Despite his complicated feelings about being here, he recognizes the importance of what it’s afforded him.

And he knows that Kell understands. It’s not hard to deduce that he’s talking about Rhy.]

Jayce was the first person who did. [Get him, that is.] I know how valuable that is. It’s why I have to survive this.

[At any cost.]

You will.

[Someone could say it is cruel of Kell to say things like that with such conviction. He has no way of knowing what the result of their risky procedure will be. There's nothing he can do to make it less risky, no way he can help. But Kell has some experience with impossible things. There are times, times like this, when you just can't accept another outcome. Times when you just must demand of the universe to bend your way. Will it, is another matter. Entirely out of your control. But demand you must...and just hope it will work.]

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[open] january/february catchall

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wrap this one too? it looks like a good place to