Radiant

Chapter 3

The trip back to this PRT headquarter had been uneventful if a little uncomfortable from the smell inside the vehicle. If she had to describe, it was like the smell of the raptor knight training ground at one of the border outpost - the slight odor of sweat mixed in with the mountain coldness that turned your nose and skin dry - only a bit stronger and permeating the space inside the vehicle. Though since it was not too bad, and the troopers riding along seemed accustomed to it if anything, she didn't feel like making a fuss over it. What's more uncomfortable was the troopers themselves. They were decked in very complex-looking cloth armor and stayed silent even as she took discreet glances at them. Not exactly hostile-looking or intimidating, just hard to read under all those gears and didn't seem keen on idle chatters.

Reaching into the little pouch by her waist, Lux took out the trinket she kept beside the few first aid supplies she could fit in it - a Petricite seed.

The seed was a tiny, squashed sphere-shaped thing, fitting snuggly in the palm of her hand. It was hard to believe something so small could grow to the size that almost dwarfed the Citadel of Dawn. She had thought it an oddly shaped rock until a quick search in the family's library had told her otherwise. The outer shell was hard with the color and texture of smooth limestone, forming a swirling pattern converging into a little 'nub' in the middle - something she suspected had been stylized into the Mageseeker's eagle crest. The seed, just as the wood harvested from the Petricite Grove, held much of the special properties of its mother tree, though to a much lesser extend. Its magic-absorbing effect was much gentler compared to the almost sterilizing feeling deep in the petricite woods.

It was said that the shell had been fossilized along with its tree through ages past since the Rune War, its outer shell becoming even harder than the strongest Demacian steel.

She had taken to holding it in her hand as she slept, or idly tracing the pattern on the shell while bored or nervous. The seed felt warm to the touch and would emit a dim glow only visible in the dark when she focused a tiny bit of magic on her palm for it to 'nibble' on. Lacking the potentness of Petricite armor's magic absorption and thus decidedly useless in the kind of battle she had been in, she still brought it along as a sort of good-luck charm and a reminder of his words, if not the man himself, to 'love her light', that her magic was not something to be feared or abhorred, but a part of her heritage just as her Demacian blood.

She held the seed to her chest, seeking comfort in the humming of her magic from inside its core. If her walks in the wood had been strange from the absence of ambient magic, she could still feel the echo of the ancient arcane lurking under the barks beneath her palm. The air here, now that she had time to collect her thoughts, felt almost oppressive. There was no presence of magic in anything she touched, yet there was an invisible weight constantly pressing on her chest, making it hard to breathe, if only slightly. It reminded Lux of something she once overheard from a drunk deckhand of a rare Zaun merchant describing the ... less than savory parts of its downtown.

Lux frowned at the thought. While Demacia wasn't openly hostile to any nation outside of Noxus, Zaun was a close thing considering the rumors circling about its ... destructive involvement in the past Noxus - Ionia war. While it would be foolish to refuse any kind of help in her situation and she believed in her ability to be neutral and diplomatic when it counted, Lux would be lying if she said her opinion of the city-state hadn't been soured. She would need to reconsider the request for military aid if she was indeed in the same country that drenched its battlefield in indiscriminate hellfire, rendering the soil barren and infertile with its bombardment.

The following process was close to what she had witnessed of the Mageseeker's work, though thankfully absent of the manhandling, magic-canceling cuffs and chains, and Petricite elixir. She did do a double-take at the large building, apparently the PRT headquarter. The front had a large shield emblem at the front with the letter 'P.R.T', though they were heavily simplified and flipped sideways or upside down. Other than that, it was indistinguishable from its surrounding buildings, although she had to wonder at the design choice to have so many glass windows and the front door also made of glass of all things. She mentally noted the question to ask for a later time when there weren't pressing matters at hand.

The trooper escorted her through corridors winding through multiple left and right turns before admitting her to a room that could almost be described as 'spartan' - brightly lit but with little furniture and a giant mirror mounted on the wall. In the middle of the room was a desk with a couple of odd-looking chairs made of metal and a strange kind of fabric, glossy-looking but rougher to the touch. At least the rest of the room didn't seem intended for intimidation or interrogation purpose, more akin to a very frugal village chief's office if anything. Gingerly, she sat on one of the chairs facing the door as the trooper instructed. She did return a smile at his reassurance someone will come in to do some simple questioning, after which she was free to go.

A few moments later, a woman did come, though her appearance was ... not what she expected.

The most notable thing about the new arrival was the colorful scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face. Lux would have mistaken her for the common highwayman had it not been for said colorfulness and her neat and vaguely militaristic-looking attires, similar to the cloth uniform of off-duty knights, and the way the troopers standing at the door greeted her like a superior. If anything, she had the stance and look of a village's militia commander. Eccentricity, at least appearance-wise of people in power was something she could work with. At least few could rival Taric in that regard, the noble being one of the weirder friends of Garen the few times they met before he was practically exiled in the Crown of Stones trial.

"Hello, Radiant. I am Miss Militia." Lux had to blink at that. "It's a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it was in better circumstance."



"The pleasure is mine." The pleasantries left her tongue reflexively in return. "Pardon *cough* pardon me but I don't believe we have met." She didn't think there was time for Armsmaster to make the round trip to inform this PRT about her if he truly had to rush off for 'something just came up' as he had said.

The woman raised, at least from what she could discern from looking at just the upper half of her face. "Ah, you must be a new face in town then. Armsmaster did make a call ahead of time to give us a brief report. He would have done the questioning himself had it not been for some ... complication near the dock that needed his attention. You'd probably see it on PHO tomorrow."

"Is that so?" There were some words in there that she didn't understand, but Lux believed she got the gist of it. "It doesn't matter either way. Are you the commander of the local enforcers?"

"That is an ... interesting way to phrase it. That would be Director Piggot if you are talking about the leader of Brockton Bay PRT or Armsmaster for the leader of its Protectorate division. Unfortunately, both are temporarily unavailable, but I can relay your words if you want." Miss Militia had her full attention on her with both hands clasped on the desk. "I get it that you have important business to bring up with them?"

This was less than ideal, but she couldn't expect whoever was in power would have time to spare for every grievance and request of the common folk. And she was in no position to demand confidentiality on her identity or help to get back to Demacia. But still, this might be the closest chance she could ever get.

"My name is Luxanna, of House Crownguard. There are ... circumstances that I am not fully aware of myself that led to me ending up here, and I would like to ask for your help to return to Demacia."

Miss Militia stared.

"I ... have to admit that I've never heard of this Demacia you speak of. Which region does it belong to?"

Dread settled in her stomach at the woman's words. This city didn't look like some isolated, out-of-the-way tribe hidden away in the middle of nowhere, so there was no way the woman wouldn't have heard of Demacia, right? Even the private tutors had her remembering the basic geopolitics of the world since she was ten, let alone someone working for the authority of the whole city.

"Demacia, West of the Valorant continent, facing *cough* facing Conqueror's Sea? Between Frostclyff, Greenfang, and the Argent mountain ranges?"

"I'm sorry," the woman shook her head, "I don't recognize any of those names."

What? How was that possible?

Where was she? Where is this place?

What was she going to do?

"A minute, please." Lux almost missed the woman's words as she took out a thin metal plate and start poking at its illuminated surface. The mirror on the wall lit up as a giant mural appeared. "Are you familiar with this map?"

The Earth seemed to disappeared under her as Lux looked at the map, at the names of its countries, its continents, its oceans.

This was not the map of Runeterra.