Runic Circumstances (Patreon)

Runic Circumstances - or ‘I have my wits, my chaotic shortstack Yordle, and plenty of juice' (Runeterra/LoL, SI)

Let’s pitch this introduction now shall we?

“So, tell me, what’s your name?”

A nervous chuckle came true. “Well, I am Tristana and I… am a bit stuck right now. Which is why I am in this cage.”

I nodded. “I am John Bukharin-”

“Relevance being?” The grumpy voice on the side asked, the middle-aged bearded man being the real owner of the cage holding Tristana.

“It’s a matter of conversation. I suppose you want these gold coins you have been bemoaning about.”

He just groaned and allowed me to go through this. You see, I am not exactly in a good spot myself and, if I have to be honest, I saw an opportunity within the Yordle called Tristana.

She was tiny-looking, yet fantasy-enough to make her appear as a proper fantasy ‘more than the book’s cover shows’ kind of deal. Especially when it comes to knowledge as she mentioned having been around in a lot of places.

To make it simple- I woke up just a few hours ago in some bushes right beside Glorft, a small seaside town in the Southern region of Demacia. I am not a fan of League of Legend to the point of knowing the lore behind the mapping, but I knew one thing.

‘DEMACIA!’ is a meme, and people hated individuals with magic for some reasonable reasons and… unreasonable reasons. Now, the reasonable bits are fair if those didn’t apply to someone like… me.

Yes, you heard me right. I am Gandalf now! But weaker, younger, and clearly less iconic on a scenic standpoint. In fact, I would even dare to say I was shittier at this than Harry Potter during his first year.

How do I know I can do Magic despite having been ‘here’ for less than six hours? I got attacked by a wolf. Yes, compared to many other people struck by the isekai circumstance, I got attacked within the first few minutes of being there. And in a moment of pure fright of the shitting brix kind, I mustered a small thunderbolt that slammed on the beast’s snout and was enough of a painful hit to make it leave my surroundings in a hurry.

Not a win, not a loss, but I am alive and I am… stranded. Draw. I call it a very unfair but fairly neutral draw.

And before someone contests why I am being so paradoxical with my words… I am still recoiling from this situation. I got yeeted into this world which I knew little to nothing about- I have seen the smut for some characters, read some lore pages after watching Arcane and I am quite sure, if not outright confident that Arcane stands out as an Alternative Universe sort of mess.

Deep-lore stuff from Lol had been removed, reworked and recontextualized to fit a catchy narrative to those that had no clue what Runeterra was. I was just lucky enough to have played this game just a few times before the 2010s, then twice after that and… watched a TV show that was set well away from where I was right now.

I remember that Demarcia had a hatebone on magic-users, which is why I held back from using any tricks to test out my might ever since I entered the town. The controls were lax as it was one of the safest places around- but even then, circumstances were bound to happen as I wasn’t the only one ‘stuck’ there.

Cue Tristana, the cage and her inability to ask others’ help as her ‘control over the portals back home got fucky’. The last term is my invention, but I have a feeling she would have used it after chatting a bit with her.

Nervous, tense, but very quick with her silly antics and remarks- with regrets and admissions of having ‘messed up for going in solo again’. I felt that bit relatable to an extent- being stuck in a place that wasn’t home.

Which is where I decided that I would save someone while also getting a potential guide to find a way out of this place. If possible. Magic was… that powerful, right? I am not good at this, let us just go back to the main point.

We were in a barely-crowded tavern as it was just an early day and no one gave a shit about paying Grumpy McGrump fat money just for a Yordle like Tristana. It wasn’t like the prize wasn’t tantalizing but… there was quite the issue with the bastard being intimidating yet dumb-looking.

Which, in turn, was good for my plans at the moment.

“So, you have a good understanding of the current place we are in. Like, places like cities, towns.”

“Yup!”

Silly but not outright dense, the Yordle had understood what was up and was willing to keep the act up for the sake of getting out of that cage.

“Good then… I suppose I can pay you now.”

The man sported a forced smile, clearly irked by how long it took but… failing to realize from the lack of stuff on me beyond my ‘odd clothes’ that I was poor as fuck.

What he also didn’t know was that I had been holding one of the used alcohol bottles he had stashed on the table the cage was in. So, when I told him that his pants were slightly pulled down and he looked down, I smacked the bottle until it broke on his face. Two hits, plenty of concussion and… a lack of major outrage as no one around had heard a thing as they all turned to see the man suddenly falling on the ground and snoring, with me saying.

“Man, he got so drunk he can’t even do his job right.”

My words were followed by a tense silence as I shook my head at the sight to further pull this stunt and… the bartender shrugged, complaining about drunk morons and unpaying customers.

I grinned a bit when I reached down to the unconscious man’s pockets and found a bag with money and the keys to the cage. I slowly leaned to free Tristana and, right as the cage’s lock was released, I found myself tackle-hugged by the Yordle. Tiny thing, but very strong and… curvy.

“Thankyouthankyou!” Tristana squeezed a bit more than I was prepared for, but I just nodded and rubbed along her upper back. “So… what’s next?”

“Well, we get out of the tavern and we find a place where to move East.”

She looked surprised, then intrigued. “Why East? Wouldn't it be better to move South?”

“Well, I wanted to go to Ionia. If we have to find an ‘odd’ solution to our ‘odd’ problems, we may find it there.”

It took her a moment to realize that ‘odd’ was replacing ‘magic’ since it was not exactly not a topic to talk so publicly. She looked around, appearing shifty and then tilting her head.

“I was thinking about Piltover. Heimerdinger may have answers to that.”

“Even for odd problems?”

“Hmm…” The girl hummeed then slowly nodded at the insinuation I was raising. “Yeah, he may grumble too much. So, Ionia. That’s… far.”

“Yup. And this money is not going to do much,” I admitted.

I knew we would have to budget food, camping supplies and even traveling items as what Tristana had in the very bag the unconscious bastard had kept from her which held her cannon and other stuff wasn’t enough to make that continent-wide (and more) trip.

“So… ready to go?” She inquired giddily, setting herself on my arm as I moved it so she could sit on the limb as we moved out of the tavern.

“Of course-”

“To our first adventure… together! This is definitely not my first adventure at all.”

That, my dear friend, was the first red flag of many more that Tristana was cleverly holding back on me right now.

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AN

More Tristana.