In the Jungle

Or: Why are people stupid?

So the other day I'm pretty much ecstatic because I've finally pieced together how to run Jungle Nocturne (and not die horribly), which is fantastic, because our team didn't really have a jungler before, and now it does, because I can accomplish that.

So yay. Got a runesheet running (ARP Marks & Quints, Armor Yellows, CDR Blues) for it, a mastery sheet, the whole nine.

And then we don't have a fifth, so we pick up this Nasus.

Now, I'm playing a jungler and the other team does not have one. So I innocently ask who's gonna take the 2v1 lane, since one of the characters who could feasably do it is a newbie I know who'd never even gone solo mid before.

She handled it beautifully.

The Nasus, on the other hand, raged a bit at me, because apparently learning to jungle makes me 'not a team player.'

I kind of take offense at that.

The entire reason I spent so much effort, and so many monster deaths, learning this shit is to make my goddamn team stronger. It pisses me off greatly that someone would say I'm 'not a team player' because I'm not in a lane.

But I'm just now getting into the ELO range where people even consider jungling, and it's not the most intuitive idea out there, so it occurred to me that not everyone understands why you want a jungler at all, much less why I'm angry the Nasus was angry.

Why does it help the team to have a jungler?

So, anyone who's played LoL before understands the idea of solo mid. The squishy carry goes there and farms minions to get a massive XP and gold lead on the rest of the team, so by endgame they're obliterating face right, left, and center.

Now, imagine if you could field two solo lanes, while a third member of the team accumulates almost that much XP basically unbothered for the first six or so levels.

Guess what: you can.

Now imagine that someone on your team can roam around to all lanes - because it is their job to do so - and violate anyone they get close to, then melt back into the forest before retaliation can happen. Terrifying, isn't it?

Guess what? You can have that, too!

Jungling provides a massive XP boost to 2-3 members of your team, while placing a certain pressure on the enemy team. It can force them to play defensively and hug their towers even when you're nowhere near them, and it can easily, easily boost your team to victory. On the other hand, the jungler can easily, easily fall behind on experience and has to be the single most attentive player on the map, since they're effectively invested in saving every lane that goes badly at all times. The jungler will cover lanes when one or both occupants need to go to base for whatever reason, and the jungler should also help out the support with warding, which means potentially lost gold.

In short, learning to jungle is one of the single best things you can do for your team apart from learning to tank or support (and kudos to a tank or support who can do the job well), and doing it well is probably the single most team-oriented thing you can do.

I'm a team player, goddammit.

( This guide here helped me immensely and will help just about any other jungler, though you'll have to adapt the specific skills to your needs.

Jungling to excess for the lulz:

The Abyss Gazes Also (Fanfic)

The Abyss Gazes Also 

Or: A Summoner Has Disconnected

 One of the purple team's Summoners had a nosebleed or something during the initial summoning, that was the only possible explanation for the hold up.

 The three Champions were confined to the rune-inscribed 'fountain' platform, held in place by glowing white light while they waited for the match to begin. No amount of urging from their Summoners could force them out of place, even an inch. Even if they succeeded, that was against the rules; they'd lose by default.

 All six of them were, understandably, rather bored.

 She wondered idly what was running through Twitch and Alistar's minds - She generally didn't look that deep into Nocturne's, because She rather valued Her sanity. They worked well together, but He hated Her as He did all Summoners, and His mind was a treacherous, warped thing that had only become more horrible over His many eons of existence.

 "I remember you," His words came anyway, blood on black velvet, piercing the still quiet of the minutes before the match.

 She felt Her own physical eyes close, then open again. The statement had come as a bit of a surprise. "I would hope you did ...?" Honestly, she'd wondered - outside of a match, how well did the Champions remember the events that transpired within? She had trouble distinguishing which actions She performed and which the Champion did - She of course usually provided the will, intent, and a good deal of the magic, while the Champion generally provided the force and skill, but ....

 "From before all this," He sent the sensation of disembodied hands dragging his bladed arms down, forcing Him to kneel despite His obvious lack of legs, before the image shifted. "You had such vivid nightmares as a child," He murmured.

 She stilled, feeling the blood drain from Her skin. The world was dark for a moment. Intellectually, She knew this was still one of His abilities. Nocturne disrupted the enemy Summoners' link, cutting them off from each other, from their wards, from their minions, leaving them alone with their Champions - She'd commanded Him to use the ability enough times to know its effects. That didn't make the whispered, "All alone ..." any less chilling, however, especially as there was nowhere to run, no way.

 This shouldn't be possible. There were restrictions, there were rules, the match hadn't even begun. But it was a direct link between Summoner and Summoned. They meshed together completely, two halves of a whole, their minds completely open to one another. It was the only way the spell could work.

 Green tile, she remembered dully, staring up at the metal grating in the ceiling. The walls had been green tile. Six people, six ordinary people, seated on hard benches, chatting with each other while they waited for the experiment to begin, and none of them could sense what was wrong but her, with her tiny pinch of magic. None of them could see the white smoke billowing out of the grate, none of them could hear the hiss of air passing through a too-small opening.

 Neiomi Kohen half-hugged herself, shaking, a low moan dragged unwillingly from her own throat. There was a whispered laugh in the back of her mind, but she couldn't discern where it came from, nor why it was important.

The blonde woman was the first to start screaming. She was older than Neiomi by a few years, and Neiomi knew from their earlier conversation that she'd had three children. The test subjects were to be paid a modest sum of money for participating in this experimental "treatment," and the blonde had needed every clipped copper penny she could get to make ends meet. The whites of her eyes turned red as blood vessels popped, her skin bubbling up from underneath, melting. She clawed at her own face with fingers that had lost their flesh, becoming mere bone. They popped apart, sticking into the gooey mess where her cheeks had been.

Neiomi had done her very best to not inhale the smoke, flattening herself against the wall and covering her mouth and nose with her hands. She had a minute or two to watch the changes as they were wrought on the other test subjects before the fire began consuming her own flesh.

It was magic, seeping in through her pores, filling every inch of her small frame. She knew how to heal, and so, as the magic began to kill her body piece by piece, she took it in, warping it from its initial purpose, growing new muscle in place of the old, new skin to cover that. It was an agony her young mind had never known, could never have imagined, but she remained focused - the alternative was death.

When they finally came to review the results of their tampering, only a handful of minutes later, she was the only person left who was even remotely human - the rest were sticky, reddish puddles smeared across the walls and floor. Even their bones had liquefied.

She saw a man with a gas mask standing over her, and heard a faint, "This one's alive!"

And then ... and then ....

A gray-robed Summoner stood over her fallen form, waving something that smelled absolutely foul under her nose. "Your match is about to begin," he said quietly. "You lost the link with your Champion - are you well enough to cast?"

"... what?" Summoner, Champion? She hadn't - it all came rushing back, with the force of an angry battering ram, pulsing at the back of her skull.

The Summoner shook his head, gently pulling her off the ground since she didn't have the presence of mind to do that for herself. He checked the back of her head with his hand, and the pain flared white-hot.

"I'm all right, I'm all right - " She felt a new tingle of magic - the man was doing some sort of spell.

His kindly, gray-green eyes pierced her, and she fell silent. "I'm getting a healer to look over you. No casting until we know how bad it is - your friends will have to make do." He glanced at the other two Summoners, who were too deep in their respective links to know exactly what had happened.

"But ...."

The older, more powerful Summoner raised an eyebrow, showing her the blood on his hand. "No 'buts.' You hit your head ... apparently."

Any possible protest died in her throat.

She imagined she could hear Nocturne's soft laughter tingling at the back of her mind.

That, too, was impossible.

First Summoning

She glanced at the other two hooded figures in the dim-lit summoning chamber, reaching up to adjust her own hood, nervously.

She'd just purchased the right to use the Eternal Nightmare in her League matches, and this was to be her first session with it. The summoners standing near her were her friends and classmates, long-time companions who wouldn't care if she made a fool of herself.

It was only a simulation anyway. Save their three champions, they would be sparring with pre-programmed constructs. They couldn't respond as people did, wouldn't talk or laugh or think as people did. Useful training dummies, but ultimately non-sentient. They wouldn't laugh as people did, and she was sure that she was going to make a fool of herself for this first match.

She always did, when trying out a new Champion.

The countdown began after all three of them made their selections. She wondered how people like Katarina felt, being dragged in to trial matches like this. What about Twisted Fate?

She might ask that of them directly, if she ever scraped together the influence to purchase the right to their presence.

Reaching for Nocturne, she steadied her own mind, calling to his unique signature. "Embrace the darkness ..." His voice murmured in her ear, tingling in the back of her mind. Calling ....

She pushed her mind outward, speaking the words of summoning. Every Summoner's ritual was at least slightly different, because every Summoner was different. It naturally took some Summoners longer than others to complete their rituals. She liked to keep hers short and to the point. It was almost effortless, flinging her mind outward like this - for her, the trick was keeping an "eye" on her physical body.

"Welcome to Summoner's Rift."

It had no legs. Odd that that should be her first disoriented thought, as she examined it - it floated, almost incorporeal, heavy blades hanging from its 'arms.' "Do I scare you, summoner?" She gave a headshake that only it could perceive, stretching her mind to try and fill the space it occupied. It was foreign, strange, but not any more so than Cho'Gath. She had mastered the Void Terror, and she would master this Nightmare.

 - awash with blood, the body in pieces, manic, dizzy laughter -

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to.

She covered her physical mouth, almost thrown out of the link. Her left hand held steady on the glowing image before her, holding its edge physically to reinforce it.

"You arrigh'?" One of the other Summoners asked it, gently, his mind pressing the words into hers. She responded with a sense of affirmation, tamping down the nausea.

"Drip, drop, the sound of blood ..." The Nightmare taunted, her full attention upon it again. She directed him, wordlessly, to collect the basic necessities - she'd done a bit of research on how to use his abilities properly. Dark 'hands' closed around the scythe purchased from the merchant. Just a symbol.

The scythe glowed brilliant for a moment, then evaporated, strengthening the Nightmare's own weapons. Its attacks would steal the very life from the constructs they would be fighting today.

"Yesss ... bring me more fleshbags to slice up." Anticipation, raw and eager, filled her mind, mingling with its. No - the other way around ... wasn't it?

The announcer's voice called out, dragging her attention to the upcoming match. "Thirty seconds until minions spawn."

"You comin'?"

"Solo mid?" She asked, distractedly.

"If you wan'." Three Summoners in a link - it was easy to forget who was talking. Easy to lose herself to the link. "Sure y'can handle it?"

"It's bots. I'll be fine." She waved a hand, dismissively, sending reassurance his way as well.

It came to rest just in front of the blue tower, staring at the human female just across the way. Images came unbidden in her mind - the female in pieces, just how He was going to end her pitiful life. Given His choice, it would be slow and painful. It would take days of unending nightmares. She'd heal up, in the dream, but only so that He could cut her open again. He would take any hope of escape and slowly rip it away - with his bare talons, even. Only in this world had He any need of true blades, after all - and those formed of His will.

It took a long moment to realize that the woman they were examining was a child - Annie. Annie had always been one of her favorite Champions, and she was briefly glad that this version was just a construct, with no Summoner behind it.

Amusement at her discomforted realization, a sinister laugh. "Weather forecast for tonight: dark, with a chance of pain."

She snorted a little bit at the joke, even as the Nightmare filled her mind with more images of death and dismemberment, sending back: "Only a chance? I had been given to understand you were better than that." Even minions felt pain. The constructs that wore Champion skins were little different.

"Minions have spawned!" The announcement cut off any possible response.

She drew first blood, the blades an extension of Their arms as They destroyed the golem in the image of a young girl. "Annie" screamed her agony, blood staining her stuffed bear as her golem was sliced in two. A blast of energy slammed into Nocturne's all-but-incorporeal back, pushing him toward the ground as they slid through a shroud of darkness, phasing through minions, into the woods, and out of the tower's wrath.

"Worth it." She grinned to herself. They hadn't even died this time.

Twenty-eight kills later - better than Katarina's twenty-seven! - and having sliced through an entire army of minions, her companions finally destroyed the constructs' Nexus just to end her fun. She found herself disappointed, pouting a little bit as she stared through his 'eyes' at the enemy's Soraka longingly. They hovered inches away from the kill, one blade pinning the ex-goddess to the destroyed inhibitor. The other hovered, magically paralyzed, just above her navel.

"That's right ... people are flames to be blotted out." His voice was soothing, contented from the slaughter, and she found herself nodding in agreement as she pulled away, finding her true body had fallen to its knees without her attention on it, an almost-lifeless ragdoll.

They both knew she'd be back.