Against Apocalypse — Introductory Snippet

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This is a short introduction to an upcoming set of Factions fiction to formally conclude the previous storyline, which centered around the discovery of a Void-tainted hextech energy source (the "dark sand") in Shurima.

Link: Against Apocalypse (intro snippet and preview) EDIT: Full update posted here! This introduction frames the piece as a sort of arcane flashback. It also summarizes the backstory for newcomers. The main thing I'd highlight, and which I find really neat, is that the events described played out as they did largely because of actual match outcomes and Summoner decisions, plus a dose of randomness.

Examples of things that could have gone differently:

• Demacia's Summoners could have decided to ignore the prophecy, or to try to avert the need for military action by winning in the League dispute and seizing control of the mines that way. (There was a vote.)
• Demacia might have won the battle if certain matches had gone differently.
• Whether or not Ceruleana's prophecy was correct was itself randomly determined, with respect to two key variables: magnitude (ranging from "no danger at all" to "apocalypse") and timing (ranging from "will never happen" to "it'll happen in a month or so" to "it'll happen just about immediately"). As fate would have it, we rolled the worst possible result: "apocalypse" and "immediate", two words that are really bad when combined.
• The combined forces of Valoran might have failed to break through and close the rift, again depending largely on how certain matches went — it came very, VERY close, because oddly enough Zaun (the strongest faction so far) lost their matches against the Void while Demacia, Piltover, and Bandle City won theirs. (We had a backup plan to prevent the destruction of Runeterra, but it would have been a very sucky outcome.)
• Zaun had a choice of options: let Demacia obliterate the mine with holy magic and neutralize the pyrikhos in the process (the safe but costly option), use science to try to close the rift while keeping the valuable dark sand intact (the riskier option), or to try to take control of the rift and use it to target the devastation at particular factions (the BWAHAHAHAHA psycho option).

I enjoy writing fiction in an interactive way like this: I feel it keeps one honest and mixes things up.

The Factions lore index is linked here.