\n
You, there! Yes, you! You look like a fine Demacian with working ears\u2014one who might stay a stretch and heed the warnings of an old man who has seen the impossible. I\u2019m on a quest, you see, at the bidding of the Wandering Caretaker, and you can help!<\/p>\n
I must retrieve… Well, it\u2019s best that I explain.<\/p>\n
Come, now. Don\u2019t shy away. Hear my tale, which is entirely true…<\/p>\n
I was first awoken by the clanging of bells\u2014my mother\u2019s two-hundred-year-old wind chimes\u2014screaming outside, beyond my window. She thought she was quite clever, my mother, convincing me their summer song would signal the coming of warm and sunny days. Even at my age, I can only count a handful of pleasant seasons in Valar\u2019s Hollow.\u00a0Ha!<\/i> An adolescence marred by the endless chopping of firewood can attest to that. The night I speak of was no exception\u2014a winter storm was raging. I jumped to my feet when my door burst open and the rush of freezing wind filled my room. After scrambling to sheathe my trembling body in the thickest furs I owned, I made my way to the door, ready to slam it shut. But I hesitated. My mother\u2019s chimes were still screaming in the wind. Though they mostly stirred memories of my harsh and laborious upbringing, they provided me with a sense of connection to her. I should not risk losing them, or worse\u2014suffer no sleep from their incessant wailing.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t get me wrong, the chimes did have a certain appeal. Stories of how they came into my family\u2019s possession told of an incredible destiny and a celebrated past. They were forged from ingot\u2014war metals\u2014some of the rarest in the Freljord. Whenever a battle had been lost and won, the Collectors, my poor but resourceful ancestors, entered the battlefield and retrieved what had been left to rust in the blood-stained snow.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow much ingot was out there, mother?\u201d I asked once, as she gushed about ancient times.<\/p>\n
\u201cCenturies of it,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat did the Collectors do with it all?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSold it to the Winter\u2019s Claw,\u201d she said, shrugging, \u201cwho made more weapons for wars to come.\u201d Then she paused for a moment and smiled as her chimes began to sing. \u201cBut there was always a little we kept for ourselves\u2014to make instruments of life, not death.\u201d Indeed, those precious chimes were instruments that brought wonderful music to our land. \u201cGood fortune in bad times,\u201d she told me. I prayed for that fortune when she fell ill, but it never came. The Wandering Caretaker was more concerned with his own wonderful music than helping the infirm, and I was left with her infernal chimes to remember them both by.<\/p>\n
I digress.<\/p>\n
Taking a deep breath, I pushed my way outside, but I was halted by an impossible sight: Floating in front of me, unaffected by the storm, was a small, translucent creature. Without wings or arms to hold it in place, it hung there, as if some eldritch magic had nailed it to a block of air. Two glowing white eyes like torches were affixed to its orbish head, and three twinkling stars in its belly began to churn and flicker. To my surprise, one of my mother\u2019s chimes responded, and, like a child\u2019s arm, it reached back to the shimmering creature, adopting its starry glow.<\/p>\n
But then…<\/p>\n
The chime cracked! And I heard its summer song deform. A fissure that was made etched its way up the chime\u2019s side, and specks of gold light were drawn out from within it, as if certain materials that composed it were being stolen away. Those were not lights the thing was stealing; they were my mother\u2019s tears, falling, as this beloved yet irritating heirloom was quickly being destroyed. I could not\u2014I would not let that happen! So I leapt into the blizzard and took hold of the chime. At its touch, I heard the blast of a horn in the distance. Why, I was not sure. I pulled back with all my might, but the creature\u2019s magic was too strong to overcome. And worse, I felt my entire body jerk skyward, and my feet left the ground. Soon I was hurtling into the heavens, towed into the clouds by the befouled moppet!<\/p>\n
CRACK! Another break scribbled its way down the chime. Then I saw something taking shape in the space between us\u2014a shard, a piece of a whole, was materializing. Believing it would be the only thing to save me, I grasped it.<\/p>\n
As I reached, I glanced back to the wicked creature, only to realize that it had disappeared. In its place, hovering before me in all his mystic glory, was the Wandering Caretaker. It had taken an entire lifetime of prayer for him to appear, and, as my mother had promised, the chimes brought him forth. The Bard seemed to stare back at me… into me… curious of my being there. But it was too late to explain.<\/p>\n
There suddenly came a rush of wind and a wave of heat. I felt my arm stretch the length of a vine. My body followed, spinning and twisting, as I was being taken somewhere\u2014an otherworldly place!<\/p>\n
As to where I ended up, my mother\u2019s old dulcimer here will aid me as I sing…The Bells<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/center><\/p>\n\u2019Twas sound that harkened visions of a place.
\nDivine, Bard\u2019s music just beyond the veil.
\nA firmament revealed to me in space,
\nIn string and drum and reed celestial.<\/p>\n
Bard opened up the cosmos wide to me!
\nI felt Beginning, End, and In Between.
\nWhere waves had never stirred that lampless sea,
\nWe heard Sol first prepare the stars to ring.<\/p>\n
No human witness had there ever been,
\nBut I alone did hear the act take form.
\nThat symphony changed me from within,
\nMy mortal body suddenly transformed.<\/p>\n
A spirit now, a\u00a0meep<\/i>\u00a0celestial,
\nAscended like the Aspects in this dream,
\nI sang with Bard throughout the sonic realm,
\nAnd tended to his will a century.<\/p>\n
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!<\/p>\n
But then I heard a bell begin to bend
\nAnd felt a darkness silencing the song.
\nI told my brethren and my master then
\nAnd travel all we did to right the wrong.<\/p>\n
And we were brought before a gaping maw,
\nAn empty soundless pit devoid of light.
\nMy ears beheld such darkness from beyond;
\nIt filled my soul with terror and with fright.<\/p>\n
I fear the hordes inside sang me a song,
\nOne that has no start; it only ends.
\nFor when I peered into that deep unknown,
\nI felt my own music crook and bend.<\/p>\n
So I forced my ears above to the divine,
\nTurned back to what is good and what is right.
\nBut then I caught the rip\u2014the Void\u2019s divide,
\nAnd soon beheld destruction of the light.<\/p>\n
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!<\/p>\n
In billions were the fragments, were these chimes,
\nShowered \u2019cross the land, when darkness split
\nThe bell that tolls the rhythm and the time,
\nRuneterra\u2019s hymn, whose song may be forfeit.<\/p>\n
To close the door and bring the notes in line
\nThe Bard had sent us scouring the world.
\nWith every shard, a stitch to recombine
\nWhat the Void had torn when it emerged.<\/p>\n
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!<\/p>\n
Soon I awoke in bed, a meep no more,
\nAnd back in Valar\u2019s Hollow did I dwell,
\nI tore my mother\u2019s chimes from off that door,
\nAnd offered Bard more shards to fix the bell.<\/p>\n
Since, my charge is to collect more chimes
\nThrough wind and rain and sun and land and sea.
\nI pray that every treasure will rewind
\nThat music that the Void did play to me.<\/p>\n
The Bells! The Bells! The Bells!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Dear Demacian, I have come a long way and farther still to warn everyone of the darkness that threatens to silence the music of this world. Runeterra is a bell\u2014a world bell\u2014that has been corroded by evil. Its fragments, its chimes, must be found to make it whole again.<\/p>\n
And our first step is to place all precious metals in your possession in my basket. I will take them, inspect them, sing to them Bard\u2019s divine music to remove any chimes of the world bell within them. Any chimeless pieces I will, of course, return to you.<\/p>\n
No! Wait! Don\u2019t walk away\u2014what I tell you is true! Please, listen. There isn\u2019t much time. The end of our world is nigh…<\/p>\n
And only Bard and his meeps can save us.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bard Introduction A traveller from beyond the stars in the world of League of Legends, Bard is an agent of serendipity who strives to maintain the harmony between creation and the cold indifference of what lies beyond it. Many Runeterrans sing songs that ponder his extraordinary nature, yet they all agree that the cosmic vagabond…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":9020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1674],"tags":[1670],"class_list":["post-9019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-supports","tag-league-of-legends-champions-high-difficulty"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9019"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9242,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9019\/revisions\/9242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/entertainment\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}