POV - Azra'il
The Slaughter Docks of Bilgewater were not a market in the traditional sense. It was more... a battlefield. An abattoir. A theatre of biological horror where the natural law of "eat or be eaten" was taken to its logical and capitalist extreme.
The space was enormous, an open courtyard surrounded by stained wooden warehouses that had probably been white decades ago, but were now a greyish-brown that came from dried blood absorbed into every fibre. The ground was uneven stone, slippery with fluids I preferred not to identify, draining into channels that ran towards the ocean in a sewage system that was less 'sanitary' and more 'eventually the sea deals with it'.
And in the centre of it all…
Monsters.
Not metaphorically. Literally. Sea monsters.
[Visual analysis: Detecting mortal remains of at least seven species of marine megafauna. Two I recognise from the database. Five are completely new to me. This is simultaneously fascinating and terrifying.]
There was the carcass of something that looked like a sea serpent, its scales the size of shields reflecting the sunlight in iridescent shades of green and silver, its body as thick as three men side-by-side, its length stretching for perhaps thirty metres across the courtyard. Butchers, men who looked as monstrous as the creatures they were carving, covered in blood and bulging with muscle, worked on the carcass with axes and saws that looked to require superhuman strength to handle.
Beside it, there was something that might have been a shark. If sharks grew to the size of small houses and had three rows of teeth each the size of my forearm. Its mouth was open, jaw dislocated, and a butcher was literally inside its mouth, extracting the teeth with a crowbar and hammer, each tooth falling with the metallic sound of very hard things hitting stone.
Further on, there was the carcass of something I had no name for. Tentacles, not eight like an octopus, but perhaps twenty, each as thick as an ancient tree, sprawled across the ground like dead roots. A central body that looked like a mixture of a squid and a nightmare, with eyes, multiple eyes, at least a dozen that even in death seemed to be staring with a disturbing intelligence.
"That," Morgana murmured beside me, her voice low and tense in a way I rarely heard, "is a young kraken."
I looked at her, surprised. "Kraken? A real one? Like from the books?"
"Yes, like from the books." Her eyes were fixed on the creature. "Krakens live in the deeps. They rarely surface. When they do…" she paused, "entire fishing towns disappear. This one was young. Perhaps fifty, sixty years old. An adult would be twice the size."
[Scanning carcass. Confirming: Architeuthis colossus magi-variant. Known colloquially as a 'Lesser Kraken'. Tentacle length: 12 metres on average. Central body diameter: 4 metres. Estimated living weight: 8-10 tonnes. Cause of death: Multiple harpoon wounds and what appears to be a massive magical fire burn. Someone hunted this. Purposefully. Successfully.]
The butchers working on the kraken were not normal humans. One was Vastayan, half-man, half-something with scales and visible gills on his neck. Another had bluish skin that glowed faintly, perhaps a Marai of some distant lineage. The third was simply enormous, ten feet tall easily, with muscles that looked to be carved from stone and an axe that was less a tool and more a weapon of war.
They were cutting the tentacles into sections, each piece being carried by labourers to tables where other, smaller butchers processed them further, separating meat from cartilage, skin from muscle, the suckers (each the size of my head) into carefully organised piles.
A nearby merchant, a human woman with an apron so bloodstained its original colour was impossible to determine, was shouting prices.
"Kraken meat! Fresh! Feeds a family for a whole month! Ten gold cogs a kilo! Suckers, perfect for making armour! Fifty cogs each! The beak—" she held up something that looked like a massive hook of bone and chitin, "—a hundred cogs! Ritual use, decoration, or turn it into a weapon if you've a skilled smith!"
Ten gold cogs a kilo. And that kraken had tonnes of meat.
"The economy here," I murmured, "is literally based on killing things bigger than you and selling the pieces."
"Meritocracy through megafauna homicide," Morgana agreed, her tone dry. "Bilgewater in a nutshell."
We continued through the market, and every step revealed a new marvel of biological horror and brutal pragmatism.
There was a hunter, a man covered in scars that formed patterns of claws and teeth across every inch of exposed skin, selling the single eye of a sea serpent. The eye was the size of my head, preserved in a thick glass jar filled with a fluid that glowed faintly, and the price...
"Five hundred gold cogs," the hunter said when I asked, out of sheer morbid curiosity.
"For an eye?"
"For the eye of a serpent that lived two hundred years in the deeps. An eye that saw things humans cannot imagine. Alchemists pay fortunes. Necromancers pay more. Rich collectors just want to show it off. Rare. Dangerous to get. Worth every coin."
[He's not wrong. That eye contains an impressive concentration of residual magical essence. If processed correctly, it would be an extraordinary alchemical reagent for potions related to sight, perception, or water magic. It would also be an excellent component for an aquatic necromancy ritual, if you were so inclined.]
"No buying monster eyes," Morgana said preemptively.
"I wasn't planning on it."
"You were looking at it with that look."
"What look?"
"The 'how much space do I have in my bag and can I convince Morgana this is a reasonable investment' look."
"...You know me frighteningly well."
"It is simultaneously a blessing and a responsibility."
We passed a table where a butcher was selling "leviathan hearts", massive organs the size of small barrels, still pulsing faintly with post-mortem muscle contractions. According to the vendor, eating a leviathan's heart raw granted temporary superhuman strength. Cooked, it was just extremely tough and expensive meat.
"Twenty gold cogs a heart! Or get a group of friends, buy one together, have a party! Nothing says 'celebration' like ritualistic monster-organ cannibalism!"
[His marketing strategy is… unique.]
There was a vendor of scales sea-drake scales, according to him, though Eos identified them as belonging to a species of large, well-armoured fish, but definitely not a dragon. The scales could be turned into armour, decoration, or ground into powder for protection potions.
There was a vendor of bones, whale bones, mostly, but also the ribs of things that were not whales and had a shape that normal anatomy could not explain. Bones that glowed faintly with bioluminescence. Bones that had natural runes etched into them by the pressure of the deeps. Bones that were worth more than gold because artisans paid fortunes for a material that was simultaneously as strong as steel and as light as wood.
And there was, in the furthest corner, something that made me stop completely.
A butcher, an old man with one eye and a beard down to his chest, as white as seafoam, was quartering something that looked… almost human. Not human. But almost. An elongated torso. Limbs that were half-arm, half-fin. A face that had human-like features, but distorted, eyes too large, mouth too wide, sharp teeth arranged in a way that suggested the capacity for speech.
Something in my stomach turned. Not because of the blood. Not the violence. But because of the disturbing familiarity of the form being dismembered.
"That," Morgana said beside me, and her voice was completely different. Not her usual calm. Not her tone of anthropological observation. It was taut. Laden with something dark and cold. "That is a Tidestrider."
I looked at her, and what I saw on her face made me pause. Morgana, the fallen Aspect, the woman who had seen millennia of atrocities, who had witnessed genocides and wars and cruelties that would make entire nations crumble, was looking at that carcass with an expression of horror.
Not casual horror. Genuine horror. Mingled with an anger that made the air around her feel heavier, colder.
"Tidestrider?" I repeated, my voice coming out weaker than I intended. "Like… a person?"
"Like a person." The words came out sharp, precise as blades. "Marai. A people of the deep ocean. As intelligent as you and I. With a culture thousands of years old. With their own language. With families. With a civilisation that existed before Demacia was founded. With children."
Her hand clenched into a fist at her side, and I saw, for just an instant, dark magic crackle between her fingers before she forced it back under control.
"They have names, Azra'il. Stories. They love. They dream. They create art. They are people." Her voice was trembling now, not with fear, but with a visibly restrained fury. "And in Bilgewater, they are sold as meat."
The butcher, completely oblivious or completely indifferent to the rising tension, shouted across the market with a vendor's enthusiasm.
"Tidestrider meat! Rare! Delicate! Some say it grants the ability to breathe underwater if eaten raw! Probably superstition, but who knows? Fifteen gold cogs a kilo! Buy now before it's gone!"
My stomach turned again. Because of what it meant.
"That's cannibalism," I whispered, the word coming out like something foul.
"Of course it's cannibalism!" Morgana corrected, her voice now glacial. "They may not be human. But they are sentient. They are people. They have souls as real as ours. And someone killed them. Brought them here. Is selling them as if they were a big fish."
She looked around the market, at the people buying monster meat, haggling over prices, laughing in casual conversation, and her expression was that of someone seeing not a market, but a normalised massacre.
"And no one cares," she continued, her voice low but heavy with a weight that made every word feel like a sentence. "No one questions it. Because in Bilgewater, if you can kill something and sell it, then it's merchandise. Move or die. Be strong or be eaten. And if you're a Marai trying to live peacefully in the depths, far from humans, far from the surface's violence…"
She looked back at the carcass.
"Apparently you didn't move fast enough."
There was a bitterness in her tone. Bitterness and something deeper, an ancient sorrow. The kind of sorrow that came from seeing the same pattern repeated for millennia. People justifying cruelty. Turning atrocity into normality. Calling what was murder, economics, and what was slow genocide, trade.
[Detecting unusual neurological stress levels. Also detecting… emotion? In you? Fascinating and concerning.]
[My apologies. But for the record: you are genuinely disturbed. More than I have ever seen. Including that time you accidentally created a plague in a lab and had to burn down an entire city in one of your past lives.]
I looked at the carcass, at the limbs that could have held tools, created art, at the face that could have smiled, laughed, cried, at the hands that could have held their own children, and I felt something I have rarely felt across all my lives.
Disgust. Pure and visceral.
"We need to leave," I said, my voice tighter than I expected.
Morgana nodded, stiffly. "Yes. Now."
We turned to leave, but not before hearing the butcher shout after us.
"Don't you want a taste? First slice is free! Perfect for—"
"No."
The word came from Morgana with a force that made the butcher take a step back. It wasn't a shout. It was something worse, an absolute command freighted with a weight that made it clear that to continue this path of conversation would be a catastrophic error.
The butcher, to his credit or for his survival, immediately found something very urgent to do in the completely opposite direction.
We left the Slaughter Docks in a heavy silence.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes as we put distance between ourselves and that place. The air still carried the smell of blood and salt, but it was getting weaker, being replaced by the "normal" odours of Bilgewater fish, rotting wood, cramped humanity.
Finally, when we were far enough away that the market was just a smudge on the horizon behind us, Morgana stopped. She leaned against the wall of a building that looked to be made from an overturned ship's hull, closed her eyes, and let out a long, controlled breath.
"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I shouldn't have… reacted like that."
"You reacted perfectly," I corrected, my own voice still tense. "That was… horrific. Objectively. Without debate."
"In Bilgewater, it's not horrific. It's Tuesday." She opened her eyes, and there was a weariness in them, not physical, but the kind that came from carrying a weight for too long. "I have seen this before. In other places. Other eras. There is always a line. A line between 'person' and 'thing'. And always, always, there is someone deciding that certain beings are on the wrong side of the line. And then…" she gestured vaguely in the direction of the market, "that happens."
We stood there for another moment, processing.
[For the record,] Eos said, her tone uncharacteristically serious, [I agree with Morgana's assessment. That crossed a line. There is a difference between brutal pragmatism and normalised atrocity. The Slaughter Docks just demonstrated that difference.]
I looked at Morgana and sighed. "Still hungry?"
She let out a humourless laugh. "Surprisingly, no."
"Same. But we'll have to eat something eventually."
"Agreed. Just… not fish. Or anything from the sea. Or anything that might have been a person before it was food."
"So bread and water it is."
"Bread and water sound perfect."
We continued walking, looking for a tavern that served food that wouldn't make us question humanity.
After a fifteen-minute walk, we found a tavern. The establishment called itself "The Broken Anchor", with a hanging sign that depicted, appropriately, an anchor broken in half. The place looked less likely to collapse than the average, which in Bilgewater qualified as "high quality".
We entered.
The interior was dark, small grimy windows letting in minimal light, and it smelt of spilt spirits, sweat, and something cooking that could be food or could be an experiment. Rough wooden tables were scattered about with no apparent order. Mismatched chairs. The floor was covered with sawdust that was probably there to absorb blood as much as drink.
And it was full. Pirates. Merchants. Hunters. Mercenaries. People of a dozen different races and professions, all united by the universal need for alcohol and food amidst the daily survival in Bilgewater.
We found a table in the corner, strategically positioned to see the main door and also a back exit, because in Bilgewater you always planned your escape routes, and sat on chairs that groaned in protest but held our weight.
The serving wench, a Vastayan woman with fish-like features, shimmering scales on her cheekbones and small gills on her neck, appeared moments later.
"What'll you be having?"
"What do you have that probably won't kill us?" I asked, reasonably.
She let out a rough laugh. "Honest. I like it. We've got sea-stew fish, shellfish, things we find, don't ask for details. We've got bread, hard, but edible. We've got ale, weak but wet. I've got rum, strong and it'll make you forget why you came to Bilgewater in the first place, which is a blessing."
Morgana and I exchanged a quick look.
"Just the bread," Morgana said, her voice firm. "And water, if you have it."
"We have water. From the well. Boiled. Only slightly salty."
"Perfect. No stew."
"Same," I agreed quickly. "Just bread and water. Definitely nothing from the sea."
The serving wench arched an eyebrow, or her fish-feature equivalent. "You're the first pair to refuse the stew today. Something wrong with it?"
"No," Morgana said. "Just… a recent experience at the Slaughter-Docks. Our appetite for seafood is… compromised. Temporarily."
The woman made a sound of understanding. "Ah. You saw the Tidestrider."
A heavy silence.
"...Yes," I finally said.
"Lot of folks have that reaction the first time." She shrugged, pragmatic. "Give it a week, appetite comes back. It always does. Bilgewater makes you get used to it or makes you starve. Most choose to get used to it."
"What a… comforting prospect," I muttered.
"It's Bilgewater. Comfort ain't what we sell here." She turned to go fetch our extremely modest order, then paused. "But for the record? I haven't eaten the stew in three years myself. Not since I saw where some of the 'shellfish' come from."
She disappeared before we could ask what that meant.
I looked at Morgana. "I don't think I want to know."
"You definitely do not," she agreed.
While we waited, I overheard some interesting gossip and rumours. Taverns were goldmines of information. Drunk people talked a lot. Tired people talked carelessly. And in Bilgewater, where secrets were currency and information was power, casual tavern conversations often revealed more than formal interrogations.
[Isolating conversations. Filtering background noise. Amplifying interesting dialogues. Processing… There are three conversations of potential interest occurring simultaneously.]
[Conversation A: Two mercenaries discussing assassination contracts. Conversation B: Ship captains negotiating over fishing territory. Conversation C: Group at the adjacent table talking about weapons. Recommendation: Conversation C seems most aligned with your current interests.]
The voices became clearer, as if I were sitting next to the conversation three tables to the left.
"—tellin' you, best pistols in all of Bilgewater—"
My ears pricked up at that like a radar detecting a target.
"—Abigail Fortune, you mean? The gunsmith?"
"Aye! Her. Her work is art. Every pistol's perfect. Never jams, never misfires. Shoots in a storm, underwater, covered in seagull shite if it needs to. Lifetime guarantee because she knows she'll never have to honour it; the guns just don't break."
"Pricey, though."
"Worth every cog. Saves your life? That's priceless. Bought a pair from her last year. Best investment I ever made. Killed eight men with them. Worked perfectly all eight times."
"Homicide as a product testimonial," I murmured. "Unique marketing."
Morgana shot me a look that said 'you're eavesdropping again'.
I shrugged. 'It's field research.'
The conversation went on.
"Heard she's doing a special job now."
"Special job?"
"Custom pistols. For Gangplank."
The name dropped into the conversation like a stone in still water. There was a moment of silence at the table, even through the general din of the tavern.
"Gangplank? The Gangplank?"
"Is there another Gangplank in Bilgewater I don't know about? Aye, that Gangplank. The violent bastard who controls half the northern docks. The one building the fleet. The one they say's going to be the next Reaver King if he's not killed first."
"Fuck me. Abigail's got guts. Making guns for him is practically signing a death contract if he decides he doesn't want to pay."
"Or it's a guarantee of survival. Gangplank may be a bastard, but he respects craftsmanship. And Abigail's guns are the best. If she makes pistols worthy of a Reaver King, he'll pay. And no one will mess with her afterwards because messing with Gangplank's gunsmith is asking to be found floating in the harbour without a head."
Gangplank.
That name kept coming up. I'd heard it a few times since arriving in Bilgewater. Always with the same tone fear, reluctant respect, admiration for the man's sheer brutality.
"Who is Gangplank?" I asked Morgana quietly.
"A pirate captain," she answered, just as quietly. "From the little I've overheard since we arrived, one of the most dangerous in Bilgewater. His name comes up constantly, mainly for his brutality. Tahn mentioned him yesterday with caution. The merchants on the docks this morning spoke of him as if he were a coming storm: inevitable and destructive."
"He sounds like an aspiring Reaver King," I murmured.
"Exactly. And if half the stories about him are true…" she paused, "he's exactly the kind of man Bilgewater produces when it takes Nagakabouros's philosophy to its extreme. Constant motion. Growth through violence. Conquest without mercy. Move or die, and anyone slower than him dies."
[Pattern analysis: Name "Gangplank" mentioned 47 times since our arrival in Bilgewater. Always in a context of power, violence, conquest. Psychological profile suggests: Ambitious, brutal, pragmatic, increasingly powerful, potentially unstable. Threat classification: High for normal residents. Moderate for you. Low for Morgana. Recommendation: Avoid.]
The conversation at the adjacent table continued.
"Heard the pistols are taking nearly a year to finish."
"A whole year? Why so long?"
"Because Gangplank ordered something special. Not just pistols. Masterpieces. Customised to the last detail. Engravings. Enchantments. Rare materials. Abigail's treating it like her life's work. When they're done, they'll be the best guns Bilgewater's ever seen."
"And then?"
"Then Gangplank uses them to kill whoever's in his way to the top. And Abigail will be known as the woman who armed the Reaver King."
There was rough laughter, but underlying it was a nervousness. A fear. A recognition that power was shifting in Bilgewater, and when power shifted, blood was spilt.
Our food arrived, bread that was only moderately hard and water that was only slightly salty, as promised.
I ate mechanically, my mind processing information.
Abigail Fortune. Best gunsmith in Bilgewater. Making custom pistols for Gangplank, the aspiring Reaver King. A year-long project. Masterpieces.
And somehow this woman, this artisan who was producing weapons that surpassed other regions with fewer resources, less technology, less infrastructure, she lived here. Worked here. Created here.
[Predictable.]
[It is also an opportunity to get involved in a potentially dangerous situation involving Gangplank.]
[He should. He's killed a lot of people.]
[Confidence or arrogance? Hard to distinguish sometimes.]
I finished the bread, which was surprisingly edible, except for the texture of a few bits I decided not to think too hard about, and looked at Morgana.
"Mother Raven."
"You're going to say you want to visit Abigail Fortune's workshop," she said before I could continue.
"...Yes. How did you know?"
"Because I know you. You heard about an exceptional artisan, became fascinated by the prospect of learning about superior craftsmanship, and now you are obsessed."
"'Obsessed' is a strong word. I prefer 'deeply interested'."
"Azra'il."
"Alright, yes, maybe slightly obsessed. But with good reason! Think about it: Bilgewater's firearms surpass those of Noxus, Demacia, even the conventional weapons of Piltover, the ones without hextech modifications. How? Why? What techniques are used? What materials? A lone artisan in a pirate city with no formal infrastructure is producing weapons that rival entire factories. Sure, Piltover has the advantage with hextech, a magical technology Bilgewater simply doesn't possess, but in terms of pure craftsmanship, of mechanical precision without magical aid?" I gestured emphatically. "Bilgewater is at the top. And I need to understand how. This is a legitimate academic question with massive practical implications."
Morgana studied me for a long moment. Then she sighed, that resigned sigh I'd learned meant 'she's already been convinced, but she's going to make you work for it anyway'.
"Tomorrow," she said. "We've explored enough for today. Tomorrow, if you're still interested—"
"I will be."
"—if you're still interested, we'll visit the workshop. With caution. With respect. And with no mention of Gangplank or any questions about his weapons."
"Deal. Professional respect. Focus on technique and craft, not pirate politics."
"And if she says no?"
"Then we respect that and leave. No pushing. No causing trouble."
Morgana nodded, seemingly satisfied with my terms. "Alright. Tomorrow."
I smiled, genuinely excited. "Thank you, Mother Raven."
"You're going to give me more grey hairs with this."
"Probably."
"Is it worth it?"
"Always."
We paid for our meal, a reasonable price by Bilgewater standards, which meant only moderately overpriced, and left the tavern into the afternoon sunlight.
The walk back to The Choked Serpent was easier than the morning's journey. Partly because Eos had already mapped everything. Partly because I was starting to understand the rhythm of Bilgewater, when to avoid the crowds, which alleys were safe shortcuts, which looks from strangers meant 'potential threat' versus 'just casual curiosity'.
We reached Tahn's tavern in the mid-afternoon.
He was behind the bar, as always, wiping glasses with that perpetually grimy cloth. When he saw us enter, his tentacles twitched in a pattern I was learning meant interest or surprise.
"You're back," he said, his tone one of genuine surprise. "In one piece. No visible wounds. No gambling debts. No magically binding contracts."
"Our expectations have been exceeded," I commented. "Thank you for your faith in us."
"In Bilgewater, expectations are just ways to be disappointed." But there was something that could have been approval in his voice. "Where did you go?"
"Docks. Black Market. Slaughter-Docks. Tavern for lunch."
He looked at me. Looked at Morgana. Back at me. "The Black Market on your first day. You're either brave or idiots. Haven't decided which."
"It can be both," I offered.
"Fair. Did you buy anything illegal?"
"Define 'illegal'."
"Azra'il," Morgana said, her tone a warning.
"I bought rare herbs for legitimate alchemical purposes," I corrected. "Which may be technically banned in some overly cautious jurisdictions, but in Bilgewater are perfectly acceptable."
Tahn made that bubbling sound that could be a laugh. "You'll do well here. Or die. Still don't know which." He leaned over the bar. "And tomorrow? More suicidal tourist adventures?"
"We're going to visit Abigail Fortune," I said. "The gunsmith."
There was a moment of silence.
Then Tahn nodded slowly. "Good choice. Abigail is… respected. Competent. She won't rob or poison you. Probably. Just don't mention Gangplank or his pistols. She doesn't like to talk about work in progress."
"Noted. Thank you for the advice."
"It's what I'm here for. Reluctantly." He gestured vaguely towards the stairs. "Go on. Rest. You'll need your energy to impress Bilgewater's most demanding gunsmith tomorrow."
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✨ Author's Note ✨
-----------
Hi.
Are you okay?
Wrong question. No one is okay after this chapter.
Welcome to the Meat Market, where:
hygiene was murdered,
the ocean is a suggestion,
and capitalism looked at "eat or be eaten" and said "great business model."
If you read the kraken part and thought: "wow, that's messed up but kind of cool"
and then reached the triton and went: "oh. OH. That's a CRIME."
👉 Yes. That emotional whiplash was intentional.
Morgana going full "this crossed the line"
and Bilgewater replying: "what line? we sell lines by the kilo."
Azra'il, who has seen objectively worse things across multiple lifetimes, standing there like:
"Okay. No. This one is officially disgusting."
Protagonist: ✔ disturbed
Reader: ✔ nervous laughter
Eos: ✔ being the most unhelpful AI imaginable (as usual)
Now listen. I NEED COMMENTS.
Because if you read all of this and disappear silently, I will assume you're the guy at the market saying:
"It's just meat 🙂"
and at that point Morgana would like a word with you in a dark alley.
You do not want that.
Trust me.
You don't need to write an essay. These are all valid:
"Bilgewater is a horror DLC"
"that was messed up but I laughed"
"Morgana was 100% right"
"Azra'il refusing seafood is relatable"
"bread and water: the trauma meal"
"author, you are a public menace"
Comments are like protection in Bilgewater:
not guaranteed, but they significantly reduce the chance that I'll write the next chapter even more unhinged out of spite.
(Kidding. Probably.)
Thanks for surviving the Meat Market 🖤
the author, currently on several watchlists after writing this
👁️👁️