Riven Solen stood atop the tallest monument in the slums, his eyes gazing onto the city at the end of the world, Enoch. The tall buildings that soared higher than the clouds made him feel like an insect.
Yes, today was the day he was going to kill himself.
He looked down, and his feet froze; his stomach churned. He was brave, but he was also a fool to kill himself. It was all to set an example for the rest of his peers.
A few days ago, the emissaries from the inner city came to him and offered him a truce.
"Stop killing our men, and we'll stop killing yours." They said.
And he declined, not for his sake—he would have accepted it without thinking—but for his people, those very same people who had bled protecting themselves and their infant sons and daughters, those same people who made him a leader.
Perhaps they had been foolish as well.
He snickered as he recalled yesterday's meetings, those smug grins plastered on their clean, squeaky faces that had never seen the sun or sweat.
Oh, how much he despised them, those wretched extortioners who never had to wonder when their next meal was going to be. It was all handed to them at the moment of their birth, in a platter made from the most exquisite of gemstones as well…
After his death, the slums would have no one to lead them, but that was good. Having no leader was better than having a pacifist like him.
And then, he jumped.
For the first time in his life, he felt truly weightless—he was free. The world around him blurred, and the smoke of the factories below blurred past him, and the ground got closer and closer.
As his end neared, tears flowed from the corners of his eyes and streamed upwards. His heart quickened, and his breath roughened.
I don't want to die.
He thought for the last time, and he tried turning in the air, digging his hands into the stone of the tall building behind him.
He felt desperation, the sudden urge to live again.
His life flashed before his eyes.
The elder who took a sword to his back to protect him so he may one day achieve his dreams, for his sake.
His parents, exiles of the inner city who helped make the slums a better place, for his sake.
His childhood friends died all for his sake.
[The long-forgotten gods have seen your desperation.]
The sophisticated, deep voice muttered in his ear, tingling his nerves as his hair stood on end.
He was still falling, with only death before him, but there was also hope.
[Aspirant Riven Solen, you have been blessed.]
The world turned and consumed him in an endless darkness.
[The gods have laid before you three roads.]
The voice said, and then stones buoyantly floated up from a lake of darkness in front of him and built themselves into three humongous monuments on the other side of the lake.
The monuments were entirely made out of ancient mossy stone; they were:
A greatsword stained with blood.
An ancient religious cross.
A wand engraved with spiraling runes.
[Valor, Serenity, and Chaos—choose wisely.]
Riven knew what this was. His parents had informed him about it before they passed. This was a trial, a trial to obtain a blessing from the gods.
Very few people actually got the chance to become blessed, perhaps one in several hundred, but most, if not all, of them served the inner city to fight against the monsters from beyond.
That is why almost no one in the slums believed in the existence of the blessed; should one emerge, they would be burned or beaten to death. That was how most people in the slums operated.
Aspirations were also needed for someone to be blessed, and the people in the slums were hopeless.
His mother had once told him that one of his ancestors was a blessed from the slums, one who had gained enough strength and renown to reach the inner city.
He stopped himself from thinking about the outside anymore; he was currently in a trial, one that could help his followers after he completed it, and for that, he needed to think wisely.
Valor, Serenity, or Chaos.
Valor was for a fool; only someone stupid would lay his life down for something as meaningless as honor.
Serenity was peace, balance, and harmony, what he strived for, but peace never came from peace; there was always a precursor.
Chaos was the embodiment of disharmony and the opposite of how his beliefs went, but a blade cannot be forged without hammering.
And so he walked towards the third path, the path of chaos.
Slowly but surely, he took steps as the stones bobbed up and down; the path was much longer than expected, perhaps intentionally to make the aspirant think over their decisions on the way.
And after what felt like a long, long time, he reached the end.
The Stone Island he stood on slowly bobbed up and down as the waves of darkness hit him; the large wand with spiraling writings stood tall and mighty before him like a monument of chaos.
He wondered if his choice was correct, if he could change anything with this blessing, or even if he could pass the trial or not.
For he knew that chaos may never be the correct answer to anything, but it also might be the correct answer to everything at the same time.
He could lead the slums with might and make his enemies cower beneath him, crushing them with an iron fist, but he very well might be different than all of his followers, like an outsider.
He took a deep breath and sighed.
He gazed at the monument, and the engravings in it glowed with a dim hue.
Yes, you have made the correct decision… Riven told himself over and over again before finally reaching out with his hand and gently touching the cool stone.
[Trial failed.]
The voice and the screen informed him, and then the stone sank into the darkness, and he sank alongside it.