Nether Trials - Aria

As the group pressed through the twisted corridors of the Nether Nexus, the air grew thick with shifting hues and half-formed memories. Here, the laws of reality bent under the weight of unresolved truths. One by one, the members of the group felt the Nexus press against their thoughts, and Aria suddenly found herself standing still while the others faded like smoke in wind.

The world around her warped. When it settled again, she stood within the echo of an old, familiar place.

It was a library—not just any, but his library.

Vaulted ceilings of pale stone arched high above her. Shelves curved inward like ribs, housing ancient texts and illuminated scrolls. She turned slowly, and at the far end, behind a polished wooden desk, stood Virellan.

Not a master of the Celestial Council, but a teacher. A mentor. One who had quietly served, taught, and died alone.

He had not perished in the Storm of Prokapin. His death had come earlier. Simpler. Forgotten by most—by too many.

“You never came back,” Virellan said calmly.

Aria’s throat tightened.

“Virellan… I—I didn’t forget you. The work kept—”

“No, child,” Virellan said gently, cutting her off. “You remembered my teachings. But not me.”

His face was kind, but his eyes carried the weight of truth. Around them, books began to drift in midair, pages fluttering open to half-finished thoughts and fading ink. She felt the sting of it—the loneliness between the lines.

“You chase relics and lost names, Aria, but some truths are not meant for archives,” he continued. “Some memories must be held, not documented.”

The air shifted, colder now. Her journal appeared in her hands, heavier than it should have been.

She hesitated, flipping it open. Page after page of catalogued artifacts, ancient phrases, coordinates. And then blank. An emptiness that mirrored what she had left unsaid.

“I’m sorry,” Aria whispered. “I should have returned. I should have written… more.”

“Write what matters now,” Virellan said as he stepped closer. “Not for the Council. Not for your records. But for you.”

Aria lowered her gaze. Her pen moved. And in a few quiet strokes, she etched Virellan’s name—not as a title, but as a memory.

A soft glow began to spread across the library. The tomes settled. The light of the lanterns burned brighter, warmer.

“That is enough—for now,” Virellan said with a faint smile.

With that, he faded. So did the library. The shelves collapsed into wisps of light, and the desk dissolved into dust.

She found herself alone in a great expanse of fractured mirrors, each one suspended in a skyless void. No ground, no stars—just infinite reflections of herself, frozen mid-motion, mid-thought, mid-sentence. Some showed her laughing in a university courtyard. Others showed her older, tired, staring at scattered notes. And some… some showed her breaking, crying over losses she had refused to name aloud.

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A voice rang out. It was not Virellan’s.

“You’ve never chosen, have you?”

From the shadows emerged another Aria—one dressed not in a scholar’s cloak, but in fitted armour, dirt and blood staining her gloves. Her eyes burned with clarity and fatigue.

“You walk two paths and commit to neither,” the warrior version of herself said. “A historian who still carries a blade. A fighter who clings to memory but will not confront her truth.”

Aria’s chest tightened. The reflections around her spun slowly, encircling them both.

“I am both,” she answered. “I fight so I can preserve. I study so I can understand what we risk losing.”

“No,” the warrior said. “You hide behind both. You were meant to serve the Celestial Council as a keeper of knowledge. Not to bleed for relics. Not to risk your life chasing shadows.”

“I never asked to be pulled into this war,” Aria said. “I was needed. Zethraxis needed someone. The Council—”

“Zethraxis fights his own demons,” the warrior cut in. “And the Council only asks because you never said no. You do not serve, Aria—you drift.”

Silence settled, heavy as stone.

Aria turned away, gazing into one of the mirrors. It showed her sitting before the Celestial Council masters, hesitant, papers in hand, eyes downcast.

The trial was not asking her to pick a side. It was asking her to define herself.

“I do not have to be one or the other,” she said quietly. “I can be the bridge. Between knowledge and action. Between history and the now. I have seen too much to stand back, and I know too much to rush forward blindly.”

The mirrors cracked, light spilling from the fractures in gold and violet.

The warrior stared at her for a moment, then slowly stepped back.

“Then claim that path. Stop waiting for someone else to hand it to you.”

She faded into light. The mirrors shattered.

Aria stood alone in the void as the fragments spiralled upward, forming a luminous symbol above her—half blade, half scroll.

A seal of self. Not given. Chosen.

The Nether Nexus pulsed again. Another trial had passed.

She awoke again not in a void, but in her childhood home. Warm light filtered through parchment-covered windows. Books lined every wall. A fire crackled in the hearth.

And across from her, seated in the chair she had not seen in decades, was her mother.

Not an illusion. Not a memory. A perfect recreation. The scent of her hair. The little wrinkle at the edge of her smile. The soft voice.

“You’ve grown,” her mother said. “But you still hide that look in your eyes.”

Aria’s throat closed. This was not a trial of combat. It was not a trial of identity. It was one of truth.

“You’re not real,” Aria said quietly.

“No,” her mother replied. “But the guilt you carry is.”

The fire dimmed. Outside the window, the world darkened, then slowed—freezing as if time had stopped.

“You left,” her mother said. “You followed the stars and books and voices of others. But you never came back. Not to me. Not when I grew sick. Not when I called.”

Aria closed her eyes. She had been on a Celestial expedition when her mother passed. She had chosen not to return early—because the mission had been vital. Because she was needed. Because it was easier than watching someone fade.

“I did not want to see you weak,” she said. “I did not want to feel helpless.”

“You were not meant to be strong all the time, Aria,” her mother said softly but firmly. “You were not meant to carry the weight of the world. Just your share of it.”

A single tear traced down Aria’s cheek. She stepped forward, but her mother rose, placing a hand on her shoulder. Not to comfort, but to centre her.

“You still run,” her mother said. “Not from monsters. But from love. From grief. From the fear that you will never be enough unless you know everything.”

The words struck deeper than any blade.

“I am… tired of running,” Aria said. Her voice trembled, but did not break. “I want to honour what I have lost. Not bury it. I want to stop chasing knowledge as if it will make me whole.”

The house began to fade—window by window, shelf by shelf.

“Then you are ready,” her mother said with a smile.

The light of the fire surged into Aria’s chest, filling her not with power, but with peace. A warmth that no spell could summon.

She opened her eyes.

She stood once more in the Nether Nexus. The others watched her, concerned. She gave a small nod.

No words were needed.

Her final trial had not given her an answer.

It had let her release the question.

And now, before her, the Nether Prism pulsed in the distance—awaiting everyone to complete their trials.