The Glitched Mage

The silence fractured—not with noise, but with pressure, a sudden shift that dragged the world into motion. Heat pressed in first, dry and absolute, wrapping around Riven like a second skin. His eyes snapped open and he could see fire stretched endlessly in every direction, devouring the sky, the ground, the air itself.

The sky above was a dome of ash-stained flame—blood-red clouds swirling in violent spirals, lit from within by lightning that never struck. The ground beneath him was obsidian glass, cracked and seared, as though the land itself had once burned for centuries and never cooled. Towers of flame flickered on distant ridges, bending but never breaking, their roots anchored in nothing but scorched air.

There was no sun.

No wind.

Only fire—and something deeper, watching from within it.

Riven took a step forward, boots crunching on glass that had once been stone. The air rippled, heavy with mana.

This couldn't be real—but neither did it feel false. The heat, the weight of the air, the shimmer of power clinging to every breath… it all felt present. Tangible. As if the world itself had been shaped for a purpose. Riven didn't know if it was a conjured realm or some ancient echo bound to the anchor—but he could feel the intent behind it. A trial, maybe. Or a judgment.

And if he failed… he didn't think he'd wake up again.

A low hum stirred the air.

The obsidian beneath Riven's feet began to shift—cracking, splitting. A path of jagged black glass extended ahead, winding like a serpent through rivers of flame and towers of molten stone. In the distance, at the heart of this burning world, a familiar silhouette loomed: the anchor, rising like a spine of fire-wreathed bone, pulsing faintly in the heat-hazed distance.

It was calling to him.

Behind him, movement broke the silence.

Nyx stepped out of a pillar of flame, her form steady, unburned. Shadows danced at her heels, tethered to her presence like living ink.

Krux followed a heartbeat later, his boots crunching against the scorched stone, sweat already shining along his brow. He grunted. "So this is the trial. Figures it'd be all fire and doom."

Then the priest emerged, his robes flickering with embers that didn't touch him. He looked around the realm with a calm, knowing gaze. "The test has begun."

Riven turned toward them.

"I'll go alone."

Nyx raised an eyebrow. "Since when do you turn down backup?"

"This was made for one," Riven said. "One heart. One will. One flame."

Krux stepped forward. "You don't know that."

"No," Riven agreed. "But I can feel it. This isn't a battle—it's a measure. A judgment of worth. If more of us walk that path, we might tip the balance. Or shatter it."

The priest gave a slow nod. "He's right. The trial is bound to the one who woke it. If others interfere, it may reject him entirely—or worse, collapse."

Nyx folded her arms. "So we just stand here and watch you play with fire?"

Riven offered her a faint, crooked smile. "You've watched me do worse."

Krux let out a snort. "Fair. Still don't like it."

"You don't have to like it," Riven said, turning his gaze back to the path. "You just have to trust me."

The flame-wreathed path ahead pulsed again, as if impatient.

Behind them, the firestorm thickened—the world closing around this place, drawing in on itself like a forge preparing to shape something new. The heat no longer just burned—it breathed.

The priest's voice was quieter now, reverent. "The fire recognizes your claim. But it will not make this easy."

Riven didn't look back. "Good. If it did, it wouldn't be worth surviving."

He stepped onto the black glass path.

It held beneath his feet—just barely. The moment his weight settled, the flames that bordered it surged higher, curling like serpents in defiance or invitation. Every step he took forward rippled across the trial-world, like walking on the skin of something ancient and half-asleep.

The obsidian hissed under his boots. Pillars of flame rose ahead, shifting, waiting. This was no simple walk—already he could see shapes forming beyond the path. Human shapes. Warped. Shimmering. Watchers. Judges. Maybe memories.

Behind him, the others watched in silence—Nyx, her arms crossed, eyes sharp; Krux standing like a statue, jaw tight; and the priest, still and unreadable.

But Riven didn't see them anymore.

His gaze was forward.

Toward the fire.

Toward the spine of the world.

The glass path narrowed, forcing Riven through a narrowing corridor of flame. Beyond it, the land opened into a massive obsidian plateau, smooth and seamless, with a single structure at its center—an ancient stairwell carved directly into the volcanic stone. Each step rose higher than the last, towering and uneven, and with it, the air thickened until it shimmered with heat so intense it blurred the edges of the world.

The steps pulsed.

Heat radiated from them in slow, escalating waves, like a forge stoking itself with every heartbeat. At the top, surrounded in a corona of fire, floated a single rune—ancient, jagged, glowing faintly in the air like a brand waiting for flesh.

The first trial.

Riven approached slowly.

The temperature was already rising. Sweat gathered along his spine, then burned away before it could fall. His cloak began to smoke. The edges of his boots darkened.

He didn't hesitate.

One foot hit the first step—and fire erupted along the sides, licking at his legs, testing him. He clenched his jaw and kept moving.

By the fifth step, the heat was blinding. The air tasted like molten iron. Every breath scalded his lungs.

By the tenth, the ground beneath his feet was glowing red, and his vision swam. The fire was no longer just around him. It was inside him. Pressing. Probing. Demanding surrender.

Riven let out a long, low breath.

Then he summoned it.

The dark flame leapt from his core—not outward, but inward. It coiled around him like a second skin, black and silent. No roar. No flash. Just devouring heat. His own fire met the trial's blaze and did not resist it—it consumed it.

The flames that curled along the steps hissed and recoiled, drawn into the abyssal blackness now surrounding his frame. The heat struck, again and again, but found no fuel. Only hunger.

He climbed.

Step after step, the air thickened until it was nearly solid. The fire lashed out in sheets, in bursts, in screams. But Riven pressed on, his form wrapped in void-born fire, his stride slow but unbreaking.

His skin burned. His bones ached. But still, he climbed.

He was not fire's servant.

He was its end.

Halfway up the trial, the world twisted. The stairs seemed to bend and stretch, the sky darkening to pitch, then brightening again with every step. Hallucinations clawed at the edges of his sight—figures in flame, memories he didn't recognize, voices calling his name.

He ignored them all.

His fire devoured them too.

By the time he reached the final step, Riven's cloak had burned away entirely. His armor glowed with heat, veins of black fire pulsing across the metal like runes of defiance. He stood before the floating glyph, exhausted, breathless, flame clinging to his shoulders like a mantle.

The rune pulsed once.

Then it broke apart—burning into ash that did not fall, but swirled around him like embers caught in a storm.

The heat faded.

The sky stilled.

The first trial was complete.

The ash spun around him, slow and reverent, then scattered into nothing—drawn into the windless air like whispers. For a breathless moment, the world held still.

Then the obsidian plateau beneath Riven's feet shuddered.

A deep, resonant crack split the silence, echoing across the burning expanse like the toll of a distant bell. Far ahead—where the path had once ended in haze and flame—a second shape emerged from the fire. It did not rise. It formed, conjured from smoke and heat, coalescing out of the searing air with molten grace.

A door.

Massive. Towering. Forged entirely of flame and shifting stone, its edges alive with writhing fire. The surface was carved with a mixture of scorched images, some of suffering, of rebirth, of figures walking willingly into fire and emerging changed. A crown of molten iron hovered above the archway, spinning slowly in place, as if waiting to descend upon the worthy.

The second trial.

It wasn't locked.

But it wasn't open either.

Riven stepped down from the scorched summit, each footfall ringing like a war drum in the hollowed silence. As he approached, the door seemed to pulse in response to his presence—sensing him, testing him. The flames that composed it grew brighter, more erratic, licking outward in long fingers that curled toward him before vanishing again.

The path leading to it was clear.

But it would not stay that way for long.

He paused at the threshold.

From this distance, he could see that the door was more than fire—it was memory. The images etched across it shifted when he looked too long, reconfiguring into scenes from his own life: the bakery, a prison like manor, corpses that looked at him with hollowed eyes. His past burned into the gate, daring him to pass through.

Behind him, the firestorm stirred again. He didn't need to look to know they were still there—Nyx, Krux, the priest. Watching. Waiting.

The trial did not end with fire alone.

This door… this was passage.

Beyond it, something waited.

Not just heat. Not just pain.

A deeper crucible.

And Riven knew—without needing to be told—that the moment he stepped through, he would be facing more than flame. This would be fire as judgment. Fire as truth. Fire that did not destroy, but revealed.

He reached out.

The flames around the door surged, but his dark fire met them, coiling around his hand, calming the storm. The abyssal heat did not clash with the gate—it merged with it. And just for a moment, Riven felt it:

Recognition.

The fire knew him.

The fire remembered him.

Because long ago, in whispered fragments of prophecy, the cult had spoken of a flame that devours all others. Not to punish. Not to purify.

But to end.

And now it stood before the door.

Riven stepped forward—and the great flame-wrought gate began to open.