Some endings don’t take.
On Virel, history moves forward even when it is wrong. Wars conclude without resolving what they began. Verdicts are passed that settle nothing. Peace exists while the past continues to demand response.
These failures leave scars in reality. From them, pressure accumulates.
When pressure grows too great, it binds to people who remain too close to the unfinished event. They are not chosen. They are not rewarded. They persist because reality requires an anchor.
They become Ascendants.
Each Ascendant embodies a different response to pressure. Resolution. Delay. Endurance. Escalation. Refusal. None are complete. All create cost.
When multiple Ascendants bind to the same scar, the world cannot support them all. Their incompatible answers force a Trial. Conflict is not ambition or ideology. It is how reality simplifies a system that can no longer hold.
Victory does not mean being right.
It means inheriting the unfinished event and the consequences that follow.
This is not a story about heroes or villains.
It is a record of what happens when endings fail and someone is forced to carry the weight instead.
The Trial is over.
