It was a trek, after the train journeys. The gate was annoyingly remote, and I grumbled as I came to the wooden buildings set up as a local watch-post by ECRA. It was eerily quiet, for animals avoided Gates. It would be idyllic otherwise, all old forest and gentle slopes, babbling streams…

I glimpsed the gate in the distance. A break in reality, not like the shining not-sphere that had, in the end, consumed my hometown.

A young man with bright blue hair walked out behind one of the buildings, and blinked in surprise when he saw me. “Good morning!” He exclaimed cheerfully.

“Good day” I responded, a little bit grouchy. It made me a feel a bit bad to see his face fall, and I grimaced. “Long trip” I added, by way of explanation.

“Cool, cool” He waved off the awkwardness. “Here for the gate?”

I nodded. “Advancement trial. It’s ah… Urgent. [Talismania]”

He paused, and grimaced. “Mmm. It would be better to take that somewhere else. This Gate is a Mental-Type, so if you have any Mania skills, it is an absolute bitch to clear the Trial version.”

I shrugged, and looked at him. He sighed. “OK. We’ll set the binding up for the Trial. It’ll be something to do with being in a dark forest, and I don’t what afterwards - it depends on how your Mania expressed itself. I’ll just need you to sign the paperwork… Ah. JACK!”

He finished off by yelling for someone else even as he gestured for me to follow. “JACK, trial configuration.” There was a distant call back, and an absolutely HUGE man came wandering out of one of the buildings, wearing a towel around his waist and not much else.

It did take me a moment to notice that, between the many, many tattoos covering his body.

The blue-haired man ushered me into an office, had me sign a waiver and provide my designation number and a heap of other details.

“What’s your Path?” He asked, as he filled out the details of my Awakening.

“Chaos”

“Huh. Good luck withe the gambles I guess?” I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“Chaos advancements happen via gambling…” He looked at me strangely and then blinked himself. “You didn’t know that?” He sounded vaguely irritated all of a sudden. “OK. Jack is probably gonna have the thing configured soon but basically… Paths are how you advance. When you take a trial, you can swap out up to two powers, one skill and a power, or two skills - that much is always up to you.”

I nodded, and leaned in slightly.

“Chaos advances by having you gamble. You put your stake in, and you get five of the same back, at least one of which will be decent, out of everything you’ve met the prerequisites for. If you don’t like any of the five, you can send them back to get any three of the same, including ones you don’t necessarily have the prerequisites for BUT you lose the guarantee that at least one of them will be decent. And if you don’t like any of those three, you can send them back one last time. You’ll get a random one of the same back, which you have to accept.”

I frowned. “OK… Sounds risky?”

The blue-haired man shrugged. “It’s not as reliable as Order, but Order has you jump through hoops to advance because those bastard old ghosts have thoroughly corrupted it to their ends. Anyway, I hear that the meta for Chaos is to always skip the five and go straight to the three for a chance at an attribute skill - you know, strength, dexterity, endurance, intelligence, things like that. I heard there was one guy, built like a twig, some kind of wasting disease that murdered his muscle… Anyway, as a gamble his dad got him into an Awakening and he picked Chaos, cause fuck it why not, right? Dude gets carried through an advancement trial, lucks out and hits Strength. Looks like a stiff breeze would knock him over, can benchpress something silly like two or three thousand pounds.”

He waved me off as I was about to comment. “Anyway, if you get offered an attribute skill, you take it. Jack’s ready for you…” He held up a finger, and a moment later a cross between a toothache inducing whine and an electric buzz washed over me. “Now. Best of luck in your trial, and remember.”

He leaned across the table conspiratorially. “Hail Satan, yeah?”

And then he was ushering me out towards my second ever Gate. Jack pushed a large knife into my hand, and in I went.

For a terrifying moment, I was back in the Muse’s Void, and then I was standing on a branch above dark and still waters. The trees above me had no leaves, letting me see a distant, massive moon that hung over a third of the sky.

Everything was achingly clear, so much so I could make out twigs that must have been about a kilometre away, and utterly silent to the points where my heart sounded like thunder in my ears.

That’s when I realised there was no air for me to breath.