The Architect of Silence
The first morning that fell over Virell brought no sunrise. The sky had been shrouded in a gray shroud by Riven's will. There was light, but no brightness; as if the world had vomited all the colors from a painter's palette, leaving only a smudged void behind.
I, Cory, followed three steps behind my master, as always. But even the sound of my own steps now felt foreign to me. As the dust of the Mithril Gates crushed beneath my boots, I saw what had once been the world's most fortified city now transformed into a vast graveyard. No… this was not death. Death carries motion, an end, a cry. What Riven had brought was nothingness.
"Master," I whispered. My voice echoed through that thick silence like shattering glass. "The council building has been cleared. The surviving mages… they are still kneeling. You did not command them to rise."
Riven did not stop. His walk was no longer human—it was the march of a law. His cloak trailed behind him like a piece of night. He gave no answer. He did not need to. His silence spoke louder than any language in the world.
The White Conquest
When we entered the Great Tower, even the heavy smell of paper in the libraries had vanished. Riven ran his hand along a shelf. Thousands of years of history, heroic epics, arcane formulas… all turned white beneath his fingertips. Ink fled from the pages, and words seemed ashamed of their existence.
"Cory," Riven said. His voice did not come from the corners of the room—it came directly from the dark corridors of my mind. "People believe in stories. They think the past and future are shields they can control. But time is nothing more than an empty room. I have come to empty that room."
At the top floor, on the so-called "Throne of Balance," the view was horrifying. Outside, where the banners of seven kingdoms once fluttered, now only tattered pieces of burnt cloth hung. Riven did not sit on the throne. He stood before it, pointing outside with his hand.
"Look," he said. "Do you see fear?"
Below, in the plaza, thousands of wizards and soldiers remained frozen like statues. Some tears slid from their eyes, yet they could not sob. Riven's presence had stripped not only their will but even their ability to suffer.
"They are not afraid, Master," I said, trembling. "They… are gone. Their bodies remain, but their souls are lost in that white void you created."
Riven smiled faintly—a curve of ice with no warmth.
"Correct. Fear is an emotion; emotion is a mark of existence. I have granted them the privilege of nonexistence."
A Colorless World
That afternoon, envoys from the Seven Kingdoms reached the outskirts of Virell. I went to meet them, and some fell from their horses at the sight. The city's once-grand golden towers now looked pale and lifeless, as if made from chalk.
The King of the Wastelands, a rough and loud man, reached for his sword—but recoiled in horror when the hilt turned gray.
"Where is Riven?" he shouted, his voice trembling. "You owe us an explanation! The Sacred Pact—"
I cut him off. In my master's tone, I said, "The Sacred Pact died the day its ink dried. Now there is only one law: the shadow of my master. Enter, and surrender your colors."
As the envoys entered, Riven stood in the center of the library, staring at a massive sphere of energy suspended in the air. The pure substance taken from White Riven now spun in his palm like a tamed pet.
"Kneel," I commanded the envoys.
They did not resist. Riven did not even look at them. His presence consumed all oxygen, all hope. The High Elf representative, setting aside thousands of years of pride, pressed his forehead to the cold ground.
"What will you do to us?" the Elf asked. "Will you destroy the world?"
Riven finally turned to them. His eyes were now twin bottomless pits; within them, there was neither light nor darkness, only an infinite vacuum.
"I will not destroy you," he said. His voice seemed to whisper from all corners of the universe at once. "I will simply… simplify you. Chaos ends. Wars end. Your ideals, religions, kingdoms… all will melt into my silence. I am not a conqueror. I am the blank page at the end of the book."
The Construction of Silence
That night, Riven asked me to climb Virell's highest tower and ring the massive bell.
"But Master," I said, astonished. "The bells are silent. Sounds… cannot exist in your presence."
"Go and strike it, Cory," he ordered.
I climbed the tower, grasped the massive silver clapper, and struck the bell with all my strength. The metallic clang I expected did not come. Instead, each strike spread a wave of silence. With each strike, lights in distant villages dimmed. With each strike, a river's flow slowed. With each strike, the ambition in a human heart dulled a little more.
As the city, the country, the continent fell under Riven's shadow, the world became a vast library. No one spoke, no one fought, no one dreamed. Everyone simply waited.
When Riven finally sat on the deepest wooden throne of the library—now gray by his will—he looked at me.
"Cory," he said, "people always complained about the burden of freedom. Now I have given them the greatest freedom: nothingness."
I took my place beside him. I, too, had become colorless. My cloak gray, my hands pale, my heart a clock beating only with his rhythm. Riven raised his hand and extinguished the last sliver of light suspended in the air.
The room did not turn completely dark. No—the darkness was too simple. The room ceased to exist. Only we remained. And Riven's cold, divine breath.
"The game is over," he whispered from the void. "Now the real story begins. A story that no one can write, that no one can read."
Over Virell, neither wind blew nor birds flew. The world had surrendered to this new reality penned by Caanyr. Riven sat on the throne of silence, staring into eternity. And I, his sole witness, felt in my bones how peaceful—and how terrifying—this void truly was.