The Trial of Tzeentch
There are no straight lines in the Warp.
Reality bled in curves, dreams folded over each other, and cause danced with consequence in an eternal tango of deceit. It was not a place meant to be understood—only endured.
And in the heart of it, he fell.
A body that should have been ash. A soul that should have vanished. Instead, the man once called the Joker plummeted through a sky made of lies, into a spiral of shifting color and whispers.
He landed not with a thud, but a punchline.
A thousand screeching birds exploded around him like confetti. The air laughed. The ground melted.
Joker sat up, brushed glittering ash off his purple coat, and looked around.
"Well… this is new."
He was in a library, or perhaps a cathedral, or a stage—the shape of it refused to settle. Books hovered in midair, bound in flesh and fire. Candles bled ink. Stained glass windows showed wars that hadn't happened yet—and might never.
Before him stood a throne sculpted from burning riddles and mutated bones. Perched atop it was a creature far too large to be real: a towering, two-headed Lord of Change, wings folded like pages in a forbidden book, eyes alight with schemes within schemes.
One head spoke with a voice like a whisper between dying stars.
"You are the first soul in millennia to make us curious."
The other spoke in a child's singsong.
"The joke that broke a god. The punchline that punched back. Tell me, mortal—why do you laugh when everything burns?"
Joker stood, cracked his knuckles, and gave the daemon a grin that had once terrified even Batman.
"Because the fire's funny."
The First Trial Begins
Without a word, the throne crumbled beneath the daemon, and the room folded in on itself like a magician's hat.
Joker was falling again—but this time inward.
When he hit the floor, he was standing.
He blinked.
The maze stretched around him infinitely.
Walls of glass and mirrors, etched in runes and whispers. Every step twisted the corridor. Doors moved when unobserved. Gravity argued with itself.
Behind him, a sign read:
"TRIAL ONE: OUTWIT THE LIE."
He walked.
The first chamber was a circular room filled with mirrors.
Each reflection showed a different version of him.
One wore Batman's cape.
One held a bloody crowbar and cried silently.
One had no face at all.
"Choose," said a voice. "Choose who you could be."
Joker snorted, picked up a chair, and smashed every mirror.
"I don't do what I could. I do what I want."
The maze hissed, pleased.
In the second chamber, he found a chessboard. Life-sized.
On one side: Superman, glowing with divine judgment.
On the other: Joker's own bloated corpse, crowned in gold, flies buzzing.
The pieces were people he'd killed. Every move screamed.
A card lay on the table:
"Win, or be forgotten."
Joker grinned, picked up the black king—and ate it.
"Checkmate, sweetie."
The board melted into sludge.
Next came the Room of Voices.
They spoke in every tongue he had never heard.
"He will betray you."
"They will bind you."
"You were never real."
"Why did Harley leave?"
The walls whispered his worst truths, his quietest regrets.
He danced through them, waltzing with ghosts.
"Takes more than words to break me. I am the punchline."
Eventually, he reached the center.
A wide hall stretched before him—open sky above, stars below, and between, a spiral staircase descending into nothing.
Floating above it: the Lord of Change again, but now wreathed in thunder and revelation.
"Most mortals go mad by now. You? You thrive."
"You call this a trial?" Joker scoffed. "Feels more like an interview."
"Not all pain is agony," the daemon crooned. "Some is… transformative."
It stretched a hand of talons and fire toward him.
"Kneel. Accept the gift of the Architect of Fate. Wield the lies that rewrite truth."
Joker tilted his head.
A moment of silence.
Then—he burst out laughing.
"Magic, huh? I always figured I'd look good in blue."
He knelt.
The daemon touched his forehead.
And point his finger to Joker, suddenly Joker feel something happened to his body.
There something mark on his body goes invisible.
The Mark of Tzeentch
Pain.
Ecstasy.
Insight.
A scream tore from his lips—but it was laughter.
Ideas poured into him like molten silver.
He saw worlds he hadn't been born in. Futures where he ruled. Futures where he died.
He saw timelines like strings. Pulled them. Snapped them. Wove new ones.
And in his hands, he felt it—power.
Unknowable, unstable, insane.
Not granted. Not taught.
Understood.
When it was over, he stood alone in the ruins of the maze.
His eyes burned cerulean. His smile cracked reality. In his palm danced a flickering flame of impossible shape.
A whisper came, not from the daemon, but from the god itself.
"You are the lie that makes kings kneel. Go. Spread my design. Twist the story."
Joker bowed low.
"Thanks, bird-boy. I'll be sure to stir the pot."
He turned toward the horizon, where a palace of velvet and bone waited.
The air was thick with perfume. He could hear music. Screams. Pleasure. Pain.
His next trial.
"Time to get kinky."