In the end, everyone dies, even mages.
Daja Kisubo walked up to the golden gates of Paradise. As she looked at the golden gates, the living metal on her hand tingled. These gates were made of solid gold. Paradise was starting to look pretty good.
An angel descended from above, and looked Daja in the eye.
"Welcome to Paradise," he said. "I can see you are a goodly soul. You shall be rewarded for your kind heart by being allowed to spend your eternal afterlife in Paradise. Here we have only one rule: don't tread on the ducks."
"O…kay", replied Daja, keeping her face expressionless. "I'm sure I can handle that."
It turns out she couldn't. Upon entering Paradise, Daja saw ducks in every direction. Before long, she stepped on one.
When she woke up the next day, she saw what her punishment was for stepping on the duck. She had been chained to the most hideous man imaginable!
Tris was the next to come to the huge gold gates that lead to Paradise. Humph, she thought as she examined the elaborate entrance, Show-offs.
The angel flew down and gave her the same welcoming spiel that he had given Daja. Tris grunted upon hearing the warning, and strode into Paradise.
She snorted in disgust when she saw all the birds, swarming about the place. She became increasingly irritated about avoiding the ducks as time went on, and eventually blasted one with lightning. It was quite a good anger management method, so she blasted another one for good measure.
It turns out that blasting the ducks with lightning was just as bad as stepping on them. When Tris woke up the next morning, she, like Daja, was chained to an incredibly ugly man.
The next to enter Paradise was Sandry. She examined the intricate design of the golden gate with interest until the angel came down to have a chat with her.
"Here we have only one rule: don't tread on the ducks – or blast them, or – look, just don't touch the ducks, ok?"
"I'll try my best not to", replied Sandry, "thankyou".
She curtsied, and entered Paradise.
And you know what? Sandry was incredibly careful, and did not tread on a single duck all day. Bu when she woke up the next day, she was chained to a man – although he was so very handsome. Sandry blushed, and asked him brightly "So, what happened to you?"
The incredibly handsome man replied "Well, I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck."