They said summitting Bastayne, the King's Sword, was a foolish endeavour. Sailor Kelstern and his expedition accomplish it anyway.
And then on the way back down, Kelstern steps on a rock that was more brittle than it looked, it slides out from under him, and he falls into a crevasse deeper than his banking-house is tall and dies instantly.
And then he's in a location that doesn't seem to have any properties apart from not being the mountain or anywhere else he recognises. There's a complicated mechanism of some sort floating nearby.
Making small talk with the floating clockwork is a guinea pig in a suit. "She's doing quite well, thank you, she loved that book you recommended--ah, here's the decedent."
"I am Sailor Kelstern, of Kelstern and Fost. And I was on Bastayne--no, I was falling down it. Perhaps I am about to discover the truth behind all the tales of what comes after life and death?"
"The full truth will take a few more subjective centuries. You are here to be judged, assigned an afterlife based on your actions so far. Does it sound to you like we are speaking in a language you understand, using words that you are familiar with, at a speaking speed you can follow?"
He would have guessed that one of the very few redeeming qualities of being dead was that the law couldn't catch up to you. Unfortunate.
"Yes, it does. What possible afterlives might I be assigned to?"
"I will permit each of them a sentence or two of description, not to be confused with their opening statements."
The imp smirks. It's a curious red creature, with long trailing horns. The smirk looks natural on its face, and it wears no clothing or jewelry of any kind. This isn't a great case for Hell, and budgetary constraints due to some nonsense in some prophecy-forsaken world mean that ze doesn't have quite as much research support as usual so it's just the last few years that ze has a decent handle on. But there should be enough to keep the decedent out of Heaven, and Ze is still in training: it's a good case to practice on. "If you go to the Hell you have earned through harm to others, you will likely spend the rest of eternity as a footstool, or perhaps a torture device on which other, more important, people are tortured."
"Axis is a place for all who would transact with each other freely and informedly and all who would follow the rules, even when nobody watches, or the spirit of the rules, depending on their preference and any applicable governing expectations and rules. In Axis you would likely(1) continue your business as you have, after a training period."(2)
1: It is somehow deeply clear that the speaker believes that the true probability is underspecified and not worth specifying given informational costs, but likely somewhere in the .6-.9 range
2: In Utopian this is not a particularly unreasonable interpretation of 1-2 sentences.
"Heaven is a paradise founded on cooperation. You can live and learn and build in peace, or take up arms against the forces of evil, with friends and allies by your side either way."
"Nirvana is a place of rest and healing, where people learn to take on new forms and perspectives, grow to become their best selves, and pursue their own visions of Good."
"Very well." A sound like a coin landing is audible a few times. Employing a procedure that technically has a non-finite worst-case length at the start of the trial is a surprisingly useful security procedure. But nothing went unusually long here. "Heaven may begin, followed by Hell, then Axis, with Nirvana finishing. Let's try to get through opening statements without any interruptions."