Tale of the Three Sisters

Tale of the Three Sisters is a short moralistic fable written by Ryan Nurse for the role-playing video game Aura of Chaos, in which it is one of a number of in-universe literary works. It chronicles the lives of three sisters; the elder two are remarkably beautiful and constantly belittle the plainer youngest sister, only for their lives to end in misery and tragedy.

Nurse planned the entire story in his head during a trip to Anglia Ruskin University. He wrote it on 15 May 2013 before uploading it to FictionPress on 10 August, making it his first published original work of fiction. The story was later revised and re-posted on 12 May 2015 as part of Project 20:15. At just 654 words (674 for the revised edition), it remains Nurse's shortest-ever published work.

Plot summary
The story follows three unnamed sisters from a small village, who were raised by their mother after their soldier father was killed in action. While all three are beautiful, the elder two sisters are "exceptionally" so, and constantly belittle their younger, less attractive sibling, causing her to loathe herself. Once the three are of marriageable age, the eldest sister travels to the city and marries a rich baron, the middle sister travels to a nearby town and marries a wealthy merchant, while the youngest sister, to the derision of her siblings, reluctantly marries a young farmhand who has fallen in love with her.

The eldest sister moves into the baron's castle, but is treated like a slave by her new husband, much to her disgust. When the baron later realizes that she is infertile, he smothers her with a pillow, dumps her body in the moat, and re-marries. The middle sister, meanwhile, is almost completely ignored by her merchant husband, who spends all his time travelling. She begins an affair with another man, but when the affair is discovered, her husband kicks her out onto the streets and she is branded a whore by the locals. Ultimately, the humiliated woman commits suicide by drowning herself in the river.

The youngest sister, however, lives a long and happy life together with her farmhand husband. Upon learning of her sisters' fates, she comes to realize that true beauty comes from within, and that those with "ugly hearts", like her sisters, will meet "ugly ends".

Within Aura of Chaos
In Aura of Chaos, one of the towns features a pub called the Three Sisters Inn, whose name was inspired by the fable. A man inside the pub will recount the fable to Xeron and Tara if requested. It can also be read in Clauston Library along with many other in-universe works.