Cliff of Faith

The Cliff's purpose is very simple. People jump from its edge and into a deep lake located in its base, aiming to dodge the countless sharp rocks below and land safely. If they are lucky, they climb out and are cheered as "true of faith" and daredevils. If they are unlucky, which happens much more often, their bodies join dozens of others below the dark waters.   I can only assume that the recent increase in the Cliff's popularity has to do with the Imperial ban on old practice of trial by combat. People can no longer back their words by taking a sword and killing their opponent (at least legally), so they resort to other ways of intentionally putting their lives in danger. It even has some sort of twisted logic behind it, would a person really take such a risk was it not truly important to them?

It actually seems the Cliff of Faith was used by locals for some other reasons. Often by locals of rather dubious reputation too. The first records of such jumps come from explorers observing the locals jumping in, but here comes an interesting twist. A book I have read mentions seeing a man jump into the lake and never surface back, yet the writer met an eerily similar man in the town just a few days later. The man in question brushed it off as nonsence, but to me that whole story just smells of something sinister.