I managed to secure myself a room at the inn with no mentionable hassle (I was lucky to have enough coin cobbled together from the cult’s corpses), and retired to a simple room for the night after taking a simple meal of bread, stew, and ale. The room was sparsely furnished, but there was one furnishing that caught my eye the moment I entered the room: a mirror.

Finally, a chance to examine my appearance. I was traveling about in a body I had no knowledge of - was I handsome? Ugly? Intimidating? What color were my eyes? Did I have any interesting scars? As I stood before the mirror, all these questions were answered.

My face was… somewhere between plain and handsome, I suppose. Not so pleasing as to be eye catching, but more symmetrical and square than your average John. Were I to place my apparent age, I’d say late twenties? Maybe a youthful early thirty. I had green eyes, and my hair was brown, just barely too short for me to have noticed it without a mirror, and currently unstyled and a bit shaggy, though I had doubts whether that was my past preference or just a result of whatever happened to me with the Doom Cult. A short beard adorned my face, and if it weren’t for the gate guard recognizing me at first glance I’d have questioned that too.

I had no scars to speak of, at least on my face. That thought actually led to another, and before I knew it I had undressed to examine the body beneath my clothes. Here, there were a few scars, though all were faded and smooth, the trademark sign of magical healing.

My body, itself, was not particularly athletic. Oh, I definitely hadn’t led a sedentary life before this, but there was little muscle on my frame, giving me a wiry build. I was lucky to be only five foot eight, as a taller height might have made me look gangly.

But there was a greater discovery waiting upon my body. All along both arms coiled blue tattoos. They were jagged and erratic, but mirrored across my body, and appeared to snake up my arms to meet in an ornate design on my back. I couldn’t tell exactly what the back tattoo looked like without a second mirror, but it dominated the top third of my back.

It was a curious tattoo, one that seemed to almost shimmer in the light. Magic, I decided, something my past self had placed there for some reason now lost to amnesia. I could feel some sort of connection to the tattoos, but was unable to make anything of it. Shrugging, I moved towards the simple bed and lay down.

I needed to plan for tomorrow, figure out what I needed to buy and where I wanted to go, but my body had other ideas. Despite being awake for only half the day, fatigue washed over me like a wave over a crab, and within seconds of laying my head down I was asleep.

--

I awoke to a burning smell. I knew the smell was from something burning, though what the fuel was I couldn’t place, though something tickled at the back of my mind. Upon sitting up, I realized that I would need more physical exertion before gaining any form of answer to my questions, as I appeared to be at the bottom of a hole. It was an odd shaped hole, reaching out from the center as if a multi-limbed star. The hole was not particularly deep, though, and upon standing the ground was at my waist height, meaning I got a perfect view of the destruction beyond.

The world in my immediate vicinity appeared to have been smote by some angry god. The very dirt was charred black, let alone the benches and other furniture nearby.

The shocking visage somehow jarred my memory and the events of the last day came flooding back. What? I was back at the cultist’s lair? How? Had I traveled back in time? Was I stuck in some sort of loop? Or was-

“This is a dream,” the answer came in the form of a melodic voice from behind. I spun in the hole, looking towards the altar. There, atop it, sat a woman of such enchanting beauty that words literally failed me at that moment. Imagine, if you will, the most perfect woman you could possibly think of. Now take that imaginary woman, place an imaginary sack over her head, and toss her into the imaginary river because she wouldn’t even begin to touch the same realm of beauty as the woman before me. This woman was so beautiful, that she had somehow inverted the concept of attraction - she was so incredibly gorgeous, that I felt no desire to approach, as if by encroaching any further upon her visage I might stain that beauty with my imperfection.

Now, poetic ramblings on her beauty aside, I am ashamed to admit that I had at this point completely forgotten anything that was going on before this very moment. Forgive me, for despite my intelligence, I am male - we all have some defective wiring up there that just short circuits with certain stimuli.

The gorgeous being before me giggled at my slack jawed stare, then snapped her fingers, and suddenly it was as if a pressure had been lifted from my mind, freeing some of my faculties. Indeed, she was still a perfect beauty, but something had been taken away, or hidden. She was still gorgeous, but no longer was she divine.

Oh shit.

Is that what this is?

“Indeed, you have the right of it,” the woman intoned. “I am a Goddess. One of the Triumvirate, in fact. Oh, those are the three highest Gods, in case your amnesia stole that away as well.”

I was kneeling on the floor at this point. A GODDESS visiting me in my dreams?!? Not to think ill of her, but that meant a great many things, possibly, and all those things would only further complicate my situation. Unless-

“I am afraid not. Your memories are, sadly, lost forever, as the manner in which they were taken prohibits their return. But I am getting ahead of myself. All that will be explained.” She rose from the altar, and suddenly we were no longer in the cult’s lair, we were in a throne room, and I was standing once more. The throne was ornate, made of silver and gold, and bedecked in cloud motifs. It was then that I noticed her dress had changed. Gone was… whatever it had been before (I was distracted!), replaced by a regal, billowing robe, that seemed to end in literal puffs of cloud. Lightning and droplets of water streak intermittently down is pitch black fabric. And low cut of the neck, OH! I had to summon all my will to tear my eyes from that cleavage.

The Goddess approached me, and I froze, stock still, uncertain what she intended. She reached an arm up to one of my arms, stopping her hand just shy of my arm that I was just now noticing was bare. She moved around me, hand hovering just above my tattoos.

“Hmm,” she hummed, like an artisan examining their work. “Yes, I think it turned out quite nicely.” After appearing on my other side, she nodded, then returned to her throne, relaxing back upon it. “Now, I’m sure you have many questions, but keeping a link open, even to a champion such as yourself, is a costly expenditure, so I’m afraid this will have to be more a lecture than a question and answer session. Understood?”

I nodded my head.

“Good,” she smiled. “Alright, so let’s begin with a little bit of backstory, to catch you up to speed. You, a wizard of the ninth circle, decided to singlehandedly wipe a cult off the face of the planet for some reason. No, I don’t know why, I’m afraid I wasn’t paying much attention to you before you attacked the cult.

“Anyways, you attacked the cult, and succeeded in killing their high priest, but his remaining disciples managed to knock you out. Keeping you magically unconscious, they performed a ritual to their dark god, Olto Skila. They then sought to use you as a sacrifice, plunging a dagger into your heart. As you lay dying, however, a powerful Contingency spell you had placed upon your body activated, triggering a casting of the Open Greater Pact spell.

“Now, since you’ve lost all memories related to magic, that spell name likely means nothing to you. Indeed, it would mean nothing to anyone other than the old you, as it was a custom made ritual you had created at some point. I only know the details because I spoke to Caim, God of Magic, whilst waiting for you to sleep. What the Open Greater Pact spell does is offer some form of payment to a Greater being of unspecified nature. The first Greater being to accept the offered payment must then perform a boon of equal value to you. This means anything from a Demon Lord to a Void Father could have answered your call. You’re very lucky I was paying attention, though, and had a vested interest in stopping the Doom Cult. So, I took your payment and delivered righteous Divine judgement upon those assembled, sparing you and healing your wounds.

“But the problem is thus: you set up this Contingency to cast when you were defenseless, and being the intelligent Wizard you were, determined that it would be highly likely for you to have nothing left on your body in such a state that you could offer up as payment.

“So you offered up the one thing you would always have possession of: Knowledge.”

I was gaping at this point. “That means… I did this to myself?” I said in disbelief. “I caused my own amnesia?!”

“Indeed,” the Goddess nodded. “You likely weren’t certain what knowledge would be taken from you, but it was your own spell that caused your current predicament. It did, however, succeed in being the last resort spell you needed it to be, though. Were it not for Open Greater Pact, you would not even be breathing right now.

“Regardless, upon healing you, I realized just what was happening, and, not wanting your reward for ridding the world of such an evil to be the loss of all your talents, decided to bless you with my favor.” She gestured towards my arms, causing me to look down at the tattoos.

Suddenly the Goddess frowned, and for a split second I panicked as I started to fear I had done something to displease her. “But,” she continued, “your skill for wizardry does not appear to extend to sorcery. So, I’ve decided to give you a small little boost.” She motioned with her hand, and suddenly my own hands were ablaze with pain. Blue light covered them, seeming to coalesce atop them, but my mind barely registered that over the burning agony that existed at the end of my forearms. I huddled down on the ground, clutching them to me, but the pain only intensified.

And then it was gone, as quick as it came. Huffing, trying to somehow catch my breath inside a dream, I looked down at my hands. Nothing had changed on my palms, but on the back of both hands there were new tattoos, a single rune just below the major knuckle on each finger. They were the same blue as the tattoos upon my arms and back.

“There, it is done. You should now have more ease when attempting to summon the font of sorcery I have blessed you with. Also, I would recommend you keep the ritual knife you found - the fact that it took your life once before ties it strongly to your being. It should function as an excellent focus for your spellcasting.

“Now, finally, we come to the future. I do not wish to use you as a pawn, champion, however, you are now a bit of a responsibility of mine, so I would like to offer you some advice. Three days west there is a major town by the name of Platston. There, you will find a gathering of adventurers in the tavern, five nights hence. They could use your help, and you there’s, should you so desire it.”

Suddenly, the dream seemed to ripple, and the Goddess looked up. “Ah, it appears time is up.” She started moving back towards the throne.

“Wait!” I cried, suddenly finding the courage to speak. “My Goddess, what might your champion call you?!”

“Oh,” she said, her back still to me, “I suppose I did forget introductions. I am the Goddess of the sky, weather, and the elements, the third seat of the Triumvirate, Auriel.” She took her seat upon her throne and looked back at me, somehow unaffected by the tremors that were making me sway about the room. A mysterious smile lit upon her face, and she dropped a final bombshell with her parting words, “I wish you good luck, my champion, for, as a divine channeller, you will desperately need it.”

The dream collapsed.