Struggling out of unconsciousness again, my first thought was to swear extensively at the helmet's system. I ended the mental rant with a grudging appreciation for whatever it did, since I was still alive to swear at it.

Taking in my surroundings, I realised I was in a dimly-lit curved cave, lying on a simple bed with fur blankets. My vision was normal again, so I could see the shadow of a woman against the right wall ahead of me, although her actual body was out of sight around the corner.

I got out of the bed and staggered as I abruptly lost balance. I threw out my hands to save myself from the fall, but ended up on the floor anyway. Only one of my arms had obeyed my command, so I looked to see what was wrong with the other one.

Only to find it wasn't there.

My left arm was missing from about halfway between my shoulder and elbow, and flailing my other hand through the area confirmed that it wasn't just invisible.

"System!" I screeched. "What happened to my arm?!"

User's limb was lost in confrontation with unidentified predator.

~The damn thing ate my arm? Confrontation? What the hell happened to camo mode?!~

I took a breath to calm myself. Hands are a thief's life, and I had just been told I'd lost a crucial part of my arsenal.

~Janus better be able to fix this,~ I thought darkly. Hearing footsteps, I realised the woman's shadow was approaching, with another shadow joining hers. A moment later, the owners of both shadows appeared around the curve of the cave. The man looked completely human; tall, pale skin, black hair, dressed casually in slacks, t-shirt and an open jacket. As he grew closer, I realised he was extremely good-looking, and for some reason my mind began to wonder what he was like in bed.

That train of thought didn't manage to get very far, arrested by the appearance of the woman. Starting from the top, she was normal. Blonde hair, green eyes, curved figure. She had a short tank top where the straps crossed over the opposite shoulder to the side they were attached to, forming a cross below her throat. However, from her waist down, it became quite clear she wasn't a devoted member of the human race. Her lower half consisted of the muscles and scales of a large snake, seamlessly fused into her human torso.

Having reached the foot of the bed, the woman smiled and began speaking. "You're awake! You didn't need very long to rest, considering you had an arm torn off by a kulgar and still defeated it. I hope you don't mind we moved you here to heal up a bit."

"Kulgar?" I asked, unfamiliar with the word. For some reason, a four-eyed sabertoothed panther sprang to mind.

"The thing you fought with earlier," the man elaborated.

~Fight? I didn't fight anything,~ I thought, confused. First the helmet, now these two were saying I had some kind of advanced sleep-walking?

"Allow us to introduce ourselves," the man bowed. "I am Zohral, god of the Noc'lafar, and Anisibon here is, as you can probably guess, god of the lamias."

~Is there some kind of god radar focusing on me? Why are the first people I meet gods?~

"Hey, don't use your race's native name and then use the common one for mine, you make me sound so much less impressive than you," Anisibon pouted.

"Maybe if lamias named themselves something that didn't require advanced tongue mechanics, the rest of us would use the name more often," said Zohral, waving away her concerns. "And before we get distracted," he quickly stated, cutting off the lamia's response, "may we inquire into the name of our wayward young friend?"

"Pi-" I started, before a quick shock of pain stopped me. As I grabbed my head, a message box showed up, floating a little ahead of me.

Caution: world energy analysis indicates possible manipulations concurrent with known name magics.

Advice: Present alternative alias.

~You better not have shocked me for that,~ I mentally threatened it, while trying to recall my fake covers from Earth. Thankfully, the gods seemed to have thought an injury had flared up, and Anisibon moved the side of the bed, putting a hand on my right leg.

“I'm…Olivia,” I said slowly, shaking away the last vestiges of the headache. I realised then that aside from that, my body didn't hurt anywhere else at all.

“Who do I thank for healing me?” I asked, looking between the two. They looked at me confused, before the goddess said, “You healed yourself. Any healing magic we attempted to use on you was deflected, which marks you as a very strange mortal.” Messages from the helmet agreed, telling me it had run healing and enhancement protocols.

“If you don't mind,” Zohral tentatively began, “would you mind telling us how you got here? Most empires set the Wild Lands as off limits, and any authorised people always come in groups.”

I looked at them both, then decided to give a slightly changed account of the fight in Iburn and being swept away, making it appear that I had just happened to be nearby when the fight broke out. I didn't mention the helmet or where I came from originally; no need to give too much information to people I just met.

“-then I ran into the kulgar and, yeah, well, here I am,” I finished, hiding the fact that I actually had no idea what had happened.

“How did you defeat it though? It looked like it was cooked from the inside out,” asked Zohral. I hesitated, silently cursing at him. Thankfully, Anisibon came to the rescue.

“Leave the girl alone Zohral. She would have already told us if she wanted to, don't keep poking.”

He raised his hands in surrender, and the lamia turned back to face me. “You're probably still tired, so I'll give you a quick rundown of where you are and then let you rest, okay?” I nodded, and the goddess waved a table with steaming food into existence.

I began munching on some bread, filling it with egg salad and bacon. Receiving a fish taste, I looked at the meat strips in surprise, but with no warnings from the helmet I decided to continue eating.

“I don't know how different the place is where you came from, so I'll give you the big picture and work down. You're on a planet called Homeppo, with three major continents, and a few island chains and subcontinents. There's quite a few different races, but they tend to mix together, so you don't really get high concentrations anywhere except where they started out. Aside from us, you've got lots of different gods, but only 15 major ones, who are in charge of Aspects.” As Anisibon sat next to me on the bed and talked, Zohral picked at some of the food on the table, nibbling at what looked like a pink grape.

Somehow, even the way he ate was sexy.

I cocked my head at Anisibon’s last sentence. “Aspects?” I queried.

“Parts of life that aren't specific to a race or group, so things like magic, war, knowledge, love, and so on. The reason you're out here in the middle of nowhere is because two of those gods redirected all rifts to non-populated places. They're usually a lot more violent, yours opened and closed without a whisper.”

“They're also the reason we're out here, instead of watching our own people,” commented Zohral, a flash of distaste showing on his sculpted features.

“Anyway,” the lamia stressed, glaring at the other god, “the specific area you came out in is known as the Wild Lands. Several thousand square kilometres of non-civilisation, a paradise for all the endangered and special creatures of the world. Thankfully, you're near one of the borders, so you'll be able to make it to a town a couple of days from here.” The goddess rose to her feet – tail – and moved towards Zohral, shooing him away.

“Now, we’ll leave you to yourself. There's clothes in the corner, since I'm guessing you don't want to stick with those, and if you need anything else we'll be outside.” As they moved out of the cave, I threw a glance to the left to see a few wooden chests and a full length mirror, which I was sure had not been there before.

I turned back to see Anisibon hadn’t left yet. We stared at each other, before she said, “You didn’t seem very surprised to meet gods. Is it a regular occurrence where you come from?”

I gave a small smile. “Let’s just say you weren’t my first.”

She nodded and slid away, scales silent against the cave floor.

I finished eating, sorting out my thoughts in the meantime. I now had some information on where I was, as well as basic theology, and a place where I could wait for Janus without losing any more arms. I briefly worried about Elli, hoping she was okay.

I walked to the clothes chest, noting some dried blood and singed patches on my current outfit. I stripped down along the way, nearly tripping with the trousers, and stood in front of the mirror, planning to check myself for wounds.

The young pale-skinned redhead that greeted my eyes had a disbelieving expression, her long wavy locks of hair reaching midway down her back. Her face showed none of the damage time worked on all people, with its smiling green eyes and tiny dimples; in fact, her body displayed the proud flawless skin of a girl entering college, defying the mere suggestion of a wrinkle.

The toned body was more in line with my memory, sleek muscles covered with just enough fat to form perfect limbs. If not for the obvious product of years of physical maintenance and my undiminished bosom, I would have thought I was celebrating my twentieth birthday again.

~Just what did that machine do to me?~

I looked at myself blankly, taking in the sight. After a few minutes of indulging my narcissism – the side profile was especially good – I realised I couldn’t see the helmet. Since I hadn't taken it off, I scanned the room, and panicked slightly when I didn't spot it. Had one of the gods stolen it without me noticing?

“System?” I ventured, hoping for a response.

Awaiting request…

I threw my head back to look in the mirror. Still no helmet in sight. However, unless I was delusional, I was actually wearing the helmet. I reached up, but both my hand and scalp confirmed that they were only touching each other.

"Where's the helmet?" I wondered aloud.

System has enabled camouflage mode. System apparatus is now non-distinguishable from user body.

It had to be kidding.

Camouflage mode meant camouflage for the helmet?

~No wonder I’m missing an arm, I basically set myself in front of the beast and rang the dinner bell.~

Thinking about it, I remembered that the animal itself was dead and I wasn’t. What had happened when I lost consciousness?

“Helmet, can you tell me what happened after I gave the command for symbiosis?”

System formed complete bond, performing necessary physical repair. User body required enhancement before beginning stage two protocols. Low divines encountered were deemed to be safe in proximity. Time elapsed available for re-experience. Begin from user unconsciousness?

As curious as I was, I was getting cold standing around naked, so I ignored the question and began hunting through the clothes chests. I decided practical over fashion, and managed to find some good trousers after digging deep into the box.

~Don’t know whether it’s because she thinks I’ll like them or she’s a lamia, but there are a lot of dresses in here.~

When I was fully dressed – frustration and anguish repeatedly part of the process as I adjusted to just one arm – I gave the command to the helmet. My vision burst into a kaleidoscope of colour, then resolved itself into a slanted view from the floor of a forest. I flicked my eyes around, stopping at the sight of the four-eyed big cat staring down at me from a tree.