1.Divine Encounter
I jolted upright with a gasp, my hands going down to support myself on soft fabric. Upon feeling the softness of that blanket under me, a sense of relief went over me for a moment.
"It was just a dream..." I reassured myself, until I opened my eyes and found myself definitely not in my bedroom. I was on a bed but all around me was what looked like a medieval throne room, the bed dead center on a purple rug that led from the door to the empty throne. All the walls were covered with various depictions of dragons, all in various scenes and colors of scales."The fuck?"
My investigation of my surroundings was interrupted by the sound of doors opening from behind the throne and I turned my attention that way in time to see a beautiful woman wearing a regal purple dress and a headpiece that framed her face step into view. As pretty as she was, to be honest almost like a marble statue, there was something that felt off about her and I couldn't place it at first, and didn't get much time to think before she greeted me.
"Pleased to see that you finally awoke, my chosen" she called out as she approached. "The others did warn me that you mortals are normally pretty frazzled after being plucked up after your deaths but I didn't expect the recovery time you needed"
My curiosity about her hidden oddness vanished in an instant.
"Chosen? Deaths? W-what are you talking about?"I managed to stammer out.
"Oh my, did I leave behind memories when I picked you? I had to create a new body for you but I believed I retrieved all your memories and personality" a concerned look crossed her face for a moment, and I catch a glimpse of something change in her eyes, almost like they became cat-like slits if only for a moment. Upon hearing the comment about new body I also glanced down at myself. "Oh you can't see it yet,chosen, in here you still look like you remember before your little accident. Didn't want to traumatize you too much all at once"
"So... that, that wasn't a dream?"
"Afraid not, little one"
'Little one? I might be short for a guy but she’s only like 5'6" 'I thought to myself then shook my head a bit, trying not to dwell on it as she continued speaking.
"Very brave, what you did, its the reason why I picked you to be my chosen" she smiled a bit.
"Wait if I died, what about Kat? Did I save her?!"
"Oh that's her name? Unfortunately no, your courageous act was done in vain, shrapnel to the heart was a quick end for her" she said nonchalantly, but after glancing at my face, quickly added "Luckily for you, she's Ivra's chosen, you'll be able to meet again if you accept your position as mine."
"Ivra? And you keep talking about chosen, I have no clue what you're talking about" her yanking on my emotions were quickly tiring me at this point. First I'm told that I'm dead then I learned Kat died too and now dangling the possibility of seeing her again in front of me?
"Goddess of Fate of the world you're heading to" the woman responds, matter of factly.
"Hold on, Goddess?"
"Ah, almost forgot... your world's gods have the hands off approach... but yes, Ivra is a Goddess."
"And that means... you're also..." a proud smile spread across her face and she gives a polite bow.
"My followers called me Rissaeth, mother of dragons" once she says this, I immediately pick up on everything that is off about her, her skin was covered in minute scales, her headpiece was actually a pair of curved horns, and her golden reptilian eyes."Apologies for the late introduction, Alex Steele"
"Y-you know my name too"
"Of course, I made sure to learn as much as I could while going through your mind to sculpt a body appealing to your tastes"
"To my tastes?" I asked then quickly realized what else she said "Wait you were reading my mind??"
"You were in shock for several days, and it was a way for me to learn about my potential chosen. Now if you please, get up and follow me" She motioned to follow her as well as she turned to go back the way she came. Not to be left behind I scrambled to my feet to catch up.
"Couldn't you wait and asked me yourself?"
"I had to create your new body, and your friend was already sent out into the world, I imagine you'd want this expedited as much as you could if you take what I'm offering." She answered simply as she led me to a door that was on the wall behind the throne, opening it when we reached it. She then led me down a simple hallway that slowly devolved from clean cut stone to cave walls and floors.
"Where are you taking me?"
"Taking you to see my work" she replied happily, a bit of pride in her voice.
"As in? What?" I asked as we exited the corridor into a large cave chamber. I froze for a moment when I notice the body of a girl laying in the center of the area. Without thinking I rushed over to check on her, quickly taking note that she has a set of large bat-like wings splayed out on either side of her and a reptilian tail coming out from under her medieval commoner clothing. Carefully, I walked around one of her wings to get to her neck to check her pulse. It was slow but it was there. Relieved, I took a moment to check her over but I froze when I noticed how familiar her face was.
"I didn't forsee you liking it this much, Alex" the Goddess laughed as she approached.
"What are you ..." I start to ask then it started to click for me. The pretty girl in front of me, for the most part, looks like if I took the average appearance of all the player characters I made for games I played, albiet with white hair instead of red I normally picked. Regretting my choices of routinely picking female player characters in the moment, I continued:"You didn't..."
The Goddess frowned a bit."Is there an issue with my work? I believed you would appreciate it with how much time you spent looking at faces similar to this one"
"Th-that didn't mean I wanted to look like this myself!" I looked back at the unconscious body in front of me. 'She wants this to be my body??' I thought to myself and cringed a bit when I glanced at the bust size of the new body, cursing myself more at my previous design choices. "I'm a guy a-and I kind of prefer for it to stay that way..."
"Unfortunately, I do not have enough power left at the moment to create another adult body for you" Rissaeth responded flatly.
"What do you mean by that? You're a Goddess!"she glared at me.
"I am a Goddess, that is true, but I'm a goddess that has to pick a chosen from another world out of desperation, I'll have you know" her voice has a slight growl but then she sighed and seemed to calm herself "There's not many of my children left, not many clutches of eggs being laid. You can have this body, or wait up to fifty years to be reborn as a hatchling, or you can move on and I can pick a new chosen."
I tried to pick my next words carefully "I didn't think gods could become desperate, always thought things that are called gods were all powerful and whatnot...why are you so desperate for a chosen...? Because your... children are dying out? Not sure how I can help with that with a female body... I-I'm straight so..."
"One of the reasons yes, but I noticed your preferences when I looked into your mind" she said simply with a knowing look that made embarassment start to rise in me "for female and effeminate males, I wasn't sure which you preferred more so I spent the extra effort to make sure this body is hermaphroditic to allow you more freedom of choice in that area." I immediately felt heat flush in my cheeks.
'Not that you gave me other choice in my body' I thought with a grumble.
"Beyond my own troubles with the population of my kind, this world is heading to disaster soon and each of the gods are picking a chosen before those times come." She continued and kneels next to me "I'm regrettably am not as strong of a Goddess as I used to be, and I'm investing a lot to make sure I have a chosen that will survive. I apologize for misunderstanding your thoughts, I was trying to be proactive and make sure you had a body you seemed to desire. You still have the choices I laid out before you" I glanced at her then back down at the body in front of me.
"Not much of a choice is it?"I joked "you want me out there as soon as possible... why else would you tell me about Kat... fifty years is too long to wait only to be a baby again and I'm sure as hell not moving on so soon..." I sigh. "Fine, what do you want from me before I agree..."
"I only desire that you, at some point have children, it doesn't matter with who or what race, all of your offspring will be full dragons with any of the humanoid races, and when the time comes I request that you participate in the coming times of troubles and do right for the world... I'll assist where I can."
"Fine, I-I'll do it... just give me a mo-" I responded, interrupted halfway through by a sudden shove forward towards the body. I jolted back up right away." What was-" I started to complain but quickly stop when it's a higher pitch and much sweeter voice than I expected, then I noticed the heavy weight anchored to my back. I looked back to find a pair of white-scaled wings blocking much of my vision behind me.
"I know you had a tendency to procrastinate before. Just gave you a bit of a push to speed things up, you did agree..."the Goddess responded, I swear I could hear some smugness in her voice.
"That doesn't mean just shove me into it as soon as I agree!" I tried to cross my arms like I'm used to but quickly felt embarrassed when I felt myself touch my new 'assets' and move my hands to my hips instead. "Goddammit... Kat's going to give me so much shit when she sees me like this..."
"Surely will be an interesting reunion" Rissaeth laughed as she stood. I immediately noticed that she's definitely shorter than before. "That time will come but we have a couple more things to settle here."
"Like...?"
"I'll give you choice of what type of our kind you are, aside from myself, much our kind can breathe a single element and it is usually reflected in our scale color, I left you blank in that regard." She waved her hand and we're suddenly surrounded by ethereal images of dragons of various scale colors. "Take your pick"
"So I do get a choice here" I mumbled to myself as I slowly walked around, examining the images of the dragons. They were all built like the ones I thought of western dragons, but not nearly as big as I expected. Just looking at the torsos, they looked only a little bigger than a Clydesdale horse's. While looking around, I found that I could dismiss the ones I didn't like the look of with a wave and rule out a few of them. Eventually I was left with a crimson one and light blue one.
"Lightning and fire, I see" Rissaeth observed/informed me. I nodded a bit and looked back at her.
"I have to pick only one? What if I like both? I didn't see any purple ones before." I ask and a thoughtful look crossed her face as she approached me. She then waved her hands at the two images towards each other. The two seamlessly blended together, taking attributes of both: the larger size of the red dragon, the spines along the neck of the blue one and the scales blending into a deep purple color.
"I never considered giving the option of hybridization, but this one appears to work. You'll be significantly less compatible with arctic and water dragons if that concerns you"
"Not particularly" I shrugged.
"You'll be able to use the breath of either or blend it together, I should warn you about the dangers of the latter, when fire and lightning spells come together, its often explosive"
"I'll try to be careful" I assured her then raised an eyebrow at her when she seemingly just summoned a hand mirror. "What's that for?"
"To let you have a choice of how your scale colors affects the looks of your polymorphed form" she replied simply and snapped, my perspective immediately shrinking about a foot back down to what I was used to, the weight on my back and hips/tailbone disappearing as well, though that did make the weight on my chest a lot more noticeable. I hesitantly took the mirror from her, embarrassingly aware of my new body again, and looked in it to find that my hair and eyes were now the same violet as the scales I picked.
"N-no no not that, stands out way too much..." I mumbled and instinctively just swiped my hand over the mirror and the reflection changes to light blue hair and red eyes. "Still too much..." I swiped again and end up with more natural red hair but very striking blue eyes. I sigh a bit "of course I have to end up a redhead again... guess I always pick this but it'll have to do... by the way, why does this feel so much like making selections in a game? Like all the actions feel like that with these"
"I do not have an answer for you, assuming these games you talk about were the hundreds of hours that you spent freetime on, its possibly the closest your mind can link to while the accessing magic I gave you access to. Now if you are finished here, I wish to provide you some equipment before I set you loose on the world. Adventurers normally register as a specific class in their guilds, in order to find others who are looking for their particular skills... actually now that I think about it, classes nearly identical to that make believe activity I recall from your memories, the one with the dice and paper sheets."
"Great so that means I get isekei'd into a Dungeons and Dragons kind of world, I think I can work with that..."
"What's an Isekei'd?"
"Uh, don't mind that, just what are the classes?"
"Granted with your current abilities, fighter, barbarian, bloodrager with how you have draconic blood now, as well as sorcerer, though you could fulfill any role, your non-chosen peers may question how you are so strong as a wizard if you choose that"
"Bloodrager...? Sounds familiar, is that between a barbarian and sorcerer..?"
"You are correct, is that your choice?"
"... why not?" I sighed " Always wanted to be strong I guess" I continue, trying to make light of the situation.
"So it shall be" she smiled warmly at me "I'll provide some equipment appropriate for that class from your memories and send you as close to the town that your friend is staying in as I can. I will not be able to contact you for some time, while I rest from this ordeal. "
'Mhmm... Ms. Goddess has to rest... not like you're getting thrown into an unknown world with a new body and all' I thought to myself.
"I'll provide a journal with info to help you at the start and the ability to read and understand the common tongue as if it were your own. Other than that, you are on your own and I wish you luck."
"Wait, you're just going to kick me o-" I managed to get out before she snapped her fingers again and I immediately blacked out.