The monastery was anything but grand. The walls were chipped, the roof was broken, and the floor had tiny splinters that pricked your feet if you were foolish enough to tread on it barefoot. And if summer happened to be a bit harsher than usual, the whole thing could go up in flames, on the account of it being built entirely out of deadwood.

Though, with all that said, it was still my monastery. The tiny two-rowed chapel was mine, and the even smaller bedroom behind it was also mine. The only piece of land I had to my name; my haven in this foreign world.

Today marks my twentieth day in this backwater village at the outskirts of some broken empire. One moment I was walking down the street, minding my own business, and the next, I was here – in this technologically-deprived, barren piece of land, where I shit in buckets, eat nothing but dried jerky, and bath once a month to conserve what little mudded water I had.

What I knew for certain was that I was no longer in my world. It was a memory stored deep into my mind, so deep, in fact, that I could not access it. Stored by whom or what, however, I did not know. The first day I had arrived here, I felt as if my skin did not fit me, but the feeling did not persist for long. After all, it was still my face, my body. I found myself wearing dark grey robes, which – as I found out – are official garb for Holy men. And as any priest or pastor would, I found myself holding a thick, black-covered book, a gospel.

The villagers here – the only literate one out of them at least – found no problems reading it, turning page after page, and citing passages, yet I could not. Not because of its language, no, that I somehow understood, but because every single page looked blank to me, well, all except for Page one. I was hesitant at first. It spoke of witchcraft, hexes, and curses, which sounded like gibberish to me. However, after some practical experimentation, I was hesitant no more.

Normally, I was left alone. I’d sit contemplating what I had done to deserve being kidnapped here. But, as of lately, I was getting more and more visitors.

We were seated on one of the benches in the chapel. Bending my back slightly, I tried sounding as sympathetic as I could and asked, “What ails you, Bert?”

Bert bowed his head, showcasing his thinning head. He was an old man of fifty-something years – a farmer like the rest of the villagers here. “Me head fatha’. Tis’ killin’ me.”

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I nodded sagely. “Anything else, Bert?”

“Nay, fatha’, thank the Gods. Only me head,” he said.

I nodded again. “I can only pray, Bert, you know that. It’s up to the gods to accept my prayers.”

“Aye aye, I know fatha’,” he waved me away. “Let’s pray they do else I'll drive a spike between me eyes.”

I placed my hand on his thinning white hair. “Oh, hear my prayers, oh Mother,” I said aloud. Closing my eyes, I feigned an air of concentration. I didn’t need to pray any further, in fact, I didn’t need to pray at all. The Gods’ help was not necessary. I did not doubt their existence. Oh, they were real, as real as I was, but it was unlikely that they would help, as Bert’s predicament was entirely of my making. 

I counted up to a hundred and opened my eyes again. Old Bert was staring at me, eyes full of expectation. Above his balding head, words floated in the air, visible to none other than me, “Curse of mild ache”.

It took me over a week to gather the ingredients for such a curse: bones, fur, and teeth, harvested from the unending stream of rats, and dozen more similarly disgusting items. I grounded everything into a horrid sticky paste. All that was left was a target, and to select one, an object from, or of great importance to, someone was required. Unfortunately for old Bert, it was a patch of his clothes that I found a couple of days ago, stuck on a sticking-out nail of some empty barrel by the road. And since most villagers here have little to nothing to their names, that sewn-up piece of clothing was very dear to him.

Once the target’s belonging was introduced to the vile mixture, it bubbled and started boiling. The jar it was in became too hot to touch. When it was over, the jar was spotless and the malice had been unleashed. Now, it was time for me to see if this would work or not.

I focused on the words above his head, and whispered in my mind, “Dispel”. It was like I’d taken a punch to the gut, an unexpected, unreserved punch. Thankfully, I was sitting, otherwise, I would’ve fallen headfirst onto the ground. 

Bert noticed my weakened state and held me by the shoulder. “Are you okay, Fatha’?” he asked with genuine concern.

“Yes, yes,” I pressed my back to the hard bench. “I'm just drained from the service.”

He furrowed his brows. A moment later, his eyes widened. Slowly, he brought up his hand and gently touched his forehead. He froze, unbelieving. “By the Gods, it’s gone.” And soon enough, his bewildered gaze fell on me. “Mother’s teemin’ tits, it’s gone. You’re blessed, Fatha’.”

“Do not blasphemy the Gods, Bert,” I admonished. “And you should properly give them your thanks.”

He nodded furiously, with a wide smile on his face. I could hear him mumbling, thanking not just the Mother but all of the gods – the ones he knew of at least. He thanked me, over and over again. I watched as he skipped through the monastery’s door, his lips tugged in a grin. I felt mine doing just the same. I was in a different world, with different people, magic, and limitless potential. Yet I was stuck in a filthy, lifeless wasteland. If I ever wished to leave, I needed knowledge, connections, and most importantly, money. This was the first step to getting out of this hellhole.