Searing, spreading pain, lanced through me. My purple scrubs blotted in my blood and the little tissues not blown through me. That bastard and his oversized pistol weren't phased in the slightest. I saw him smile as the last bits of light trickled out of my eyes. Today had been such a nice day too. The kids in pediatrics all felt much better, especially since the doctors had let me bring in a treat from the store. That eighteen-year-old guy came by and found out he was in remission after chemo in time for college.

     As if I was in a movie, I suddenly had a jump cut to a foggy lavender-colored room. In front of me were three beings. I couldn't make them out fully from the light behind them and the fog. Their voices had a soft warmth that brightened the room and dispelled the cold in the air. When my focus fell onto them again they began to talk again, to me instead. The red light spoke up first, causing that memory to flash through my head and make me shudder, "I am Egilhard of the Iron Skills." Then the blue one sang to me, with a tone of voice that made me feel like I just fell into a recliner, "You may call me Huberta. My full title is Huberta the Bible." The final voice made me feel like I could emotionally connect with a cat when it lay down in a window and looked to the sun, "Irmalinda, young one. I bear the title of the Effusiveness. Glad to see you still whole after that horrible trauma." She confused me because I had a hole in my torso. I looked down, but my body wasn't exactly normal nor what most would call a body more of an ethereal stream.

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     I started to feel a bit woozy and started to lose focus. Egil groaned trying to speed up whatever this was, "Sorry for this meeting being so short but we are being interrupted some. As thanks for your actions in life and whom you saved, we are bequeathing some boons in return for you getting to live out your dreams." Huberta chimed in as I felt my eyes fluttering confused, "The ruins you will awake in will be your home, sanctuary, and leash. There is a basement you can sleep and work in. The more you rebuild and expand the ruins, The more your boons will grow. I hope you will enjoy learning magic."

     I sat up and my eyes finally opened. Shaking my head a bit, I looked over the space I was in seeing a lot of greens and greys slowly coming into sight. Coughing like I was just in a burning home, I started to catch a whiff of the greenery around me. The forest seemed to swaddle around the stonework I saw around me. The only large contrast was a gap exposing a large plain and the road that bisected the forest and the grasslands. My body felt like I had woken up like any other day in my bed, despite the rocks or plaster that seemed to be crumbling off of it. Brushing myself off, I noticed that my skin seemed to have changed mysteriously. It took on a hue of blue lightly mottled like freckles and moles that were purple. Feeling a bit exposed to the sun, fortunately, those scrubs I remembered were still on me, I began to poke around the ruins with curiosity.