The graveyard I stood in was a strange place. I could hear the distant sounds of undead shambling about but I couldn’t actually see any in the distance. At the same time thanks to my natural ability to earthbend I could feel the imperfections in the earth beneath me and I could sense the holes that had been dug under me to place caskets. 

Inside of the caskets slept undead beings whose minds I could faintly sense thanks to my powerful psychic abilities. If I wanted to, I could have easily reached out to their minds by fusing the powers of the essence of the dreamer and the essence of the composite psionic. 

In front of me was the potent goddess of death, dreams, and the undead named Dhakepra. She was an ethereally beautiful woman who floated just above the ground and stared at me curiously, her gaseous eyes filled with questions that only grew in number as she studied me. 

“Little one… I came here wanting to discuss an alliance, but I can sense the mysteries you radiate.” She stated, softly. I looked at her blankly and decided to feign ignorance for now. 

“I… I do not know where I am. I apologize, ma’am, but even this form is not my own.” I told her, gently. As I spoke I coated my words in a silent application of the powerful “Deception” divine word that I had elected to grant myself mastery over as part of my initial powerset. I currently stood in front of the goddess in my “Human” form, though I wore the grab of the humans of Kaldgrim.

As I spoke I sensed her confusion, and then her quiet skepticism, in response to my own words. She was smart and thoughtful, but for not the first time since I had begun my journey the power of charisma proved its worth when the goddess’s skepticism turned to quiet acceptance of the “truth” of my words. 

The truth of the matter was that she was sensing similarities between her and I. We were both gods of death, undeath, and other, related domains. She could faintly sense those kinds of similarities, but since it was unheard of for another divinity to be the figure isekaied to this world to become a Greater Dragon no one would suspect my true nature this early without some sort of advanced warning.

She had, for the moment anyway, internally accepted that I was being truthful. When her expression softened, so did mine even while I remained a bit cynical about her.

I had complex thoughts on each of the divinities that held influence over the people of this world. Even my actual ally, the goddess Asihlliel, was someone who I wasn’t exclusively fond of. The elves she created had spent eons suffering in this world, detached from her, and even though I was asleep I still had access to my more intriguing powers such as my “Domain-Sense”. 

I was aware of events occurring in all three of the worlds I was in. Even in my unconscious state nothing could decouple me from my domains, which was itself a sign of my divinity. A part of “Domain-Sense” was the ability to peer into the past through the vast array of notifications one who possessed “Domain-Sense” would continually get. By doing that I could see how elves were suffering thanks to the litany of domains that I possessed, which included death. 

A part of my mind, the very same part that studied my powers, had kept an obsessive eye on the notifications I got that were related to “Domain-Sense”. That allowed me to be up to date on a variety of changes that were occurring throughout the planet, throughout Encanto, and throughout Earth. 

That part of my mind was also gaining an understanding of the past by sifting through what I knew thanks to “Domain-Sense”, the essence of the nexus, and the essence of the tree of knowledge. Putting everything together was quite helpful for me, and made it so that my understanding of the world was as adaptive and as significant as I was.

For now I just wanted to make contact with these entities and do my best to avoid alienating any of them. I could be less than impressive to them, so long as I didn’t actively antagonize any of them. I had already done that with Malgoroth and Asihlliel, I still needed to do it with Ordin and Dhakepra. 

The goddess of death took a beat to more fully size me up. When she was done she quietly sighed and looked at me as if I were her most problematic student and she was an especially strict teacher. 

“I… apologize for the rushed nature of this introduction, oh strange dragon-child. That said I have pressing matters to attend to. Allow me to briskly walk through what I need to tell you.” She told me, urgently. 

“Little one… I am the goddess of death and the undead, Dhakepra. I once played a vital role in the pantheon of the people of Ixtacotak, but the age of gods has come to an end there. Now I live over and influence, a little bit anyway, the continent of Kaldgrim.” The goddess explained, her voice a blur as she rushed this practiced prose. 

“Like all of the other gods who’ve surely approached you by now I seek to better understand you and see if we might help each other.” The goddess uttered, the look on her face slowly shifting as she spoke.

“I have come with a pact that I intend to leave here with you. One that will outline various quests for you to fulfill to win my favor and earn the boons I give to my champions. I seek to protect my worshipers and reestablish the religion devoted to me that once earned me great amounts of faith.” The goddess began, smiling as she sadly recalled better times for herself.  

“I would like to do this with your help, so as to give the world greater reason to take my warnings seriously since my realm is most frequented by oracles who could answer the question. As a preliminary test, I would like for you to someday come to Kaldgrim, and for you to slay the residents of Farnheim. Farnheim is the biggest village that worships Kaldgrim’s pantheon. They are one of the reasons why faith in me was driven to the point of near extinction.” The mighty goddess told me, the smile on her face slowly becoming more bloodthirsty as she spoke.

“My reward for you, if you do this task is a buff to your ‘Animate Dead’ spell. It can allow you to summon three spectral shades of anyone who you cast ‘Animate Dead’ on. These shades are equal in power to the corporeal undead the spell creates, they just look different from them. This spell is perfect for anyone who becomes one of my champions, as it allows even a lone necromancer to raise armies with ease.” The goddess told me, clearly bragging about her spell.

As she revealed the nature of her boon I felt the power seeping into me. Knowing that it had just become mine put a calm smile on my face but didn’t keep me from initiating more positive interactions with Dhakepra. I didn’t want to alienate her. 

“Andrew… Little Dragon, please help me. Lend me your aid in my quest to return to my former power. If you do I shall see to it that you are rightfully rewarded for your aid. All you must do is fulfill the quests that I assign.” Dhakepra uttered, before beginning to smile proudly at me. 

“That spell is only the beginning of what I can offer you. I trust you to at least think about what to do, thoughtfully and safely.” She uttered, mostly to reassure herself that she had things to offer me.

“For now… I hope to hear good things from, and about, you in the days, months, and even decades to come. Until we next have cause to meet, if you need me I shall be but a prayer away.” The goddess told me, as she began to vanish from view.

The other “Me” stood atop a glacier-like divine realm. Off in the distance, I could see a grand hall not dissimilar from what people native to my Earth and time thought that Vikings would have met and eaten in. The mead hall’s boundaries were lined with torches that were lit to provide faint illumination for anyone seeking them out. 

In front of me stood a gigantic creature made out of snow and holding an axe constructed from the very same thing that he had been constructed out of. He smiled at me as he sized me up. 

“Hail Dragon! My name is Ordin. You look like a keen sort. Depending on whose wishes you responded to it is possible you may already know who I am. Be they my friends, or my foes, everyone has heard of my name in some form or another.” The deity claimed, confidently. The god of strength, warfare, and winter was chatting with me. In some ways that excited me, while in others it terrified me.

“I am happy to be able to stand here in person, relatively speaking, and to make contact with you. You see, you did me a service.” The gigantic figure told me. There was a warm joy and genuine happiness in his voice. 

He also had a certain… difficult to describe presence which made it easy to stand in front of him. It was the opposite kind of attitude one might expect from a god or at least a god like the ones in myths from my world. 

“I owe you… Well, something to be sure. My daughter… She lives, a true life, because of you.” The deity told me, as a single tear formed in one of his ice-white eyes. 

“While I do not know the exact specifics of what occurred while you were recovering from being ejected by the Ur-Wyrm, I know enough. Somehow, one of the wishes you granted saved my daughter, who herself prevented the continent of Keldgrim from becoming the stomping grounds of a nightmarish tyrant, even though she sacrificed herself to do so.” The giant god confessed, a stern, unhappy look on his face. He had an incredibly expressive nature!  

“This tyrant poisoned her. With her dying breath, she hit my daughter, using a powerful, poisonous breath weapon, and damn near killed my daughter on the spot. But my child took after her old man and stayed alive until I could place her in a pillar of ice to allow her to fight off the poison on her own. She kept fighting but couldn’t win until you granted some wish that allowed the Kaldgrinians to become empowered by the faith people put in their stories... Now she is free, at last…” Ordin told me, honestly laying his cards on the table as it were. 

“My daughter is named Yngvild, and I suspect that in time your paths will cross, Andrew. And… Thank you. I love my daughter, and I will not soon forget the act of kindness you did in rescuing her. She has prayed to me and she is grateful to you for your act of kindness.” He told me with a grin on his face. And then he sighed. 

“Anyways, now that I told you about that… I, like many other gods surely, have come to allow you to peer at a pact you could make with me. I seek to suss out your intentions for the world you have just arrived in, and determine if we are compatible. From there… We could talk more if our interests align.” The deity told me, straight-forwardly. I chuckled at this and nodded with a warm grin on my face. 

“I can appreciate your honesty.” I began, speaking for the first time since he began to talk to me. He let out a hearty laugh and grinned at me, his own wolfish smile a childish, playful one. 

“Andrew, I desire to bring about Voldsdag, the end of the world. On Voldsdag the Enemy, the very creature who shall cause this apocalypse, shall exit its prison, which has lasted for millennia. When they escape they shall attempt to bring about the ending of all life in this world, before moving onto other planets with alien civilizations in this universe to take out.” Ordin uttered, almost too enthusiastic about what was being discussed here. 

“What I seek from you is that you shall take no actions to prevent or delay the arrival of the end-times. I WANT to hurl my spear at The Enemy, and get into a fight that either save the world or ceases delaying its inevitable slaying of all life on Elderia.” Ordin told me, his eyes widening as he imagined fighting some titanic world-slaying beast. 

“If you fulfill my quest, or at least as long as you see it not violated given its nature as an ongoing quest, you’ll be able to passively exert truly divine strength. The kind that can punch through underwater mountain ranges.” The god assured me, his eyes filling with bright light as he recalled countless battles where his strength gave him the power to overcome his foes. 

“I am a simple man my friend. What I desire is strength, and to see the world prepare for the end of days. Voldsdag is the time of tests, the day we either rise or fall, and I would see it occur at this very hour if I could. But truthfully… The humanoid races of Elderia are weak and would fail if the end of days happened at this moment. So I challenge my believers to themselves challenge and compete against the worshipers of other gods. To toughen them up. So that one day, when The Enemy failed there could be a future where humanoids and gods together stood over our hated foe.” The god told me, beginning to rant at me. 

“Other gods may hate me, my worshippers are barely tolerated in the few places they openly can practice my worship, but I have a goal. I’m not doing this to be malicious. I’m doing this for the betterment of the world.” He told me with a zealous, bloodlust-filled look in his eyes. He truly believed what he was saying. And then he seemed to blink in and out of existence for a few moments. As he did he scowled. 

“Ahh fuck. It looks like my time is running out. I… Again, thank you for aiding Yngvild. Regardless of whether or not you chose to come to my faction, so long as you do not oppose us, we will never be foes.” The deity said, with a broad grin on his face. He stepped forward and proceeded to slap my back with some real force. The main thing it did was cause me to momentarily be lifted up off the floor, due to the force of the deity’s slap. I groaned in annoyance at this, which interrupted my host’s train of thought. 

“Think about my words Andrew… Think about them!” Ordin told me as he completely vanished. A split second after he vanished I felt the landscape around me begin to flicker as well. And then the other ones began to blink in and out of reality. 

I chuckled as I realized that this likely meant that I was about to wake up for the first time in days. And during all of this time, my body had been changing ever so slightly! Now it was almost time to return to the world of the living.