Act I

  No, I can’t give up.

  Why would I waste this opportunity?

  I’m in a world of magic damn it! Isn't this what I’ve always wished for?

  “No. . . Maybe when I was in my teens, obsessively wishing for it while I read novels and watch animes, but now?”

  With that question I stood up, wiping the tears with the sleeves of my priest like robes.

  “Alright, I’m in a records room, in some kind of Greek temple, with the doors stopping monsters. . .”

  Or is it only that one door?

  With that thought I started moving, with a lit candle in hand.

  There were three doors in this room, one leads to a monster.

  Then how about the other two?

  Quickly I was infront of one of the doors.

  The art on the stone door shows a man smiling as he did different things.

  From plowing the land, chopping trees, picking apples and is that hey?

  The last image was him laying down on a bundle of yellow with black lines.

  “Hopefully this cult didn’t pay the artist who painted that part.”

  Clink* The door sounded, after I lit the candle near the door.

  Slowly I opened it afraid of another monster, yet the white blotch didn’t appear.

  “It’s a storage closet?”

  The words spilled from my lips as I entered the small well lit room.

  It was cramped, I think only one person could move around freely inside.

  Each side of the room was filled with shelves at the top and baskets and pots and bundles occupied the space below the shelves.

  The shelves were filled with bundled fine cloth and boxes of brushes or different colored inks.

  While the pots and baskets were filled with fruits, dried meats, firewood and flour.

  “So it really is a storage closet.”

  I left the small room, closing it but not unlighting the candle.

  “Sigh. . . Thankfully not every door is dangerous, then how about the last one?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  With those words I made my move, reaching the last door within seconds.

  The art painted in this one, was different from the other doors art, or the murals on the walls.

  For its quality was much higher, as it depicted one image.

  It was of a woman wearing a blindfold and a white hood covering most of her white hair.

  In one hand she held a sword of dull grey pointing down, while the other hand was holding a blazing golden flamed torch.

  “Is she Hestia?”

  Is she Hestia* Is she Hestia* Is she Hestia* Is she Hestia* My voice echoed in every direction

  The magical effect made my hand stop before lighting the candle to open the door.

  “Is saying her name bad?”

  I tried asking the door, without mentioning the name.

  My guess was right, how about. . .

  “I love Hestia.”

  I love Hestia* I love Hestia* I love Hestia* I love Hestia* My voice echoed again.

  “Odd, is her name a kind of spell? Is this magic.”

  I looked around seeing nothing had changed and then moved away from the door.

  “Hestia is a lovely goddess.”

  Hestia is a lovely goddess* Hestia is a lovely goddess* Hestia is a lovely goddess*

  My voice echoed again but only from three directions.

  Nothing came from the direction of the door I was about to open.

  “Augh. . . Is this some kind of test?”

  My thoughts swirled as I looked around me again looking at the murals, remembering something about a maze and white mice.

  Act II

  “Something’s definitely wrong.”

  I said to myself as I laid on an empty wooden table.

  “I feel thirst, and hunger, yet I never felt like I needed to piss or . . . go number two.”

  I looked down again, checking for the fifth time and seeing my regular old stick and stones were still there.

  “And my smell, I’ve been sweating yet I haven’t started smelling like anything.”

  I felt my beard, the hair failing to grow more than a stub because of my south eastern blood and youth.

  “Something’s wrong with me, even with baby powder, which is something I don’t have. I should have smelled like vinegar by this point."

  I looked at another scroll, unlike the others the words were written in orange paint rather than the red or yellow ink.

  [Orders]

  [The Seer of Hestia has spoken, every temple will perform the rite of summoning. Each temple must summon a powerful heroic spirit, once successful each temple must quickly cultivate the spirit to its peak strength before delivering them to the {House of Hestia}, these are your orders, may the Lady be with you.]

  I’ve read the thing countless times, yet it felt like a fake revelation.

  “It can’t be this easy, this shouldn’t be the reason I’m here.”

  I’m no hero.

  With that thought I stood up, without any more fear in my heart.

  As my old fears had already died after the fifth time I cried myself to sleep.

  The door was in front of me again, the Lady of flames, the mother of the Sword, and the protector of the hearth.

  Her honorifics came to mind as I finally learned it after reading dozens and dozens of scrolls.

  Not one was a spell, or even a journal entry explaining if the orders were true or a date, or anything truly important.

  Just letters, and log entries of the things inside the storage closet, in who accepted or gave those sacrifices to the temple, and the rare personal letter.

  Clink* The candle was lit, unlocking the stone door.

  I pulled it open to see a well lit hall, in the middle was a towering statue of Hestia as depicted on the door.

  Infront of her was a blazing golden hearth, with a woman kneeling infront of it.

  Why do I think she was a woman?

  It was because her long silver blonde hair was flowing out of her white hooded robe.

  “Finally, another one had come. . . Please, can you come closer? I can’t see very well.”

  The woman spoke her voice ethereal, as she stood up.

  I was right, she was a woman and beautiful at that, even with the blindfold.

  “That depends, will you hurt me if I come closer?”

  I asked, trying to hide my fear using caution.

  But the best I was able to do was not let the shake of my legs reach my voice.

  The question made her smile, her orange painted lips showing fangs.

  I felt my eyes widen as I noticed her ears were much longer and pointed than that of a human.

  “Why will I hurt something that’s already dead?”

  With those words I tried closing the door, but nothing.

  I couldn't move again, my whole body trembled. Yet it did not move even an inch.

  “Ha ha ha! Heroic Spirit! oh spirit of a hero, why have you come to this dream so weak and frail?”

  The woman spoke, as she took one striding step and then another.

  “Why does your kind keep coming to this old temple?”

  I blinked, as I realized everything appeared differently.

  The smooth well maintained stones had turned cracked, withered and overgrown.

  The fire in the hearth were nothing but embers, the gold stripped leaving bare stone some were even quarried.

  And the goddess Hestia?

  She’s been defaced, the golden torch gone.

  Leaving only a rusted sword laying on her cracked feet.

  Step* Step* Step* I kept trembling as the woman came closer.

  She was so close, I can see how pale and inhuman she was.

  How her white robes were stained with red.

  “Mmm?”

  I felt her cold white lips into mine, my first kiss and its from. . .

  Splat* “AUgh!”

  I felt incredible pain, the confusion vanishing as I looked down to see a slim pale Cadaverous arm digging into my chest.

  “AHh. . .”

  I groaned out as she pulled out her bloody arm, and in her palms laid a beating heart.

  My beating heart. . .

  “See? If you were alive, you should be dead without this thing.”

  My eyes move to her hand, and then my chest, and then at her hand again.

  The pain was blinding, as everything became blurred yet nothing came from my mouth, but air.

  “Poor thing, you still think you're alive don’t you?”

  With those words she walked off, a widow with my heart.

  Thud* I fell on my forearms as I watched her toss my beating heart onto the embering coals of the ruined Hearth.

  After that she turned around.

  The demoness was smiling at me, before walking off towards somewhere I can’t see.