The torso that rose up was the biggest I'd seen on a man.If I could call it a man.It would have been thrice the size of a regular man's, well covered in thick armour. The head was just as big, with a ‘Y’ making the space for the eyes, nose and mouth. True to the description Maia gave of him, in place of his eyes were two flames of fire, like twin blazing torches, focused on me alone.The Invincible Soldier had risen.I took a step back as he rose from the sitting position he had assumed in the coffin with steps that were slow and measured, as though he was being vety careful. He soon stood at his full length with his feet still in the coffin, and I could plainly see that my shoulders would only reach up to his waist.His armour was a terrifying thing to behold. It was a well polished metal whose colour I could not easily distinguish in the semi-darkness, tastefully designed to deflect sword strikes with all the curves and edges it had. There were also spikes on its shoulders, wrists

It was a white owl.A great number of birds sing, but it will be rare to call owl hooting ‘singing’ as we know it. Except for this one, which was singing a human song in a language I did not understand.Enthralled by its voice, I turned to go to it when I felt different, a change I had not noticed before. I looked at my body, and there found my answer.All of the metal was gone, and I stood in the semi-nude, wearing nothing but a white loincloth. The joy I felt at having my body back touched only a few things I had felt before, and I touched myself, exploring all I had missed since that day that I found my curse. The warmth of my skin, a welcome change from the cold metal that I had previously owned. The tiny hair on my arms. The lean, visible muscles that stood out on my arms and legs, the curves to them aesthetically pleasing.And my face…The burnt half of my place was back, and I had no mask on half my face to hide my shame. It was the same with the hair on my head, now back to be

Now left on my own, I followed the path I had come through, walking barefoot. My instincts — most probably the one the woman spoke of — made me walk on tiptoe and crouch low in the grass, carefully watching for the animal. I also tried to look at the grass for anything it could have left behind. Dung. A footprint.I came upon a bit of its dung and followed the footprints, hard as they were to track because of the grass. I soon found myself wishing for a hunting dog that could help me track the animal, and then went straight to wondering why I wished for a dog. I wasn't a big fan of dogs, finding them more aggressive than my preferred cats, and could only bear to tolerate them around me.Without one, however, I continued to seek.Hours passed without me finding it, and again, I relied on my instinct — which made me miss Maia's guiding voice for the first time since I found myself here — to think of hiding near the spring. Deer were not like my camel who could go without a drink for da

My mind hung between joy and sorrow over this victory.I had come to the end of Level 2, with victory, and it would all be complete the moment I looted this tomb and stripped it of its treasures. I had fought against all odds, travelled 310 km through the desert, moved with Sand Demons as travelling companions, defeated an Invincible Soldier, and been kissed by a goddess.That last part was where my sorrow lay.In the time when I was snatched up from the tomb and taken to that garden where there was only joy, I found no reason to feel anything that would hurt me. My body had gone back to being human and able to feel the breeze that swept the earth, and my face needed no mask to hide the burns that turned half of it into a twisted, scarred mass. I could run and feel like me, and live. Until now, where I found myself snatched back to my new reality, the man Hades’s tricks forced me to be.The human, animate hands that had made the bow and arrow were gone, like in a dream, as what held

The path to Corynthe was surprisingly smooth, at first.For a large part of the two days I spent travelling on the road, I kept thinking about which was the hardest through my experiences so far, and that position had to be reserved for my passage through Odesso — that evil, god forsaken, abandoned place that it was. Without the Sand Demons, who I was much tempted to call to my side once again, I spoke to Maia when I needed to talk, as being quiet without anyone to talk to while I travelled made everything far more burdensome and stressful. However, for the whole of the first twenty-four hours and the ones I spent sleeping, I was at peace. I fought no strange beasts, fell victim to no traps, and faced no riddles. It would take the evening of the second day of my departure to spring up the first surprise.I had travelled for hours that day, when in the distance and for the second time during all my travels in this desert, I saw green — in a thick dense forest whose trees were closely