"Hello? Oh, oh dear. Please wake up. I know my memory editing skills are rusty, but surely you're intact. Hello?"
The soft, concerned words floated from down a long hallway, from across a chasm, a world over, or somewhere even farther. They bounced around in the recesses of her mind, and Zoey stirred.
Or tried to.
"Oh," the soft exclamation of surprise came. "That's it, you'll be fine." A series of gentle pats on her cheek, which Zoey only half felt. "Come on, now. What's a little magical brain surgery, and dimensional travel? You're a tough cookie. Why do you think I chose you?"
Zoey's head lolled to the side, managing some miniscule form of movement, but still unable to open her eyes. She struggled from the fugue like a woman clawing from a pit of tar. The haze clung to her in sticky black strands, yanking her down as she tried desperately to pull herself to consciousness.
Several more pats on her cheek, sharper this time. Enough to leave a sting. "Up and at 'em. We've things to discuss, sweetheart, and I'm a busy goddess."
The words, and her stinging cheek, acted as the catalyst she needed. Zoey groaned, and her eyes fluttered open.
She stared into the warm, smiling face of an angel.
"There you are," the achingly beautiful woman said, relief plain on her face. "Had me worried for a second, if I'm being honest."
Even if Zoey hadn't woken from what felt like a hundred-year nap, she wouldn't have managed a more eloquent response than what stumbled out of her mouth.
"What?"
Enormous, white-feathered wings folded behind the woman's back, as if her form, and dress, hadn't been ethereal enough. Her inhumanity laid in plain sight, and Zoey meant that in the most flattering way possible. Humans had flaws. The creature in front of her did not. A flowing dress of diaphanous fabric draped from her shoulders and hips, so thin the woman might as well have been naked. Zoey could see everything. She might've blushed if not for how she stared dumbly, her brain failing to understand, even in part, what she was seeing.
"I realize you're disoriented," the woman said, "but that's to be expected, so please don't worry. Mortals aren't built for interdimensional travel. I lent you some of my essence ... but mortals aren't meant for that, either." A laugh, light and airy, which stole Zoey's breath, as everything about the woman did. "Trading big problems for smaller ones. What's the life of the divine, if not that?"
"What?" Zoey repeated. She didn't stutter this time, at least, though she would have preferred to come off marginally more composed. She tried again. "Where am I? Who are you?" Zoey looked around, tearing her gaze from the heavenly being in front of her, an action that burned an inexplicable instinct inside her, like she'd performed a great blasphemy for doing so.
It took a second to place where she was: somewhere she hadn't been in forever. By the nostalgic plastic red chairs and single-unit wooden desks with cubbies underneath, she'd ended up at Riverwood Elementary. Miss Paulson's 3rd grade science class, to be specific, identified by the back wall, where a diagram of the solar system expanded outward, each planet neatly labeled and sloppily drawn by her classmates. Zoey had been the one responsible for Mars. Being generous to herself, it was only mildly worse than the rest.
"The name I was given," the woman said, surprising Zoey, who had been briefly startled from where she'd woken at, "is Ephythithys. But Ephy is fine, since I realize the former's a mouthful." She smiled. "For your first question ... I'm not sure. This place came from your memories." She tapped a slim finger against her lips, looking around the room. "Somewhere important to you, I assume."

YOU ARE READING
This Ascent to Divinity is Lewder than Expected (A Futa LitRPG)
FantasyLevels. Skills. Dungeons. As a nineteen year old living in modern society, these are terms Zoey is aware of. But had she ever expected to experience these videogame abstractions in the literal sense? To struggle through monster-infested realms, ea...