The air in the cave was thick with the scent of damp earth and the faint, metallic tang of blood. Diana watched the steady rise and fall of your chest, a fragile rhythm in the oppressive silence of the Wild Isle. Circe’s warning echoed in her mind—a great sacrifice—but the conviction in her own heart was louder. You, a lost soul from another world, was not meant for this hell. Your arrival was a sign, the first test of the destiny Circe had always whispered about.

That night, as you and Circe slept, Diana took the obsidian blade she used for hunting. Her resolve was a cold, hard stone in her gut, heavier than any fear. She did not hesitate. The pain was a white-hot explosion, a silent scream that tore through her entire being, but she muffled it against her own shoulder. The sacrifice was not just an arm; it was a piece of her innocence, offered freely on the altar of a hope she barely understood.

The ritual was a tempest of ancient words and swirling, sickly light. Circe, her face a mask of anguish and awe, guided the magic as Diana channeled her agony into power. They sent you into the vortex, your form dissolving into a shower of golden sparks that shot upward, toward a concept called ‘home.’ Exhaustion and blood loss dragged Diana into unconsciousness before she could see if it worked.

She awoke to the cool, spectral sensation of a new limb. Circe had fashioned an arm of solidified moonlight and will, a magical construct that obeyed her thoughts. It was beautiful and strange, a constant reminder of the price paid. A fragile peace settled over their cave. The deed was done.

Until the world twisted.

It began as a pull, a wrongness in the fabric of the Isle itself. The same vortex that had consumed you erupted again in the center of their cave, but this time, it reached for her. Circe’s cry of alarm was swallowed by the howling void. There was no time to fight, no ritual to control it. The magic, spent and wild, recoiled upon its caster.

Diana felt the Isle—the only home she had ever known—vanish. The scent of brine and decay was replaced by choking, particulate air. The endless grey sky fractured into a blinding, painful blue. The silence of Hell was shattered by a cacophony of alien sounds: a distant, rhythmic roar, a high-pitched wail, the murmur of countless voices.

She collapsed onto hard, sun-warmed stone, her magical arm scraping against rough pavement. Blinking against the glare, she pushed herself up. Towering, impossible structures of glass and metal pierced the sky. Strange, wheeled metal beasts roared past on black rivers of road. And the people… they stared at her with a mixture of shock, fear, and curiosity, their clothes bizarre, their faces unmarked by the despair of the Isle.

A cool breeze, carrying scents she could not name—exhaust, cooked food, something floral—brushed her face. This was not the underworld. This was a world of brutal, vibrant life.

Earth.

The ritual had not just sent you home.

It had brought her with you.