She awoke, but the place was not the same. She stood to her feet and looked around. She was in a field, much like those from which she had grown up in, surrounded by neck-high golden rolling fields. She held her hand out, noting how the mail and armour she normally wore was absent, replaced by a simple white dress, bound at the waist with a silver band. She looked up, the wheat parting neatly as a figure strode towards her. They were radiant... They glowed with beauty, majesty and power. She gasped and averted her gaze, looking down as her patron paced towards her with grace. She felt delicate hands underneath her chin, lifting her up to see her goddess in her eyes.
"Hello little one." Said the goddess, quietly. Radiant did not do this woman justice. Every inch of her hurt Galdari's eyes, so beautiful was she.
"My lady," the paladin said, very uncomfortable with the position that she was in, staring so deep into her lady's eyes. "How may I be of assistance, humble as I am?" She twitched a little as the hand adjusted, squeezing her cheeks in a matronly way. The goddess gestured outwards with her arm, towards the rolling fields.
"I'm afraid that the fields are not as they once were little one." The goddess spoke now with more than a touch of sadness in her voice. Sighing, the woman's hand slipped down to Galdari's shoulder, squeezing it tightly. Then, the fields seemed to fall away. Left instead was brown earth and stunted growths, each one of them sickly. She was a farm girl, she knew what that was. Blight. In the fields of her lady.
"My lady... How is this... How is this possible?" The paladin gasped, slack jaw in horror and revulsion as she looked at the poor display in front of her. This was unheard of. No, not unheard of. Impossible. How could divine crops ever be corrupted by blight? The woman shuddered a little and looked up at her mistress. "Is it possible to be cleansed?" The woman stared up at the goddess, who looked down sadly.
"The Golden Fields show the truth of the mortal world. This is what the world you live in is like. Little one, this is not the natural order of things, but it can be set straight. The man who offered you a job, he is an indirect artifact of my will. Through him you will be able to purge the blight from the world, and the Golden Fields at the same time. The people you're with, as strange as they seem, they will be needed to be my instrument.
The woman in front of her held up her hand, and a golden sickle materialised. "Your armour, blessed as it is, will not be needed any more my child. Go in the barest needed, my light is with you." The flat of the sickle gently touched the Galadari's shoulders, and she stiffeded. Was the goddess.. Knighting her? No, that was not possible, truly?
"All of those I am with, my lady?"
"All of those that you are with. The orc, the dragon, the strange and the peculiar. They are channels through which you will flow. Your flame will grace the land, and it will leave it as pure as the day that we formed it from the shapeless nothing. Do this, and you will be venerated forever, by mortals and immortals alike."
"My lady... I cannot say anything..." If she had been slack-jacked before, that was nothing compared to what she was now. Nothing made sense to her, but her heart burned fereverntly with an unquenchable faith.
"Say nothing then little one. My grace, my light will be with you, to guide you in troubling times. You must only worry about the destruction of the problems that plagues your world, not of the protection of your own blessed body. Farewell, little one." The woman let the sickle vanish once more, and Galdari could feel herself being pulled away from the Golden Fields. With head bowed in reverence, she felt herself return to her mortal body.
"Owwwwwwwwww..." She groaned, rolling over to her back and placing a hand to her bruised head.