"It must have been that weird ring!" you suddenly thought, remembering all that eerie singing that was coming
from it when you pulled it from your pocket, the uber strangeness and the transformation only happening after
you'd put it on. So, tearing your eyes away from the mirror, you looked back down towards your right hand,
seeing that the once again plain gold band was sitting there comfortably on your ring finger, without even the
slightest peep coming from within the metal. "Okay ring," you said, pulling it off your finger with great
difficulty, almost like it didn't want to come off, "Let's find out what the hell you are!"
Dropping it into your hand, you found that once again, just as when you'd first found it, there appeared to be
nothing extraordinary about the ring at all and you found it quite hard to believe that it was the same one
that had shimmered with such intensity that you found yourself unable to resist putting it on. Rolling it
around in your palms, you searched methodically for any sort of hidden switches or buttons or writing,
something to help you out of this mess, but unfortunately you came up short.
"BAH! It's just a stupid piece of junk!" you shouted angrily, throwing it with frustration, hard across the
room.
However just as you threw it, you heard a feint whisper in the air; "Spirits heritage wake!"* your brain not
quite having time to translate as the ring suddenly froze in mid air and began to slowly revolve, the
brightest white you'd ever seen beginning to glow from its surface. "Whoa, that's kind of cool," you said to
yourself, the spectacle not lost on you (even if you had just transformed into a woman) as you shielded your
eyes from the light that was quickly becoming progressively brighter until the entire room was bathed in a
warm, radiant white glow.
The next thing you knew you were no longer standing in your dorm room but instead where surrounded by towering
stone pillars, slabs of sculpted marble below your feet, ancient and worn, with cracks and rubble scattered
all around. "What the hell, where am I?" you said out loud to no one in particular as you gazed around at what
appeared to be some sort of ancient Greek temple, large sculpted statues of incredibly beautiful young women
decorating every wall as well as a small, circular pool of water directly in front. The only light in the room
was from the pool, making the room appear blue and eerie, the entire place appearing more like something from
a movie or a dream than anything that could possibly exist in reality.
"Welcome sister*, you are in the Sanctuary of the Ring, our temple to Athena, we have waited long for you to
come," a soft voice said from behind, causing you to snap quickly around, finding yourself staring at a
gorgeous young woman draped in a long white robe, her dark brown hair cascading majestically down one
shoulder. You Immediately recognized her as one of the women you'd seen in the wind cloud, her voice the one
who had been calling to you from within the ring.
"Who...who are you?" you stuttered nervously, jumping back a little surprised that she was actually real and
standing there in front of you, careful not to fall backwards into the pool.
"I am Arianna, the former bearer of our legacy,” she replied, her voice still carrying that strange almost
ethereal quality as she spoke, “before death took me and I could fight no more, before you.”
As freaked out as you currently were and as weird as all this was, you couldn’t just let that last statement
pass you by, saying rather startled, "Wuh-wait, d-did you just say death?"
"Yes,” the woman smiled rather calmly, “I have been dead for many years now, as have our sisters. It has been
a long time since the ring of our Goddess was taken and we feared our legacy broken, that is, until you came
along."
"Just hang on a second, what are you talking about? What's going on here? Where am I?” you asked totally
bewildered by what was going on, posing as many questions as you could, not entirely sure what this “legacy”
or anything else she kept going on about actually was. Before she could answer any of them however, another,
more important question suddenly sprung to mind, one that may just explain your current predicament, “Wait a
minute, did you that turned me into a woman then?"
Adrianna stared at you rather blankly in response; her face looking almost as puzzled as yours was as she
tried to answer you as best she could. "I...I'm not sure I understand what you mean,” she told you, her voice
then continuing as if reading a carefully prepared speech she’d spoken many times before, “You are the next in
line, our champion, the one who by the wisdom of the great Goddess Athena have been chosen by the ring to
carry on our legacy. You are the one who has been blessed with the strength, power, wisdom and beauty of all
women to carry on the fight against evil and protect mother earth from those who might seek to destroy her."
"Um, okay...” came your reply, as you stared across at her, thinking her completely mad, the tale she’d just
told you being like something you might have read in one of your comic books, which from the look on her face,
she believed wholeheartedly. As strange a tale as it was though, who knows it might have been true, after all
you were currently a woman, standing in an ancient Greek temple talking to a dead woman, but still there
seemed to be one glaring error she just didn’t seem to be picking up on and that you had to set straight;
“Just one problem though; I'm not a woman, I'm a guy.
"What?"
"I'm a guy," you told her again, quickly pulling out your college ID from one of the pockets of your tattered
jeans, holding it out in front of her as proof, "See? Says it right there; Simon Blake, 18 years old, first
year English student, not muscular Amazon champion woman!"
Looking at the card, Arianna did somewhat of a double take, staring at you, then back down at the card, then
back at you again, a look of utter disbelief appearing on her stunned face. "No, no...this, this has to be
some kind of mistake,” she said, shaking her head adamantly and pushing the card away from her face, “only a
woman can be Athena's champion, you are obviously confused."
"Well I am confused, you are right about that, but I'm definitely no woman, believe you me."
*Translated from the Greek.