As the tale opens, Dr. Donald Blake is seated in a diner explaining to his attractive companion how finding a stick in a cave changed his entire life. He has only ten years of memories prior to that, to his first day in medical school; apart from that his life was defined by his being the human alter ego of Thor, God of Thunder….
Meanwhile, Thor arrives in Asgardia to meet with the All-Mother as they all try to move beyond the affair of Tanarus and Thor’s disappearance from everyone’s memory. Suddenly the dwarf Hreidmar enters, announcing a mystery. A construction project in Nidavellir, home of his people, has uncovered a buried door bearing a warning from Odin himself to anyone who would attempt to open the portal. Thor casually breaks open the doors and find a pit in the middle of a roomful of ruins. He dives in and discovers a dark chamber where gruesome tentacled monsters stand guard. They come to life as he enters, and Thor takes them on one by one with the aid of his hammer Mjolnir—until he is overwhelmed by their numbers. Hreidmar, curious about the silence, slides down into the pit and finds Thor asleep, a small demon on his chest—it is a Mare, one the bringers of nightmares—and they have freed them….
Don Blake wraps up his account of his false memories of a childhood and his existence as merely a vessel for Thor. He offers his soul in exchange for the chance to be a god once more—and we discover that his companion is Amora, the Enchantress….