While Pandora reviewed what everyone in London and Scarborough had been up to, she ate her lunch and designated her mana regeneration rate to purchase a replicant. After 4 minutes, she realized she wasn’t done. She was nowhere close to done. It had only taken her 4 minutes to create a replicant before. Pandora pulled up her Status, looked over the cost of making a replicant, and froze. It wasn’t going to take her 4 minutes to create a Replicant; it was going to take 17 hours.
Pandora opened her Status screen and looked over her information. The change to the SYSTEM when the BETA was instituted had made a few significant changes that she hadn’t really considered when she’d received the notification. Additionally, the five years she was away also added a few changes.
(See Below for the Full Expanded Character Sheet)
Pandora’s eyes were immediately drawn to the changes to her classes. Instead of a Tier 1 and a Tier 2 class, she now had a 1<sup>st</sup> and a 2<sup>nd</sup> Class. Additionally, her class, “Creature of Chaos,” had been changed from a Rare Class to a Mythical Class. Replicator had also been upgraded to a Mythical Class. That wasn’t the most impressive thing. Whatever the SYSTEM had done to modify her classes had also applied all of her saved-up Experience that she’d been planning to dump into a Tier 3 Class back into her 1<sup>st</sup> and 2<sup>nd</sup> Class, which now didn’t seem to have a maximum level. She knew this because instead of level 100 in each class, her class “Creature of Chaos” was Level 11,882, and her class “Replicator” was Level 11,753.
Additionally, her attributes seemed to be automatically distributed after she’d reached level 100 in each of those classes. Between the 100,000 attributes in each category for her Perk Skeleton Key and the 50 attributes she received for each Mythical Class level, her basic attributes were each over 197,000. With her efficiency bonuses, each attribute easily broke 200,000.
She thought back to the moment when she’d stepped back through the portal and considered that she hadn’t felt any different, but there was no doubt that her attributes were now much greater. Now that she knew there had been major changes, she looked over her Chaos and Attributes to see why it was taking so long to create the replicants and sighed.
Her effective Chaos had been reduced from a googol-sized amount to 2,439,664. While her base attributes had increased, they only added up to 2,211,451, which meant that her Chaos attribute was now 228,213 more than her combined attributes. A little quick calculation put her at 109.35% capacity. Caspa was supposed to help her regulate the chaos within her to prevent another implosion from happening. While the SYSTEM hadn''t said anything specifically about the amount of her chaos that could exceed her total attributes, she was pretty sure less than 10% would be fine.
Unfortunately, that meant that the 221,165,100-mana required to make a single replicant, her total attributes plus weight multiplied by 100, would take…17 hours. Seventeen Hours? Well, actually, it would have taken more like 34 hours, but luckily, she was not limited by only her Mana Regeneration. In fact, she might be able to utilize the regeneration pools of her Replicants. If she was correct, as she created more Replicants, the time required to make the next one would be reduced if she could utilize all of the resource regeneration from each replicant and herself.
Pandora continued creating her Replicant. As the day wore on, she received reports from everyone that the various Safe Zones were being stabilized. Adventuring parties had been sent out to sweep the safe zones and also patrol the borders in case there were any monsters nearby. Thor also continued moving people in hard-to-reach areas into the Safe Zones while he used the Nanites to create safe areas that were enclosed and protected from ground and air attacks. One of the games her father played, Shadowrun, had this idea for fully self-sustained buildings, which were called archologies. While she wouldn’t be able to create something like that as quickly as her father might have been able to, she could lay the foundation and make something like that. An area that was enclosed on all sides contained areas for housing, eating, and recreation. The nanite stabilizers made acquiring food a nonissue, but Pandora made sure to let Thor know to set aside space for farmland and water reclamation. Of course, they had magic that could be used, but she wanted to make sure people would be able to thrive if technology and magic failed again. She also made sure to have Thor spread out the various structures so everyone wouldn’t be killed if there was a catastrophic accident. It would take a couple of weeks, but setting up the plans for the living areas helped pass the time and allowed Pandora to utilize skills she hadn’t used in a while.
She was slightly surprised when she finished creating her first replicant under the new SYSTEM rules. Her first replicant opened her eyes and utilized Mold Chaos to clothe herself. The replicant made eye contact with her, and a mental channel formed between them. Pandora immediately realized that the replicant was not a true clone with its own wants and needs. It was an extension of herself. While it was an exact duplicate of her, only one mind was shared between both. Pandora played with the mental link a bit and was able to cut off the communication between them. When she activated the link again, there was a moment when information was shared, and then she was a singular consciousness again. For all intents and purposes, the replicants were her, and she was the replicants.
Pandora had her first replicant begin funneling her Mana, Stamina, and Psychic Energy into her original body, which she would now refer to as Pandora Prime. This increased her mana regeneration and allowed her to reduce the time it took to make the next replicant to 9 hours. When she finished creating the second replicant, the process became even faster.
In total, it took 54 hours for Pandora to create ten Replicants to replace her family and friends in each Safe Zone. Once a Replicant was in place in each of the ten Safe Zones, her family rested and then began taking out teams to hunt monsters. The influx of mana had increased the spawn rate to such an extent that patrolling and keeping the Safes Zones safe was becoming a full-time job. The nanites in each area helped, but they still had to send out teams to deal with the monsters. Luckily, most of the monsters that were spawning were lower than level 20, but it still took time to coordinate a team to go out and gain experience.
Desirae and Clarence seemed to be having a ball as they responded to the monster spawns, while her grandfather and grandmother mostly offered support as healers. Cedrik, Robert, Callum, and Asling had all gone off with separate teams. She was just about to finish up the last of the ten replicants so she could relieve Pythias and have him get to work, too.
She finished creating her Replicant and allowed her consciousness to assume control as she stepped through a portal into the Administrative Building for Cairo. Pythias looked up from his desk, where he was reading from a monitor.
“Pandora?” Pythias asked.
“For all intents and purposes, yes. We are connected mentally,” Pandora said as a notification popped into her vision.
You have entered the Cairo Safe Zone.
Monsters will NOT Spawn within this Safe Zone.
Warning: Monsters may still wander into this Safe Zone
Guardians Assigned to this Safe Zone: None
It looked like the changes to the Safe Zones were taking effect. As for the Guardians. Should she spend some credits on that or just utilize her replicants? That was something they’d all have to discuss as they moved forward. Pandora looked around. Pythias had placed his desk with his back to a glass wall that looked toward the Pyramids in the distance, but otherwise, he was in a room filled with a bunch of people taking calls and responding to various individuals who were calling in.
“How are things going here, Pythias?”
“For the most part, well. There is currently a schism between some of your world''s priests and a few of the adventuring groups we set up. In fact, here comes one such problem now,” Pythias said as he gestured toward the elevator where a young man in a white robe was stepping out.
Pandora looked him over with a critical eye and then checked the nanites all around him with Nanite Communication as this area was flooded with nanites. Sure enough, he was wearing an explosive suicide vest as he walked toward her. Pandora had the nanites convert the plastique into Play-Doh and waited.
The young man walked up to Pandora, called out to God, and pushed a button in his right hand. Unlike her father, Pandora was predominately her mother''s daughter with the mentality of an Ancient Black Dragon. While she knew her mother’s memories weren’t her own, some of the reactions her mother would have taken crossed her mind. She could have struck him down without a thought. Instead, she decided that enough was enough.
Pandora dropped into her Mindscape,
Pandora: Thor, Cairo has had nanites for a while now. Check the history. Find everyone that is part of his plot and portal them to Melbourne.
Thor: You know that there are no Safe Zones in Australia?”
Pandora: I am aware, yes.
Caspa: You’re going to give them something else to think about?”
Pandora: That''s not really the plan. I am simply removing individuals who don''t appreciate everything we have been doing for them. There are no nanites down there, and with the increasing ambient mana, the area has undoubtedly started spawning monsters. Either they’ll adapt to this new reality, or they’ll be monster food. Of course, we are placing them in an area that once had a thriving population so they’ll be able to find shelter and food for a while at least. But honestly, I don’t care if they live or die. I’m not invested either way.
Caspa: Kind of harsh, isn’t it?
Pandora: It is not our job to save everyone repeatedly. We have worked to give everyone still alive a chance. If they’re going to continue trying to fight our goodwill, Fuck’em. Unless they’re children, of course, I’m not a complete monster.
Thor: As you say, Pandora.
Caspa: Okay. Are you sure you’re okay, though?
Pandora: I’ll be fine,
Pandora brought her attention out of her Mindspace as the individual in front of her fell through a portal that opened beneath him. He let out a slight shriek just before the portal closed. Caspa’s question as to whether she was alright or not weighed on her mind, but not so much that she couldn’t set the question aside for later contemplation. She knew she normally didn’t act like she just had, but she also knew that logically, if you offered help and people continued to fight that help, the best thing to do was step back. This was her stepping back.
Pandora’s thoughts were interrupted as Pythias asked, “Where did you send him?”
“Australia,” Pandora said with a smile.
One of the technicians at a terminal nearby looked over at Pythias with a look that said he had something to share. “Go ahead,” Pythias said.
“Sir, 314 portals have opened up underneath a number of people all over the city. I am receiving reports from the nanite network as well as emergency calls from all over the city.”
Pythias looked at Pandora and raised his eyebrow.
“They’re all on their way to Australia. Anyone that had anything to do with the attempted bombing just a moment ago was added to a list I had Thor create.”
“You know there’s almost no one in Melbourne right now, right?” Pythias asked.
“I did not know that. I do now, though, and it changes nothing. Suppose people are too stupid to appreciate what we’re doing for them. They can make their own way in the world outside of a safe zone. Melbourne was a decent-sized city. There should be plenty of places for people to hold up and survive,” Pandora said.
“If they don’t adapt, they’ll die,” Pythias said.
“Which, by his own actions, he would have just done if not for me. So, no loss. We will check on them every once in a while. I have no issue with providing some food and water for them in strategic locations, but they decided to try to kill everyone here, including myself. Now they can live…alone…with that decision.”
“I don’t know if this is a good response to their actions, but it is a response, and hopefully others will get the hint,” Pythias said.
“We can only hope,” Pandora agreed.
Pandora walked over to an empty desk and sat down. She put what she’d just done out of her mind and opened a portal for Pythias to return to Scarborough before she withdrew her focus from the Replicant. She quickly checked in with her other replicants and made sure her family and friends were all back in Scarborough or London.
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Over the next 20 days, Pandora brought all of her replicants and herself together and created one replicant each day. She continued reducing the time it took to create a replicant until, with herself and 29 replicants, she was able to create her 30<sup>th</sup> replicant in 36 minutes.
With three replicants in each Safe Zone Pandora was able to see to the daily administration of the Safe Zones. While the replicants were handling the Safe Zones, she also cataloged what was happening all over the planet. Initially, the spawning of monsters followed a set-level progression that slowly increased. Unfortunately, the level of the monsters seemed to be accelerating a little faster than was expected. Thor theorized that it had something to do with the amount of mana her replicants were drawing into the world. She wasn’t too worried about the level progression, though the changes to how classes and levels work made it hard to gauge exactly how powerful a creature was if it had more than one class. Luckily, such creatures didn’t show up that often.
Pandora’s first run-in with a creature, a person really, that was arguably more powerful than anything on Earth, save herself, broke through the weakened barrier at Stonehenge again. This time, it wasn’t Umbrati who broke through the barrier; it was someone completely new. It seemed that the dimensional barrier in the area had weakened to such an extent that someone else was able to break through. Thor had Stonehenge under constant surveillance and detected the dimensional breach as soon as it occurred. A moment later, Pandora stepped through a portal 20 feet from a seven-foot-tall woman with red hair and green eyes. She was dressed in a uniform that was reminiscent of something she’d seen the Imperial officers wear on the Death Star. Her uniform was white with dark, ruby-red buttons.
The woman turned to Pandora and spoke. Pandora immediately recognized the language as Ancient Elvish as the woman said, “A young world with an extremely high mana saturation. This will do nicely.”
Pandora responded in the same language, “It is a nice planet. Who are you, and why are you here?”
The redhead considered Pandora for a minute as she focused her attention on Pandora. After a moment, a look of shock crossed her vision as she asked, “What are you?”
“She who holds dominion over this territory. You may call me Pandora.”
“Pandora? You matter not. I am claiming this world and all those within it. Swear your allegiance, and you may yet live.”
Pandora laughed, “If you must claim this territory, then come, take it from my…”
Pandora’s point of view shifted to her Mindspace as the connection she kept between herself and all of her replicants shifted to another replicant’s Mindspace. This was actually quite interesting to think about. Something had removed her ability to perceive her surroundings, yet she was still linked to that body and able to react from one of her 30 replicants.
Pandora opened 20 portals simultaneously to a point that looked down on Stonehenge from above. Each of the replicants activated all of their orbs, which streamed down and took up a defensive position around Pandora Prime. One of the Orbs of Time absorbed a very powerful time-stop spell. It was so powerful that it had actually bypassed her normal resistances, which shouldn’t have been possible.
Pandora shifted her point of view back to her primary body and lifted her eyes to look at the redhead who was running toward her with a sword drawn. Compared to a normal human, she was moving exceptionally fast. Compared to Pandora, not so much. In the moment it had taken Pandora to open the portals, flood the area with her orbs for defense, and look up, the intruder had crossed the distance, and a sword was coming in to decapitate Pandora’s head. Even so, now that the time-stop effect had been negated, Pandora was much faster.
Pandora casually moved to the intruder''s left side and struck with her right palm directly below and to the side of the intruder''s left breast perpendicular to the ground and her direction of movement. Her goal was for her flat palm to move quickly and compress the woman’s ribs one full inch. Pandora did not hold back. The strike, lined up with her heart, struck with her full force. The result was exactly what she expected. The strike had been focused, quick, and shallow. As her palm struck, the strength of her strike shattered the ribs beneath her hand and created a shockwave that moved through the woman’s body. Her lungs and heart exploded, which caused blood to initially explode from her nose and mouth and then out the side of her chest as shattered bone and viscera exploded from the right side of her chest.
Pandora watched clinically as the intruder’s spine failed to support her upper body, and the woman''s head and arms collapsed in on herself. Before she could drop too far, Pandora reached out with her left hand and grabbed the woman''s red hair as she turned her head to look into her eyes, “You were saying?” Pandora asked as she held the woman''s gaze as another Orb of Time absorbed another spell, this one designed to undo what had just happened. The woman struggled to say something as her lips quivered and then fell still. Pandora considered that the woman had used two time-based spells. She’d been able to utilize time without setting off warnings from the SYSTEM? What the hell was going on?”
Pandora had Thor open a portal below the body and dropped it into a holding room at her Scarborough Facility. Something wasn’t quite right about the way things had gone down. Her resistances were high enough that a normally cast time-based spell shouldn’t have affected her, yet this woman’s spells had. If not for her orbs and their ability to absorb spells, the woman probably would have succeeded in killing her, well, destroyed her body, which she would have had to replace. Still, it would have sucked.
Pandora created some nanites with Mold Chaos and had them analyze the area the woman had portaled in through. She created enough nanites to cover the whole area and scan it simultaneously. As they went to work, they detected fluctuations in the quantum state and even gravitic and temporal anomalies that didn’t correspond to anything she or her dad had ever seen before.
Pandora: Thor, have you ever encountered anything like this before?
Thor: No. The quantum signature does not correspond to anything your father has ever encountered while I was with him, nor did I see anything like this while I was working directly for the SYSTEM.
Pandora looked over the reading and noted that there seemed to be a level of interference at play. She opened up her notification and prompts and found nothing concerning the woman. As far as the SYSTEM was concerned, the woman had never existed. Pandora dismissed all of her replicant’s orbs, which returned to their specific replicant, and she made sure that her 21 orbs were on full defense. She opened a portal and stepped through into the room she’d deposited the body of the woman in and touched it just to be sure it was still there.
As Pandora touched the body, it evaporated suddenly. So suddenly, the energy that destroyed the body took the tips of Pandora’s fingers, which were touching it. One moment, the woman was there. The next, it was as if the woman’s body was a balloon that had just been touched with a needle. It popped, and in doing so, the energy that vaporized the body also vaporized a small portion of her fingers.
Within a turn, her fingertips had regrown as she looked at where the body had been. Not Anti-matter, there would have been an explosion. What was she looking at? The opposite of positive matter, maybe. Negative energy? But how had it had a stable form? Also, If this was magic from the Anti or Null sphere, the SYSTEM should still be able to identify it and give him prompts. Whatever this seemed to be from outside the SYSTEM. It also seemed to be quite powerful.
As she considered the origin of the energy signature, the thread of energy she was examining began to increase in intensity. Pandora immediately opened portals from each of her replicants to her family and friends. Pandora stepped through a portal she’d created for herself into the underground facility beneath Scarborough as her replicants picked up a family or friend and stepped through the portal to Scarborough. Abi, Amanda, Grandma, Grandpa, Desirae, Clarence, Callum, Pythias, Asling, Rober, and Cedrick all found themselves standing next to Pandora, and 30 of her replicants in the cafeteria below ground.
Those present within the cafeteria or mess area looked on with surprise as multiple portals opened and 31 copies of Pandora stepped through.
“Pandora, what’s going on,” Amanda asked.
***
What was going on was a direct result of the death of Ember by Pandora’s hand, though she didn’t know it. Her father, Relure, felt his very being shutter as the link to his daughter snapped. He reached for her with his will and found…NOTHING. Nine iterations and the Forge of Creation was finally within reach. Now, his daughter was gone. What had she been working on again? She was looking for dimensions or Universes that could act as lifeboats for the chosen. The fools in Entropy thought that they would be safe when their latest “savior” attempted to fix that which had never been fixed. He had tasked Ember to find a dimension that the SYSTEM had not fortified against the inevitable collapse. So where had she gone?
Relure pushed his consciousness into the past to a point where he knew he could find his daughter and watched. She had been born with an ability that allowed her to travel through time without fear of causing or creating a paradox. She’d also been able to utilize Time-based magic without drawing the attention of entities Relure did not want to deal with. While he was sure he was just as powerful as each of them, dealing with them was always a chore.
Ember’s ability, while a benefit, was also a detriment as it made it almost impossible for him to find his daughter in the present if he needed her. Instead, he would look to where he knew she had been and then follow her to the present. He’d tried putting surveillance on her, but she’d always hated that, so he followed her through the past to the present when he needed her. However, if he hadn’t seen her in a while, it could take a bit to track her down. This time, though, he knew where she was supposed to be and found evidence that she had been there when he focused his attention on that location in the past.
Since he needed to know where she’d gone, finding her in her lab would make the next part easy. Unfortunately, this time, when he found her in her lab, following her was not possible. She had stepped into a circle and vanished. There were no readings, notes, or indications as to where she’d gone. She’d simply vanished. Also, he could not step into the past to cast a spell so he’d have to visit her lab in the present and hope that a trace to her destination still remained.
Relure returned his consciousness to his current timeline and teleported to Ember’s lab. Once there, he walked over to the circle where he’d seen her vanish. With a little concentration, he was able to detect a thread of energy that snaked away through the various dimensions toward one of the SYSTEM universes that were sealed from intrusion. Relure regarded the thread as it approached the barrier and vanished. Unfortunately, he would not be able to follow her. She had bypassed the barrier by traveling through time around it. He could see the thread of her passage, but he could not get to it. As powerful as he was, he knew he couldn’t break through the barrier either. As he watched, the thread within the barrier unraveled and vanished. Then the thread began unraveling on this side of the barrier as well. That shouldn’t happen?
Relure felt fear for the first time as he reached out and found no trace of Ember anywhere. He reached for her Animae, the portion of her soul he knew to be immortal. Again, there was nothing. Her Animae had either been absorbed or destroyed. How was that possible?
Relure’s gaze was fixated on the other side of the barrier where his daughter had disappeared to. He had no idea how long he had stood there as anger bubbled up within him. The rational part of his mind tried to placate this as something that happened to everyone, but he knew that was bullshit. As one of the very first entities to ever crawl forth from Primordial Chaos, he knew such logic was false. Finally, the anger overcame his conscious control as he mouthed,
“No.”
“No!”
“Noooooo!”
That last declaration would be the last thing anyone within earshot would ever hear as his anger became a physical manifestation of his desire to destroy everything that had hurt his daughter. If his mind hadn’t been filled with white-hot rage, he might have even considered it ironic that while those within the final city of Entropy had been working to prepare for the next reset, it was going to happen much sooner than any of them could have expected. Of course, when one of the Originals lost their temper, the results were often catastrophic. In a moment, Relure was converted into his original energy form, which exploded in all directions through any dimensions not fortified against such a calamity.
***
“Something is happening at Stonehenge. I wanted everyone together just in case,” Pandora explained quickly.
It was a good thing, too. No sooner had she spoken than a shudder ran through the underground facility, and Pandora’s eyes were drawn to something moving at incredible speed on the other side of the mess hall. Pandora watched in horror as a wave of…well, nothing expanded from the wall to the southeast and moved toward her at a fraction of the speed of light. Anything touched by the wave vanished as if it had never been. Her Perception had allowed her family and friends to notice what was happening but only she had time to react. With a thought, each of her Replicants moved into a protective formation around her primary body and her eleven family and friends. There were seven other people close by who were also brought into her circle of friends. Pandora activated Mold Chaos and created a protective bubble of chaos that surrounded and enveloped everyone within the bubble. If the wave was null energy, the chaos should offer some protection…hopefully.
The individuals outside of the group caught the creation of a white pearlescent ball just before the wave of null energy washed out and erased them from existence. This wasn’t a terrestrial event. It was a universal event. While the wave had originated at Stonehenge, the breach ripped the fabric of space and time and expanded throughout the Universe and every Dimension adjacent along every quantum link and dimension. Simply, if the Universe were a bubble, it had just popped.
While the universe being erased from existence was bad, Pandora was more alarmed by the fact that her efforts to shield her family and friends were failing. The energy, or lack thereof, was destroying everything that was not inherently chaos. Pandora’s replicants began to erode and disperse as they’d been created with mana. Well, a portion of them, anyway. The chaos within their bodies was added to Pandora’s form. Through her Animae Perception, Pandora watched as each of her friends and family was reduced to their animae, which then flowed into her Soul Core, bonded with her animae, and created a complex structure. She couldn’t hear their voices, but she could feel their presence within her soul. It was uncanny.
When the wave of energy had passed Pandora found herself floating in a void devoid of anything. Her body had taken on the shape of a pearlescent orb of an indeterminable size because she had nothing to compare herself to. She could be an inch in diameter or a mile; there was no way for her to tell. Pandora floated there for a few minutes while she tried to figure out what to do next when the portal opened in front of her.
Pandora watched as Xavier looked through the portal at her for a moment, then poked his head through the portal and looked around. He reached out his hand, “Well, pull yourself together and come on then. It’s going to take a bit for this to work itself out. No reason for you to sit there by yourself for however long that takes.”
Pandora shifted into her human form and reached out to Xavier as she asked, “How long what takes?”
As Xavier pulled her through the portal, she felt the excess chaos siphoned out of her system and began to feel a little more normal. Xavier closed the portal behind her as they both floated into a room that glowed with a soft white light. He turned to her as he answered her question, “Whatever it is your dad is going to do to help prevent things like this from happening again,” Xavier said.
“What happened?” Pandora asked.
“One of the fundamental beings responsible for the creation of this SYSTEM of existence lost his temper, your fault, by the way,” Xavier said.
“What?”
“You killed his daughter.”
“She tried to kill me first,” Pandora said indignantly.
“I don’t think her dad cared,” Xavier said with a grin, obviously enjoying her distress.
“That’s. That’s. Well, shit.”
“Exactly,” Xavier agreed.
“So, where are you taking me now?”
“Until everything settles down, you will be my guest in my personal realm within Primordial Chaos. To you, it’ll feel like just another universe with creatures and people, but it isn’t, not really, so no, you can’t bring your friends back. Once your dad gets done doing whatever he is going to do, whether he succeeds or fails, you should be able to bring them back.”
“Their dead?” Pandora asked.
“Not exactly. I think the changes he made to their Animae when he visited helped you just now. In fact, it could be part of his solution, though only time will tell. For now, your friends and family are safely stored within your Soul Core. They should be fine, as long as nothing happens to you, of course.”
“So, what now?” Pandora asked.
“Now, I show you your new home, at least for the next little while.”
\\\///
Author’s Note: This is the end of this book for Pandora.
This is NOT the end of Pandora’s story.
Pandora, all of her family and friends, and Xavier will return in Infnitium.
Thank you so much for staying with me as we explored Pandora’s journey together.