Lilith was taking a walk down a hall when she was interrupted by Raesn, a dwarf that she had Blessed a few years prior when they were doing the Queen of Monsters thing. He was one of four “heroes” they had appointed, with intent to have them participate in the battles for planes if they agreed. As such, he knew about Administrators and Higher Beings, and he sometimes dropped by the dungeon to workshop new inventions with Nuwa.
“Is everything alright?” Raesn asked, giving her a worried look. “The atmosphere here feels…tense.”
“I’m not going to sugarcoat it, Raesn, it’s not really alright.” Lilith sighed. “We’re gearing up for war, and it’s got us all on edge.”
“War?” Raesn asked worriedly. “With who?”
“Everyone who isn’t our ally. The Elder Gods have been playing games, and are trying to pit the three main Administrator factions against each other. We’re the first to know, so we have the advantage of time to prepare, but once the others know it’ll be an Administrator world war. As you can imagine, we’re not exactly thrilled at the prospect.”
Raesn frowned. “Why not use this time to lay the groundwork for peace, then?”
“We would if we could, Raesn, we would if we could. The other factions are warlike, and the current peace is only held by what is effectively mutual assured destruction. The moment the other factions find out that the Elder Gods broke the balance of power, it’s going to become chaos.
“Right now, I’m working on creating another new system using breakthroughs we’ve recently made in system technology, and we’re going to test drive it on a new plane one of the other Administrators gave us.”
“Do the others know?” Raesn asked.
“Bruce and Ava do, they visit fairly regularly, so they found out a while ago. We asked them to keep it on the down-low for now, we wanted to get things a bit more…settled before we started any sort of intensive training or anything. And Anala…well, you know she never fully forgave me for the whole Queen of Monsters thing, so she hasn’t been in touch since this whole thing started a few months ago.”
“One of these days we’re really going to need to get her to reconcile with you.” Raesn sighed. “Even she shouldn’t be too stubborn to admit that it did, eventually, turn out well.”
“If you have any ideas, I’m all ears. I’ll probably need your help, though; pushing her on this myself is just going to backfire.”
“I’ll touch base with Bruce and Ava and we’ll figure something out. I thought I’d let things heal with time before, but…if the situation is as you say, then we can’t afford that right now.”
Lilith gave him a smile. “I appreciate it, truly, I do. Anyway, what were you here for?”
Raesn stroked his beard thoughtfully. “I was going to talk with Nuwa about an idea I had, but it seems painfully unimportant compared to what you’re doing now.”
“Not at all.” Lilith replied. “In fact, we recently made a new Parallel to work exclusively on experimenting with the eldritch. Her name’s Pandora, and she’s got a laboratory that I think you’d find very interesting.”
Raesn’s eyes lit up. “Is that so? And she won’t mind me interrupting?”
“She’d welcome it.” Lilith confirmed. “She always loves to hear outside opinions and ideas, especially since the eldritch is so…out there. Frankly, just about everyone around here isn’t good enough to keep up with her, and her other research partner, an Administrator named Jerry, is often busy.”
“In that case, where can I find this lab?” Raesn asked. “I’ll head over there now, if it’s alright.”
“Should be in the multipurpose wing.” Lilith said. “The door has a bunch of warning signs on it, can’t miss it.”
Raesn paused. “Should I be worried about that?”
“Not really. Those are more there to keep people from just randomly walking in, and to remind the kids that it’s dangerous. As long as the indicator is green, you’ll be fine to go in, and Pandora knows you’re coming, so she’s wrapping up what she was doing.”
“Speaking of, how are the kids doing? No…relapses?”
“Mai is as much a handful as ever, but nothing worrying, just normal rambunctious kid stuff. Well, normal if kids had more power than most militaries, but it’s nothing we can’t handle. Oh, and we recently got another daughter, it’s a bit of a story, though, so it’s probably best if Pandora tells you. She can fill you in on the details of the situation as she goes, because Levia’s kind of caught up in it all.”
Raesn frowned, stroking his beard. “Why does that name sound familiar?” He asked. “Is she someone like Mai and Aria?”
“Sort of. She’s Levi.”
Raesn stared up at Lilith with a surprised look on his face. “I thought Levi was little better than an animal.”
“Was little better than an animal. Like I said, it’s a bit of the story, and I’m afraid I don’t have the time to tell it to you here, sorry.”
“No, it’s fine, I was the one taking up your time, anyway. I’ll head off the lab, talk to you later.”
Lilith gave him a smile and a wave as she saw him off, then returned to her walk. She was currently on her way to their training room, where they were finally going to start the process of creating a system. Fortunately, Raesn hadn’t made her late or anything; she had been heading there slightly early, just in case of something exactly like this.
So, after another five or so minutes, everyone had gathered in the training room, and Jerry began to speak. “So, as you might imagine, the first step to creating any competent system is planning it out. If you don’t plan your system out extensively, it’s easy to make small mistakes that compound into a big problem down the line.”
Jerry procured a stack of papers and a pen, and gave everyone an expectant look. “So, ideas?”
“We should make it like the system we’re using for the swarm.” Amelia said immediately. “And…actually, Lilith, Kali, I’ve been discussing things with my wives, and we have a proposal for you.”
Lilith raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Do tell.”
“What would you think about becoming co-leaders of the swarm? In essence, this would mean that you become part of our relationship, become members of the swarm, and also allow it to spread to your planes. I can handle making sure we’re in love with each other, and the mental changes barely worked on Connie, so there’s no way you two will be affected.
“I know this sounds like a crazy step to take, but if you think about it, it’s just upside for everyone involved. Lilith, you have that ability that gives you all the abilities of your subordinates, so you’ll suddenly have multiple planes unambiguously become your subordinates. Plus, it’ll save you a lot of Worship and effort when you update your system, since you won’t need to update your system.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Well, not really. I plan on updating the swarm’s system to match what we’re doing here, but even then, we can just pool Worship for it so it’s not a big deal. Anyway, it’ll let you connect more with Levia, unify your planes, increase our fighting potential in the coming war by letting more people convert enemies, and give you more people to love!
“We’re going to be giving the same offer to Tess, Ellie, and Maven, though we can’t get the swarm to their planes, so just be aware that they might be involved in the relationship too, if you accept, which I think you should.”
Lilith raised an eyebrow. “It’s a very generous offer, Amelia, but –”
“We shouldn’t reject it out of hand.” Kali said quietly. “Amelia’s right, there are upsides in it for us, and we have to consider that when we’re facing a war in the future. Let’s discuss this alone after they leave, it’s not a decision to be made lightly.”
“Thank you, Kali.” Amelia said, giving her a smile. “We understand that it’s a big step, but we really do hope that you’ll agree that the benefits really do outweigh any perceived downsides.”
“Now, let me be clear, Amelia, it is significantly more likely that we do not accept your offer, and it is the direction I am leaning.” Kali said. “But it is also isn’t something that we should reject without thinking through it first.”
Amelia nodded. “That’s what we expected, but we figured we might as well make the offer. Anyway, as I was saying, the system I made for the swarm should be a good starting point. It allows for significant and varied growth, and avoids several common pitfalls such as having multiple sexes.”
“What?” Lilith asked, taken aback. “How is that a pitfall?”
“The sex of a body has effects on the way a soul’s magic power flows.” Amelia explained. “So, to maximize the system’s efficiency, it’s optimal to just make everyone the same sex. While it theoretically doesn’t matter what the sex is, I’m significantly better at working with women, so I believe we should do that.”
Lilith frowned. “But having there be men and women has worked so well, and we’d have to make other concessions to allow for reproduction. Plus, when we bring this system over to our current planes, it’s going to cause complications because half the population is of a different sex.”
“Then just turn everyone into women when you update the system? Besides, is there an actual need to have multiple sexes aside from it being what you’re used to? It’s pretty trivial to create a way for women to reproduce with each other. In fact, I believe your planes already have such a thing, do they not?”
“We’re not changing all men into women.” Lilith said flatly. “Not unless this efficiency increase is so massive that we’d be significantly limiting our potential by ignoring it.”
“It’s like…three to five percent? So, it’s quite large in the grand scheme of things. I mean…we’re talking about millions or billions of lives saved over the course of a war of this scale. I suppose we can make do without, but I would strongly recommend it.”
Lilith sighed. If Jerry was right and the eldritch beings sponsoring their faction had some sort of twisted agenda that drove them to turn as many men as possible into women, then Amelia was their perfect spokeswoman. Lilith hated that her logic had some merit to it, but…still, it was just wrong to do. “We’ll talk about it while we’re talking about the swarm.” Lilith said. “Since bringing the swarm here would entail that anyway.”
Amelia nodded. “That bit aside, do you have any other issues with how the swarm’s system is run? I feel confident that most outstanding issues it currently has will be solved by being able to design it from the ground up instead of having to piggyback off of an existing system.”
“Do you have the design specifications?” Lilith asked. “I’d like to look over them.”
“I do.” Jerry volunteered, pulling a stack of papers out from some sort of dimensional storage and handing them to Lilith. She then produced an identical set of papers for Amelia and Kali, then one more for herself. “Amelia, if you would look this over and make sure there are no mistakes, that would be ideal. Lilith and Kali, familiarize yourself with the system, if we’re to consider it a prototype of the system we’re designing, then it’ll help to know it well.”
Lilith began looking over the documents, but her attention was soon pulled away by Pandora.
“Raesn, you’re a genius!” Pandora said excitedly. “I found the blockage!”
“I don’t know about that.” Raesn said, scratching his beard embarrassedly. “I just provided a guess with next to no knowledge of how any of this works.”
“And that’s exactly why it’s so helpful!” Pandora replied happily. “The eldritch doesn’t work on the level of things we’re used to. I’ve found it’s often quite helpful to have people who don’t have all the preconceived notions I do gimme their input. Fresh new approaches are the name of the game here.”
“Glad I could help, then. Um…what now?”
“Now, we go test it. Eve’s in the middle of adventurer work, but Lilith is just reading over some documents, and the people she’s with would want to know anyway.” Pandora said. And, Lilith, I see you’re listening, let Jerry and Amelia know that I’m pretty sure Raesn helped me figure out the whole memory blockage thing.
Got it. See you soon.
See ya soon!
Lilith cleared her throat, looking up from the papers. “Sorry to interrupt, but Pandora thinks she has solved our memory problem.”
“Really?!” Jerry said, standing up excitedly. “How?!”
“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her, she’s on her way here now. It seems Raesn helped give her some fresh perspective or something.”
“Ah, yes, she told me about him.” Jerry mused. “Is he coming? I’d love to meet him.”
“Yup, brought him here with me!” Pandora said cheerfully, crouching down a little to let Raesn off of her spider body. “I wanted to get here as fast as possible, and figured you’d want to meet him.”
“Um, hello.” Raesn said. “The name’s Raesn.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Raesn. Now, if you would come to the side with me, I’d love to hear about your idea while Pandora tests it out.” Jerry walked over to Raesn, and the two moved over to the side of the room while Pandora approached Lilith.
“Okay, this is probably gonna be a little uncomfortable, but bear with me here…” Pandora said, placing a finger on Lilith’s forehead. “Aaand…done.”
Lilith experienced a brief but splitting headache, and then she remembered. She remembered not just the party she had been sent to last, but two others as well. She reeled for a moment, processing the information, then nodded. “Yeah, I remember.” She confirmed. “There were two others, too. Both Kali and Jerry were there, by the way, we’ll need to do…whatever that was to them, too.”
Pandora beamed. “I think that should inoculate you from future tampering of this variety, too.” She said. “Essentially I put a trigger on your brain that detects eldritch memory influencers and injects them with some of our power. As evidenced by the fact that you and Amelia had even a faint memory of it, the blockage is quite flimsy and folds to even the slightest pressure once you find it.”
Lilith grimaced. “Yeah, I can see why.” She said. “This is certainly going to complicate matters, and I’m sure our ‘sponsors’ will be wildly entertained by it.”
“Well? What are you waiting for?” Amelia asked impatiently. “Do us, too.”
Pandora nodded, tentacles growing from her back and reaching out to Amelia, Kali, and Jerry. “Alright you three, one second, this will sting, but it’ll be over quick, just bear with me.”
Kali hissed as Pandora performed her work, then grimaced as well. “You know, I almost wish I didn’t remember.” She said. “I’ve talked with people from the other factions at these parties, had dinner with them, made friends with them. But…I know them, and I know we’ll have to fight anyway.”
“No wonder we’ve been allowed to remember.” Jerry agreed. “This will make the war that much more interesting to watch for them.”
Amelia seemed to be frozen, then she suddenly stood and gave Lilith a bow. “I’m sorry for how I’ve been treating you.” She said. “I was upset at being made to do this and took it out on you, and then I was too stubborn to let myself open up. Seeing how you treated Lia in that game even though it was completely to your demerit and would not have any actual consequences outside…it made me realize you don’t have ulterior motives and really do just want to be our friend.
“And…on a personal note, this time, I think it would be nice if you accepted our proposal. I was personally ambivalent towards it, aside from the benefit it would bring the swarm, but now I would like to get to know you better, and this is the best way.”
“Amelia, we don’t have to be in love to get to know each other.” Lilith chuckled. “We can just spend more time together.”
“That is true, but this speeds up the process significantly. Connie and I did it, and we’ve been happier than ever since that time. Lia and Rose were wary of the love magic, but they agreed that if it was you guys, they’d be willing to give it a shot. I think I’m starting to see why.”
“Again, we’ll think about it, but expect a no.” Kali said. “And knowing my nieces, they’ll probably say no as well.”
“And, again, we figured as much.” Amelia replied. “Just wanted to make the offer.”
“Alright you guys, I’ma head out and restore everyone else’s memories, so I’ll talk to ya later! Have fun designing the system! Oh, and Raesn, just wait in the lab, it’ll only be like fifteen to thirty minutes.”
“We should get back to work as well, thanks, Pandora.”
“Anytime!”
With that, Lilith went back to the diligently studying Amelia’s system, soaking in as much knowledge as she could.