Pandora allowed her Perception to examine the physical world around her physical body before she brought her attention back to Caspa and Tantur, “What did we see in Merlin’s memories?”
“It looked like one of the new gods, Erebus, subverted some of the participants in the Trials. If the images he showed Merlin were real, then he was shone the deaths of all the creatures with souls and watched the souls ascend or descend to wherever they’re supposed to go after someone dies,” Tantur said.
“For what purpose?” Caspa asked.
“I don’t know,” Pandora said with a bit of frustration in her voice. Honestly, right now, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we need to get to one of the Archways and get into the Trial of Transcendence. Once we’re there, we’ll look for Dad, and he can fill us in.”
“And Merlin’s soul? We’ve absorbed everything he knew; it was depraved,” Caspa said with a shudder.
“I reviewed most of it and told Caspa about it. There was no need for her to be exposed to that level of psychic trauma. This false Merlin was a monster,” Tantur said.
“Then destroy the remnants we’re holding onto. That should release him back into the Cycle of Reincarnation,” Pandora said.
“Very well,” Tantur said as he vanished.
Caspa returned to her home within Mindspace while Pandora shifted her Perception back to the Material World around her. Once she was back in charge of her physical body, Pandora shifted into her Umbra Dragon form, launched into the air, and began flying toward the closest Archway in Prague, Czechia.
***
Merlin had been having a bad day. Ever since he’d arrived in this place, wherever it was, he’d been unable to do anything but sit in this sealed chamber and think, which was becoming harder and harder.
Where had he been before he was here?
Hadn’t he been with cute little blonde performing acts no eighteen-year-old should?
What acts?
The thoughts were gone. Where did they go?
“We ate them,” a new voice said. Merlin looked up to find a nondescript man standing before him.
“You ate my thoughts? Who are you?” Merlin asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Just know that the life you left amounted to nothing, and should you get another chance at life, you should do better next time.
The condescension angered Merlin. He was about to reply when the man's Aura Flexed and washed over him. He felt himself simultaneously destroyed and pushed out of whatever place he’d been in.
As his surroundings shifted to a bleak sky covered in shadows, he felt himself pull up and away. Suddenly, his surroundings began flashing past, and he felt that he was traveling very rapidly through a series of twists and turns that he had no control over.
Suddenly, the sense of moving quickly ended. Merlin shot out onto a vast open plain where someone familiar yet unknown stood. The person turned to look at him as he coasted up to him with a frown, “What are you doing here?”
As Merlin was about to ask who the person was, his memory returned, and he remembered everything. He’d been on Earth, getting ready to break in a new toy he’d found when Petra’s emergency beacon had been activated. He’d gone to her and been so thoroughly defeated and then violated it was the only word that would describe the feeling of what had been done to him. All of his memories had been scoured. They, that weird woman named Caspa and the man named Tantur, had gone through his entire life and knew every deep, dark secret he had. Caspa hadn’t stuck around to watch everything he’d done, but Tantur had sifted through every corner of his memory with a detachment and unimpressed demeanor that had shaken Merlin. Some of the things he’d done even made him wince thinking about them after the fact. Tantur had just watched impassively.
Then, there had been a short break; Tantur had reappeared, and his Aura had flexed. Like a boulder traveling at the speed of sound, his aura had slammed into him, and then he’d began traveling to this place. In fact, he’d been so distracted that he hadn’t looked at his notifications, which he pulled up.
You have Died
Your Journey into the Cycle of Reincarnation Starts Now!
“Merlin? What Happened,” The man who Merlin recognized as The God Erebus asked again.
“Lord, I was killed near Stonehenge. My apprentice ran into someone that…
“Yes, Yes, I know you were killed. Who killed you? Erebus asked impatiently
“Someone named Tantur,”
As the word “Tantur” left Merlin’s mouth, the place he glided over shook and rippled as a new man stepped through a fold, in reality that opened as he stepped out to stand beside Erebus.
Merlin immediately recognized him, “Him, it was him?” he said pointing at the new man.
The God looked at the new arrival and then went back to Merlin before he turned to the man that looked like Tantur with a questioning look.
The man, who appeared to be Tantur, spoke, “I did no such thing. Let me review the information for a moment.”
Merlin went rigid as, for the second time in a day, memories were torn from him and drawn into Tantur. After a moment, Tantur nodded.
“And?” The God Erebus asked.
Tantur looked to Merlin and then to Erebus, “It would seem, Erebus, that Karma has come knocking. The SYSTEM is now aware of what you were trying to do. Your actions do not matter; the SYSTEM will not interfere with your schemes, nor does it need to. A self-correcting mechanism has been introduced.”
With that cryptic pronouncement, Tantur stepped back through the ripple in reality, which stabilized as if it had never been there.
“Lord?” Merlin asked hesitantly.
“Your life is over; In your way, you served me well. Enjoy the fruits of your labor,” Erebus said as he waved his hand, and Merlin was shoved through a portal that appeared before him.
The image Tantur was maintaining through the connection he’d installed into Merlin’s core froze as a SYSTEM Message appeared in Pandora’s mind where all three aspects of the Triumvirate could see.
SYSTEM Message
Greetings, Pandora, Caspa, and Tantur
“The Cycle of Reincarnation and Choices offered are not for any of you to witness unless you have entered the Cycle of Reincarnation.
SYSTEM Message Ends
***
What was that? Pandora asked mentally.
That was Tantur trying to be sneaky and failing, Caspa said with a grin that Pandora could mentally hear.
Should I be worried? Pandora asked.
No, Tantur said
Pandora could have continued asking questions, but she sensed that Tantur didn’t want to talk about it, so she dropped the subject.
By the way, if you keep your speed just under the speed of sound, we can make it to Prague in about an hour. If you don’t mind creating the shockwave here in the Plane of Shadow, we could travel at your maximum speed, but that might be problematic, Tantur said.
I can take some of the heat from that kind of friction, but I’m not my dad. I think we can increase the speed a bit so we can get there in about 15 minutes, but I’m not going to move at our maximum speed, Pandora sent back.
As she flew over the shadowy landscape, memories from Tantur allowed her to utilize major landmarks that appeared in the realm of shadow. She considered staying on this planet and trying to make a change, but truthfully, she didn’t see the point. The Temporal rate difference made it impossible for her to make any changes that would have a lasting effect unless she were to leave a replicant or replicants here to maintain those changes. The SYSTEM seemed to be allowing whatever was going on here so Pandora would leave things alone. If her friends felt that things needed to change and that the Earth should not turn into a depraved shadow of what it had once been, she would leave it to them to fix. By the time they arrived, well over 5,000 years would have passed for the people here. That time difference was wild. Five thousand years with only two days passing for her friends? Why would the SYSTEM create such a substantial temporal difference? The word “Meatgrinder” kept popping into her mind.
When she was a couple of miles outside Prague, she activated Shadow Step and returned to the material plane. Lights replaced the monochrome horizon scattered here and there throughout the countryside and night had already fallen here as she’d traveled east. Pandora remained above the ground as she looked for the Archway, which appeared to be on the lawn of the Church of Saint Agnes of Bohemia at the northwest end of the cross-shaped lawn.
Pandora flew down for a closer look and noticed that the small island surrounded by highways that the church sat on in the middle of had been fortified and turned into a fort utilizing the freeways as barriers. The freeways were lined with hundreds of people patrolling the area. On the streets surrounding the church, various shops, restaurants, and hotels could be seen.
Tantur’s memories showed that his area once contained blocks of housing, but they are all gone now. The apartment building ran along the outside with merchants and food fenders near the archway. A Redlight District between the living area and the food stalls. Pandora could very clearly see both men and women walking up and down the streets, looking for their next client. Some looked to be free, while others wore collars that seemed to mark them as property. It could be some kinky bondage fetish, but she didn’t think so.
Pandora transformed into her humanoid form and modified her body with Mold Chaos to include wings. She didn’t add wings to her human body often, but she needed the wings to make land gracefully. The main access point was through a gate on the west side of the fort. As she drew closer, spotlights from the walls moved to track her until she landed 100 feet from the gate.
Her incredible hearing picked up one of the guards, whispering to someone behind him, “So pretty. Better call the Guv’nr”
Pandora ignored the whispers, landed, and allowed her wings to be molded back into her body. Her flesh rippled as she covered herself in a black jumpsuit that fit loosely over her body. Her signature red hair and hazel green eyes were the only part of her that made her identifiable. Pandora walked confidently toward the guards who stood before the entrance.
“Halt! To enter, you must declare and be recognized!”
If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.
“I am Pandora, Daughter of Adaline and Adamantadine; I wish to enter the Trial of Transcendence.”
A burly man stepped out from a building off to the side. Pandora felt that a skill or spell had been attempted against her and failed. The man who had tried to Analyze her frowned. “I am the Guv’nr of this fort girl. It is a crime to hide your identity from the eyes of those considered worthy,” the man declared as a glowing sigil appeared above his head, and his eyes filled with fire mana, “In the name of Surtr, let thy identity be known!”
Pandora still had her orbs floating around her, though they’d defaulted to their invisible form while she’d been traveling east. The Divine orb flared and absorbed a spell consisting of divine energy. Pandora hadn’t even seen the man cast. It must have been a gift granted from this Surtr.
Surtr was the king who ruled the volcanic powers of the underworld in the Norse mythos Tantur offered.
“You dare counter my God's spell! Guards, seize her!”
There was no way that Pandora could know that her father had performed almost the same action in South Africa right before he’d stepped through the first Archway as she utilized Mold Chaos to create an Adamantium dagger in her hand with a thought. Unlike her father, though, when she threw the dagger, she held her strength in check and only used enough to throw the dagger half as hard as she could.
The Guv’nr saw the dagger form in her hand as his guards stepped forward and laughed, “Is that the best you have?” Your dagger will never get through my shield, little girl!”
In the next instant, four of the guards closest to her suddenly dropped to the ground after Pandora moved. Pandora exploded into motion so suddenly that no one had time to react. An elbow to the first man’s throat with enough force to make him gag but not die was followed by a precise strike to the second man's Temple. The third soldier, a female, received a punch to her gut that dented the armor she was wearing. The strike knocked the breath out of her and then made it hard for her to pull in a full breath to recover. The fourth soldier, also a woman, was pulling out a very vicious-looking sword that reeked of death mana. Pandora used two of her 43 actions per Combat Turn, the first to absorb the blade right out of her hand and convert it into mana and the second to deliver a precise blow to her temple that knocked her unconscious. Within a single second, all four soldiers that had been moving toward her were on the ground, unconscious or struggling to breathe.
Pandora came to a stop long enough to make eye contact with the Guv’nr and flicked her wrist with the dagger. She could have aimed to kill the man. She could have decided to destroy him utterly. Instead, she decided that this would be a teaching moment. The dagger shattered his shield, which he was mentally linked to. The magical backlash from the shield being brought down flooded into the Guv’nr’s mind and rendered him unconscious. As he was slumping to the ground, Pandora noted that the attack with the dagger had been so quick and precise that it had also taken off half of his right ear. The dagger had sailed down the road and through the wall into the hillside beyond. The sonic boom of its passing knocked down a few people that happened to be nearby.
Pandora’s thoughts were interrupted when a sniper round bounced off her head with no effect. The sniper had put the round right between her eyes. That was a damn good shot. Without conscious thought, Pandora’s body moved and appeared beside the sniper. He was in a small tower at the end of the street, approximately 500 feet from the gate. It had been a simple thing to deduce where the bullet had come from in her mind’s eye after she’d been hit. Pandora picked the sniper up by his neck and held him aloft as he tried to stab her in the arm, head, and neck to no avail; Pandora’s Physical Damage Resistance resisted every attack. She continued to hold the sniper off the ground onehanded with a bored look on her face as he attacked her again and again.
With a thought, Pandora released her chaos and spread it throughout the fort. First, she instructed it to mimic nanites and take over the man she was holding while the rest infiltrated and scanned everything around her. She had so much chaos stored up that it only took a moment for her to gain control of the sniper. With a thought, the attacks stopped. Next, she downloaded his memories. This was a lot less invasive than using her ability to do so; at least, she thought so because she could do so without anyone knowing. The only issue was that with the changes to the SYSTEM, she still had to be relatively close to her targets. She could Mold Chaos out to a range of 4,807 feet. Outside of that range, any nanites, chaotic or technological, that she created dispersed.
Pandora read the sniper's memories. This sniper was part of a team that watched the gate into the city from Earth. Another team watched the gate into Trial. His team’s task was to keep anyone who looked even somewhat competent from entering the Trials so they wouldn’t have to worry about them becoming Gods and competing with their Patron, Erebus. The other team was to prevent anyone from returning to Earth.
Pandora continued to read the man's memories. None of the soldiers were above level 200, while the Guv’nr and the members of the other team were far about. It was a pretty good gig. They watched the entrance for a couple of hours each day, and they got the first pick of the Joy Toys in the Red Light district. Pandora rushed through those memories until she found one that…Children? There was a building with Children in it, and this sniper had participated?
With a flick of her finger she broke the sniper's neck, killing him instantly.
Congratulations, you have killed a….
Pandora suppressed all kill notifications for the time being and moved. A school to the east of the Archway had been converted into the house of horrors. In that first ten seconds, the 35 adults who had been running, guarding, or participating in the atrocities that had been taking place within that building were dead. Pandora had not held back her rage. No, she’d embraced it and destroyed anyone that had become so depraved. She’d ordered her nanites to dispose of every person's body she killed. These monsters did not deserve to be buried. There were a few adults, kitchen staff, and the like that she didn’t kill, but they were added to her list of people who would need to be followed up on.
Doing all of that within 10 seconds took its toll on her. But only reduced her 3.4 million stamina by 409,950. The cost for each action became steeper and steeper as she tried to do more and more within a single Combat Turn. Of course, it would take her almost two minutes to regenerate the stamina she’d just burnt up, but it wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. If she started to run too low, she could always use Chaos Conversion to recover any of her resource pools quickly.
As she contemplated how to proceed, she allowed Mold Chaos to reach out to the wall of the house of horrors and have her nanites and chaos begin converting and sealing it up. Anyone watching from the outside watched as the building suddenly converted to metal, filling in all of the windows and doors. As she allowed Mold Chaos to make the changes to the structure Pandora found one of the teenagers who had been assigned to the baby ward. The fact that there was a baby ward in this building made her even angrier. Pandora put a clamp on that anger as she came up to the teenager.
“What is your name?” Pandora asked the frightened girl as the corpses of the people Pandora had killed disintegrated around them.
“This one is Jana, Mistress,” Jana replied in Czech.
“None of that Mistress nonsense, Jana. As I flashed through this building, I saw only three people your age. Everyone else is younger except for the kitchen staff and laundry personnel, is that correct?”
“That is correct,” Jana said hesitantly.
“Very well. You are in charge of the youngsters for the next day. I was hoping you could get the other two teenagers and set up a plan to take care of the 17 youngsters who are here. Some of them are hurt, but I’ll be taking care of that as soon as my influence has saturated this building completely.”
“Miss, what are you going to do about…”
A loud “THUD” was heard through the building as something smashed into the wall near the entrance.
“What am I going to do about that? Nothing. The problem will take care of itself momentarily,” Pandora said matter-of-factly.
“That’s Bohdan; He’s the strongest of the guardians watching the Archway. He’s going to get in here, and he’s going to,” Jana said before her voice broke and tears started running from her eyes.
Through Nanite Communication, Pandora noted that Jana’s body had been physically traumatized. While she might be old for the perverse assholes that came to this place, she’d still been abused. Pandora programmed the nanites within Jana to repair what physical damage they could the next time she slept, but there wasn’t anything she could do about the mental trauma, not yet at least.
“Don’t you worry about Bohdan? Get your friends and take care of the youngster. If you need food or snacks for yourselves or the babies, just ask allowed for them. I’m putting a very smart computer in charge of the area. Like this, Orange Juice please,” Jana and Pandora watched as her nanites contained a container and then filled it with orange juice on the table beside them. If you ask, the program will make you any food or drink you need,” Pandora explained.
“Some of the babies need bottles now,” Jana offered, “four now and four more in an hour.
Pandora had the nanites pull the memories of exactly what she meant, formula type, and whether the bottles were warm or cold. Then, Pandora had the nanites create the bottles and fill them with the formula on the table next to Jana. Jana watched in amazement as four bottles appeared and filled themselves from the inside in less than 10 seconds.
“That’s amazing,” Jana said.
“It is; now you take care of the babies, I’m going to go deal with…”
“THUD!”
Through Nanite Communication, which had access to all the nanites she’d released into the surrounding area, Pandora watched as Bohdan punched the adamantium shell of the building she resided in.
Tantur, please modify the shell so there is noise reduction along the inside. I don’t want to hear these assholes attacking the shell. Pandora sent to Tantur.
What are you going to do about this asshole?” Caspa asked.
Assholes? What am I going to do about these Assholes?” Pandora offered.
Right now, the nanites are infiltrating everyone within 4,807 feet of this building. As you know, it reaches everywhere within this fort. If people knew about what was going on here and did nothing, I’ll let them be. If people knew about what was going on here and participated either by supplying the children or worse, I’m going to test how the SYSTEM is handling nanites this time. If possible, I’m not going to even bother with physically killing anyone; I’m just going to let the nanites handle it, Pandora said.
And the Children? Caspa asked.
Looks like I’ll be making a replicant and sending it back to mom with a ship full of kids, Pandora said
“THUD!”
He is persistent, Caspa noted.
He is, Pandora agreed. He, and everyone on his team who’s standing back is also guilty of participating in this evil. It’s time to make an example.
Bohdan, arguably the strongest known person on Earth, punched the metal building to no effect. While he continued to punch the building, no one noticed the 21 invisible orbs that left the top of the building and began orbiting it after five minutes. What they saw was Bohdan go rigid. Those closest to him even noticed when a look of shock and then intense concentration appeared on his face as the veins in his forehead bulged for a moment. Those really paying attention noticed that the same thing happened to the other four members of his team just before the five of them evaporated. They didn’t disappear like when someone teleported away. No, it seemed like a fire lit simultaneously from every single cell in their bodies as they broke apart into their constituent protons, electrons, and neutrons simultaneously and vanished. What was even more terrifying was that the same thing happened to 112 other people scattered throughout The Fort. Ironically, the Guv’nr wasn’t one of them.
Pandora verified that they had been killed through her notifications but left them off for now. She’d look at them later.
You know, your father didn’t like using nanites like that, Tantur said
You all saw the memories within their heads. That shit was vile. Some people don’t deserve a trial. Also, I wanted to see if the SYSTEM was going to stop me from using chaos or nanites like that, Pandora said.
The SYSTEM has severely limited your abilities in regard to control range and nanite propagation. But within your range, you seem to have full access. It probably helped that it was very unlikely that anyone here would have the ability to resist technology or chaos. You even received the XP for killing those five elite guardians. Did you see their levels? Tantur asked.
No, I have the notifications off, Pandora said.
The lowest level was 2,011, and the highest was Bohdan, at 2,623. You just earned 1.1 billion XP. That increased each of your two classes by six levels, Tantur sent.
Pandora watched through her nanites as everyone within The Fort went into a frenzy. Some who had been in the hotels waiting grabbed their gear and made their way to the archway. They ran back to their shops or residences and either started packing or hiding. None tried to come to the metal building and knock on the wall again. Pandora kept an eye on things directly for about an hour before she made her way to the second floor and claimed one of the rooms as her own. She could keep her eyes on everything with Nanite Communication while she started creating a new Replicant of herself. That was going to take just over 28 hours.
The nanites within the building would take care of the kids, though she could help out if necessary. Pandora sat down and activated Replicant while she dropped her consciousness into her Mindspace. 28 hours was a long time. Maybe she could get some rest while Caspa or Tantur maintained the creation process.
***
“We’ve lost our ability to contact Prague,” Zack said.
“Nobody in the area that you can contact with your telepathy,” Sarah asked.
“Nope. Everyone that I know well enough to establish communication with, well, it's like they disappeared off the face of the Earth.
“That doesn’t make sense, you know at least thirty people that I know of at The Fort there,” Zack pointed out.
“I know. One had even activated the pendant I gave them to contact me if something happened there. When I tried to contact and then scry the person, both failed. They weren’t there.”
“Phones still aren’t working either?”
“Phones haven’t worked for over 2,000 years, you know that,” Zack said.
“How about contacting Erebus?”
“We both know who Erebus was originally. Do you think that little shit knows what’s going on here? The whole schtick of the people who agreed to take on the role of the new Gods was that they had to play by restricted rules. The entire reason we came back to Earth was to sacrifice more bodies to him so he could grow faster.”
“Do you think he sacrificed them to get even more powerful?” Sarah asked
“If he were going to sacrifice anyone on this rock, it would probably have been us; we haven’t exactly sent anyone his way in a while,” Zach pointed out.
“We have to let the population build back up again. That takes time. You know what he said about sacrificing children. Erebus wants nothing to do with them. They get up into his divine realm, and he ends up releasing them into the Cycle of Reincarnation automatically. Children are worthless to him. Not enough experience without a lot of training,” Zack said.
“I never understood that. I thought we entered the Cycle of Reincarnation when we died,” Sarah said.
“Yes and no. If we serve a deity, which we do, then when we die, our souls are automatically moved to him. Erebus said it’s kind of like being reborn with new stats and abilities based on the rules each deity sets up. We get different benefits and starting areas depending on our rank within our specific deities' orders. Anyway, when I asked, Erebus said the SYSTEM created this new Cycle of Reincarnation to allow people to work toward entering their next life with inherent advantages. He said the SYSTEM gets all bent out of shape if too much information is shared, but he could give me that super basic explanation because I was his disciple,” Zach said.
“So when we die, we have to continue to serve Erebus?” Sarah asked.
“You made the same deal I did. We serve him like we have been, and we get the cream of the crop in the afterlife,”
“What does that mean for a god of death?” Sarah asked.
“I have no idea, but I’m pretty sure some people in Prague just figured that out,” Zack said.
“Yeah, I’m thinking that too. I’ll have the men double the guard. No need to be surprised, especially up here in Canada,” Sarah said.
“Sounds good. I’ll let you know if I learn anything,” Zack said as he tried one more time to spy on The Fort in Prague. Instead of choosing a person to focus on, he chose the Archway. No one was using the Archway, and it didn’t look like anyone was near enough for him to see either. What the hell was going on in Prague?