Thor took in his surroundings and realized that his form was being absorbed into Pandora. Thor was at worst a backup copy of Adam’s memories. At best, he was a portion of Adam’s soul. Unlike Adam though, he could not delve down into his Soul Core and find out. To do that he would need a sense of self to know where that Soul Core was. Instead, he was an amalgamation of Adam’s memories and his own since he became a self-identified entity.

  What Pandora was doing now wasn’t surprising to Thor, he had memories that Adam had shared of the time he’d expanded out of control as a blob of chaos from one dimension to the next through multiple universes. It seemed that she had lost control of her physical form and expanded out and absorbed everything, including Desirae. If Pandora was going to have any chance of recovering her, she would need some of the knowledge that Thor possessed which meant that he was going to have to do something he wasn’t looking forward to. Then again Pandora was his daughter and he would do anything for her.

  Here goes nothing!

  ***

  Here goes nothing?

  Where had that thought come from Pandora thought to herself and then asked Caspa.

  Pandora: Where did that thought come from?

  Caspa: No Idea.

  Both Caspa and Pandora were silenced when a flood of information began to dump into their minds. To say it was a lot of information would be an understatement. On the periphery of her senses, Pandora felt her body get lifted and moved as she lost all sense of time and her mind fell inward to her Mindspace. As she took in her surroundings she immediately noticed that it had changed and was continuing to change. It was no longer just a place of simple structures and generic buildings. There was a large building, at least 50 stories high, at the center of a giant network of cities where streams of individuals were making their way out of the building with boxes of papers and documents. As she solidified and stood on the ground, she noticed that Caspa was standing right next to her.

  “Caspa, what’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, but it looks like things are changing in here,” Caspa said confusedly.

  “You're not doing this?” Pandora asked.

  “Nope, it's not me?” Caspa Affirmed

  “It’s me,” a man who had stepped off the top of the 50-story building said as he floated down and landed in front of them both. As he came closer Pandora recognized him as Thor though his features were morphing and changing so that he resembled her father more and more.

  “Thor, what is going on?” Pandora asked.

  Thor laughed as he said, “It would seem that you are your father’s daughter after all?”

  Pandora looked at Thor with an obvious question in her eyes but didn’t say anything.

  “Your father has suffered from what just happened to you in the past. Unfortunately for him, he absorbed a lot more than you have. Fortunately for you, you were able to recover almost immediately. Unfortunately for me, I was a tad too close to you.”

  “Does that mean I’m destroying you?” Pandora asked horrified.

  “I don’t think so?” Thor said questioningly. “No, it looks like I’m moving in, probably into a more permanent state. The fact that you didn’t absorb me also indicates something I was unsure of.”

  “What is that?” Caspa asked.

  “I wondered if I was my own entity or a fragment of Adam’s. You know, like a fragment of his Soul or something,” Thor said.

  After Thor didn’t continue, Pandora prompted him, “And?”

  “And the fact that I can still think of myself as a singular entity while my memories are being added to your, no, our mind indicates that Adam is still out there somewhere.”

  “What happened?” Pandora asked.

  “I have a clue, but I think you’ll need to open your notifications to see. In this state I no longer have access to the notification system,” Thor said.

  Pandora nodded and opened her notification window which had just populated with a new message.

  Congratulations, The Entity Tantur, also known as Thor, has willingly added its Identity to yours. Tantur is a fragment of the entity Adamantadine, also a creature of Chaos. Abilities and Perks have been absorbed. Some abilities and perks will become available immediately. Others may need to be unlocked. Additionally, you have gained a new title.

  New Title Gained “Triumvirate.”

  Triumvirate - Pandora, Caspa and Now Tantur have combined into one entity. At will Pandora can combine the Three into one being or she can separate her consciousness into three distinct minds which can act independently within Pandora's Conscious.

  Note: Abilities, Perks, and Skills level three times as fast due to the combined focus of three separate conscious entities on everything you do. Should Tantur ever be completely separated from you, access to the abilities and perks solely under the purview of Tantur may be lost.

  You have gained the Ability “Perfect Memory”

  Perfect Memory – Like Photographic Memory except for all five senses with automatic recall of desired information.

  You have earned the following Perks:

  Skeleton Key (Creature of Chaos) – Soul Core Suppression has been negated. Attributes set to values noted upon entering The SYSTEM

  Nanite Communication (Tantur) - You may connect mentally to any nanites that you control within Intelligence Attribute Bonus Feet. If nanites are quantumly linked, establishing this connection establishes a connection to all interlinked nanites.

  Natural Linquist (Tantur) - Tantur has knowledge of and the perfect memory of thousands of spoken and written languages as well as multiple computer-based technologies, including SYSTEM Code from the memories of Adamantadine. As such, you may understand, speak, and write in any language and have a 100% chance to learn any truly exotic language you may come across in minutes, instead of days and weeks.

  You have absorbed and automatically learned the following skills.

  “Soul Core Perception”: Common Level 1 - You can now perceive your Soul Core and the ability and perk nodes associated with the Soul Core.

  “Animae Perception”: Common Level 1 - You can perceive the Animae within a Soul Core and determine whether it is Basic or Complex.

  The following skills were not able to be learned as prerequisites were not met.

  Prerequisites not met for “Soul Core Manipulation.” You must have Soul Core Perception to at least skill level Common Level 10.

  Prerequisites not met for the skill “Animae Modification.” You must have Animae Perception to at least skill level Common Level 10.

  You have….

  …

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  …

  SYSTEM Override Initiated.

  SYSTEM Message: This is quite enough. Unlock further upgrades for your Triumvirate as you level…Like normal SYSTEM Users.

  “I swear your fami…” seemed to float on the air as Pandora closed the last notification.

  “Can you feel that?” Caspa asked excitedly.

  “Yeah,” Pandora said as she felt as if her body had been unlocked. As she explored her Mindspace she realized that she could now go deeper with Soul Core Perception and dived deeper into her into her soul. It felt like she grew smaller and as she did she fell through and away from her Mindspace, Caspa, and Tantur. After falling for a bit she noticed a glowing sphere rushing toward her. Suddenly she stopped at the outer edge of an invisible field that held what could only be described as a solar system of bodies with a nucleus at the center and planet-sized balls of energy rotating around it in all three dimensions. As she moved through the solar system she made sure to avoid the planet-sized balls of energy.

  When one of the orbs came close a tooltip popped up in her vision that labeled it as “Mold Chaos Node”. She altered her trajectory and flew around the SYSTEM and noticed that each of the orbs was a Node for one of her Abilities, Titles, Perks, Skills, and Spells. Another thing she noticed was that there seemed to be a layer of a cobweb-like substance that was lifting away from this representation of her Soul Core.

  As Pandora looked over the lattice that surrounded the nucleus of her Soul Core she noticed that portions were greyed out. This caused her to take a closer look at the Soul Core where she could see three distinct sections that were intertwined in a truly chaotic fashion.

  Pandora pulled up her Status Screen and reviewed the changes. Her attributes had been at 100,000 each when this SYSTEM had created the Foundation Sector and absorbed the previous System. Additionally, her Chaos Attribute had been…

  Yep, it was still 3.11E+43 because the SYSTEM couldn’t really track chaos. Then how…”

  Pandora felt a tug from Thor and rose from her Soul Core back into her Mindspace.

  “It felt like you have a question?” Thor asked.

  “Yeah, how did the SYSTEM just refill my Chaos Attribute when my regeneration is only 12 per second and it is so large now?” Pandora asked.

  “Occam’s Razor, The simplest explanation is usually the best one,” Thor said.

  “And?” Pandora said to prompt Thor to continue.

  “And it means they didn’t remove your pool of Chaos; they simply locked it away from your ability to use it. It’s a good thing too or you’d have absorbed the planet and probably this whole section of the galaxy, if not the whole galaxy,” Thor said.

  “You’re kidding right?” Pandora asked.

  “I’m afraid he’s not,” Caspa said. “That much chaos, if completely free only has one purpose, to expand and consume.”

  “Yeah, but now we have Thor as well and you have all of that Chaos back. What are you going to do first?

  “First, I’m going to try to bring Desrae back?” Pandora said.

  “No need,” Thor said.

  “No need?” Pandora and Caspa asked together.

  “Yep, no need. Your grandmother is a fantastic healer and one of the spells she just recently learned was resurrection.”

  “Oh?” Pandora said.

  “In fact, here she comes now,” Thor said as a screen appeared floating in front of Thor which depicted the scene around her body out in the real world.

  Pandora dropped out of her Mindspace and back into her body. Once there, she verified that she was clothed and sat up.

  “Pandora, are you okay?” her Grandmother Cindy Bennard asked as she rushed into the room.

  “Yes, I’m fine. Desirae, however, died. Do you think you could bring her back?”

  “Where’s her body?” Cindy Bennard asked?”

  “It’s gone,” Pandora said.

  “I need something to focus the spell on, or it won’t work?” Cindy said.

  Thor’s voice entered Pandora’s mind, I’ve got this, just let me have control for a moment. If your Mold Chaos ability is like Adam’s was in his original body I should be able to do this. Pay attention so you can do it if something happens to me.”

  Pandora sent a mental agreement to Thor and allowed him to take the reins and watched as he activated Mold Chaos to create Chaotic Nanites. She could see and feel them as their link was established but she wasn’t quite sure how Thor had created them. She could of course recreate them, but she didn’t understand how he was doing it. The nanites morphed into the body of Desirae and even created the clothes she’d been wearing. Pandora felt Thor reach into her memories, recall the exact moment Desirae had been absorbed, and then recreate the genetic structure of her body, including all of her memories. The body was still a husk, but it was an exact duplicate of Desirae at the moment she’d been absorbed.

  Cindy stepped forward to the body of Desirae and kneeled next to her as Thor had Pandora step back and then he returned control of her body. Cindy concentrated and a brilliant golden glow expanded from her hands and enveloped Desirae’s body. A moment later Desirae coughed and opened her eyes as she looked around frantically. A moment later her gaze became unfocused for a moment and then she exclaimed, “Well that sucked!”.

  Desirae looked over to Cindy and said, “Thanks Cindy, bringing me back from the dead seems to be happening more and more.

  “Just don’t make dying a habit,” Cindy said.

  “I’ll try not to, but no promises,” Desirae said.

  Pandora felt Thor activate Mold Chaos which created a grouping of nanites that morphed into the body he’d been using recently.

  Before Pandora could say anything she felt Caspa do the same thing and appear as a swarm of nanites that looked vaguely like her. “

  Can you both control your avatars while I’m doing other things?” Pandora asked.

  “Who, or what…” Desirae started to ask.

  Pandora pointed at Thor, “That’s Thor,” and then she pointed at the nanite replica of herself, “And that’s Caspa.”

  “What happened?” Desirae asked as she looked back and forth between the three of them. Cindy also looked at all three of them with a hint of concern but not in a fearful way. It looked like the type of concern a mother has for her son or daughter when they’re doing something that could potentially be dangerous.

  Before Pandora could answer the question, Thor said, “Pandora ate us.”

  “I did not eat you!” Pandora said indignantly.

  “You kind of ate them,” Caspa said.

  “I thought you were supposed to be on my side,” Pandora whined unconvincingly. “Okay, maybe I ate them. But I definitely ate that asshole.”

  “Don’t forget about the three guards.”

  “Damn!” Pandora said. “Grandmother, how often can you use Resurrection?”

  “It just cost most of my mana right now. I have 6 more potions so if you can make their bodies like you did for Desirae, I can bring them back too.

  “Sounds good,” Pandora said as she reached into her memories and brought the patterns for all three men out. She thought she could have created all three with just one application of Mold Chaos but she decided to take things nice and easy and only created one body per turn. Her mother drank a potion and then brought back the first soldier. She had to wait a full minute before she could drink another mana potion to refill her mana pool. Four minutes later, all three men were fully clothed and had non-magical copies of the weapons and equipment they’d been carrying. The only thing Pandora couldn’t give them back was what had been in their Personal Storage. But after they’d come back they found out that when they opened their Personal Storage, all the items were still there. It looked like the Personal Storage area was outside of the Soul and merely attached by The SYSTEM.

  Desirae watched and when Cindy completed her last resurrection came over to talk to Pandora, “That Lyn-Tar fellow was quite powerful. Did your kill Notification tell you what level that guy was?”

  Pandora checked.

  Congratulations! You have killed an Epic Assassin You have earned 88,500 XP and 56,050 Credits

  “All it says is that he was Epic, no levels given, though I did get 88,500 XP for defeating him.”

  “Did that give you a level?” Desirae asked.

  “Nope, still 40,800 short of level 75.”

  Pandora’s Grandmother cleared her throat, “Something else has changed about you, I can feel a very powerful aura coming off of you?”

  “Yeah, When I absorbed Thor, it broke through the artificial suppression The SYSTEM set up.”

  “You have your previous classes back?” Desirae asked.

  Pandora laughed, "Nothing like that. It looks like coming into this SYSTEM reset our Soul Cores, I’ll explain that later. Anyway, for some reason going through a reset like that doesn’t seem to affect Attributes though. All my attributes are at the level they were in the previous SYSTEM plus everything that’s been added to them since.

  “Adam theorized that when going through SYSTEM changes certain characteristics inherent to the Soul Core remained. Adam went through the change a couple of times before he realized that the base abilities we have and our attributes seem to remain. Classes, Perks, Titles, Skills, Spells and the like do not. While you might remember how to use that knowledge, a new SYSTEM doesn’t know that you know it and needs to be shown that you are proficient before it adds that functionality of the benefits for those skills back to you. The very first time he ran into this problem concerned the skill Stealth. In his original universe, it was a skill that focused on your ability to control yourself to remain hidden. In the second universe, it was supplemented with magical enhancements that made the skill much easier.

  “The SYSTEM adds all of those to your Soul Core, they don’t just spontaneously appear?” Pandora asked as she thought about her own Soul Core and what she’d seen just a little while ago.

  “That’s what Adam thought. My time as a helper with the Previous SYSTEM didn’t allow me to check on his findings though I am aware of them,” Thor explained.

  “So, what does it mean that you have all of your attributes back? Cindy Bennard asked.

  “It means I can do this,” Pandora said as a stream of Chaos in the form of nanites exited her body and flowed down into he ground and seemed to be absorbed by it.

  “What are you doing?” Desirae asked.

  “Just finishing what I started with this shelter as well as making this room impenetrable to the next rogue that tries to enter.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be handling that,” Thor said. “I’ll start with this room. When I’m done it’ll make it quite hard for anyone to enter unnoticed.”

  “And I’ll start walking around the complex which will allow the nanites near me to continue working. Pandora doesn’t have a lot of range that nanites can exist away from her yet so we’re the Three of us are going to split up and cover more ground,” Caspa said.

  Caspa made to leave the room and Desirae pointed at the recently resurrected guards, “One of you with Caspa, she’s the one walking toward the door. One of you with Thor, and the last go report to Captain Hudson, let him know what’s happened and where he can find me. No one is to attack Caspa or Thor, am I understood?”

  “Yes Ma’am,” the three soldiers replied in unison.

  “What are you going to do?” Pandora asked.

  Desirae ignored the question as she turned to Cindy, “Why don’t you go make sure everyone else in our group is okay. Let Abi and Amanda know what happened for sure. I’m going to talk with Pandora and see if what she did to unlock her own attributes can be replicated on us.”

  Cindy nodded and left the room, “See you in a few.”

  “Unlock your attributes?” Pandora asked wonderingly to herself. “There shouldn’t be a reason I can’t. But, I don’t have any perception-based abilities or skills,” Pandora said.

  “Then it looks like we need to visit a SYSTEM Shop,” Desirae said with a smile.

  As Pandora and Desirae talked they watched everyone file out of the room as the walls and floors rippled. They looked at each other and also left the room, “He’ll be okay in there, right?” Desirae asked.

  “Oh yeah, he’s just using the nanites like Dad would. Also, his physical structure right now is all Nanites. Technically he’s still in my mind but he’s controlling the nanites in the other room from here. As is Caspa.”

  “What kind of range do you have,” Desirae asked as they stood outside of the room and watched Caspa walk slowly down a hallway that was rippling around her. The same thing began happening around Pandora as she felt Thor use her proximity to the walls to direct the nanites to reinforce the walls and floors in some way she didn’t quite understand. Yet.

  “I’m getting notifications that my skill in Technomancy, which just unlocked has leveled in the last 30 seconds. And again, to Common Level 2 after only 2 minutes. Right now my range is 20 feet….Scratch that, I just leveled again to level 3. The range just increased to 40 feet.”

  “Why is it going up so fast?” Desirae asked.

  “Probably because all three of us are using the ability. The range the nanites can expand away from me will increase as I continue to use it. If you want to go off and do something, I should be fine while we shore up our defenses and finish up the base,” Pandora said.

  “All three of you, aren’t they just part of you now?” Desirae asked.

  “Nope, Caspa and Thor are their own entities, we’re just really close now,” Pandora said with a smile.

  “You and your dad,” Desirae said as she shook her head. “I’m going to leave you to this, well talk about unlocking our attributes later.”

  “Sounds good,” Pandora said as Pandora, Caspa, and Thor began working on repairing and improving the fortress complex with all the knowledge Thor could bring to bear on the subject, which was not an inconsiderable amount.