“Hello everyone!” Pandora said brightly. “I’m Pandora, the newest Parallel. We decided to make me because Lilith and all of us Parallels can potentially understand what eldritch stuff does, but we’d have to work to decipher it. So, that’s going to be my job, painfully reverse-engineering what all those abilities do. I’ll be cooped up in a lab most of the time, but I’m more than happy to spend a little time with you whenever, I doubt a few hours here or there will make a massive difference in the grand scheme of things.”

“Woooow!” Carmen exclaimed. “You’re a spider!”

“I am!” Pandora laughed, scooping Carmen up into her arms and then placing her on her abdomen. “I’m gonna change my species every little bit until I find a species I really like, and I’m starting with arachne.”

“What else are you considering?” Anna asked curiously.

“Basically anything that isn’t humanoid.” Pandora replied. “At least for now, if it turns out I hate it, then I’ll switch to checking out different humanoids. Basically, I just want somethin’ comfortable to research in that isn’t too boring.”

Aria nervously approached her. “Um…what do we call you?” She asked.

“How about Mum?” Pandora suggested, picking Aria up and hugging her tightly. “And if there’s anything you want to see me as, let me know, I’ll try it for you.”

“Me too, Mum!” Mai added, rushing over to Pandora’s side. “I have things I want to see you as!”

Pandora grew another pair of arms and grabbed Mai with them, hugging her as well. “Alright. Just gimme a list and I’ll do it for you, kay?”

“Yay!” Mai said, snuggling up to Pandora. “We should do a fashion show later!”

“We’ll do that, then.” Pandora said, looking back up at the other people. “So, any questions for me?”

“How long do you think this is going to take?” Jameson asked. “Not trying to hurry you or anything, I’m just curious because making a whole new Parallel seems like a rather drastic step.”

“Hard to say.” Pandora said. “My hope is that I can get the broad strokes of things pretty soon, within a year or two, but getting into the fine details and fully understanding what they do? Decades, centuries even. But, by doing so, I would hopefully be able to reproduce the stuff we’ve been given and make my own.”

“I see.” Emily, an elf girl who was currently working as a maid in the dungeon, said. “Would you mind if I helped look over your research from time to time? It sounds fascinating.”

“Knock yourself out, but lemme just warn you now, I’m not sure you’re even physically capable of understanding this stuff. I mean, I’ma try my best to help you out, but this stuff is like, different. You’re gonna have to approach it in a completely different way, and I mean…you’re gonna have to know how to read Mana first…basically, don’t get discouraged if you can’t.”

“I understand.” Emily said. “Still, I would like to try.”

“I’ll letcha know when I have something that’d be good to show ya.” Pandora said. “But it’s gonna be a hot minute, so you’ll have to bear with me, sorry.”

“I’m assuming you’re going to have a research room of some sort, how should we clean it?” Raphi, an angel girl who was working as the other maid in the place asked.

“Don’t.” Pandora said. “I’ll take care of it myself. Probably. There’s probably gonna be a lot of papers and stuff in there, and it wouldn’t do to have things get out of place. It’ll be messy, but it’ll be my mess, you know?”

“Quick correction.” Kali said. “Please do clean up any dishes or snack bags or whatever stuff she’ll leave behind in there. Just not the papers.”

“I-I’ll clean those up myself.” Pandora said, turning her head away from Kali.

“And I’m secretly aiming to destroy all of existence.” Kali said sarcastically. “We both know stuff unrelated to research is going to be forgotten about and just left lying around.”

“Okay, fine, you can clean up that stuff. If it’s important to my research, I’ll leave a note or something so you’ll know not to clean it up.”

“None of this stuff is…hazardous to us, right?” Alex, a catgirl and Raphi’s adoptive mother, asked.

“Shouldn’t be.” Pandora answered. “Not to look at, anyway. It’ll probably hurt your head a bit of you pay attention to it, but no more than Zoan’s Barrier. It should be fine to just peek at, and if it’s not…I’ll seal the door so you can’t see it. And, also probably seal the door if I’m experimenting on something sensitive or something. Just like…don’t poke around in there without supervision and you’ll be perfectly safe, you won’t even be able to tell it’s there.”

There ended up being a few more questions, but it ended up being stuff like Pandora’s likes and dislikes, which weren’t that exciting. Like all the Parallels, her personality had been crafted so that her specific task was the thing she enjoyed most, so the answers tended to revolve around her work in some way or another.

She liked learning new things, the thrill of finally solving a tough problem, the feeling of discovering something that no one else had, that sort of thing. And, for hobbies…well, she hadn’t really tried anything as herself, so she didn’t really know yet, but she suspected she’d be fine with whatever.

As for what she didn’t like…she hated giving up, of leaving something less than perfectly solved, and people who knowingly perpetuated false information. She, of course, didn’t mind when people didn’t know something wasn’t true, she herself was likely guilty of spreading false information simply because science hadn’t grasped the truth yet and she didn’t know better. But, once that misunderstanding was corrected and someone did know better…her sympathy evaporated.

Still, it made her happy that the residents of the dungeon took an interest. It was nice to have people ask her about her, and not assume they knew things based off of their knowledge of Lilith and the other Parallels. She had assumed they would react the way they were reacting based off of how they acted when Eve was first introduced, but it was still nice to see it happen.

So, she let herself relax and enjoy the moment. A week or two later, once things had settled, she’d begin her research in earnest, but until then she would just hang around and let everyone get used to her, especially the kids, and she couldn’t picture herself being happier than she was in that moment.

“So, you’re sure about this, then?” Eve asked, staring at Levia and trying to read her face.

“Even more than I was last night.” Levia confirmed. “Do it.”

“In that case, do you have any requests about your appearance?” Lilith asked. “If you want to be similar to the twins, I can do that, if you want to be more similar to how you are now, that’s doable as well, and if you want something completely different…well, that’s fine too. And please, don’t hold back if you think you’d be asking too much, it’s not a hard thing to do and it’ll affect your life in a large way.”

“Umm…would you be capable of like…making me your biological daughter?” Levia asked shyly. “I know it doesn’t matter, but I want to…well, play the part for my fantasies, so to speak.”

“Easily done.” Lilith replied, waving a hand. “Mai and Aria are, and at this point Mae is much more competent when it comes to our biology than those two were when they did it. Though, fair warning, we won’t be able to make you a Perfect Chimera like the twins or me and the Parallels.

“Due to the way Levi was made, and the fact that you’re on an entirely different system than us, the process would be exceedingly risky and would likely cause conflicts within you. Still, it doesn’t affect DNA in non-magical ways, and the offspring of Perfect Chimeras aren’t Perfect Chimeras anyway, so you’ll still be biologically ours, just not technically the same species. Is that okay?”

“Y-yeah, I wasn’t expecting you to go that far.” Levia said. “So that works great.”

“Any other requests?” Eve asked. “Really, we’re more than happy to oblige, you’re family now, and we don’t hold anything back when it comes to family.”

Levia gave her a nervous smile. “Um…make me cute?” She ventured. “I know it’s vain, but I don’t want to be ugly.”

“We’ll make you the cutest kid in the world.” Eve laughed. “I presume you would prefer a look that would, you know, age well? Make you a real stunner when you grow up, that sort of a thing.”

“You can do that?” Levia asked hopefully. “Really?”

“As long as you eat right, and don’t do anything that would hamper your growth, we effectively rig things so you end up looking good.” Eve said. “We have the capability to test out what different genes would lead to in a final appearance, so to speak, and that gives us a lot of ability in this regard.”

“Then, um, please.” Levia said, blushing. “And, um, thanks. I don’t have any other requests, so…I’m ready.”

“We’re going to magically put you to sleep during the process, okay?” Lilith said. “It’ll help mitigate confusion. If you would rather, we can do this while you’re awake, but I would recommend being unconscious.”

“Yes, please.” Levia said quickly. “See you then.”

Lilith snapped her fingers, and Levia instantly fell asleep. “Mae, if you would, would you begin simulating some gene combinations for her? I’m accepting her request for entrance into Familial Bond now.”

Eve felt the telltale welling up of love within her as Levia was properly allowed into Familial bond, and then Mae began to speak. Nuwa and I are already on it. She said. We have a program up to expedite the process, but we’ll be sure to check the result on an actual test body.

“Excellent work, thank you.” Lilith said. “I’ll get to work on the spell, Eve, will you prepare some outfits for her?”

“Sounds good.” Eve said. “Let’s get this done.”

And so, they did. They took their time, being slow and deliberate so they would be absolutely sure they wouldn’t have any accidents during the process. Mai may have made it quick during the time she had tried to use it on Lilith, but that was prone to failure, especially since Lilith wasn’t quite as experienced with the spell as Mai.

So, the process took a few painstaking hours, but they weren’t going to spare any effort when it came to their daughter. But finally, the time came that they were ready to actually execute the magic. Lilith and Mae worked on channeling the spell, Nuwa on fueling it with Mana, and Eve and Pandora watched like hawks, looking for any sign of something going wrong and ready to act as backups if they felt it necessary.

Lilith and Mae began their work, and Eve focused her attention on Levia, observing the flow of the Mana around her and watching as her body began to shift. After a few moments, Eve turned to Pandora. “I think we’re going to need more Mana than we have.” She whispered. “I think we’re going to need to dip into Worship for that extra oomph.”

Pandora surveyed Levia for a moment more, then nodded. “Yeah.” She said. “Let Nuwa know, I’ll keep watching.”

Eve gave a nod of her own, then turned back to watch Levia as she contacted Nuwa. Nuwa, Pandora and I believe we’re going to need to use Worship. We’re not getting this to stick with just Mana.

I was just thinking the same thing. Nuwa said. I’ll start juicing it up. Let Lilith know.

“Lilith, we’re switching to Worship.” Eve said. “Be ready.”

Lilith gave a terse nod, and the flow of the Mana began to change, the already large pathways widening in preparation for an even greater power. The moment they had finished, the flow of Mana intensified, the spell being effectively supercharged as its power source was changed from just Mana to a mix of Mana and Worship.

With the increased intensity, the process sped up dramatically, and the Parallels all fell into an intense silence as they devoted all of their attention towards keeping the spell’s construction solid. In the planning stage they had recognized that they may well be required to use Worship, and had made a rather extensive outline for what would need to happen if they switched to Worship.

Unfortunately, the spell Mai had devised simply wasn’t built with Worship in mind, and while Worship could be used as a substitute for Mana, that wasn’t without its consequences. Normally, those consequences could be ignored; Worship was, in many ways, just stronger Mana, and as such it multiplied the effectiveness of something when used as a substitute for Mana.

For this spell, however, controlled output was of utmost importance; unlike Mai, they were trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, leaving as much of Levia’s personality intact as possible, and simply reducing her mental age. Unfortunately, the spell was the single most complex one that Eve had ever seen, and their modifications weren’t as solid as the rest of the spell.

That meant that, if they just switched to Worship and made no adjustments for it, their modifications would fail, and the spell would return to its original form or go out of control entirely. That was something they obviously couldn’t afford, so reinforcing the spell required their full intention.

It was an incredibly precarious process, one that required Eve and Pandora to constantly shore up different parts of the spell, bending the power to their will and forcing it to do what they wanted and nothing else. Fortunately, the increased power of the spell increased the speed of its work, and it only took around a minute for them to finish the process. And, once they were done, they let out a collective sigh of relief, taking a moment to relax and collect their thoughts.

“That was one hundred percent eldritchly influenced.” Pandora burst out. “I don’t know if you guys noticed, but parts of that spell were using constructs we’ve only seen in some of the eldritch stuff we looked at, and it wasn’t our parts. It’s theoretically something that could be made without the eldritch, but it’s really pushing the boundaries.”

I thought something about it was odd, but I could not put my finger on it. Mae said. I believe you are correct.

“I’ll need to get a look at everyone’s eldritch stuff before drawing any conclusions, but if Mai has similar structures in her abilities…well, we can assume this was sort of given to her by the eldritch.” Pandora said. “And…actually, we never checked Levia for eldritch stuff, did we? Considering how close she is to us now…I think there’s a chance she might have something.”

“You might be right.” Lilith said, stroking Levia’s head lovingly. “Let me check real quick…yeah, she has something. I’ll send you the memory of it later, Pandora, but for now, should we wake her up? I’ve given her the knowledge of what to call each of us, so we should be ready now.”

Eve gave Levia another look-over. The girl was unrecognizable from her previous self, having become a child of four or so. Furthermore, her species and general appearance had changed, bringing her more in line with how Lilith looked. Though, unlike Mai and Aria, who looked like younger versions of Lilith, Levia was more of a mix between Lilith and Kali.

“I think we should wake her up.” Eve said. “I’m excited to see her.”

“I agree.” Pandora said. “No point in stalling further.”

Lilith snapped her fingers, and Levia stirred on the bed she had been laid on for the transformation, then opened her eyes. She sat up, yawning cutely and rubbing her eyes as she did. “Mom?” She asked sleepily. “Are we done?”

She paused for a moment, then her eyes widened. “M-Mom? I…I…” She trailed off, reaching up to wipe her moist eyes.

“Is everything alright?” Eve asked worriedly, rushing over to Levia’s side. “You’re feeling fine, right?”

“I-I’m fine, Mama.” Levia said, holding her arms out for a hug. “I’m just…happy. So, so happy.”

Eve aged herself up slightly so she was better suited to pick up Levia, then grabbed her, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Good.” She said. “That’s the idea.”

“Mmm.” Levia responded, resting her head on Eve’s chest. “Thanks.”

“We’d do anything for you.” Eve said. “Anything.  But for now…are you up to being introduced to the rest of the family, or do you need some time?”

“Just another minute.” Levia said, snuggling further into Eve’s embrace. “Then we can go.”

“Take as much time as you need.” Eve said tenderly. “Just let me know when.”

Fighterman481

Pandora is a bit of an interesting character to write, mostly in dialogue. She speaks more casually and with more slang and contractions, and I'm not quite sure where the line is there yet. It'll take some tinkering to get a balance that feels natural, but I'll get there in time. One thing is for sure, though - my spellchecker absolutely hates her dialogue, and I've already had to add a few words to the dictionary so it stops getting mad at her.

Writing the whole...transformation sequence (?) was surprisingly difficult. I had to retool things a couple of times, but eventually I ended up with something I was happy with. And...honestly that's all I really have to say about this chapter. Next time we'll introduce Levia to everyone else, then finally get back to system and plane construction, so...look forward to it, I guess?

And, as always, thanks for reading!