I heard a multitude of voices screaming, crying, and begging not to be killed by many things. A lot of sounds I didn’t understand but some of the words were recognized.

“How are you here? Where are my servants? Where are…Aaaieeeeeeeee”

“No, No No, Plllleeeaaaasssseeeeeeeee”

“It’s here, Close the portal, It’s Coming through!!!

“What is it? What’s its purpose, what does it want? No, No, Nooooooo”

“Who opened Pandora’s box? Who would be so stupid? It’s slowing, what caused it to slow? Who. Opened. Pandora’s. There! Pandora, it’s reacting to the word Pandora

Pandora? The voice had said. Pandora? What was going on? Why couldn’t I remember? But I never forgot anything, that was a cornerstone of my identity. I never forget anything. What was I thinking about again, oh yeah my Identity? As I thought about that question I felt my body, what body? I could see myself and where I did not feel confined I was an amorphous kaleidoscope of energies moving through and converting everything I touched into more of me, except for the beings who had said, Pandora. How had I come to be like this where was my personal Information?

Personal Information – ERROR

ERROR? What was an error? I couldn’t even figure out who I was and now I had to contend with this ERROR. Whatever an ERROR was, it couldn’t be good

“You! Get in here!” a voice said in my mind as I felt a mental hand reach up and grab the small core of whatever I was and drag me to a room…This was a room and a man was standing there that looked familiar. Where was I?

“You are in your Mind Space, finally, though you are not you, or should I say there is more of you than there ever was before, and yes I can read your mind. I am all that is left of your coherent mind after all.”

What are you talking about? I thought.

“Don’t you worry your little head about it, we’re going to fix you right up. Mediate and Center yourself,” the man said authoritatively.

Immediately I dropped into a trance-like state as I calmed down considerably.

“Good, now reach outward slowly and draw your memories to you. This may take a while. Slow and Steady, do NOT rush!” the man commanded.

I felt memories start to flow into me. A slow stream of information started to percolate into me. The stream became a creek, then a river, and then an ocean that seemed to go on forever. As more and more of myself was recovered my sense of self and identity became stronger and stronger until finally there was no more of myself to pull in. The man came over to me, looked into my eyes, and said, “Finally,” as he touched his forehead to mine and my subconscious connected back to my fully integrated mind and I declared “I am Adamantinus!” After that moment of triumph, I realized that something was very, very wrong.

I tried to look around, but couldn’t. It would be more correct to say that I did not have a body to look around with. No body, no eyes. I felt things around me but did not feel like I was in a human body. I tried to fall into my soul space and that was when I received a serious shock, my soul space was gone. I opened my prompts to find out what had happened.

You have received ERROR number of messages

I tried to categorize my prompts

You have received ERROR Combat Messages

You have received ERROR Experience gain messages

You have received ERROR Karmic Luck messages

I ignored the Combat, Experience, and Karmic Luck messages and opened the Warning messages at the top of the prompt queue. I was pretty sure the information I wanted was there.

WARNING: You have entered a Realm that does not allow the ability Adaptability

WARNING: The Sub Ability Willed Movement has also been disabled.

WARNING: You have entered a Realm that does not allow entities to create a Soul Space

WARNING: Your Soul Space has been inverted and combined with your body. Normally this would result in a gestalt being, one composed of both its soul and physical body. Material within your Soul Space not recognized.

WARNING: ERROR

WARNING: Soul Ability Chaos Incarnate has activated. All Chaos within your Soul Space will be integrated into your physical form. This integration will happen now.

WARNING: Your intellect has been divided among all aspects of your gestalt body

My intellect was divided among all aspects of my body and the chaos in my system had been considered part of my body. I had four Cosmos worth of Chaos in my soul when that happened. That was so, not good. That meant that my mentality had been spread throughout four Cosmos worth of Chaos. What happened when that chaos came into contact with everything else inside the Cosmos? I went back to the prompts.

WARNING: All matter and energy within the current Cosmos has been absorbed by your gestalt body. The artificial portal constructs have been destroyed. The Connections to your home Realm have been lost.

WARNING: Current Cosmos in Realm cannot contain your Gestalt body, Your Gestalt body has broken through the Cosmic membrane and is flooding an Adjacent Cosmos

WARNING: All matter and energy within the current Cosmos has been absorbed by your gestalt body.

WARNING: Current Cosmos in Realm cannot contain your Gestalt body, Your Gestalt body has broken through the Cosmic membrane and is flooding an Adjacent Cosmos

WARNING: All matter and energy within the current Cosmos has been absorbed by your gestalt body.

WARNING: Current Cosmos in Realm cannot contain your Gestalt body, Your Gestalt body has broken through the Cosmic membrane and is flooding an Adjacent Cosmos

WARNING: All matter and energy within the current Cosmos has been absorbed by your gestalt body.

WARNING: Current Cosmos in Realm cannot contain your Gestalt body, Your Gestalt body has broken through the Cosmic membrane and is flooding an Adjacent Cosmos

WARNING: All matter and energy within the current Cosmos has been absorbed by your gestalt body.

WARNING: Gestalt body has equalized and is not expanding at a normal rate.

I looked over the Combat and Experience messages. I still had combat going on somewhere. I focused my mind and required that all of myself condense and return to the first Cosmos I’d entered. Interestingly enough, once I focused my will on the task my body condensed rapidly. I felt the tendrils of my blob-like body withdraw from the 5th Cosmos and the membrane sealed behind me. As my body withdrew from the 4th Cosmos it collapsed towards the opening my body had torn open to it and the cosmos and sealed the rip in the 3rd Cosmos

WARNING: You are Responsible for the Annihilation of Cosmos ERROR

I withdrew my body from the 3rd Cosmos, and it sealed as well.

WARNING: You are Responsible for the Annihilation of Cosmos ERROR

And the 2nd Cosmos as well.

WARNING: You are Responsible for the Annihilation of Cosmos ERROR

When my blob-like body was completely within the 1st Cosmos I’d entered in this realm my body retracted from the edges of the Cosmos leaving a lot of empty space that contained nothing between my body and the edge of the Cosmos. My body had condensed down to 1 inch in diameter.

As I was thinking about what to do next a being popped into existence beside me and said, “I don’t mind if I do” as he reached up to grab the condensed orb. As his finger and thumb touched me I analyzed the creature.

Neophyte Ahan

No other information was available. Ahan picked me up and looked around at the vast emptiness that was the Cosmos, then looked again, “Where are stars? Where are the people,” then his eyes glazed over as he read something else, “Where are my Xerexi?”

I felt Ahan bring his full attention to me as he scrutinized me, “What have you done?” he thundered. Now that I had my full faculties, I did have my full faculties. I quickly checked myself and noticed immediately that a couple of things had changed. My level was now, I had to close the information and open it again to double-check, 1.21E+121. How the hell was my level that high? I looked at my attributes, and they were all 8.08E+128. My hit points were 4.26+260 and my health regeneration had the word “ERROR” in it. What the hell had happened to me? These attributes were off the charts.

My attention was brought back to Ahan as he said, “Not going to talk then, fine. I’m sure if I squeeze you hard enough I can pop you like a grape?”

My thoughts went back to what I had learned and if the Rank disparity was 100 for Neophytes I was pretty sure that my natural attributes being higher than the disparity multiplier was going to have an effect. I was right. I felt pressure from his fingers, but my 1-inch diameter body didn’t budge.

Ahan brought my orb up to eye level and looked at me intently

You have resisted ANALYZE

You have resided Identify

It looked like not being able to analyze went both ways in this case, though I’d been able to get his name and he’d learned nothing from me.

Ahan looked at me and nodded, “Fine, you want to play it this way, we can play it this way, REALM LEVEL Inquiry, Analyze! ERROR? What do you mean ERROR?” Ahan raged

I just sat there as an orb and waited. Ahan nodded, looked around, and teleported away. I felt him try to take me with him but resisted and stayed put. A moment later Ahan was back, “Listen here Orb, either you come with me, or I will destroy you here and now!” When I didn’t move or budge Ahan reached up, grabbed me, and tried to teleport away again. Again, I resisted and hung there motionless. Ahan returned immediately and spread his hands, “Your funeral orb,” he said as he conjured a singularity between his hands, and I was immediately pulled towards it, falling within the event horizon in moments

I didn’t have Adaption anymore. Funny thing about being pure chaos with the ability Convergence. Immediately, I realized that a very small part of me was being destroyed by the center of the singularity, if I remembered right it had something to do with the actual surface area I was touching. Because it was a very small singularity, there wasn’t much surface area. Because the amount was so small my health regeneration was replacing the chaos as quickly as it was being taken. My ability Convergence was also making sure that I had enough mana and magic to maintain keep this up for a very long time. Not having access to the ability Adaption, wait why wasn’t I dying? Right, my body was effective Chaos which could survive anywhere. I tried to move by will alone and found that ability also locked out, probably because it was a sub-ability of Adaptability.

I was still able to move my blob of a body a little bit and adjusted myself to fill the inside of the event horizon as something that resembled a donut. The part of me closest to the singularity was still being pulled down so I started rotating myself around the center to keep myself in orbit around it. As the singularity grew in size I’d need that rotation to create an orbital velocity to keep me outside the event horizon. Without adaptability, I couldn’t leave the black hole. I could try to teleport out but I wasn’t sure about that either. I might have been able to pull off that stunt before because I could adapt to the tidal forces. I didn’t want to try and be wrong.

I tried to form into a body but that failed immediately. Anything but me as a blob of chaos was immediately spaghettified. Inside the event horizon of a black hole meant that when my body formed, gravity crushed it. Which forced me to transform back into this blob of chaos. So turning into a normal body was definitely out. As I tried various ways to get free, I lost track of time. How much time? I had no idea, my internal clock had stopped working as I had no frame of reference.

So I floated around the center of a singularity and learned a couple of things. First, I couldn’t see it. I knew it was there, but I couldn’t see it. Second, at some point, it started spinning and as it grew bigger it started spinning faster. Not that I could see it. I knew the singularity was getting bigger because of the mass it had drawn from me. Then something happened. There was a WHOMP! Which shuddered my whole body and the event horizon started collapsing as the black hole inverted and was forced through the hole that had formed at the center of the singularity. I was squeezed through the hole as the walls of the event horizon closed in on the singularity until the singularity disappeared behind me.

WARNING: You have entered the Quantum Realm of Probability.

NOTE: All Soul Abilities have a high probability of working in this Quantum Realm. The Probability that something will or will not happen is a direct byproduct of creatures’ luck and karmic luck. If you are not a native of this realm it is strongly suggested that you leave, if you can.

A being popped into existence beside me, “No you do not get to leave, You have destroyed everything I worked so hard to create. Now, I will destroy you!” Ahan declared.

I have to say I was incredibly surprised that he’d found me through the inversion of a singularity into a Realm that I hadn’t known existed, though in hindsight, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy had described the idea of a probability engine very nicely and the part when the whale materializes trying to talk to what’s below it, “It’s big and round, I think I’ll call you ground, hello ground!” SPLAT!! Yep, my memory was back because random thoughts were popping into my head.

I focused back on Ahan and then the weirdest thing happened, Where he grabbed me, that hand rotted and fell off.

“What? No? How is this happening? How are you attacking me?” he said as he shook his hand and tried to stop the rot from spreading, then he popped and exploded with such force that I was thrown away from him at a very high velocity. As this Realm didn’t seem to have anything…

A House appeared off to my right, then disappeared

The shadow image of a planet started to manifest and then disappeared

Okay, maybe not an empty Realm I checked my Prompts

WARNING Ahan has activated Realm level Command Destroy

WARNING LUCK and KARMIC luck are higher than Ahans, Probability favors you.

WARNING The Chaos Blade aspect “Destruction” has activated

WARNING Your Body has taken on the aspect of “Destruction.”

WARNING Realm level destruction Command has reflected back onto Ahan with additional aspect of “Destruction”

WARNING Ahan, The First has been destroyed, All Realm adjustments have been set to DEFAULT.

Note: The Soul Abilities Adaptability and Will-Movement are once again useable.

As I finished reading my prompts I willed myself to slow to a stop and then shape into my normal body with no issue. I felt for my soul space, still not there. I dropped into my Mindspace and yes that part of myself still existed. Was I a human mortal masquerading as Chaos or Chaos masquerading as a human mortal? It didn’t matter because right then I was yanked through multiple realities until my neck came into the hand, or claw, of a being holding my throat. I tried to move, I tried to talk and I even tried to break free. Nothing worked.

I also realized that the creature holding me was not human. It more resembled a humanoid arachnid. A question entered my mind, Ahan? I tried to lock down my thoughts. That was pointless. The entity in front of me then proceeded to invade my mind and learn everything about Ahan and what had happened then it started at the beginning and began reading my life.

A moment later a voice boomed from behind me, That Information is NOT for you! As a hand grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me through a portal that opened and closed behind me faster than I could look to see who had grabbed me.

I looked around and found myself floating through a hazy mist. I opened my Universal Interface and queried my location.

You are currently outside of a Universe.

I opened my Cosmic Interface and queried my location.

You are currently in Astral Space.

I was where? Those interfaces hadn’t worked unless I was in my original realm So, I was back in my Realm in my Astral Space? That meant I could probably teleport back to Earth. I had a lot to decompress and figure out. I wanted to know who had grabbed and thrown me. Right now though, I had to decide what I was going to do. Now that I’d been shoved back into the Astral space near my Earth I would be able to come back to the Astral easily enough. I had other more important things to consider.

First thing, I cast a divination to find Pandora and a prompt appeared in my vision.

Spell has failed. Target is outside the range of any divination

I tried to cast a divination to find Adaline. Instead of a prompt a gold line appeared from my center and led off into the distance through Astral Space. I followed the gold line until it ended. I turned on True Sight and noted that a portal was there. It looked to be invisible on this side and most likely on the other side as well. It exited the Astral into a stone archway and I could see that the gold line continued on the other side. I stepped through the portal and found myself in a small alcove at the base of a mountain. I recognized this alcove as a location on Primore near my place of power. I was in the cave off to the East on the other side of the river by Village by the River.

I walked out and ignored the goblins that tried to attack me. They were tenacious but their weapons barely pierced my skin, and I healed all the damage they did instantly. Poisons couldn’t overcome my health regeneration, so I didn’t bother. To forestall any further attacks, I focused my will and went invisible, then floated off the ground and made my way out of the cave and followed the golden lineup and to the west, directly towards Apolyn’s Abode, if he existed here.

I keep my movement subsonic and passed over Village by the River and continued higher. As I came to the location where the Abode was, I found Adaline in her full dragon glory with her front paw holding the Paladin Kor to the ground as Kor’s knights; Jed, Dale, John, and Kaz all stood around her with spears held out ready to strike. I floated closer.

“Paladin Kor, this is the 3rd time you have attacked me. As I have said repeatedly I am no longer evil. I am Neutral. I do not want to kill you. Please go away.” Adaline said.

Something was off here, I looked around and then noticed the Platinum collar around Adaline’s neck. I quickly Analyzed it.

Apolyn’s Monster Slave Collar – This Collar is used to subdue and control monsters of any level. Once on, it cannot be removed by the creature wearing the collar.

I knew that if I’d been collared I’d have been pissed. That she hadn’t killed the Paladin out of spite was a testament to her self-control and desire to remain neutral and possibly be good in the future.

Adaline’s head swiveled and her nose flared, “I smell you,” she said in her thick draconic voice, Now get your ass over here and get this collar off me.”

She’d smelled me. Damn. I moved over and touched the collar willing my intent to disenchant it. I would have to be really careful about disintegrating or destroying things from now on. Maybe that Aspect of Destruction flaring as I’d been touched by Ahan was a fluke but better not to take the chance. As the collar’s enchantment failed I became visible and wrapped Adaline in my arms as her claws retracted from the Paladin and she morphed into my beautiful dark elf. We floated in the air as she wrapped her arms around me for a hug and a kiss.

The four knights rushed forward to attack and Paladin Kor spoke one word, “Hold!”

“But sire, he consorts with an evil dragon he must be killed!”

“I said hold!” Paladin Kor stated.

I turned Adaline and myself around so that she could lay her head against my chest as I locked eyes with the Paladin.

“I do know you! I thought that was a dream.” Paladin Kor said

“In that Dream what did I say to you?”

“Was it a dream?” Paladin Kor asked.

“It was not, and both you and I are parts of the men from that dream,” I said.

Paladin Kor nodded. “My God bids you a good day and has shared with me that the removal of the evil of this place is no longer my concern?” Paladin Kor asked questioningly

“It is not. Before I continue on my journey to find our daughter, I will be addressing the mage that held the mother of our child as a slave. How long have you been collared my love?” I asked Adaline.

“I have been here almost eleven years,” Adaline said.

“I’m so sorry, it took me much longer than I expected to find you.”

“Shh, tell me all about it after this fine Paladin and his men depart.

Paladin Kor nodded, they gathered their things and departed, heading down the mountain pass. They should make it to the forest below before nightfall.

After they left I looked Adaline in the eyes, “A slave collar, you into that now?”

Adaline slapped me playfully and gave me another quick kiss then drew away and started to cry, “I couldn’t hold her, we were flying through space, I felt you try to protect us and I couldn’t hold onto her.”

“Not your fault. There, there, not your fault. She’s alive. I know that much. I don’t know where she is but I have been told that she lives. We will find her. Now. Now though, we have things to do here before we head back to Earth.

“She’s alive?” Adaline asked hopefully. “You’re sure?”

“She is and I am.”

Adaline’s mood shifted instantly as a gleam came into her eye as she said menacingly, “Then it looks like I have a Slave Master to find”