Pandora

Illustration by Khiralas [1]

**Pandora** is a Khalizor pre-Mending planeswalker and the former protector of Khaliz-Dorahn. Being over a thousand years old, many planes owe part of their history to her. Her right hand has the power of accelerating and stimulating growth, while her left hand has the power to make things decay. She cannot have both hands come in direct contact with each other or the conflicting forces would cause a cataclysmic outcome.

## Birth and Early Years

Pandora was born in the year 1957 KY (Khalizor Year, an obsolete calendar which takes the year Khaliz-Dorahn is estimated to have come into existence as the year 0) to a couple of Rehison High Elves. She belongs to the last generation of elves before they started reproducing with humans and she is the last pureblood in existence.

Ever since she was young, she knew she was destined for greatness. Her parents were of the high class and gave her everything she needed to ensure she'd achieve a high position among the rulers of Rehis-Dorahn.

When she turned 35, she underwent the coming-of-age ritual, during which her spark ignited and she ascended. As she entered the Blind Eternities and saw infinity unravel in front of her, she felt the call of her people, and immediately returned to Khaliz-Dorahn, where the ritual was completed and she was praised for her newfound powers.

## Planeswalker

After ascending, she began noticing a brand new connection to the world, she claimed it spoke to her in a silent language, letting her know what it needed to thrive.

Not only that, the spells she'd learned growing up as a healer seemed to now have assimilated into her very essence, as she could now cast them without speaking the required incantation or doing the required motions. Her hands mutated, her right one absorbing all her healing powers and her left one those of decay. After consulting with her mentors, she found out her two hands could no longer come into contact with each other, for the contradictory powers condensed within them could have devastating consequences if they were unleashed simultaneously.

She spent the following years developing her abilities while learning politics under the mentorship of one of the rulers of Rehis-Dorahn.

One day of the year 2105 KY, a conquering force of three planeswalkers arrived at Khaliz-Dorahn in an attempt to subdue it. The Khalizors fought bravely to fend off the intruders, but at the end of the day it was Pandora's power as a planeswalker that won the war. The people of Khaliz-Dorahn agreed to name Pandora their protector and even changed the calendar to the New Khalizor Year (NKY), setting Pandora's ascension as the year 0. Spiteful towards her fellow planeswalkers, Pandora swore to get rid of any foreigners who dared set foot on the plane.

## The Evil One

### Heletrios

After almost one and a half millenia had passed, on the year 1516 NKY, Pandora detected the arrival of a new planeswalker. She came across a man named Heletrios, who claimed to be looking for a new home. After centuries facing against planeswalkers, Pandora demanded he leave, threatening to kill him if he didn't. Heletrios tried to talk his way through, but Pandora attacked him.

The man ran, planeswalking to different locations of the plane while Pandora chased him closely. Eventually they landed in Lafterwal, right next to the Lafterii Tower. Makriall, the Lafterii Magistrate, demanded Pandora to stop since they were in his jurisdiction. Pandora begrudgingly accepted and the magistrate shackled Heletrios and asked for his story. After deeming the story to be true, the magistrate agreed to take Heletrios in as a fellow Lafterii, promising to answer for him if things turned awry.

Pandora agreed to the deal and spent the next year carefully following the foreigner to make sure he didn't try anything funny. After spending so much time with him, however, she actually realized they had much in common. For the first time, Pandora knew a fellow planeswalker she could befriend, and she did, knowing however that she was more than capable of killing him if he actually proved to be a threat.

### Thellior and Makranos

On the year 1527 NKY, two new invaders arrived at Khaliz-Dorahn: Thellior, a vampire from the plane of Althestra; and Makranos, a demon from the plane of Kamdrana. They proved to be a lethal combination, quickly recruiting the undead from the Darklands as their army and overpowering Pandora. She called for Heletrios's help, but even both of them were no match for the invaders.

Desperate to stop them, Heletrios created a psychic barrier around the Deadlands, sealing them off but trapping Thellior and Makranos inside, stopping them even from planeswalking. Incapable of exiting, Thellior and Makranos created a creature capable of breaking them free: The Evil One.

With their new pet, Thellior and Makranos quickly began taking over the adjacent countries, and Pandora and Heletrios decided to investigate on the matter.

### The League of Five

Pandora and Heletrios began questioning the victims of the deadly trio, finding out about their new and powerful partner. They came across the Evil One, who seemed to be alone, and tried to take It down, completely failing in the process.

They were forced to retreat and began planning a new way to defeat it. After joining forces with the other nations, a massive army was formed, meant to bring down the Evil One. In order to do so, they needed to destroy the High Praires, which was the most beautiful place in all of Khaliz-Dorahn. They did it, but the Evil One survived and, to everyone's demise, became even more powerful. Pandora blamed Heletrios for these events and forced him to leave Khaliz-Dorahn.

As she began planning how to defeat the seemingly invincible creature, she was visited by Thellior and Makranos, whose vital energy was being drained by the Evil One. She found out how It was created and recruited her enemies, keeping a close eye on them but knowing they would fight by her side in order to avoid death.

She then proceeded to recruit Seluriel, leader of the Danuri, who was a planeswalker himself. Realizing there was yet another planeswalker who could help her defeat the Evil One, she set out to find Heletrios. When all her ideas failed, Seluriel suggested Heletrios's family could have a way of contacting him. Indeed, before leaving, Heletrios had given his son Merkurio a means to reach him even through the Blind Eternities. Pandora summoned her friend and he came, agreeing to fight for Khaliz-Dorahn.

The five planeswalkers became The League of Five, and a new battle plan was made

### The Shield

A massive army was raised yet again, and this time, they had a plan based on information Heletrios had deduced in their last big confrontation: they would craft mana-draining weapons with the aid of Thellior and Makranos in order to take away The Evil One's omnipotence, then drive it into a highly entropic region of Fellorie, where they hoped it would be torn apart.

The first part of the plan worked, but as the Evil One was reaching the destination they were hoping It to go to, It figured out their plan and began attacking the hidden planeswalkers. Realizing they had no way of achieving their plan anymore, Pandora decided to take an extreme measure. She told Seluriel to channel the energy of the Third Sun into him. As he did, she placed her hands in the stream of energy that was flowing through Seluriel and had them come into contact with each other.

The second her hands did so, the crystallized forces of life and death, growth and decay in them tried to tear each other apart, generating a massive explosion which destroyed the Third Sun. Pandora used the energy of the blast to push the Evil One where she needed It to be, obliterating the other four planeswalkers in the process.

She realized that, in order to destroy the Evil One, she'd need to pour all of her energy into her devastating spell, and that would kill her. She decided against it, convincing herself that Khaliz-Dorahn needed her alive. Instead, she used the residual energy to craft a massive cage and capture the Evil One inside, a cage she called The Shield.

She went to Heletrios's wife and son and told them that he had passed away. The trauma of learning about his father's death ignited Merkurio's spark, and he planeswalked away, to Pandora's surprise.

The next few days, Pandora made sure to help the nations rebuild after the massacre and, after establishing a monument in honor of those who fought the Evil One, she declared that she needed to leave Khaliz-Dorahn for an unknown amount of time. Before anybody could say anything she was gone. The last planeswalker had left Khaliz-Dorahn, leaving a stunned audience and an entire life behind her.

## The Multiverse

Looking to leave behind her guilt for killing Heletrios, her best friend, and her cowardice for choosing her life over her world, Pandora arrived at a nameless plane, where she quickly took control and became its protector yet again. For years the people of that world were glad that she was there to help. However, one day she came yet again across a group of invaders. Even though they were easily dispatched, she realized the invaders would never stop coming to the worlds, and she couldn't save them all. Besides, stopping these new invaders would not undo what Thellior and Makranos had done to Khaliz-Dorahn. Instead she decided their own homeplanes should pay the price, since Thellior and Makranos were both dead.

She then set on a campaign of revenge, roaming the Multiverse in search for the homeplane of Thellior and Makranos. She came across many planes in the process, helping the natives with their problems but always keeping her main objective in mind. Her inquiries eventually led her to a shady plane which seemed to be a planeswalker resting place, where deals to obtain goods from all over the world, whether they be objects or information, were struck every day.

In there, she ambushed a man she'd been told knew about the origin of Makranos. After torturing him, she obtained the name of a plane: Kamdrana. As she was about to head there, however, Elspeth and Koth caught up to her, telling her she was needed back in Khaliz-Dorahn since the Evil One had been set free.

## Return to Khaliz-Dorahn

Pandora immediately followed both planeswalkers back to her homeplane. In there, she asked they escort her to Rehis-Dorahn, where she summoned the Rehisons, who were thought to be extinct. She then joined the New Order, the group of people who were leading the war against the Evil One (Leem, Zadrim, Omenn, Merkurio, Roggar, Logayr, Elspeth, Batrest and Gallord). She used her healing powers to wake up Merkurio from the coma he'd been in after attempting to destroy the Evil One. When he woke up, he revealed that Leem was under the influence of the Evil One and was acting as a sleeper agent.

Pandora decided to use this information to her advantage and told them a century-old secret: when she created the Shield, she used the residual energy to create a replica of Khaliz-Dorahn so, if the Evil One was ever released, it wouldn't destroy the true plane. She then told them they could channel the entire energy of the fake world and use it to kill the Evil One, but they'd need a catalyst: someone who'd been born in the real world. Even though at first the Order thought she was speaking about herself, she quickly said the catalyst should be Leem, since he'd inevitably have to die in the process. She convinced Gallord to kill Leem and taught Elspeth how to cast the spell that would end the Evil One. The spell worked and the Evil One was destroyed, but in doing so the two alternate realities of Khaliz-Dorahn began clashing and the world started collapsing.

The Khalizors set sail to the Unknown Continent, which was the link between the real Khaliz-Dorahn and its replica, and was the place where Pandora had sent most of the Rehisons after the creation of the Shield to ensure they would be safe from the Evil One. However, as they were reaching the continent, their ships got caught by the Wall of Storms. The survivors landed on a beach where they met Allagras, a merfolk planeswalker from Korrinayru and the self-anointed protector of Khaliz-Dorahn. Jealous of Allagras's self-given status, Pandora confronted him, but Gallord intervened before either of them got irreversibly hurt.

Allagras toured the group through his domains, which involved most of the lower half of the continent, with the exception of Endris-Dorahn, where the Endrisons (descendants of the Rehisons Pandora sent that way) lived. In there, Pandora thought she'd be reunited with her people and she could reclaim the title of protector. Instead, Mawdryk, leader of the Endrisons, let the group know that Pandora had murdered the other members of the League of Five while refusing to sacrifice herself to stop the Evil One. Enraged at finding out his father was betrayed by his best friend, he confronted Pandora in an attempt to kill her.

The group stopped him before he could do it, but he demanded Pandora leave Khaliz-Dorahn forever. Faced with the humiliation of nobody respecting her anymore and the guilt for killing Heletrios, Pandora abandoned Khaliz-Dorahn in disgrace.

## Vengeance

Knowing there was nothing left for her to do in Khaliz-Dorahn, Pandora continued her quest to avenge the crimes Thellior and Makranos had commited 106 years earlier. Eventually, she pinpointed the location of Kamdrana and headed there.

Two years after leaving Khaliz-Dorahn, in 1637 NKY, Pandora arrived at Kamdrana. While the Demonlord Maukreios (the only Demonlord left in the world) was busy eradicating the spawns of his brother Malextros, Pandora was left to carry on her vengeance unimpeded. At first she simply wanted to destroy whatever legacy Makranos had in his homeworld, but after figuring out the nature of Kamdrana, she saw no merit in sparing the plane of total destruction. Pandora used her vindictive desires as a way to channel the darkness of the plane into herself, increasing her power for enough time to deliver a fatal blow to the plane's core, causing a massive disruption to its mana flow and leaving it forever scarred, weakening the two remaining Demonlords. She immediately left without looking back.

After gathering information for a year, Pandora arrived at Althestra on 1638 NKY. In there, she sought to destroy what Thellior had held the dearest, but in doing so, she doomed the plane to destruction. Akrianos, who had been her guide and ally, tried to kill her for her deeds, but she escaped him.

## Mellyner

As she fled Althestra, Pandora realized vengeance had not erased the guilt and the humiliation she felt, and she had the added guilt of destroying an innocent plane. She realized all she wanted was to be appreciated by the rest. She arrived at the plane of Mellyner, where she found herself in the reality of Mellyner White. She established herself there and began helping the people in that world. Soon, she gained a small cult following and eventually she was once more the sworn protector of the world, a massive amount of people worshipping her.

However, this didn't last. The planeswalker Akrianos had been hunting her down, and eventually found out her hideout. He raided her castle with the aid of a group of planeswalkers, defeating her and threatening to kill her. However, unlike her, Akrianos realized that in searching for revenge he would only hurt others the way he'd been hurt. He decided to forgive her and let her go, but forced her to swear she'd never set foot on Althestra ever again, threatening to actually kill her if she ever did. Pandora agreed and, bitter with defeat, left Mellyner White.

## Current time

Pandora is now roaming the Multiverse trying to find peace of mind. She is searching for a way to erase the guilt and shame without others being hurt in the process.

## Trivia

* Pandora crossed paths with Urza a couple of times before the Phyrexian Invasion and learned some things from him. However, he could never convey the threat of Phyrexia and she always considered herself capable of dealing with Yawgmoth and his armies, disregarding them.