Matthias was manning the grill. After his talk with Greg, more people had come out to see for themselves, and it had devolved into a bit of a party. So, as any good neighbor would, Matthias pulled out a grill and started cooking up a storm. Hamburgers, hot dogs, fillets, whole fish—if it fit on the grill, he was cooking it.

  Smoke curled lazily into the evening air, carrying the mingled scents of seared meat and rendered fat. Laughter drifted in uneven waves, punctuated by the clink of mugs and the hiss of something hitting hot iron a second too late. Matthias flipped food by feel more than sight, his attention split between timing and tone. He tracked conversations the way others tracked melodies—half-heard phrases, emotional spikes, the subtle rise and fall of worry beneath casual chatter. Every now and then someone would thank him, clap him on the shoulder, or ask what was coming off the grill next. He answered easily, automatically, while his mind stayed busy elsewhere.

  It struck him, not for the first time, how strange this was. A dungeon hosting a neighborhood cookout. Mortals relaxed within his influence, unafraid. He could feel the quiet pressure of his domain smoothing rough edges, keeping tempers light and conversations flowing. It wasn’t control—more like stewardship. The thought warmed him almost as much as the fire did.

  What really held his attention, however, were the conversations happening around him. Gossip, as it turned out, existed in every universe. The discussions ranged from relationships to gear, religion, and politics. It appeared that despite the dungeon core war, plenty more was going on in the world.

  A nation of sorcerers had picked a fight with a dwarven nation along the far coast. Someone mentioned Cragspite by name, the word spoken with a mix of respect and apprehension, and another voice answered with a dismissive scoff about the Cabal and its habit of testing boundaries just to see what screamed. The argument that followed wasn’t heated, but it was telling—supply lines, enchanted steel, spell reagents, and the unspoken question of who could afford a long war.

  Matthias listened, turning a fillet and letting the fat drip harmlessly into the flames. If Cragspite closed its forges, prices would spike everywhere. If the Cabal overreached, someone else would step in, either to profit or to put a stop to it. He could almost see the ripples already forming—adventurers drawn away, trade caravans rerouted, dungeons pressured to pick sides whether they wanted to or not. No one said it outright, but everyone there seemed to understand that instability was becoming a resource in its own right. Several smaller nations were poking at larger powers, testing to see if they could shave off territory for themselves. Trade deals were in the air as raw materials became increasingly valuable. Then there were the various institutions scrambling to develop devices capable of gathering dispersed mana from dungeon clashes.

  It seemed there was never a dull moment in this world, despite the oddities Matthias kept noticing. The religious discussions were particularly strange to him. There was no centralized structure—people simply prayed and hoped for a response. Temples existed, but they carried no real authority within any nation. Religion did not seem to hold inherent political power. Instead, it functioned more like a multinational collection of guilds than a monolithic institution.

  One nearby discussion drifted into prayer itself—whether it mattered how you asked, or only that you did. Someone swore they’d once felt a response after appealing to a concept rather than a name. Another laughed it off, saying the gods of things like War, Mercy, or Growth had better things to do than listen to every whispered hope. Matthias said nothing, but the exchange left him uneasy. Concepts didn’t forget. If beings shaped by ideas truly existed, then they were patient by nature, and patience could be far more dangerous than wrath.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  There was even talk of how some dungeons had turned fully inward already, and how food was becoming scarce in those regions.

  “You look worried,” Greg observed as he ambled up with a stein of ale in one hand. “The host of a party should never look worried.”

  “I guess I tend to look for weight to carry,” Matthias admitted. “I like this place—these people—but it sounds like there’s an endless list of problems.”

  “You can’t fix them all,” Greg said sagely.

  “But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to,” Matthias replied. “I’m bound by my influence. I can’t just lead an army out of my dungeon and tell other dungeons to behave.”

  “You could send one,” Greg offered.

  “And what would war trolls do against an ancient dragon?”

  “Provide entertainment,” Greg guessed.

  “Did you know dragons have cat brains?” Matthias asked. “At least the one that attacked here did.”

  “Wait—you’re telling me dragons have the bodies of lizards but the literal brains of cats?” Greg asked incredulously. He laughed hard enough to double over. “That explains so much.”

  “I do have other projects in the works,” Matthias said, “but I don’t have an answer to air superiority yet.”

  “We’re grateful your dungeon is more than willing to duke it out on the ground,” Greg admitted. “It’s a nice change of pace.”

  “There are plenty of threats from above in my dungeon,” Matthias pointed out.

  “Indeed—and then they become ground threats,” Greg replied. “You teach people to look up, but you don’t force them to fight nonsense that refuses to land until it dies. Some dungeons are obsessed with air superiority.”

  “So you don’t want me releasing giant flying creatures that are just as dangerous in the air as they are on the ground?” Matthias asked.

  Greg shrugged. “It’s your dungeon. Just don’t expect people to want to fight them.”

  “Do you have any idea why the world out there is so barren?” Matthias finally asked. “It bothers me how empty the land feels.”

  “You really do need distractions,” Greg teased. “Give me another cheeseburger and I might talk.”

  Matthias rolled his eyes and handed the large man two cheeseburgers loaded with toppings. Greg greedily devoured one before speaking.

  “A few mages had the same thought you did, a while back,” Greg explained. “They ran all kinds of tests and figured out why. It’s not that there’s no mana out there—it’s the wrong kind.”

  “Wrong kind?” Matthias asked incredulously.

  “They explained it like this,” Greg continued. “Every type of mana is a different sound. That sound determines what kinds of life it can support. But the mana in the wastes is like thirty different sounds layered on top of each other. Pure chaos. Living beings don’t notice it much because we generate our own mana and create a field that keeps the chaos at bay. Plants and basic animals don’t, so eventually they succumb.”

  Matthias groaned. “I was really hoping it was just a lack of mana.”

  “You understood all that?” Greg asked around his second burger.

  “I did,” Matthias replied. “I distilled my own type of mana—pulled it from the chaos you described. That’s part of why I’m not in either faction.” He sighed. “If you mix infernal and celestial mana, you get chaos. You can then distill it back down into a single type—turn all that noise into one sound. Which means the echoes of the god war are still affecting the land.”

  “God war?” Greg asked, confused.

  “It’s the only explanation I can think of,” Matthias said. “Infernal and celestial mana are two sides of the same coin. They didn’t always result in chaos. I think the original form was creation—raw creation energy.”

  “Then what about all the destructive mana types?” Greg pressed.

  “You don’t destroy with them,” Matthias replied. “You convert one thing into another. Fire turns matter into ash and heat. You’re still making something—the usefulness is just debatable.”

  Greg rolled his eyes.

  “Look, I’ve been piecing this together for less than a year,” Matthias said with a sigh. “Cut me some slack. But some kind of conflict must have occurred. That conflict sheared the original mana type, leaving us with infernal and celestial instead. Any attempt to recreate the original just produces chaos.”

  “So you think the gods went to war and made chaos mana?” Greg asked. “Why wouldn’t they fix it?”

  “Do nations fix every home after a war ends?” Matthias asked quietly.

  Greg winced.

  “Then why would beings who see this world as a toy bother?” Matthias finished.