Matthias awoke to the sensation of rain. It was not falling upon his avatar, but upon the surface. Matthias could not remember the last time he had felt rain. He simply lay there and basked in it for a moment as his faculties returned to him.

  That was when he noticed the weight settled upon his avatar.

  Opening his weary eyes, he paused—his already groggy mind grinding to a halt. His two fairies lay resting on either side of him. They had their heads upon his chest, and he had an arm wrapped around each of them. But what caused his mind to short-circuit was that they were both now fully grown women. Women who had grown so fast and violently that the clothes they had been wearing had torn at the seams.

  As panic flooded his thoughts—countless what-ifs cascading through his mind—he exerted the barest hint of will to clothe them.

  The tattered cloth grew and expanded. Within a breath, the two were fully clothed and covered once more.

  Only then did Matthias’ mind stop spiraling. And once it had, he began to wonder why he had been panicking at all.

  As his racing thoughts slowed, he was drawn back to the rain.

  Matthias could not remember the last time he had felt rain.

  That realization brought his now fully awake mind to a sharp halt. He ran through the thought again. His brows knit as something nagged at him.

  It had never rained once since he had come to this world.

  With an effort of will, his avatar stood upon the surface. He looked around, taking in all he could see.

  In Mirehold, people were gazing up at the sky in wonder. They basked in the gentle rainfall just as he had moments before. But Matthias began running through what he knew about sudden rains in parched environments.

  He pushed out his influence, willing it to expand, only to find that there was nowhere for it to expand to. He could feel the edge of his influence—but he could also feel beyond it.

  That brought him up short once more, as he did not know what to make of it.

  Then he felt a root push in from the west into his territory and was forced back into the present. It was no normal root. It was massive. Focusing his senses upon it, he recognized the energies pouring off it.

  “Father,” came a smooth voice. “We can finally meet.”

  Matthias turned to behold a woman with vines for hair and silver eyes. She was helping support another figure draped in robes beside her.

  At the sight of Matthias’ confusion, the first woman giggled.

  “I am the dryad you planted out west,” she reminded his many-times shell-shocked brain.

  She watched with a grin as his repeatedly abused mind coughed and sputtered back to life.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “This can’t be healthy for me,” Matthias groaned as he conjured a pavilion around them, complete with benches so they could speak outside the rain.

  “I was enjoying the rain,” the cloaked figure mused as she was eased onto one of the benches. Her voice sounded raspy from disuse.

  “In short bursts, it is nice,” Matthias conceded. “But you would not say that once your clothing is soaked to the bone. It is a very different feeling.”

  “I will take your word for it,” the cloaked figure yielded with a raspy chuckle.

  “Father, this is the spirit of the world,” the dryad introduced. “She came to me because she did not have the strength to enter your domain on her own.”

  Matthias’ mind threatened to grind to a halt again, but he forced it to keep moving.

  “Too many surprises today,” he grumbled.

  “You are telling me,” the spirit of the world rasped. “I never thought I would awaken.”

  “It’s my fault,” Matthias guessed. “I did something.”

  “You thrust your concept into the heart of the world,” the spirit reminded him. “Such a vibrant and voracious thing. If you had expanded like other dungeons, you would have known what you were throwing your concept into.”

  Matthias gave her a confused look.

  “The core of the world was the source of the chaos mana,” the dryad continued. “My roots followed your concept down into the depths. Between Bios and Homeostasis, we were able to process the chaotic energies. The refined energies are now restoring the spirit of the world.”

  “That is a lot to take in,” Matthias began.

  “Understatement,” the spirit chuckled. Her voice was growing stronger now, though it still carried age.

  Wordlessly, Matthias offered light snacks and water. She chuckled again before helping herself to some crackers and a drink.

  “So how bad is it?” Matthias asked.

  “What do you mean?” the dryad replied.

  “What is producing the chaotic mana? How bad are things worldwide now that the world is waking up? How many people are going to die from natural disasters now that natural cycles are accelerating?” Matthias rattled off.

  “Now that we are linked, the continent is cut in half,” the dryad explained. “Soon there will be a rainforest stretching from coast to coast. Erosion will be minimal in that regard.”

  “The dry ground is not eroding quite like you seem to think,” the spirit added. There was more vitality in her voice now.

  “It is hard and baked—not much silt or loose dust,” Matthias guessed.

  “Indeed,” both women agreed.

  “There will be some erosion,” the spirit continued, “but the rain will not last long in areas that cannot handle it. The quakes are the greatest danger to the mortal races. But I kept them as mild as possible. Besides, the other dungeons are resisting me.”

  “Resisting?” Matthias asked.

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “They are unchanging and resist my influence. I cannot fully awaken while they refuse the natural order. Can you imagine tectonic plates shifting while the dungeons remain fixed? It would shatter this fragile world.”

  Matthias winced.

  “So what do we do?” he asked.

  “We prune them,” she said bluntly. “They are not truly my children anymore. Something has corrupted them.”

  Matthias tried to process that.

  “I established a grand ritual to create dungeon cores,” the world spirit explained. “They were lesser copies of myself. It was too much to manage the entire world alone. So I created children to help me. But someone altered the ritual. It is gone, and I am too weak at the moment to recreate it.”

  “Is that why no new dungeons have arisen?” Matthias asked.

  “Yes,” she answered sorrowfully. “The dungeons tied to the heavens have been subsumed by them. They are little more than puppets on strings. The dungeons bound to darker energies are stunted and will never reach true maturity. Neither side is what I intended a dungeon to be.”

  “And now both are in the way,” Matthias finished.

  “Yes,” the world spirit agreed. “They must either fully submit or be destroyed. Otherwise, the world will shear when the tectonic plates move. They are like spikes driven deep into the planet.”

  “I think there are two dungeons I can recruit,” Matthias offered. “The Turtle dungeon sent an envoy not long ago. And then there is Nefertut.”

  “Nefertut?” the spirit asked. “He still lives?” There was sorrow, grief, and hope intertwined in her tone.

  “I have a mirror that will allow me to speak with him,” Matthias said.

  “Then let us speak to him,” the spirit demanded. “He was there when this began. His mother would like to ask him some pointed questions.”