Cael didn't realize Hearthcore had become a "real city" until someone handed him a permit request… for an underground tavern that also doubled as a pet adoption center.
"With fungi-based beverages?" he asked, rereading it.
"Fungi don't ferment. They dream," said the applicant. His name was Yom. He wore three different shoes and spoke like a poet in a bar fight.
Cael stared at the form again.
It was laminated.
Where had they even found plastic?
"Nell?"
The golem assistant materialized beside him with a soft tone.
"Three more requests have arrived this morning. One for a floating statue garden. One for a stress-yelling tower. And one labeled only: 'recreational catastrophe dome.'"
Cael blinked. "That last one?"
"Filed by Malen."
Of course it was.
The growth had come fast after the public naming ceremony.
Grid Beta was full.
Grid Gamma was half-laid.
The North Sector was a philosophical art piece no one fully understood but everyone visited anyway.
And now, people wanted ownership.
Not just housing.
Not just warmth.
But identity.
They were forming guilds.
Calling them "Departments" didn't help.
"We're not trying to turn into a surface capital," Cael said in the first civic assembly.
"Too late," Myla said. "You gave them a voting system and a snack distribution protocol. This is the next logical disaster."
"It's not a disaster—"
"One of the snack crates had a miniature banner reading 'Department of Flavor Equity'."
Cael pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Do we even have a Department of Flavor Equity?"
"You do now. They have hats."
Later that week, Riven called an emergency meeting.
"There are security concerns," he said, dropping a stack of incident reports.
"More Ash Teeth movement?"
"Worse."
He pulled up a holo.
A massive mechanical drillgoat was chewing through the old west tunnel wall.
"Someone domesticated a tunneling golem. It got loose. It thinks the vent ducts are delicious."
Pause.
"Whose is it?" Cael asked.
"Technically? It's a Department of Ethical Excavation mascot."
"Are the departments just making up emergencies so I'll acknowledge them?"
"Yes. And also, we now have a working sewage plan because of it."
Cael sat down slowly.
"So... the chaos works?"
Nell nodded. "With appropriate parameters, yes."
"How appropriate?"
"Borderline. Spiraling. Possibly brilliant."
That night, Cael stood on the city scaffold and watched Hearthcore shimmer with light.
Not organized light.
Not perfect light.
But lived-in, handmade, contradictory brilliance.
A bakery burned a little too brightly.
Someone played music near the archive dome using crystal bowls.
Children chased an escaped scroll-bot.
Cael smiled.
"We're a real city now, right?"
Nell, standing beside him, tilted her head.
"We've always been real. You're just catching up."