At the center of the world, there is an engine.
It eats mana to produce more, and it produces more than it consumes.
Somewhere above the engine, there is a mold. When mana rises to the mold, it is incorporated into, and it becomes everything that we are, everything we have, and everything there is, has been, or ever will be.
When the world ends, it is because the mold has been broken. When the mold is broken, only it can repair itself. But repairs take time and mana and produce ages of death.
Death begets mana, which feeds the mold and the engine.
Once, we were all engines. We aren’t anymore.
Perhaps, we’re better for it.
I believe we are. There is enough power to be had as it is.
They say, once you’ve had a taste of power, there can never be enough.
But I don’t think that’s true. I think it just becomes harder and harder to matter, and that’s all anyone really wants.