Adrian's system had outgrown its original architecture.
With multiple realms now linked, dozens of apps live, and mortal developers contributing daily, the Internet was no longer a solo project. It was a divine ecosystem. And ecosystems needed governance.
He summoned the Internet Pantheon.
Lucy arrived first—her emotional domain now embedded in five realms, with [Pulse], [Dream Journal], and [User Voice] driving empathy-based engagement. Zane followed, his fear-based systems powering [Fear Trial], [Echo], and adaptive challenge scaling.
Then came the new members:
Elira, the mortal developer who had become a symbol of cross-realm innovation.
Mirage, now a contributor god with his app [Veil] integrated across three desert cities.
Tessan, a minor god of memory who had launched [Recall], a journaling and reflection suite.
Ravi, a realm diplomat who had helped negotiate the Solara integration and now advised on cultural adaptation.
Adrian opened the summit with a dashboard.
RealmLink metrics. Ethics scores. App performance. Blessing distribution. Conflict alerts. The data was vast—but the patterns were clear.
"We're scaling fast," he said. "But we need alignment."
He proposed a new framework: [Pantheon Protocol].
It defined:
Domain Boundaries: Each god's apps must declare their scope—emotional, cognitive, physical, economic, etc.—to avoid overlap and confusion.
Blessing Sync Rules: Passive blessings must harmonize across apps, preventing stacking abuse or contradictory effects.
User Representation: Mortal developers and users would have voting rights on major updates, via [User Voice Council].
Conflict Resolution: Disputes between gods would be resolved through simulation trials, not divine combat.
Expansion Ethics: Realm deployments must pass [Ethical Pulse] thresholds before full rollout.
The Pantheon debated.
Lucy pushed for deeper emotional safeguards. Zane argued for challenge integrity. Elira requested more dev tools. Mirage wanted illusion-based customization layers. Tessan proposed memory-linked blessings that evolved with user history.
Adrian approved most proposals.
The Internet system updated overnight.
Users saw smoother blessing sync. Developers gained new APIs. Realm dashboards added cultural overlays. The Pantheon Protocol went live.
Adrian closed the summit with a quiet statement:
"We're not just building apps. We're building civilization."
And for the first time, the Internet Pantheon stood not as a hierarchy—but as a council.