“Welcome, everyone to our third daily planning session. Before we begin in earnest, I would like to raise a few issues separate from discussions relating to the creation of our third country.” A new day had dawned, despite Excelsior’s lack of dawn, and Damon had once more called the gods together for a meeting.

It was him who was speaking. “Specifically, issues with you Rich. While I will hold myself back from asking you to remove snail rains altogether, I believe it would be excessive for them to fall upon all Excelsior. Please limit them to the countries already created.”

“First, of all, its Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, the First Ever!” Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, the First Ever cried. “And second of all, how dare you! D’you know how many immortals prayed to me about specifically that? They’re amazing!”

The two engaged in a silent staring contest for far too long, as for the other gods it was far too early in the morning to be prepared for this shit.

“Um, how about a vote?” Naturum ventured, determined to stop the argument forming. “All those in favour of Rizzlerich, raise your hand.”

A lone indignant hand shot out up above everyone else’s.

“Near unanimous.” Damon sneered. “I believe that resolves that issue quite nicely”

“My artistic vision is compromised! Do you not believe in the visionary ideals of the unrestrained auteur?!”

“Do you?” mumbled Loma, who had truly no idea what Rich was even going on about. This wasn’t unique amongst the gods, as Rich was only half sure he knew what he was saying either.

“On a similar note,” continued Damon, ignoring Rich’s outburst and not hearing Loma’s response, “I would also like for you to tell us what you had planned for other atypical weather events, so we can veto them if we decide they are too dangerous, or world disruptive.” ‘In other words, most of them.’ Damon snidely thought to himself.

“Never!” came Rizzle’s predictably chaotic reply. “The surprise is the best bit!”

The staring match once more resumed for a tense three seconds before Naturum spoke up again. “Okay, lets vote again. All in favour of Rizzlerich, raise your hand.”

The magic gods hand shot up, alongside Aomy’s who was still determined to believe Rizzleritchensteineonizziism was more than just mayhem and destruction.

“Well, still a majority.” Damon declared. “Give up your plans, Rich.”

“On this I refuse to compromise!” yelled Rizzlerich. “You may steal my secrets over my lifeless bloody corpse!”

There was a loud bang as Damon shoved his chair back, stood up and slammed his hand on the desk. “This isn’t a game Rich, tell us now or-“

The magic god popped out of existence, leaving Damon to once more stare at the spot Rizzlerich once sat, but now with a look of utter incredulity.

“He just left.” He murmured to himself.

Suddenly his head snapped around to the window. A great rumbling sound was echoing from below the castle and the tables, chandelier, even the chairs the gods sat on began to silently shake. Damon rushed to said window, only for the source of the sound to come rushing past him, visible to all.

A tremendous torrent of black sand blasted against the glass, causing Damon to jump back. The shape of the sand was twisted and unnatural, forming the shapes of thousands of screaming souls. Despite the lack of any voice box, the gods in the room clamped their hands to their ears as the sands audibly screamed outside. To their horror, they found this did nothing. The sand wasn’t screaming aloud. It was screaming into their minds.

“What the hell is this?!” screamed Damon, looking as furious as the sandstorm.

“Why does everything he does have to be so loud.” moaned Loma

“It looks like we’re getting a preview of Rich’s next bit of weird weather.” Naturum looked to the others with slightly less despair on her face despite the noise. “A psychic screaming soulsandstorm”

“Such sweet sibilance” whispered Aomy, aiming for Naturum to be the only one to hear her, but thanks to the piercing shrieks of the storm, no one heard her.

With a snarl, Damon swiped his hand across the air and for a moment the storm ceased. Within moments however, it raged once more, now harder and with even louder screams. No matter how hard Damon fought, he found he couldn’t affect the sandstorm. Rich was imposing his will over his! All because Rich was stronger!

Damon’s silver face was turning red from exhaustion, desperately pushing back against Rizzleritchensteineonizziism’s indomitable strength, when all of a sudden… silence. The leader of the gods almost didn’t notice at first as he was still pushing against the storm that was clearly still raging, but regardless there was silence.

A cough interrupted the shocked quiet of the gods. “Ahem. I have constructed a barrier around this chamber in which no sound, real, psychic or otherwise can permeate. The meeting may now resume!”

Damon glared incredulously at owner of that grand and impressive voice. The ibis-headed Scientia stood, arms spread wide. He nodded to each of the gods in turn before dramatically sweeping himself back into his seat. Damon continued glaring. Was Scientia stronger than Rich? When he asked his omnipotence the same question and got the answer no he isn’t, the angelic god realised something.

‘Scientia isn’t smarter than Rich. He is merely solving the sandstorm problem in a way Rich didn’t expect, so Rich isn’t exerting his will over Scientia’s’

Answer found satisfactory, he began to resume the meeting. “Unfortunately, the source of our interruption was also what I planned to continue discussing. That being currently impossible, I say we move on to the next pertinent topic. Namely that of planning our third country, as established before. I propose we complete the standard fantasy trifecta, so long as Aomy can stay focused this time and not throw some half-baked bizarre other race upon Excelsior.”

He didn’t like Aomy’s very real look of guilt and curious as to why for a moment, he paused. He dismissed the worryingly possible possibility he felt bad for her and settled on the conclusion he just simply preferred getting a rise out of people. See look, there was Naturum giving him the stink eye, and that was simply delectable.

Satisfied once more, he continued. “Let us bring forth a great forest country which we shall fill with elves.”

A familiarly jarring boom echoed across the room. “What?! Boring! Overdone!! Only marginally better than dwarves!!!”

Loma moaned and smashed his mighty stone head upon the table. Barely a minute had passed and already, Rizzleritchensteineonizziism had returned.

“Must you do this every time we decide upon a people to add to Excelsior?” Damon sneered down at the magic god.

“Until you stop deciding upon lame, garbage, fantasy tropes! What even are the point of these meetings? Just let Aomy come up with her own stuff. Then we get stuff that’s almost as interesting as my stuff!”

He looked around the room for support and found none. Even Aomy’s featureless golden face had clouded with shadows which was amusingly much easier to interpret than her human guarded facial expressions.

“You disagree?” asked Rizzlerich, almost challengingly.

“Oh um. Well, in part, having an existing template to draw on is, um, helpful, I guess? A good starting point. But, um, mostly.” The expressive expressionless goddess drew in breath. “How dare you! Dwarves are way cooler than elves!”

Rizzlerich’s eyes bugged out of his head, before snapping back in as he grinned wider than his thin head should allow. “They are not! Elves are magical! Mystical! Their ancient lives allows for imaginative cultures! Dwarves are nothing more than greedy little cavern babies!”

The shadows swirled excitedly on Aomy’s face, and the still golden portions glowed brighter. “Dwarves feel more ancient and mystical without being pretentious little shits!”

Rizzlerich’s arms flailed wildly. “They do not!”

“Well, then someone hasn’t listened to Over the Misted Mountains in far too long”

“Ha! That low, slow, droning trash?! Diggy Diggy Hole is the only good dwarf song AND I SHALL NOT HEAR A WORD TO THE CONTRARY!!!”

The other gods were clearly getting very invested in this argument. Naturum was giggling to herself, stoic Loma had leaned forward in excitement, Damon hadn’t ruined it by interrupting the meeting and Scientia… Well, he’d been rarely invested in the meeting at all and was still scribbling a load of irrelevant lore into his notebook, but he was an exception not the rule.

“At least we have a best song” retorted Aomy. “Name literally any song about elves!”

There was a long pause. “Toss a Coin to Your Witch, is technically about elves.”

Aomy actually reverted back to her generic human form just to raise her eyebrow incredulously.

“Okay, fine! But elves don’t all speak in a comical accent!”

Aomy gasped. “That’s the best bit!”

Rizzlerich thrust a pointed finger of flame toward Aomy. “You wouldn’t say that if you were Scottish!”

Still human, Aomy blinked, before changing back to her impassive god form. “Are you Scottish?”

“No. Dwarves are always traditional. Do you like things being traditional? Ever stagnant and unchanging? No! Strive ever upwards! Societies exist to be improved!!!” The magic god grinned and folded his arms in victory.

“Sorry, is being traditional the sticking point? Can you claim elves aren’t traditional? And worse. Elitist?”

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism threw himself back, eyes wide, mouth agape in a truly Legend Lawyers worthy parody of shock.

Then he drew himself back and began to mumble. “Mm. Both traditional. Re-evaluating priorities” Then he grinned and his eyes literally blazed because he was a god and could turn his eyes to fire whenever he wanted.

He stuck his hand of water out and asked “Gnomes?!”

After a moments pause Aomy nodded and shook his wet, uncomfortable hand. “Gnomes” she confirmed. Rich grinned wider than he ever had before and Aomy’s face glowed an almost painfully radiant light.

“Woo!” cried Naturum who began wildly throwing confetti into the air and Loma smiled to himself. It was testament to Rizzleritchensteineonizziism’s incredible sources of energy that he’d managed to excite almost the whole room like that. Naturally, now Damon decided to ruin the mood.

“While I confess this has been… fun” he admitted. “I trust we may resume our meeting?”

“If we must” came Loma’s rumbling voice with definite traces of disappointment in it.

“Can I infer that despite this ruckus, we can proceed with creating elves?” Damon continued uncaringly.

“I, um. Well.” The energy was swiftly draining out Aomy and her face began to redden. “I think… I’d rather make gnomes now?” She glanced to Rizzleritchensteineonizziism for support who enthusiastically thumbs-upped her.

Damon’s eyed narrowed. Sensing the room, he decided the next play was risky, but he saw few alternatives beyond throwing his weight around and further vilifying himself too soon. “In that case, shall we vote. All in favour of elves before any other suggestions?”

His own hand raised, and he breathed a sigh of relief upon seeing Scientia and Loma’s hands raised as well. “As the room is split, I, as leader of the gods, shall make the final call. Now, I decree we set forth and build the forest home of the elves!” He smiled. Who ever said that a little throwing around your weight wasn’t wrong?

His smile fade as a timid voice spoke up. “Um. No.” The golden faced goddess was practically shaking but she still resolutely stared back at Damon.

Now his eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

Aomy looked to Rizzleritchensteineonizziism for more support and without lowering his first thumbs-up, he repeated the gesture just as enthusiastically with his other hand. “On this I refuse to comprimise!” she cried. “You can make elves over… um. I might do that tomorrow. But today is for the gnomes!”

Damon slammed his chair back again and rose intimidatingly, but before he could say anything Rizzlerich called out “This is the part where we run!” So saying he vanished with a bang.

Aomy looked across at the furious leader of the gods. “Eep!” she yelled before disappearing to who knew where.

Damon continued fuming for a moment before he sighed. “Those remaining, please continue to make a forest. Meeting dismissed.”