Loma floated in the void next to the country he had a mere day ago created. He smiled at those rolling hills, the beautiful grassy plains, the faint specks of wood symbolising the start of civilised life. His sense of pride grew, but with great effort he turned away from his idyllic England copy. A new day had dawned on Excelsior. It was time to make his second country.

One that would overshadow Loma’s first landmass, both in his own mind and somewhat literally. Reaching out with a colossal earthen hand, Loma shaped an intermediedary area between the two new countrys, a strip of land that got hillier and then mountenous, until at last it was time to begin the country proper.

Loma reached out again, now with considerably more force, and a mountain sprung up where his hand aimed. It wasn’t the stuff of legend, not overly tall nor overly spiky or imposing , but oh, the sense of power Loma felt when he conjured this mountain into existence!

He waved his hand again and again and mightier and mightier mountains sprung into existence, each taller, each sharper, each much less tolerant of mortal survival. He reached the centre of this new country and sprung a terrifying beast of a mountain the size of Everest out of the nothingness. And just because he could, he sprung an even more ridiculously huge mountain into existence next to it.

If shaping a country was enough to really drive home to Loma that he was now a god, enough to make him incredible, then the sheer exhiliration and the fufillment of the wildest power fantasys that shaping a country of awe-inspiring mountains entailled was enough to make Loma feel like God.

As the god of geography made his 3rd Everest sized mountain, he realised that he may be reaching impulsivity levels far beyond what was considered healthy for a human, or, alternatively, reaching impulsivity levels close to what Rizzleritchensteineonizziism existed at constantly. But why not? No one would live on the surface of this landmass, they would all live under ground. Excelsior’s second landmass would be the home of the dwarves, meaning this was Loma’s chance to just go wild.

Across the world (a comparatively impressive feat when compared to a few days ago), in the wooden halls of Naturum’s home, the god of magic himself, Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, stared in abject boredom at a whiteboard.

He had been invitited here by Naturum, as she apparantly needed him for something, but he’d evidently arrived too soon as the goddess of nature was too busy pacing up and down her living room, staring at a blank whiteboard and muttering to herself.

He vaguely remembered the message that had appeared in his head being something to do with magic animals, which had sounded exciting, so he had immedietly teleported into the nature goddesses house. As surprised as she was, she had been courteous, offering him a seat on her sofa and telling him she was only expecting a mental reply and that he wouldn’t be needed for a while yet.

Rizzlerich had declined the sofa, deciding instead to conjure a bean bag and sit upon that, which he did for all of five seconds, before immedietly getting bored and heading upstairs to grab Your Thanks. He then sat back down, imbueing random bits of purple energy into the creature, mostly as an attempt to get Naturum’s attention.

Unfortunatly for Rizzlerich, Naturum could get ridiculously into her own head when working, so it was still a little while until she spun around to face the magic god and cried “Okay! Sorry, had to do some research. How does magic work?”

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism shrugged. “Surprise. I’ll reveal its secrets next meeting Damon does.”

“Okay, but troglobites- that is, animals which live exclusively in caves are pretty rare on Earth” explained the nature goddess. “You’ve got like, spiders and other creepy crawlies, salamanders and fish and that’s it. Cave exclusive plants are even worse. Basically, to make this a fully fleshed out ecosystem I’m gonna be making everything more or less from scratch” Her eyes flashed with excitement. “I’m being thrown in the deep end with basically no experience. An ecosystem unlike any on Earth. And for that, I’m going to need magic!”

He shrugged again. “Give your animals whatever powers you want. I’m just gonna make it so any creatures not inherently magical have to use my beautiful system.” A grin started to widen on his face. “Speaking of, can I go now?”

But Naturum was too immediately distracted by her work to respond. “Stage one” she muttered to herself. “Plants. I’m thinking at least a little scarce so most of the country has the iconic cave aesthetic from our world. Put them in pockets of dense plant life, like a desert oasis. Maybe even have some create water magically to create little oasis pools. Would it be too much to add coral to these pools?”

Rich’s grin started to fade. “Naturum?”

But Naturum kept talking. “No, no, it won’t harm an ecosystem essentially being propped up by magic, so why not, there’s no harm in having them. Now, I don’t know if Loma’s going to create glowstone or anything like that, so best I make at least some plants magically produce light, probably most oases should have them. But some definitely should not. Hey, with light and water most plants can survive non-magically! The magic plants can just feed themselves because I say so and magic and all that but have an inbuilt inability to grow beyond a certain point to prevent them overrunning all Excelsior. Yes, yes, that’s good, that’s good. Now, most plants grow towards light, but the light producing plants will just be smothered if I let that happen. Hmm. I could make most plants kinda vine-y and just have them grow alongside the walls, rooves and floor, that’s a nice aesthetic. Maybe in the large caverns I could have the occasional sparse tree, but like, with the auxin modified so it’s only gravitropic, not phototropic, I think I could do that. Ooh, and the light and water plants can be big fantasy flowers, that would look brilliant!”

It was at this point that what little patience Rizzleritchensteineonizziism had vanished. “My name is Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, the first ever, and I demand your attention! Stop ignoring me!”

Naturum looked up, blinked and stared at the magic god. “What? Sorry, got a bit absorbed in ecosystem crafting there. In my defence, it is a lot of fun. Especially cos we’re moving from flora to fauna now!”

Rich paused. “We’re?” he thought to himself. But he supposed it made sense, they are magic creatures after all. Why wouldn’t he get a say? Deciding that was entertaining enough, he responded “Nothing. Carry on.”

Naturum happily nodded to herself. “Okay, animal one! Now, many Earth troglobites are blind and have that weird pale skin, and I say we do something like that for a creature that relies on the sections of this country which are lightless. How about we take a bat” and so saying she conjured a bat model into the air in front of her. “Remove its hair and change its skin.” As she spoke the hair peeled off the bat revealing a somewhat gross fleshy layer of pallid white skin. “Remove its eyes because bats aren’t blind.” The models eyes vanished leaving more of that skin in its place.

“Then fiddle with its ears to get maximum echolocation, maybe improve its senses beyond what’s usually possible without magic aaaaand…Tada! Behold the Excelsian cave bat! One creature beautifully designed to flit about Excelsiors caverns. I’m thinking I’ll have it make the use of the areas oases that stay in complete darkness, which, thinking about it, I’ll need to make all the vine and water producing plants there sustain themselves magically without light too. Anyway, I’ll have it make its nests in the plantless caverns and have it speed in and out of areas where it can feed on the insects and shit. Might even make its skin sensitive to light so it naturally avoids those areas. That way it’s out of the way of most predators, a major evolutionary advantage!” Her voice was swiftly ramping up in enthusiasm and a huge smile plastered her face. “Speaking off, let’s make a predator next!”

Which made her a stark contrast to Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, whose face was devoid of a smile, and you’d be really taking the piss if you called his voice enthusiastic. After watching the bats creation dejectedly, he was hastily reassessing his decision to stay.

“This is boorrrinngg” he moaned. “Where’s the excitement in practically magic-less creatures?! I could see stuff like this on Earth! Give them, I don’t know, explosion magic! Make them make things go boom!”

“Hmmmm. This thing has light sensitivity so the explosions may hurt it more than necessary. Plus, its already pretty well adapted to its environment…”

Naturum looked up and finally took note of Rizzlerich’s face, and his strangely adorable look of disappointment. Hastily, she added “…but I can make the apex predator here use explosions!”

Predictably, Rizzleritchensteineonizziism’s face lit up and he leaned forward out the bean bag to hear what the nature goddess had to say. “Go on!” he burbled happily.

“Okay, so, I’m thinking some kind of ambush predator. Something which uses explosions to propel itself quickly onto its prey.” She glanced at Rizzlerich to check to make sure he was still on board, but the magic god was enraptured. “So, we give it the tools needed to burrow into the softer rock and soil in these caverns walls. Something like this…” She erased the model of the bat and made a pair of large, mole-like feet. She hesitated for a moment before adding a set of nasty looking claws to the creature to give it an extra advantage when it came to digging. “Yeah. Yeah, this is good” she mused before continuing.

“Then a thin body so as to best fit into the holes it makes, and more importantly, shoot out of them with little resistance! So, probably best to give it as few appendages as possible considering it should hopefully have caught its prey in one fell swoop.” The model now looked somewhat like a grey snake with big mole claws near its as of yet non-existent head. Noticing this, Naturum made her finishing touches. “And, finally, we give it a snake-like jaw and venomous teeth, ensuring a one hit kill!” She stared at her model in pride. “Rizzlerich, we’re geniuses” she murmured.

“I guess I’ll call it the Excelsian-“

“WRONG!” yelled Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, interrupting her. “We’re calling it the BULLET SNAKE!”

Naturum took a step back due to the shock. Regaining her composure, she replied “Okay, I’m fine calling it that. But you do realise that the people of Excelsior will probably come up with their own name for it, right? Our names are just placeholders.”

“The names for our creatures are decreed by the divine will of the gods!” cried Rizzleritchensteineonizziism. “They are absolute! If a creature has a name, any mortal which beholds them will instantly know it! I have willed it, so it is so!!!”

Naturum briefly wondered how weird it would be to live on Excelsior with rules like this in place. Certainly, there would be a lot less room for atheism when every time you looked out your window you spontaneously recalled the names of every bird in the trees. Still, this was harmless, and being a good member of a group project meant allowing others to implement their own ideas, so she let Rizzlerich do this.

While Naturum was lost in thought, Rizzle had wandered up off his bean bag and floated over on his cyclone lower half to inspect the model bullet snake. “Isn’t it a bit small for an apex predator?” he asked.

There was a degree of truth to that statement. It wasn’t a large creature, or even particularly large for an Earth snake, even if it certainly wasn’t small.

However, as Naturum explained “Resources are scarce in this ecosystem, existing primarily in a few oases. So, animals should conserve energy by not wasting it maintaining a large size. Also, big animals wouldn’t be able to fit into small tunnels and really big animals might bring the roof down with their stomping.” She stopped once she saw Rich’s eyes beginning to glaze over.

“Right. Um. Well, we need a good source of prey for our bullet snake. I’m thinking, given how we need our bullet snake to eat, we make something less defensive, so the bullet snake will most likely get a guaranteed catch. Then, to keep our new creatures’ numbers up, we make them fast breeders and perhaps give them a herding instinct where they protect young in the centre of the herd. Yes, yes. Snakes eat mammals, so this could be a mammal. Maybe we make it…”

She glanced over at Your Thanks idly curled up on Rizzlerich’s bean bag where he left him. “A hamster! Yes, a herd of fluffy little hamsters. That sounds adorable.” She paused for a moment. “I should probably give them a chance against the snake. What if I make them have camouflage? Given the walls are covered in green vines they should be green! Green hamsters! Perfect!” She erased the bullet snake and conjured the hamster model. It looked like someone had taken some bizarrely fluffy grass, clumped it all together into a fat lump and then stuck some huge round eyes onto it. “Behold!” cried Naturum. “The Excelsian green hamster!”

It was actually quite cute, but Rizzleritchensteineonizziism barely registered that as his eyes finally unglazed. He poked the strange animal in its squishy tummy, then turned despairingly to Naturum.

“Its boring again! I could see stuff like this on Earth” he complained, despite how brazenly false that statement was. A green hamster to most would be quite exciting, but Rich has high standards. “Why can’t this explode.”

Naturum looked concerned. “You mean, why doesn’t the whole animal go up in smoke? How would that benefit the species?”

“When a poisonous frog gets eaten the animal may as well of exploded” explained Rizzleritchensteineonizziism. “Why not make the whole thing go up in smoke?”

Naturum thought that was a weirdly good point, so she waved away the green hamster and set to work creating her second new hamster species. It was much larger than the Excelsian green hamster, although far from huge, and it looked somewhat balloon like. Additionally, it was coloured a bright red, with black spots, a detail Naturum was keen to explain.

“Like you see in poisonous frogs, red is one of the colours in nature which commonly connotes danger. This, alongside the apprehension around these creatures I’ll give predators, as if they’d lived alongside these hamsters long enough to evolve a healthy fear of eating them, should keep these cuties safe.”

Rizzlerich nodded excitedly. “And how do they explode?!” he asked.

“When the skin is severely punctured, these hamsters pop, releasing poisonous gasses from within the hamster, into the mouths of an unsuspecting would-be predator. Even if it survives the poison, the poor thing won’t have had a meal and will pretty quickly learn not to fuck with these bad boys.”

Rich shook his head up and down approvingly. “Rizzelian snikpopkaputiorthanks!” he yelled.

Naturum stared at him. “Bless you?”

The magic god shook his head. “I have named this fine beast before you could ruin it!”

Naturum nodded hesitantly. “Or the snikpop for short?” she pleaded.

Rizzleritchensteineonizziism shrugged. “That’s up to the mortals. Anyway, what you got next?!”

“Well, I was thinking something defensive” pondered Naturum. “A tortoise! Give it some grey camouflage, make it stick to the edges of oases so it can disguise itself as a rock, give it an impenetrable shell, perhaps blindness and echolocation but not skin sensitivity so it can wander both the tunnels and the light filled oases and bam! Already got a cool new creature!”

She looked to the god of magic whose eyes had glazed over again and decided the new species needed something extra.

“Ooh, but all the other creatures have the ability to scamper out the way and try and find a new oasis in the case of rockfalls. Oh, I should make new oases spring up when one dies. Wait, getting distracted. Right, these things can’t move quick so I should give them minor foresight, so they’re already long out the way when disaster strikes.” She looked curiously to Rizzleritchensteineonizziism who was practically shaking with energy.

“Yes! Cool! Love it!” he shouted.

Naturum breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank me. Was worried because it wasn’t explosive.”

Rich looked back at her, evidently genuinely offended. “I’m more than just explosions you know! I like exciting things. Explosions just happen to be one of those things! I also like cool uses of magic!”

“Sorry. I’m going to name these things Foresight tortoises, unless you have any objections?” said Naturum.

Rizzlerich shook his head. “Sounds alright. Not what I’d go with, but it doesn’t sound like boring mumbo jumbo a scientist would come up with. Sounds like a proper RPG monster!”

Naturum’s face darkened at the mention of monsters, but Rizzlerich carried on. “Anyway, I’ve remembered I still gotta finish up magic and I wanna do that now! Goodbye!”

“Wait!” cried Naturum, whose face was brightening as she remembered the surprise she’d been planning for Rich. “Talking of monsters, I want to show you something. I think you’ll like it.”

She led the eager magic god outside her house, to the very edge of her island, where she turned to face him and cried “Watch this!”

She began to wave her arms about and a huge shape began to form in the air in front of her. It was long and proportionally thin like a worm, but unlike a worm it was at least 100 feet long and around 20 feet wide and tall. It was segmented, each segment equipped with a ring of tooth-like spikes and its actual teeth were huge and placed all around the hole on the front.

Rizzlerich stared at the great grey beast, for the first time in his life completely lost for words, so Naturum took over for him. “Congratulations. You are first to witness Naturum’s hunter wurm. A freaking huge mass of claws, teeth and murder, that’ll seek out and destroy all monsters while not targeting other natural life. Behold, the first of its kind, the saviour of the caves.”

The magic god nodded weakly, thumbs upped Naturum, before waving and vanishing, all without a word.

The nature goddess smiled to herself, beyond pleased with his reaction. Now, no one would send those horrible prayers to her, and no one would think that she was the monster spawner. It was time for her war against monsters to begin.