“And lo, peop… No. Lo? Really?”

Aomy sighed and deleted the recording of her latest speech attempt from her mind. She stared ruefully out across her stage, and into the dark blue ring of light that represented her camera. Her face dimmed considerably as she remembered how long even that had taken to set up in a way that looked nice.

“Take two” she muttered as she mentally began a new recording. “And so, peeble of… Um. Shit.”

‘It’s always fun to discover a new character flaw, isn’t it?’ goaded her inner demons as another recording was deleted. ‘But seriously, perfectionism? It does not suit you. You know, despite all these new methods you’re probably still not gonna get this speech finished at all.’

Shaking her head Aomy tried to ignore her doubts. After all, she had been making progress. The first part of the speech was already finished, taken in multiple short, good takes, clumsily stitched together in a way that would make a practiced editor scream, but Aomy had convinced herself looked alright.

Just about every point from her first speech to the hufolk had been covered less awkwardly in this new version. She’d laid out her goal and the stakes. She’d told her people to be kind. To value individual’s freedoms. And to strive for complete equality amongst all sapients.

Now, all that was left was to encourage them to value nature, like Naturum wanted. And perhaps to emphasise a tendency towards spontaneity and fun, although, Aomy really didn’t have any idea how to actually accomplish that. She felt that addressing an entire country’s worth of people and telling them to just be silly little guys would be somewhat weird.

“And so, gnomes of Excelsior, I gift you one last piece of advice! To, er, respect nature, above and beyond the respect all other races bestow on, um, Excelsior’s animals, plants and shit.” She sighed but decided to continue on this recording for a moment, just to see where she was going. “I tell you this, because…”

There was a long pause as Aomy’s featureless face gazed vacantly into her magical recorder as her brain struggled to think of what to say next. Just why the hell did folks venerate nature so much anyway?

‘Well, because animals are thinking creatures as much as we are’ she supposed. ‘But I’ve already covered that in rule one, don’t be an arse. Oh! And also, because if we fuck nature up too much, the world ends. I… I could work with that, I guess.’

Resetting her recording, she began once more to speak. “Now, gnomes of Excelsior, I bring you one last warning before this speech ends! I have already taught you to be kind, even to the animals you’ll meet, because, like, they think too and stuff.”

‘You know, you are quite literally the least inspiring doomsday prophet ever’ The voice of her doubts jeered. ‘Earth or Excelsior.’

‘Shut up.’ Aomy’s conscious thoughts thought back.

“But, there is reason to not just respect these creatures out of pure goodness, but because of the danger disrespecting nature brings!” Aomy cried, hoping the pause for her internal dialogue wasn’t noticeable.

“The abuse of life, fauna or flora, or not taking care of the very world you stand on, shall lead to widespread destruction and death, and in the worst-case scenario, the very end to life as you shall come to know it!”

She paused her recording for a moment and resumed blankly staring at nothing as she began to think. Part of the reason she was doing this was to clear Naturum’s name and didn’t this kind of sound like Naturum would be responsible for all this calamity?

And wait, sure, all that was painfully true on Earth, but was it even true for Excelsior? They were the gods of this world, it would probably be moral to ensure that it wasn’t quite so easy to ruin the planet. Aomy made a mental note to bring that up next meeting.

But, if this wasn’t the path to go down, then what was? Aomy slumped into a chair she conjured behind her and rested a palm on her empty face. All the spontaneity Naturum had recommended may have helped her get this far, but when it came to stuff like this she still floundered. At least after a day of procrastinating a task, she’d thought about things enough to have a pretty decent plan of what to say.

Still, best to give it one more shot before she fully ran out of energy and found herself unable to get on again. Reluctantly, she climbed out of her chair and begun to ponder what to say. After a moment, she thought she had… something.

“Okay, so uh, that’s everything I’d usually say. In a world with just me as the only god, that’s all I would say until it was time to check in on you all and see how your civilisation has progressed. But this isn’t that world.”

Her voice was quiet and unsure, more so than usual. “I know you know about the others. Damon, Loma, Rizzleritchensteineonizziism, Scientia and Naturum. All of us working together to bring this world into existence.”

She momentarily regretted not adding a “mostly” after the “working together” but now probably wasn’t the time to be sassing Damon. “But, we’re not infallible. No matter what Damon claims.” Okay, maybe a little bit of sassing Damon was fine.

Aomy paused as she internally debated just how wise it was to continue along her current trajectory. Her plan was just to be honest. About the monsters. About Naturum’s attempts to fight them. And the fact she was asking them to respect nature to help her friend. But, deep in her gut, Aomy felt like this plan would not work out.

Perhaps that was in part because the self-proclaimed leader of the gods she’d just been sassing would be certain to bring it up, he’d already accused her of losing the people’s respect on behalf of the gods in an earlier meeting.

But mostly because this just instinctually felt wrong, even if she couldn’t quite put a finger on why. Would it be because this would cause panic? It probably would, but she didn’t think that was it. It just wasn’t how she expected gods to act.

Which she supposed was ridiculous. Only difference between her and the sapients she’d made was her knowledge on future societies you could only get living on a world which has seen so many civilisations rise and fall and develop anew. Oh, and phenomenal cosmic power, but that’s no reason to act high and mighty.

Aomy unpaused as she realised just how long she’d stopped talking for. Hastily cutting the long gap, she continued her speech. “As well as the gods, you also, of course, know of the monsters. You’ve seen what I’ve done to try and protect you from them.”

She let out a small sigh. “But you probably don’t know much about them, right? Just the different types we know about, when they spawn, their “health”? Nothing as useful as knowing what they are, how they came to be?”

And now her voice began to fill with guilt. “Well, that’s because we don’t know either. We don’t know who or what made them. What any new monsters will look like. And due to the rules that bind us, we can’t personally stop them. Nor did we have any cause to expect them when they first arrived.”

The omnipresent golden glow of her face dimmed considerably. “Due to their similarity to Naturum’s animals, many initially blamed her for their creation. She’s worked harder than the rest of us to fight the monsters and I know for a fact that she is innocent.”

‘Even if her efforts may have led to the whole wurm situation in the mountain country’ Aomy thought. ‘Wait, do I know for a fact she’s innocent? Technically she only did all those tests on Damon, none on herself or any other god. Whatever, I know she’s innocent, I’m getting sidetracked.’

“I didn’t realise just what she’s going through until today. I think she’s really hurt, despite her brave face and I, er. Well. I wanted to try and help her like she tries to help me. Like she tried to help all of you. I… I want to ask all of you a favour.”

Aomy’s posture was hunched and stiff and her head hung low. “I know I don’t have much of a right to ask a favour of you, given I know none of you personally and there’s a pretty huge imbalance of power, but consider it a first test of rule one.”

“I ask you to respect the natural world beyond the walls of your settlements, more so than you already should be respecting all forms of life.” She sighed. “And I ask you to spread word of Naturum’s innocence.”

She sighed for the second time in as many seconds, and, head still low, lapsed into a long silence. She’d said her piece. Sure, it may have been inelegant, but it was heartfelt, and that was what Aomy felt was best, but she still didn’t think it was enough.

The doubts in her head began to swirl once more. They told her the speech wasn’t convincing, that she’d come across as unlikeable and useless and that the whole endeavour was selfish and unnecessary. Maybe it would be best to simply give up, leave the basic tenants of the speech to stand alone.

But that would mean abandoning Naturum. Conflicted, she agonised for ages, staring into that blue ring. Maybe it would be best to leave her stage, go walking across Excelsior like she had upon first meeting the hufolk town that had inspired her before. And then, as those thoughts fizzed and sparked and evolved, an idea struck her. Seizing the last dwindling seeds of spontaneity, she took action.

“And besides!” she cried, arms flung out. “How could you not find awe when living amongst this natural world?!”

As she spoke, she teleported herself and her magic camera into the freshly made Excelsian forest country. Those towering trees stood tall above her, utterly majestic in their height, their shape, the way the natural beauty of the trees from home had been taken and re-made by what was clearly a passionate and adoring fan.

“How could you not innately respect this?! Its so grand! So beautiful.” A flock of Naturum’s Tears flew overhead as if to emphasise her point, their shining bodies resplendent and their sparkling trail divine. Aomy’s face glowed that radiant gold, like it had never done since after the elf vs dwarf debate this morning.

“Its awe-full” the goddess murmured. And then quite quickly she realised what she’d said and stammered “As in, its full of awe! Uh. Not, y’know, uh, awful… Ahem! But this is not the only brilliant natural site on Excelsior!”

She teleported again to one of the mountain cave’s oases and, freed from the stresses of trying to keep a load of dwarves alive, found its clear blue pool, its wall of vines, its golden flowers bathing all in magical light, to be so calming, so mysterious.

“Look at this” she said, tone going for grand, but instead hitting excited. “Its amazing. Not just pretty, but so alien, so fantastical, its like nothing I could reasonably expect to find back home.” She paused as she quickly debated whether or not letting the fact, she had a home before Excelsior slip was a wise idea.

In the end, she chose to roll with it. Spontaneity and all that. She winked from the oasis up the mountain and found herself surrounded by jagged black cliffs, lit by dark red clouds as yellow rain lashed the rocks around her and crimson lightning flashed behind her.

Truth be told, she had no idea where the hell this was, she’d just willed herself somewhere “cool”. Once again, the goddess swiftly accepted the situation and strove to adapt. “And now, see how frankly incredible this place is! Terrifying and wonderful in equal measure. But its not just the striking sites of absolute majesty worthy of your respect and passion.”

She rendered her magical ring camera invisible, then looked through its eyes. “There’s so much smaller-scale beauty here too.” She saw, as her audience would, the camera follow a great golden eagle, as it glided through the skies above Excelsior. Then appear before a lone rose, growing wild in a comparatively modest wood. And then the view jumped one last time to a herd of green hamsters skittering past a wall of glowstone in a dark tunnel.

The camera returned to the goddess of civilisations, and once more focused on the her, and Aomy briefly wondered why she hadn’t been watching herself through the camera’s eyes the whole time.

“At least, that is how I see things.” Her voice had shifted to become soft and gentle. “If you cannot find the passion for nature, do not feel like you’ve failed. Don’t worry that you’ve let me down, or disrespected Naturum. I want you all to find your passions.”

Her face glowed, less bright now, and much softer, but no less beautiful. “I want you all to find all the joy you possibly can. After all, that should be the goal of any society worthy of respect. To ensure the happiness we all desire. For everyone.”

She ended the recording, and a surge of energy rushed through her, and her face shone with blinding light. That felt incredible! She’d done a whole speech and she thought it was pretty damn good, considering her typical dis-inclination towards public speaking, or perhaps, semi-public in this instance.

In fact, so encouraged was she, that she immediately sent the recording to every gnome of Exclesior. An action she immediately regretted.

‘Oh shit’ she thought to herself. ‘I left in that really long gap before the teleport-y bit’

‘Don’t forget the awful awe-full line’ another thought added.

‘In fact, you really should have checked the whole thing over, done some watch-throughs.’

Aomy slumped to the floor of her stage, light winking out. Spontaneity was great and all. But perhaps, she thought to herself, like all things in life, a little moderation is advisable.