Back to chapter index
“Heeeyy Neffy, what can I do ya for?”
“Please don’t call me that. I’ve told you this more times than I can count,” Nefuenidd said.
The God of Mediocrity sipped some more void coffee and reclined further on his resident couch. They were in the break room right now, which was usually devoid of anyone besides the God of Mediocrity. No one really knew what his job was or why he still worked at Xyxlfrfd Corp, but despite him spending most of his time lounging and dispensing mostly useless advice, inordinately lucrative paychecks from the Universe came to him week in and week out. Anyway, he said “I’m gonna keep calling you Neffy and you’re just gonna have to deal with it, Neffy.”
“My god I hate you.” Nefuenidd’s head was in their hands at this point. They really, really did not want to be here. “I just need your advice on something.”
“What can I do ya for, Neffy?” he said, in between void coffee sips. The void in it was especially strong this morning, which was his favorite part.
Nefuenidd paused briefly before saying “What’s the most effective way to kill someone?”
The God of Mediocrity sloshed around his void coffee and said “Who are you thinkin here?”
“No one you would know, it, uh, doesn’t matter,” they said nervously.
“Well, what you really need to do is get inside the person you’re trying to kill’s head.”
“What, do you mean like understand what makes them tick?”
“No, Neffy, nothing like that. You just gotta stick something in their head, like a bullet or an ice pick. That usually does the job quickly.”
“But, uh, what if the person you’re trying to kill can’t be killed with bullets? If they, uh…” Nefuenidd quickly realized there was no way to phrase this without making it incredibly obvious who they were trying to kill. “Yeah.”
“Well, that one is a bit trickier, Neffy.”
“Stop saying that! Jesus Christ!”
“I’d think you’d be saying your own name instead of that fella’s, after all, you are the head of the only true religion,” he said with an infuriatingly smug intonation. “Ha, just joking Neffy, lighten up a little. I think you should clarify, is the fella you’re trying to erase the map of immortal, or just really hard to kill via head trauma?”
“I think it’s actually immortal.”
“Oh jeez,” the God of Mediocrity said. “You’re definitely trying to kill our boss right?”
“Dammit.”
“You’re never gonna be able to do it, literally the entire universe is contained within it. There’s only a couple of ways you could destroy the universe, like through a black hole or a similar thing like that, or whatever the hell false vacuum decay is, but I have no idea how you’d pull those off, Neffy.”
“I think I know a way…”
“What is it?”
“Uh… I’ll tell you later.” Nefuenidd got up and walked out of the break room briskly. They didn’t actually have any idea how they were gonna go about doing this, but they really needed to get away from the God of Mediocrity, and he’d already given them a few solid ideas, they could probably find a way to annihilate their boss with those.
Later that day, Nefuenidd called Cosma on the phone for the first time.
A few days before that, the subject of Nefuenidd’s plot walked into the break room and took a seat. The Universe looked over at the God of Mediocrity and said “You’re the guy who gives all my employees advice right?”
“You know it, Uny.” He did a finger-gun motion and noise at his boss.
“I will fire you if you call me that again. The reason I came in here is because I had to ask, how the hell do you manage your employees? Most of the people I have under me are actually completely insane. I have no clue how I’m supposed to deal with or manage them. You’re one of the more normal ones here and you barely even do any work.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Uny… verse, I do more work than anyone else here, maybe besides the Snuff Sodality, and also Nefuenidd and the Disciple of Xulmoroth, and maybe also several other folks that work here. Really I probably work the least of anyone here.”
“…”
“Anyways all you need to do is be nicer to them.”
“But I’m already nice. That doesn’t do anything, it just enables them. That’s the problem.”
“Then I think you need to just be nicer.”
“What?”
“Take that how you wish. I think you’ll find I’m eventually correct.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” The God of Mediocrity leaned back on his couch and sipped some more void coffee. “I don’t know why I tried to talk to you.” The Universe got up and walked out of the break room.
A couple hours later, Death strode through the break room’s threshold and parked himself on one of the opposing seats to the God of Mediocrity. “Hey, God of Mediocrity, can you… hold on, I’m sorry, I can’t leave this up in the air any longer. Why the hell do you call yourself that? That’s a stupid name, I’m sorry, you really should change it.”
“Heh…” the God of Mediocrity said. “I think you’ll find my choice of name was correct eventually.”
“No, I won’t, just answer the question.” Death was really sick of the God of Mediocrity’s shit by this point and just wanted some straight answers out of the guy.
“If you really want to know, I dubbed myself this because… I forget. But the name is meaningful to me because… I forget that too.” This wasn’t him being evasive or snide, he actually had forgotten several years ago and only kept the name because he was used to it. “Anyways what brings you over here?”
“I don’t know why I expected an actual answer from you on that. Whatever. Do you know where a guy can get a nice drink around here?”
“The void coffee cooler over there is pretty great,” he said, pointing to it with his one free hand while taking a sip of the substance with the other.
“I meant a drink of the alcoholic persuasion.”
“Ooooh, that stuff. You should ask my buddy Fwasjfhaj, she’s just down the hall, she’ll hook ya up with some good stuff.”
“Thanks,” Death said, immediately getting up to leave. As soon as he stepped out, the other guy from the Snuff Sodality (not Mike Soulslash, the other one) came into the room and took a seat.
“Hey, what’s happening with ya?” the God of Mediocrity said.
“Do you have any advice for reaping the souls of the dead? I really feel out of my depth here. They let me join the Sodality with almost no experience, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“No clue why you’re asking me about this, friendo, I’ve never reaped a soul in my life.”
“You just seem to be where everyone goes for advice around here.”
“Well I don’t know everything, they don’t call me the God of Mediocrity for nothing. Although I don’t quite remember why they do call me that…”
“Alright clearly you can’t help me here, I’m gonna get going…” The other person got up and walked out, bumping into Mike Soulslash, who was just coming in. He got a cup of void coffee and sat down, staring directly at the God of Mediocrity in a very uncomfortable manner.
“What’s, uh… going on, Mike?” he said. Mike continued staring at him and drank more void coffee.
“Uh…”
“…”
“You, uh… you need anything?”
“…” Mike finished his cup, threw it away, and left.
A couple days after that (before the day where he talked to Nefuenidd, though, make sure to keep this straight, it will be on the test), the God of Mediocrity was lounging in the break room as per usual. As he was sipping some more guess what, the Disciple of Xulmoroth walked in and took a seat facing him. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“Could I ask you for some advice?” The Disciple of Xulmoroth was one of the Universe’s top workers, mainly because she spent as much of her time as possible sucking up to it and doing everything it asked her to. Her name, specifically the “Xulmoroth” part, refers to one of the Universe’s past pseudonyms before it decided to go with the more blunt and accurate moniker. Choosing this seemed, to her, to give the impression that she was incredibly up-to-date on her Universe lore and thus knew it more than anyone else. Turns out, though, she actually didn’t really care for the Universe, and was doing all this solely to get promoted. Her ultimate desire was to become the universe through unclear means. She figured she’d cross that bridge when she came to it.
Anyways, the God of Mediocrity said “What sort do you need?”
“How do you make someone feel like you really respect them and would do anything for them?”
“Ah Christ this is about the Universe again isn’t it? How much is enough with that biz, Marian?”
“Quiet down with that! Don’t give the Universe any ideas that I think about anything besides it! Why do you think I changed my name in the first place?”
“… because you’re an idiot?”
“Piss off. Just tell me, cuz I really feel like I’m this close to getting an excellent promotion. I can’t mess this up now.”
“I think you should maybe cool it a bit with the Universe. Keep your distance a little, don’t come off as too clingy. You might start freaking it out a bit with how you’re acting.”
“You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about, I don’t know why everyone else here holds your advice in such high regard.” She left after this. The God of Mediocrity took another sip and leaned back on his couch.