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They slammed the phone back onto the desk they were seated at. They, in this situation, were Nefuenidd, office worker living outside of space and time. Their shadowy figure glistened and shifted in the somnia-inducing fluorescent lighting. They had about the outline of a human body, but with none of the skin, orifices, or other normal human stuff; mainly just slight variations on the color black (a few grays in there for good measure). Besides this, they were shaped pretty normally. They looked over with invisible eyes toward Death, their friend, seated on a chair by the desk. They smiled invisibly and said, “I think this is actually gonna work for once! Although, of course,” hand on chin, “this is the first time we’re trying this.”
Death shifted his seat to face Nefuenidd more directly. He wore a baggy, ominous black cloak, and had an unwieldy scythe clutched in his left hand. He also had a skull for a head, as to be expected, but you couldn’t really tell under the hood. “That boss of ours is gonna be as dead as most of my acquaintances soon. I knew that gal would be easy to trick into doing this,” he said with a slight chuckle. Not like an evil, villainous chuckle, more like a light, playful chuckle.
“Does it really count as a trick if there’s no manipulation involved?” Nefuenidd queried. “She did all that hole stuff without even asking why.”
“Who cares? Let’s go get drunk to celebrate,” Death said.
“I can’t, I’ve got a stupid meeting in a few hours. We’re talking about our plans for Muxfawjds with some shareholders. I can’t mess this up.” Nefuenidd got a slight nervous expression on their face with the mention of this meeting. You couldn’t really tell though under the black.
“Ah, that sucks, man. Good luck with that. I’m gonna go get blasted though.” Death got up and walked out through the door, although it was more like levitating really. Nefuenidd got ready to follow him before hearing their phone buzzing. They grabbed the phone out of their invisible pocket and answered the call reluctantly. “Who’s there?”
“Hey, it’s me again! I-”
“Piss off Claire,” Nefuenidd said. After swiftly hanging up, they pocketed their phone, sighed, and walked out of the office, taking a left turn past the office of the Snuff Sodality and walking directly past the Disciple of Xulmoroth and Mike Soulslash, neither of which they particularly wanted to interface with. They ambled into the lounge and made a beeline for the sparsely used void coffee cooler (void coffee is like regular coffee but with about 10% more void added (it really enhances the flavor, you should try it sometime (though it does tend to weaken the caffeinating effect, for unclear reasons))). They poured themself more than they probably needed and chugged more than they probably should’ve. They started the process of walking out before being startled immensely by another voice saying “Hey, Neffy, where are you going?”
“Don’t call me that,” they said in an irritated fashion. “Why are you bothering me? I have very important business stuff to attend to, or something like that.”
“I think you owe at least a greeting to me after all the advice I’ve given you,” the God of Mediocrity said. Apart from having no face he looked like a pretty normal fellow, wearing some generic business attire, much like most residents of the Xyxlfrfd Corp offices. He leaned back on the couch he was sitting in.
“Yes, fine, whatever,” Nefuenidd grumbled. “Hello, J-”
“No need to bother with formalities, you can just call me the God of Mediocrity,” he said. His voice had the sort of quality where it’s simultaneously kind of soothing and also can really, really piss you off. Depends on your mood mostly.
“Yes, whatever, fine, hello, God of Mediocrity. Can I go now?” Nefuenidd was anxiously glancing back and forth between his conversational partner and the doorway.
“You could have gone this entire time, Neffy, you just chose not to.” The God of Mediocrity cracked an incredibly pretentious smirk after saying this.
“God, this isn’t the time for your philosophy crap! I have to go prepare my presentation on Muxfawjds!” Nefuenidd walked out of the door as quickly as possible to avoid having to interact with the God of Mediocrity more (something they tended to avoid at all costs). They had some pretty bad timing though, since they ran directly into the Universe (not in a mutual notice way, in a slamming into each other way), who was trying to cross over into its office. This was Nefuenidd’s boss, and they resented this fact deeply. Describing what the Universe actually looked like is known to cause blindness in humans, including just through text descriptions, so better just imagine it looking like a giant ball of light.
“Hello, sir,” Nefuenidd greeted awkwardly. “Can I, uh, help you out with anything office-related right now, ma’am?”
“You can get the hell out of my way, if you want to keep your job!” Nefuenidd quickly stepped out of the Universe’s path. “Thank you. I need to go call up the shareholders to get here soon for the Muxfawjds presentation. They always run late. Bunch of morons.”
“Yes, yes, sorry about all that sir, can I go now?” Nefuenidd was beginning to sweat profusely, though you couldn’t really tell (this attribute of theirs is part of how they became a high-ranking employee, since it allowed them to maintain a near-constant poker face).
“Whatever, fine, go,” the Universe muttered, looking down awkwardly in a mixture of slight guilt and slight irritability. “Sorry I yelled at you. You all really piss me off sometimes, but it’s not your fault, I know.” It definitely was, but Nefuenidd kept their mouth shut regarding this. “Just… try not to bump into me again, ok?” The Universe nodded and then walked past Nefuenidd into its large, incredibly important-looking office, shutting the door behind it. Nefuenidd seethed. They had never felt a stronger urge to kill anything in their life. They grabbed their phone out of their pocket once more and dialed Cosma’s number.