”Damn you, crab people!” Anastacia yelled into the darkness. She had woken up on a stone altar of some kind, in a pitch-black room – or at least she thought it might have been a room. A quick scan around the area had revealed that the floor, walls and even the ceiling were all covered with a thick coating of living flesh. Being in a chamber made of meat wasn’t exactly a problem for a necromancer of her caliber, but even if she were to cut her way out, there was no telling what was on the other side – and naturally she just assumed it was going to be whatever would ruin her day as badly as possible. So for now she was quite content with sitting on the one thing in the room that wasn’t gross. Throwing some fire around would have lit up the place, but she wasn’t entirely sure whether she actually wanted to see anything.

“You know what would be the worst? If the walls just started to slowly close in.” She joked to distract herself from the situation. “Wait… Why am I giving you ideas?”

She wasn’t too desperate to get out anyway, even though a meal wouldn’t have done any harm, she could last for quite some time with just the water left in her canteen and maybe do some thinking while waiting for a rescue or a change in the situation.

“Maybe I should paint King? Something like pink or light blue would make him less threatening. Oh and a mask! Or like ten masks and have him change them based on how he’s feeling!” She thought out loud and kept scanning the surroundings for anything new that could give her some idea of the area beyond the room. “I’m a genius.”

While trying to pick between colors, Anastacia noticed a small white dot appear on one of the walls. It seemed like someone had poked a hole in it and now the sunlight poured in, lighting the chamber slightly. Slowly the hole began spreading sideways, forming a meter-wide horizontal line of light on the wall. Anastacia stood up on the altar to try and peer through the slit but before she got the chance, someone poked their fingers through it from the other side and began prying the hole open. Surprised by it, Anastacia took a better stance and prepared to attack whoever was trying to come in. She was further unsettled by the fact that she couldn’t feel the intruder by using necromancy. When the hole finally gave in and was ripped open, Anastacia was blinded by the flood of white light so badly that she couldn’t see whoever was on the other side at all.

“This isn’t my kitchen…” The intruder said and began climbing through the hole. When she was almost done, her hand slipped on the edge of the hole and she fell upwards, slamming headfirst into the ceiling of the chamber. After recovering from the ‘fall’, she got up and looked around, almost like she had lost something. “Oh! There you are!” She greeted Anastacia with a wide smile after finally looking up and noticing her.

Standing upside down on the ceiling of the chamber, the woman didn’t seem to be affected by gravity at all. While she had the basic form of a human, her almost pure white skin, sharp teeth and eyes that appeared to be nothing but two purple flames burning inside her black eye sockets, revealed that she was far from being one. Tied to her absurdly long, silvery-white hair, were some rusty keys that tinkled together as she moved around the ceiling. The long hair was also the closest thing she had for clothes, as a few strands of it were tightly wrapped around her chest and hips. Though on the frail and short side, there wasn’t even a hint of weakness in her presence. In fact, thanks to her eerie appearance and immunity to necromancy, Anastacia found the woman terrifying to be so close to.

“Who and what the fuck are you?!” Anastacia asked and prepared to cast as much fire as she could at the woman.

“Vilja is the name, these days I dabble in godhood but am thinking about starting a bee farm.” The woman answered while walking back to the hole she had fallen out from and sat down on its edge, still upside down. She nonchalantly dug out a weirdly long pipe from somewhere and lit it with a snap of her fingers. “Oh and don’t bother trying to attack…”

But before Vilja had the chance to finish her sentence, Anastacia launched a burst of fire at her.

“So rude! As I was trying to say, don’t bother trying to attack, it won’t do anything and I’m here to help you.” The god repeated, completely ignoring the intense flames that had just engulfed her. “We still need to wait for a bit because… You’re going to throw another one, aren’t you?”

A second burst of flame washed past the god, not singeing a single hair on her head.

“Are you done now?” She asked from Anastacia. “I know that you mess with everything and everyone you meet but try to hold back for now.”

Anastacia sat back down, looking disappointed. “You expect me to trust some extremely evil looking thing, that crawls out from a hole in a wall made of flesh and then goes like ‘oh yeah, I’m totally a god’? For all I know, you might be the one that trapped me here!”

Vilja pointed her pipe at the necromancer and nodded. “Good point. This isn’t actually a hole in the wall itself, it’s a hole in the realm. This chamber is surrounded by water so making a hole really isn’t a good idea.” She explained. “I’m a physical god, so no taking control of people or using avatars for me. Tearing my way here is by far the simplest option. But I’m getting sidetracked. Whether you believe me or not, doesn’t actually matter. My pal Sylvia is feeling a bit poorly, so I took it upon myself to unfuck your situation while getting something personal done in this realm. Right now I’m waiting for one of your friends to do something so I can make the whole thing feel more divine-like.”

“You don’t feel at all like a god… I’ve had a talk with Sylvia and she was waaaaay more convincing than you. You don’t even sound like a god!” Anastacia commented and considered throwing a third fireball. “What are you even a god of? Half-assing?”

“Vilja, The Lass of the Defunct, Maiden of Unwanted and Queen of Kittens! I may or may not have given the last one to myself…” The goddess declared proudly. While she was killing time by chatting with Anastacia, she dug out a weird looking piece of stone and gazed at it intensely.

“All hail the god of trash!” Anastacia mocked the deity openly. “That’s such a lame thing to be a god of. Does it mean you’re responsible for everything people don’t want? Is it only like garbage or the whole concept of ‘unwanted’? What about wars, crimes and other bad stuff that no one wants?” She asked, deliberately trying to be shitty.

The goddess chuckled. “People are assholes, there’s always someone who wants the bad things to happen, so those are not in my domain. My job is to consume all that has no purpose in this world anymore, things that have been forgotten and aren’t to be found again. To a degree, I can make things lose their purpose too. Sylvia has been pushing me to make myself known to vagrants and the exiled of larger kingdoms to gather faith from them, but I think goblins are more fun. Nothing they do has any purpose, and no one wants them around.” She explained and waved around a stick that had an impaled frog on it – no doubt a gift from the goblins.

Anastacia didn’t exactly trust Vilja yet, but since both of the weapons in her arsenal had been proven ineffective against the supposed goddess, there was very little she could so about the situation anyway. If Vilja were to attack suddenly, her only option would be to collapse the flesh chamber on the god and hope for the best. But Anastacia didn’t actually have to wait for that to figure out the truth, as there was a far easier way. She reached for the enchanted ring in her pocket and prepared to slide it on after asking a question.

“Yeah, don’t do that. You’ll just waste the charge on it. Toys like that have no chance to work on gods.” Vilja said before Anastacia had the chance to execute her plan. “I know exactly what you’re thinking at all times, so don’t try to trick me, please. I may be a fourth-generation god and kinda new to this, but you, out of all people, have nothing on me. So how about we just talk until I can get to work again?”

Anastacia gave up on the plan and threw a fireball at the god’s face out of spite. Just like before, the spell achieved nothing, but Anastacia felt slightly better about herself for doing it. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a fourth-generation god?” She asked and humored the goddess with a conversation. “I didn’t know gods had children.”

Vilja grinned widely and was obviously glad to have gotten through to Anastacia. She got up from her seat and started walking on the wall around it. Her bare feet made a disgusting, squishy noise on the slimy meat. “They don’t. It’s just a way we rank each other. The first generation has the creator gods that made… well everything. The second generation was appointed to upkeep the system, some time ago there was a bit of trouble and many of them got destroyed, so they hired the third generation to fix the problem. We in the fourth one are basically glorified pets for the others until one of the makers wakes up and verifies our positions. But that doesn’t mean we’re weaker than the other gods, just less established and can’t vouch for any new gods that are about to get their roles.” The deity explained and stepped into the pool of slime that lined the floor of the chamber, walked up to the altar and gestured Anastacia to scoot over.

“You’re kinda short - I thought gods would all be at least like twice as tall.” Anastacia pointed out, she had noticed it before, but it was hard to compare it with her own height while Vilja was upside down. After correcting her posture, Anastacia was confident that she was the tallest being in the room for once.

“You’re kinda mortal, so shut up.” The goddess returned the rude comment.

The two kept each other company for a few hours to kill time. Vilja seemed awfully interested in Anastacia’s plans for the future and how the party was doing. In return the goddess explained what she knew about the workings of the world, and about her own past. Apparently, the goddess was once a human that got caught up in a mess that was far beyond her own means, so Sylvia bailed her out and in return, she agreed to become a god to help with the goddess of joy’s plans. When questioned about these plans, she openly admitted to not having been listening when they had been explained to her, but as far as Vilja knew, they didn’t have anything to do with the mortal realm. Another subject she didn’t seem to be able to talk about was her age. The flow of time in her realm was not a matter simple enough to be explained in a casual chat.

Anastacia found herself slowly becoming more comfortable with the god’s presence and even found the conversation refreshing. “So do you know what’s going on in this town? You said you were going to help us.”

“Oh shit, I forgot!” The goddess realized, jumped up from the altar and grabbed a small piece of metal from the hole she had crawled in from. “That’s all three done. Time to get to work! You see, this big hunk of meat is actually one of ours. The creators hid them into dense forests and the bottom of the sea, where they have been creating new lifeforms since then. They’re really diligent workers, but occasionally go awry and start pulling this kind of stuff. Sylvia told me it’s because they want to become gods too, like the ones who made them.” She explained hastily.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Anastacia asked.

Vilja grinned widely, showing her sharpened teeth. “It has become defunct, I’m here to consume it. I’m thinking of going with bread this time.”

Disgusted by the idea, Anastacia gagged. “Eww… You’re going to eat it?”

“Eventually. For now, I’ll just kill it and consume its core. The rest of the body will rot away from this world and join mine.” The goddess explained before tapping Anastacia’s forehead with her finger. “When you wake up, remember to thank the goblins.” She said as the necromancer fell asleep and slumped down on the altar. Vilja grabbed her unconscious body and tried pushing it into the rip she had made but made the mistake of trying to lift her from the one armsock Anastacia had left. It slipped off and the necromancer fell into the pool of slime on the floor. “Shit… Ignore that…” She cursed out of habit and tossed the wet girl into the rip.