Screech, scratch, scribble, scribble, screech, scratch. Uncountable pairs of wiggly tentacles, each equipped with a legal pad and a black pencil, wrote and crossed out lines of runes. Most of them that is. Some focused more on doodling rather than any actual writing. Darkness brought one such doodle closer to her eye and blushed. That was a good memory of Joe. She folded it with the utmost care her tentacle allowed and put the image onto a pile, safely within her inventory.

“Focus!”

An array of wiggly limbs clapped against her cheeks. Well, against a part of her being one could consider her cheeks if one was insane enough to take a good look.

“Name, name… I need a name…”

Joe asked her for one.

“U-uuuuu….”

Rolling around her domain, Darkness despaired. There was no way she could tell him her name.

***

Coffee. There was something magical about afternoon coffee. Especially one made by a master barista she had the pleasure to dispatch but a moment ago. Death poked her ‘WHO’S THE BOSS?’ mug and watched the creamy white kitten jiggle at the top of her late. It seemed like a crime to disturb this foamy art, but it was a crime she felt at ease committing. She took a sip and enjoyed the rich taste of that heavenly liquid.

Bliss. A heavenly bliss spilled all over her tongue. Intend on augmenting the sensation even further, she reached to her desk drawer where she kept her snacks. However, instead of snacks, a bottomless, dark pit occupied her drawer at the middle of which a solitary, bloodshot eye awaited.

“Diiii! I need your help!”

Death took another sip.

“IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME RIGHT, IT WILL BE QUITE A WHILE BEFORE MY SERVICES CAN BE OF ANY HELP TO YOU.”

“What? Oh! No. Not that kind of help. I need a name! Joe asked me for a name!”

“THEN TELL HIM YOUR NAME. YOU HAVE ONE, DO YOU NOT?”

“B-but… I… I-I can’t! He won’t understand. No-uh. That one is off limits.”

Death sighed. An odd thing she picked up from mortals when their expectations changed.

“IF YOU CANNOT THINK OF A NAME FOR YOURSELF THEN JUST ASK HIM TO GIVE YOU ONE. IT WILL NOT MATTER THAT MUCH IF HE ASSOCIATES IT WITH YOU.”

“Oh. Oh! That’s it! D, you are a lifesaver!”

“I DO NOT SAVE LIVES AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE HERE.”

Death closed her drawer. If someone saw her in that instant, perhaps that someone would see a smile on her lips.

“PLEASE WAIT A MOMENT. I WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY.”

She called when a chime announced her next client.

What a splendid coffee it was.

***

Warm. Warm soft and fuzzy feeling awoke her somewhere amidst an endless nothingness. Perhaps awoke wasn’t the right term to use. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Lae became aware of herself. While at first there was nothing, at the prod of an invisible force, her mind woke up from an endless slumber. Just her mind. Her tortured body did not get the memo. That, she supposed, was a good thing. She could do without pain and suffering.

“How long do you intend to ignore me?”

Strong male voice slashed through her mind, making her soul revibrate with the sense of his displeasure.

Order me, my master. Thy servant is listing.

Lae focused her mind on that thought as the fuzzy power kept on poking her soul. Not knowing whom she was addressing. She decided to play it safe.

“Good.”

The sense of displeasure lessened as soon as she answered.

“Do you remember what happened to you?”

Her holiness questioned me and judged my sins. My body was about to receive my… punishment.

Lae paused, remembering the scent of oil and the rage of the head priestess. She remembered the stinging pain of sticks and hey stabbing at her bare skin.

Am I dead?

“Not quite. Although each moment of me keeping you awake drains life out of your body.”

Joe paused but the soul did not react. It did not fear death. On the contrary, he felt that was what the soul desired.

“So,”

He began, once more, going over his plan in his head.

“If you want to live, I’ve got an offer for you.”

An offer?

“Since you have surrendered yourself to me, your soul and body became my property. As a necromancer and a prophet, I can construct another vessel for your soul. The… goddess I serve urges me to do so, however since you are a priestess and a follower of… (potatoes, potatoes…) of a certain bitch, my skills do not work on you. Denounce your faith in, (potatoes, potatoes, bags of potatoes…) that bitch and convert onto the true one I follow.”

Why should I listen to the words of a sinner perverting the creation of gods?! Begone thy unclean demon!

Joe sighed, mentally rubbing his face as the woman spewed a litany of exorcisms at him. At least she knew her craft.

“Oy, shut up and listen you twerp. First of all, I am no daemon, no spawn of darkness or whatever you think I am. I’m a regular guy with a shitty job, trying to go by with the cards I’ve got in this life. Secondly, I don’t deal in rotting flesh and crumbling bones. The offered vessel you disparage so much is a state of the art, brand spanking new body of an ancient dark elf. Custom made just for you. Thirdly, never again insult the wiggly one in my presence. She can be slimy and childish at times but meeting her was the best thing that happened to me in this shitty world, and you are alive only because she soo damn stubbornly insisted on saving your life. Lastly, if you ever again mention the name of that fucking whore, I swear I will put your soul into a buttplug and sell you to a fat pervert. You must be blind not to see what that fucking slut’s whims do to this world.”

The soul went silent for the longest time but from what Joe felt, she understood his arguments. Finally, she spoke again when her body’s health dropped to measly three points.

I denounce the fake goddess whose blind followers twisted my faith.

[*DING!*]

[Lae has become an atheist. Her name was removed from the list of servants of Aidane. Faith based restrictions no longer apply.]

“I knew you would make the right choice!”

Lae’s soul screamed as something unimaginably enormous and slimy grabbed and hugged her soul.

“You may want to tone down on the tentacle fun or you’ll break her. I can’t seem to imagine where we would find another su… I mean volunteer for the position of your head priestess.”

Like, ‘hi, I work for an eldritch horror. With tentacles. And teeth. Lots-a-teeth. And a look that can kill you. But don’t worry. She’s a nice person, I think, and she likes cookies. Wanna hang out? Start a cult? Sacrifice some cookies? Piss off other gods?’. Yeah, the best recruiting spiel ever…

“B-b-but I just w-w-wanted to comfort h-her with a h-hug. Buuu…”

Joe looked at the twitching soul whisp, mangled by the tentacles.

“I’m sure she loved your hug, but I’ll need that soul so,”

A sudden, two levels worth uptick in Lae’s soul corrosion showed how deep love she felt in those slimy… arms. Joe corrected himself, trying to hold the mental image in his mind.

“Just give her here. I’m almost done setting up her new body.”

“Oh, h-here…”

A fit of triple sneeze overcome Darkness as she extended her tentacle towards Joe, drowning him in a blob of snoot.

“I’m so sorry.”

The abomination cleared her nose.

“I have no idea where that come from.”

Joe stole a quick glance at Darkness while she cleaned herself with a pink hanky the size of at least ten thousand combined football fields. Well, even with maxed out resistance to that view, his soul went numb instantly. As if he would never again feel any happiness in his life. Still, an improvement over his past experiences. The first time he saw her reflection, a reflection mind you, it left him comatose for a whole week. Thankfully that happened in the spirit realm otherwise he would end up in Death’s broom closet, among all the other broken souls that did nothing but kept on screaming.

Trying not to grin, he took the passed-out soul and shoved it into her new body. He had an idea where all those improvements came from. His PR campaign worked wonders.

“Ah, before I go, did you decide on what should I call you?”

“H-ha, h-ha, ha... um, about that… um, Joe, um… well, you see… after all those years, I think I may be out of touch with what people consider proper naming conventions so… well, I… I thought if you could help me out and come up with a good name for me?”

Another grin formed on his face. Oh, names. Yup, he could come up with a few good ones.

“Sure. I’ll think of one. See you soon.”

He smiled at his own lame joke and pushed the Apply button then passed out when the system extracted body conversion cost out of him.

[Conversion in process. Time remaining twenty-four hours.]