ONBOARDING COMPLETE

ASCENSION COMPLETE

WELCOME TO THE NETHER, LESSER GODDESS MOMO

As Momo stepped out into the other side of oblivion, she was met with the most unwelcome sight—a hundred watching eyes.

Whether it be at high school graduation, delivering a speech as Queen, or wading deep into the Nethereal void, Momo was never one for being looked at, so, rather on instinct, she grit her teeth and ducked behind her demonic partner.

“Momo Lim?”

It had taken Momo’s eyes a moment to adjust to her new surroundings, but once she did, she realized that it was just not just a hundred hooded pupils in the dark gazing at her, but an entire room full of people, most standing behind clipboards, printers, typewriters, and some even modern laptops.

She had stepped into a rollicking mishmash of writer-types throughout history—men in caps, women in long dresses with feathered quills behind their ear, and of course, because this was the Nether, there was a fair share of lizards, goblins, and other manner of creatures bobbing around, head down in the print.

And at the far back of the well-lit writers’ room, a giant chalkboard was affixed to the wall, with the words UNIVERSAL LORE DEPARTMENT written across it.

“Ms. Lesser Goddess of Reaping?”

Momo finally peaked out her head behind the demon.

“Yes?” she said. “Am I— where am I?”

“Oh. Well. This is the Lore department, ma’am.”

She squinted. “The… Lore department?”

Momo was feeling a good deal of whiplash being flung from such a dark and dreary dungeon to this brightly lit parchment emporium, but more than that—she was feeling immense relief. These Nether residents didn’t seem actively hostile, or, even better, murderous. She’d take that as a win.

The one addressing her was a young man in a newsboy cap. He had a name tag fixed to his vest, which identified him as Roger Earth. He looked permanently thirty-two, with a strong, hardened face, and thick, muscular hands, one of which Momo accepted when he reached out to fervently shake hers.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” Roger said, raising an eyebrow.

Momo stared at him, bemused. She was never going to get used to the way the Nether flung you so easily between contexts. She was still reeling from death, and yet the universe saw it perfectly suitable to stroll her here, the center of attention under fluorescent lights.

“I’m sorry, but I— I have no idea who you are,” she mumbled, flushing.

Roger gave her a mischievous smirk. “Ah. You’ve read my work before, I assure you. Now, come with me. Your friend can stay in the waiting room while we chat.”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea—”

But to Momo’s surprise, her shadow was already sitting on one of the plastic chairs in the corner of the office, happily sipping a cup of pomegranate juice that one of the writers had offered. The creature looked completely entranced by the purple liquid sloshing around in her cup—entranced enough that it might entertain her for a solid few hours.

“Ah, nevermind,” Momo said. “That’s fine.”

With a charming laugh, Roger led her through the building’s brightly lit corridors to his own office. It was a rather spacious room, with a desk, a PC, and several framed pictures hanging on the wall. Momo found herself drawn to them, eyes widening as she took in their subjects—one was of the volcano at Pompeii, another was in Ancient Greece, then Rome, two in feudal Japan, and then finally a more recent photograph, of a monkey being interviewed by an American news network.

Roger tapped at the photograph of the monkey, his fingertip smudging the clear film. “You actually know her, don’t you?”

“The— monkey?”

“I believe she goes by Valerica.”

Momo’s jaw dropped, and she laughed incredulously. She remembered Valerica mentioning a recent incident where she transformed into a monkey accidentally on Earth, some sort of Reaper-transformation-faux paus, but she had assumed it was an exaggeration.

Roger lifted one of the frames off the wall, smiling at it as he turned it in his hands towards Momo. It was a picture of him at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, posing with an actor.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

“Cool, right? Shakespeare was one of my favorite projects.”

Momo had no idea what he was talking about, so she just smiled at him.

“Man, you can’t believe how exciting this is for me,” he said, laughing lightly as he set down the picture on his desk and settled into his chair. He gestured for Momo to take the seat opposite of him, so she did, still unable to make any sense of this situation as he continued, “A mortal from my planet rising to goddesshood. How crazy is that? Like, talk about a hometown hero moment.”

Momo’s eyes bulged, and she leaned over the table urgently. “Wait, you’re from Earth, too?”

“Oh, no no,” he said, waving her off. “Born and raised in the Nether. I simply write for Earth.”

Momo blinked.

“Write for Earth?”

“Yeah,” he said, leaning down to press the boot up button on his computer. Its fans started whizzing. “Ever read a history textbook? That was all me.”

Momo’s stomach clenched. He couldn’t be serious—

“As in, you record human history?” Momo said. “Like a historian?”

Roger frowned, and began moving his mouse around. His desktop was completely cluttered with folders. “Not recorded. Wrote. Well, ok— I only wrote the most interesting bits. For most stretches of human history, humans do very boring things. Grow things. Kill things. Cook those things. Eat those things. My job is to freshen up the timeline every once in a while, add new beats to entertain the gods with. Start wars, assassinate kings, industrial revolutions…”

“Aha,” he said, holding up a finger as he opened a folder that was titled Conspiracies and Religion. “Here we are. Are you ready to begin?”

Feeling a rising panic in her chest, Momo cut in, “I’m sorry, are you trying to tell me humans have no free will? You just— decide everything we do?”

He began clacking at his keyboard, and Momo watched as her name appeared at the top of his document. Under it were some basic details about her appearance, her height, her age.

Why did this feel like a doctor’s appointment?

“No one has true free will, honey,” he said, biting at his lip in concentration. “Maybe except Morgana. And look how she’s using it. But no, the people of Earth are certainly in charge of their day to day decisions. I don’t mess about in human private lives, except for if it’ll make for a truly good bit of immortal gossip. All I do is submit my story beats, and then Lesser Gods go in and create the right circumstances for me—kill off a few heirs, make the ground quake a bit, do whatever they need to do to get people to act off script…”

He leaned back in his chair, and smoothed his hand through his sleek blonde hair.

“Ninety nine percent of the time I just write backstory, and that backstory tends to influence the human present day a great deal, even when the humans themselves can’t even remember it! They weren’t even there when my events—some fake, some real— transpired, and yet they care so much,” he laughed. “For instance, did you know that Norway wasn’t actually there for most of the time the Earth’s been around? I was just talking to Ytra the other day, and she said another landmass would balance out the Nordic region well, so we introduced it a couple years back. I wrote some backstory for it—made up a few wars—and man, people really believe it now!”

Momo laughed nervously. This revelation was somehow more traumatizing than anything Valerica had said to her, and that was a true achievement.

“But, anyway, back to you,” he said, catching her eyes. “Whenever a new god is introduced, it’s my job to weave them into the lore of the Earth. Make it seem like they were always there, you know? Get them into the history textbooks. On subreddits. Generate some cults. So that’s what I’m going to do with you. And after you speak with me, your story will get sent to the rest of the universal imprints for localization to other planets. Alois is taken care of, of course, but the rest of the universe is severely lacking in their Momo education.”

Momo’s eyes widened. Pushing past the whole thing about the existence of Norway, this was—this was quite exhilarating.

She had seen hints in the past of such a web of knowledge transferring from world to world, like when Alois’s citizens would occasionally mention off-brand Greek myths, but she didn’t actually know there was a real, structured system behind it. An organism that made sure the universe was all in coherent narrative arrangement.

Of course, it was all designed to feed the gods’ narcissistic tendencies, but still. Cool nonetheless.

“So, here’s what I’m thinking,” he said, spreading his hands in front of her in a grand gesture. “On Earth, to keep with the general etymology of your name, we’ll have you first introduced through the Japanese culture, circa the shogun era, perhaps? It’s an era with a lot of modern day interest, but far enough in the past that no one could wag their finger if a new figure of importance suddenly showed up. How’s that sound?”

Completely overwhelmed, Momo nodded weakly.

“Great. From there, we’ll vaguely follow your story from Alois… So feel free to correct me on the details.” He looked at her for some sort of affirmation, and once she nodded again, he plowed on, “So from what I understand, you basically arrived in Alois very weak, feeble, selectively mute, and unsocialized. Would that be a correct assessment?”

Momo laughed in shock. But, well. She couldn’t call it incorrect.

“That’s fairly accurate, yes,” she whispered, her cheeks flushing again.

“Mm. Ok. And then you came under the care of a woman who was completely foreign to you. An evil woman, by all local accounts, with very twisted notions of morality. You clung onto her despite all rational reasons not to, and through her mentorship, you shot into immense power, eventually making a name for yourself as a local ruler, then a queen?”

He continued on like that for several more minutes, with Momo nodding through all of it, feeling increasing levels of embarrassment, until he slunk into his chair, and let out a pleased sigh. The document on his computer had reached fifteen pages.

“Wonderful. I think I’ve got the perfect Earthly version of your tale in mind,” he said. “I’ll just take the night to write it up, then send it to the other imprints for localization. And on your next trip to Earth, you should hopefully take notice.”

Momo’s eyebrows shot up. “Take notice?”

“Well, of course. You are still a minor god, so you won’t have your own million-person following or anything, but there will definitely be a subreddit or two. And if you decide to do anything accidentally supernatural while you’re there, do send me an email, and I’ll make sure to explain it away somehow— I’m a master of cover up jobs.”

He winked at her, then stood. Circling the desk, he slapped a hand to her shoulder.

“So,” he said. “If you don’t mind, this might be a good time for you to grab your… friend.”

Momo turned her head slowly, and through the glass of his office, she saw the Nether demon splayed out on the floor, unconscious in a pool of pomegranate juice.