Melinda.
"The hell am I even watching?" Mindy asked herself, chewing her imagined lower lip as the goblins seemed to spread out.
The creatures cordoned off the various sections of the gloomy interior with little more than lines through the dirt.
Carving out slices of territory for themselves in a simplistic but strangely disciplined manner that saw each of the nasty little monsters settled within their own small plots of damp dirt.
After a while, lost in contemplation and genuinely fascinated by the novelty of it all, a particularly wizened example of the creatures seemed to begin doing something bizarre enough to catch her attention.
The creature hobbled about on an honest-to-god staff, rattling the various knick-knacks tied across its length as he mulled about, soon appearing to find a location he was pleased with.
A sensation of alien yet almost palpable 'force' began to emerge around the man, a feeling of discomforting and chilly density, almost like humidity, but localized and missing the familiar qualities of moisture and warmth.
Melinda hadn't even been aware of the odd 'weight' that hung in the air, but it was fairly impossible to ignore thereafter, the young woman able to feel the queer sensation prickle near everywhere she looked.
Slowly, the force began culminating around the ancient creature, a sort of energy that wasn't so much visible as it was thick in the area, swirling and flooding from the outside in, pooling around the goblin until she could almost swear it was visible.
Then, the man began condensing the strange power and directing it like the flow of water, almost channeling it as he chanted, hopping about from leg to leg while shaking his rattling attire, before the most peculiar thing happened.
Mindy watched as the stone above the goblin shifted, parting to create a series of fluted holes in the structure above as though it were putty being molded by an invisible hand.
An utterly confounding task that the shaman repeated not once, but again and again, all but perforating the cave ceiling while other goblins appeared to set to task gathering more wood for fires.
What was more, many dragged over odd leaf-wrapped baskets that had been presumably salvaged from the raid, placing them directly beneath the new openings in the rock as though to…
"Capture water…" Mindy murmured, starting to understand what was happening as drips were already falling from the ceiling. "And the holes themselves are for—airflow? So the fires don't choke them out?"
It was sort of ingenious, really, though; maybe that was a little too strong of praise.
Crafty might be a better fit, she supposed, but, more importantly, had Melinda just witnessed magic?
Up until this point, she'd still held a sort of reserved expectation, a suspicion, if you will, that, at any given moment, she might just snap awake again, and everything would be back to how it was.
Go back to her normal life, from a time absent the tumor, Mindy returning to her existence at college and her shitty apartment and boring classes stuck amidst all the people she hated. All of it simply reverting like a bad fever dream.
She wasn't sure exactly why it was but, for some reason, actually seeing what she'd just observed, being there herself to watch it happen, and in such an unspectacular manner as to make it all feel so mundane, well, it just kind of, hmmm, oh, she didn't know… grounded her?
As though her expectations had been so wildly out of control that she'd disconnected from it all.
Melinda's mind was, admittedly, unsure how she should react to what was happening to her or even what she should respond to, to begin with.
Hell, Mindy didn't even know why she was here!
B-but seeing the goblin so casually warp reality around itself for something, again, so comparatively bland as to make a new home moderately more comfortable was, in an immensely needed way, soothing.
She hadn't seen giant fireballs of death incinerating combatants and scorching the land…
She hadn't seen necromancers raise the dead to do their bidding as they devoured all life in a crusade of darkness.
Nor had she seen creatures teleporting from foe to foe, mercilessly slaughtering all who appeared before them with overpowered weeaboo impunity…
No, this… Well, this was, what looked like, just another day for what she guessed to be a 'shamanistic' line of work, or some sort of life calling.
His magic no more than another tool, another hammer, another shovel, effective without question and certainly 'arcane' in its confounding nature, but…
"Just another tool." She reiterated, feeling a sense of pressure lift from her shoulders.
This wasn't too much for her.
This wasn't impossible to wrap her head around.
Not some grand epic of dragons and heroes, it was just—business as usual, just people trying to do everything in their power to survive and keep their community from falling apart.
The idea was humanizing.
Even, perhaps, just a little distressing in a way that hit harder the more Melinda peered about their rather depressing state and surroundings.
The goblins were tired, beaten down and worn. None seemed to have any significant manner of rations or even personal belongings beyond the odd tarnished coin or rounded bauble of polished stone…
They were poor, destitute, and perhaps just a bit dumb, given the majority of the childlike and savage antics that were moderately keeping her entertained.
However, if that was born of a natural deficiency of the mind or a lack of social unity and culture, or even their environment itself, Mindy couldn't have been certain.
What she was sure of was that, of the group, Melinda could clearly observe a small handful of the creatures that displayed a 'heightened' degree of cognizant capacity when compared to their peers.
The large, muscled, and tall leader who lounged while directing their kin with courtly orders.
The overly wrinkled shaman who seemed to be both revered and idolized for his ability to aid the wounds of those around him.
An armed goblin that stood watch outside. Partner to a bumbling moron who was completely content to dig for grubs and pick his nose, the contempt radiating off his stoically observant companion all but visible in the air…
Then, there was Gube.
Yes, Melinda had found the girl again, though she'd only managed to do so once the impromptu camp had settled down, and many, if not all, saving those who kept watch, had begun to drop within their designated zones for rest.
That was when the prayers started.
Often, little chants that broke through the barrier of her thoughts, swelling within her consciousness like the background noise of dozens of conversations at the bar.
She could hear them all.
Wishing for revenge, begging for mercy, praying for safety, or just asking to be given the opportunity to live for one more day or for a measly scrap of squirrel to eat.
They weren't necessarily 'directed' at her, none explicitly mentioning gods or, least of all, her own name.
Moreover, she found their language to be utter rubbish, nearly all speaking with an almost toddler-like grasp and fluency of their own tongue.
However, they called to the world nonetheless, desperately reaching out with their collective will with hopes to presumably ensnare the attention of an entity, one potentially, not that far removed from Melinda herself…
It made her ask a very simple question;
Was that what this all was about?
Had Mindy been summoned through the cooperative prayers of some filthy little green mongrels hiding in a cave?
Ridiculous!
She might have had her odd stint of altruistic impulses from time to time, but Melinda wasn't some messiah, selflessly descending from the heavens to liberate and empower her chosen people…
But, okay, did that really mean she couldn't lend a helping hand while getting something in return?
The young woman couldn't really fail to note the very curious slider that had been in the initial status window she'd been mucking around with.
That little bar, which had been tied to her status page, offered her the opportunity to retroactively decide exactly what 'percentage' of shared power was to be distributed in a manner to which she could only extrapolate.
Her running assumption being the 'experience points' that would be earned by those receiving her power. And as she'd previously read, how much that 'she', in turn, siphoned away for herself…
At first, the notion had been something of a long shot in her mind, but the funny thing was, the more she thought about it, the more it sort of made sense.
"I mean, if I am supposed to be some sort of—neutrally sinister cosmic horror of the void, wouldn't it kind of fit if my whole prime directive was to get stronger and, in turn, exponentially grow myself to—what? Simply get even stronger in some ridiculous loop?"
She thought back to her status screen, opening it with a thought as she glanced at her reputation.
"Malignant… right… definitely a word with a touch more 'gravitas' than something more vanilla, but does that mean my reputation with all living creatures is negative or, just other gods?"
There was also the strongly hinted issue that her existence would breed a certain degree of vindictive hostility to a particular 'kind' of other existences, again all alluded to through her own status.
Entities, or perhaps just 'gods', to be specific, of a morally aligned good or possibly even holy nature that undoubtedly had to exist if for no greater reason than the definitions of her own abilities.
"I mean, why else would they be so freaking on the nose about that sort of thing? Why bother wagging it in my face if it wasn't something that all things—people like me have access to, but, for whatever reason, have stupid, nonsensical restrictions?
"And! What even happens when something with an army of gilded paladins gets a throbbing stiffy to start crusading and decides to 'purge the corruption' once I actually start doing things in the world?"
The thought of some radiantly blinding do-gooders riding into her domain while fucking blitzed out on their own holier-than-thou attitudes really pissed her off! Mostly because she knew the fucking type.
They'd have no issues with burning her at the stake for nothing more than rumors and suspicions. It had happened to her before. And the results had been, in a manner of speaking, explosive.
She'd been bullied quite a bit in her life. But one particular case had finally managed to make her snap.
And in response, warranted or otherwise, she'd totally fucked the brains out of the prissy Catholic-school-bitch's sex-starved boyfriend! The very same girl, Catherine O'Malley, who'd started the majority of rumors Melinda had to suffer with for the year she'd been at that repulsive high school.
It had sort of started off somewhat more innocent on her end, but as stories of sweet revenge so often went, Mindy had gone all in…
Hell, she'd even taken pictures of the guy as he'd sucked her toes, really getting her claws in and corrupting the boy so she could send the photos over direct message to his girlfriend and get the whore all nice and riled up!
Delightedly adding the caption that she'd made him her bitch, and helpfully noting that every time they kissed in the future, Catherine would be tasting Mindy's 'boot foot' going forward.
Still, before she'd gone full atomic and made use of all her God-given gifts, she hadn't actually figured out the real cause of the whole debacle that had seen her expelled. The same that stemmed from nothing more than one of Catherine's friends complaining that she'd caught her boy toy admiring Melinda's tits.
Was it fair? Absolutely not. But, she'd long since learned that 'fairness' had nothing to do with reality.
That said, she did have an awesome rack!
They were big, and they were shapely, but that hadn't been her fault! And the response of the girls had been wildly disproportionate to the nonexistent crime.
It could be argued that her own dispensation of justice had been equally brutal in kind, not to mention potentially off-point to the true instigator, but Melinda was a tit-for-tat kind of gal and had felt her actions, at the time, perfectly reasonable.
Honestly, at this point, it wasn't hard to make the leap in logic and see herself as the so-said 'evil' that would haunt the land as that sort of witch-hunting shit had been happening to her all her life.
For God's sake, her own status even used words like blight and taint! She was practically the tutorial big bad for some hapless group of bright-eyed Dungeons & Dragons characters on their first worldly adventure…
"A new dark god awakens… its corruption spreading across the world! Our heroes must gather their allies and stop the forces of evil before they gain too much power and piss off our beautiful society of angels who don't really want to get their hands dirty, so they're sending humans, and maybe a dwarf and elf—fuck it, the evil girl is new anyway, the hell do we even care? Marshal the hobbits!"
Sighing as she rubbed at her imaginary temples, Melinda knew that she really didn't want to find out just how vulnerable she actually was, the hard way.
Reminding herself, in no uncertain terms, that 'god' wasn't necessarily synonymous with 'unkillable'.
Immortal, maybe, but there were tons of stories, even back on Earth, of immortals being slain, many times by magically juiced-up humans on a vengeance kick…
"Yeah, no thanks," Mindy groused, offering the bleak emptiness around her a contemptuous sneer. "I already had to die in my fucking twenties, I am not going through that again, and definitely not willing to let some—priest cleanse me in sacred flames for brownie points with his holy bitch of a goddess."
Melinda eyed the group of ugly, stinking goblins and listened to their earnest pleas for aid. Considered if, for a moment or two, that constituted 'consent' for what her um… mmm… well, her 'abilities' hinted toward…
Then, she abruptly decided it did!
Granted, she was dancing around semantics here, but, hey, if anyone knew how this sort of thing tended to work around here, then surely the um, well the inhabitants of the 'Great Lacunae', or whatever this place was called, would understand what they were getting into and, she might add, asking for, right?
They had to know; they were even asking for it! A shity excuse, she knew, but on the flipside, when had goblins ever been treated as 'morally' good?
Thus, their only experience would be with 'bad' gods. Thus, they must understand the processes involved.
It would be—okay to carry out an initialization…
Right?
For a time, Melinda just considered the moral implications behind what she was psyching herself up to do, then who she should indoctrinate.
Hoping that, maybe, the defiler tendrils would just—boop a few goblin snoots, their mere touch enough to start the process along, rather than the repugnant alternative.
Yet, she couldn't precisely rule events of an explicit nature out, as disgusting as the notion was, both virtuously and, perhaps worse, hygienically, given her options.
Honestly, she was a little disgruntled that she'd been given booger-eating goblins to work with rather than some trim elf-booty! Mmm, at least that she could, sort of, get on board with…
Again, Mindy liked guys, for the most part, but she could admit to admiring a woman's attractiveness and sexual appeal in its own right. A good-looking girl could even get the old engine purring without much work.
It just so happened that she preferred the male organ. Neither was bad per se, but, again, she was, as everyone else, allowed to have her preferences, and she thoroughly enjoyed a good dicking.
The—issue, of course, ignoring how she was actively swallowing her feelings on the matter of 'defilement' and all its associated connotations, was that she really wasn't into sticking her tendrils up some goblin dude's ass.
Not that a girl would be much better in that regard; everyone shit, after all. The illusion of the fairer sex being exactly that.
Cosmetics and effort were the mightiest pillars of modern beauty, and nobody could tell her otherwise. Still, if she was going to do this, then she was going to try and keep it as basic as possible.
"Think clinical, Mindy…" She breathed, really trying to steel herself as she looked around for a willing sacrifice… "It's just a procedure; nothing gotta be weird about it. Guys get prostate exams, after all, and you've had a gynecologist up your hoo-ha before, so… Just ugh… yup… get in and out as fast as you can, do what you gotta do, and maybe burn the tendrils with phosphate afterward?"
She shivered just thinking about the ick… deciding she had to mentally expunge all such thoughts from her head if she was ever going to work up the courage to do this.
She had a lot of options in the cave.
Yes, many of the creatures were male when she started, ahem, looking under the hood… But, the majority were actually women—or, female… Ugh, it didn't feel right ascribing 'womanhood' to these monsters.
It was sort of hard to tell, but, for the most part, dangling bits 'below' singled out a guy, while dangling bits above were either a fat old man or an ugly goblinette…
Curiously, despite having no obvious interest in the forms of the squat, dirty, warted, and misshapen little creatures from a physical standpoint, the lone goblin that held her attention was, in a strange twist of fate, Gube.
She alone was interspersing her prayers with both profanities and challenges by equal measure, taunting the night beyond her cave as though she could reverse-flip the narrative and convince an entity such as Melinda presumed she herself was to take up the little goblin's call to arms.
It was honestly sort of endearing…
Mix in the sense that she was a touch brighter than most of the goblins around her through articulation alone, rough as it was when compared to what Mindy was used to, and the fact she'd seen the girl being a total badass while fighting off the other tribe, and, well, Mindy was reasonably convinced.
If any of her options could still hold such a spirited outlook and even find her own opportunities for some misanthropic humor, that was Mindy's girl.
Honestly, giving her ability to someone she could, at some level, resonate with was as good a reason as any, considering she wasn't exactly sure what constituted her godly 'good graces' at this point.
So, mentally preparing herself for what she was about to try, Melinda waited until the majority of the goblins in the cave had gone silent, then activated her ability amidst the dark…