Melinda.
Things had gone very dark, very quickly as a sort of mania overcame the nightmare pretending at godhood.
There had been screams, and there had been terror! Y-yet, unexpectedly, after the initial shock and once things had gotten going, things had taken on an altogether positive experience.
She was right.
Gube had, as she'd theorized, known what was happening, and then, it was almost like the tables had turned…
Honestly, Mindy was sort of spent. And the way that the goblin had been going at her? Well, the little beast sure had some spunk in her, pun entirely intended!
The goddess blinked, finding conscious thought slowly returning as she came down from her brief fit of passion and its lofty height of bizarrely intense emotions.
Her gaze fixated upon the quivering, exhausted, and unconscious mess she'd caused while countless of the goblin's compatriots seemed to surround her and stare.
Not one moved to aid her, not one dared to so much as approach within a simple meter…
Slightly annoyed with herself for having so easily given in to such hedonistic desires and partially irked that she'd apparently put on something of a 'show', Melinda raised her dark and inky tendrils to threaten those around her, the appendages rising to shake menacingly at those around them.
As an unintended bonus, their tips flung remnant globs of her strange purple 'essence' and caused the majority of the gawking goblins to squeal and run away.
All save two.
The shaman, who simply observed from a somewhat respectable distance, and the leader, muscle-bound and tall, who, much more simply, just appeared outright dumbfounded and confused.
Well, perhaps they really did know what was going on… If anything, the fact that Gube had transitioned from unfortunate victim to willing participant certainly lessened the moral blow Mindy had taken to the gut for even trying something so sinister…
She felt as though she might just owe all her sisters from another reality a genuine apology for that one, but the deed was done, and there was no point in dwelling on it. Like a band-aid, it was best to just rip it away and be done with it.
Yet, the many concerns and issues revolving around the creature's dignity and the purity of Melinda's soul after 'willingly' making such a decision were, in a similar fashion to before, overshadowed by an expanding instinct that propagated ceaselessly in her mind.
With a mental nudge and following oddly new but potent desires, Melinda activated her ability to initialize a system, finding her consciousness plunged within a pool of information as the goblin's very existence exploded to life around her!
Mindy staring at a familiar but green-tinted status window that manifested as though the universe itself had just analyzed her small goblin companion, judged her, then found her wanting...
"Strength—zero. Physique; zero… Finesse is at—surprise, zero… Intelligence, wisdom, luck… all zero. Hmmm…
"Her species is 'forest goblin'. Skills and feats aren't quantified. Special status? Corrupted… Grants the user access to the corrupting entity's power, the 'System'…"
Melinda's mind fixated upon the small detail that was the goblin's age, absent as the number was, the screen having her status labeled thankfully as 'matured'.
Thus, her trepidatious heart was partially saved by the fact she hadn't just done what she had to the goblin equivalent of a teenager, which, again, only helped soften the blow, but it did nevertheless help.
Well, if she really wanted to twist things, Mindy was practically a newborn into this, well, this 'existence' of hers. So, hopefully, her karma was still neutral and balanced but…
"What's with these terrible stats?" She idly mused, half complaining and half amazed, just staring at all the zeros.
"They're not low but fucking absent! I mean, if we're going by the golden standard human average, then… these, ugh, 'people' aren't… they're not even better off than, well, we're not making the comparison to toddlers, but, let's go with lemurs or something…"
Thoughts on the matter trailing, she wondered what her own stats might have averaged as a still healthy human girl. She'd been athletic enough, having taken gymnastics most of her life until the twelfth grade.
And, she'd been called pretty more than enough times in polite conversation, or, sometimes beyond, for better or worse when that happened, to know that she was fairly attractive. Not to mention all the 'hitting on' that had plagued her every time she went out.
Granted, she wasn't exactly a weight-lifter, but she could certainly crush a set of pull-ups and lift her own body easily enough with arms and shoulders alone, given her relatively small frame.
A moment later, Mindy was on a separate tangent. Wondering if 'null' was simply the baseline rather than the ten-point average she was used to…
Did her system just ignore what was already there and merely start building on it like a foundation?
Was the screen she was seeing less a presumption of what it assumed Gube was capable of vis-à-vis her competency or physical abilities, and, again, a place from which she could build herself into something greater than she'd ever been?
Likewise, were she to add a point to strength, what were the upper limits here?
Were there diminishing returns?
Was ten strength literally double five?
And, how easy was it for someone to increase their scores? Could it even be done outside of leveling?
Honestly, these were all probably things she should have already known, perhaps that were even made available for her perusal and adjustment, but, given she'd glossed a lot of it over and run out of time, well, whatever the rules, she'd probably figure them out.
It did beg the question of what would happen if her system analysed a human; would she see anything better?
Assuming that the interface was genuinely unique to her own abilities, most people wouldn't be able to really gauge how strong they were or level up, so it was all more a from-the-ground-up sort of deal and honestly kind of a moot point to think about…
It made her wonder if she somehow 'examined' someone with her power, if see'd what her ability would assume to be their 'potential', or, just this—blank slate with only the basics.
"Too many questions…" She sighed, trying to refocus herself on the present.
Either way, she had to start somewhere, so, doing just that, she bumped all of poor Gube's lackluster stats to the norm, or, her norm…
Then, just for kicks, she tossed a few extra points into intelligence and two into physique, staring at the unconscious girl and trying to discern if she was getting pretty…
Sadly, nothing was yet noticeable to her eye, a shame.
Then, another three into luck and one more into intelligence just because she was feeling whimsical and, fuck it, what did she care?
It wasn't as though she could see a 'pool' of stats that she was redistributing, but she just kept throwing points in, and they just kept ticking upwards, so it was sort of easy to toss them around willy-nilly.
Having a super-goblin as her champion sounded like exactly what she needed, even if she wasn't precisely sure what she was doing. However, the whole intelligence bit was something of a pet peeve she had.
Melinda liked her avatars to be universally smart. Stupid just didn't really work for her, even if it could be cute in its own, pet-like way.
Still, dealing with extremely dumb boyfriends had been a lesson in restraint, primarily of the verbally abusive sort.
So much so that she just couldn't deal with those kinds of people because she knew she'd eventually get mad and say things probably not entirely kind.
And, regardless of what the 'average' may or may not be in this world, assuming there was one, 'ten' didn't really seem to cut it.
She'd definitely known a few of her fellow students who were, perhaps, not technically stupid as traditional goblins, yet spookily, acted close enough to some of the antics she was seeing around her that the numbers fit dangerously close in her mind.
After all, the whole ventilation in the ceiling was pretty on the nose…
Melinda doubted that many of her more cognitively ungifted acquaintances would have even had the wherewithal to consider such an idea…
"And speaking of noses, what is up with the crazy schnoz, girl?"
Melinda chuckled as she stared at the nearly ten-inch long protrusion from the goblin's face, its shape narrow and excessively pointy…
Ugly, to be frank, but also somewhat unique. Unlike some of the examples she'd seen, Gube didn't have a particularly beaked or crooked nose, nor terribly scarred either, just long and pointy.
In fact, the more Mindy stared at the thing, the more she wondered if she could somehow make it work in cosplay, trying for a 'cute meets sexy' kind of vibe while keeping the green face pickle as it was, or slightly altered, at the very least.
That was when Melinda realized there were sliders all across the goblin visage within the status window. Her expression brightened with excitement for a few heart-thumping moments, even as she began to frown a few seconds later in consternation.
"Is it—too personal to start messing around with how she looks?"
No, no!
That was utterly ridiculous!
If Mindy had been born looking so unfortunate, she'd have praised the heavens for all her life if some god had come along and taken pity, giving her a magical facelift to right what genes had wronged.
"More, if I change that little line that says she has no subrace, does that mean I'd be, theoretically, creating a tangent species of goblins to call my own?"
That little thought held within it a truly disturbing degree of rather absurd and attractive and guilty pleasure.
Some 'box' buried deep within the woman's subconsciousness deciding that it wanted to be ticked and capitalized on…
"Well, she was asking for a god of her own and, if that's me, then, don't I get to indulge in a little—godly prerogative?"
Smiling fiendishly, Melinda decided she didn't really care about the virtuous and upstanding expectations of society when society, as it presently existed before her, hadn't yet discovered what latrines were good for.
She'd one-hundred percent seen no fewer than two of the little creatures wander nearer to one another and defecate in their space, laughing as though it were some grand joke before the pair started wrestling with each other in the dirt.
"Yeah…" Melinda murmured, chewing on the idea as a whole.
Existence could go fuck itself if it wanted 'her' to be some deity to the unwashed and unclean masses of goblin-kind.
There was simply no way.
She'd instead rather do nothing at all than leave them as they were… "Which begs the question of the angle I'm going for here…"
Melinda considered that thought for a time, mulling it over as she formulated her opinion. "I mean, if I'm, heh, already committed to making changes, then, why not go all in? Why stick with the tiny gross clown-bodies?"
Slowly, she began reinforcing her certainty on the matter, quickly delving headlong into her work as she methodically fixed her little goblin and adjusted it to her tastes.
"Straighten the spine, shorten the arms, lengthen the legs… Keep the nose, just streamline it, slender, perfectly pointy, maybe just a touch of a slight drooping curve over the length, nothing bulbous or disgusting, just—different—fun!
"Her ears are a little batlike but almost like an elf's, just grotesque and sticking out to the sides. Honestly, it's alright, not that bad, and sort of fits, but it's getting the same treatment as the nose.
"Cleaner, less droopy and sad. Think elf, but go with a little 'monstrous flair'. Speaking of monsters… Do I really want her turning out like just another member of the fey?"
Melinda scowled at the idea, not really interested in making a Tolkien carbon copy of a species that may already exist. No, she wanted to keep some of that feral intensity that was going on, sleek and dangerous with just a dash of feral goblin still in there.
"Alright then, that means claws, and maybe I'll stick with the overly long fingers, they're sort of metal… like the real evil vampires, Dracula style, none of that Twilight garbage… Oh, and I'll have to add claws to the toes as well! Nothing says barbarian savage like talons for toenails!" She sang, probably getting into it all more than she'd admitted.
Fashion had always been something of a weak spot for Mindy, which was why she'd liked to play virtual dress-up so much!
Still, she'd never admit to desperately wanting to rock a pink short-skirt and bright white crop top half the days she'd gone to class, absolutely loving everything to do with pretty colors despite the vibe she gave off.
Yet anyone who might say otherwise to try and embarrass her could suck her interdimensional black cock.
"Hmmm, well," She muttered after catching herself and returning to the work at hand. Idly looking at the 'toe claws' she'd made. "The feet can definitely go away with the whole clubbed look… Gube will be both graceful and elegant in all her many forms…"
She smiled at that, tone taking on the cadence of an elderly British aristocrat while staring haughtily at her work before letting the persona slip as she continued her spiel.
"Honestly, I'd even be jealous of the girl's ability to rock open-toe heels after this… damn I'm good! Now, as for breasts? I'm definitely going big. Sizable for the hourglass frame that would totally make filters cry with envy. I always loved my big tits… yeah I'm projecting, sure, but, shit, even I'd tap that now. But, but, not gigantic… poor girl's still gotta live with those monsters, after all.
"That said," the goddess sighed, thinking back to her time on earth, "statistically, women with impressive endowments for their comparative size do have an easier go of it in life.
"I—annoyingly,just happened to get the short end of the stick in that regard. Exceptions to the rules and all that…
"Either way, Gube is definitely going to be on the eye-candy end of that spectrum… Alright, now her ass. Easy enough, thick is always the way to go, toned, pert, and fit, the best of all worlds."
Melinda grinned at herself, satisfied with her work below the face as she marveled at a seductively lip-biting figure more belonging to a certain kind of demon that enjoyed sucking souls from dicks…
Was she going too far?
Hell no!
Melinda was having a blast, and she wasn't about to stop before the main event…