Dissonance 13 – Mind Goblin

“Com-pu-ter…” Ellie mouthed the word.

The group was in an electronics shop. They had spotted it on the way back and with there being actual funds in their corporate account, Avari had decided that it was time to upgrade from the ancient laptop. It worked, yes, but the age had taxed several of its parts. Reasonably, it was better to move to new devices before it broke.

“Surprised you can read,” Avari confessed. “Not even Iridescian, just in general.”

“I’m… not that good at it,” the goblin muttered, tugging at the sleeves of her new clothes. The tribal garb she had worn had been entirely too filthy to stick her back into it. Instead, she had been given some of Avari’s spare clothes, then taken to a clothes shop to get her own selection of daily wear. Loose and dark, that was her preferred style. “Didn’t have a lot to… uhm… practice with… just that one m-manual…”

“Manual?” Eldred investigated.

“J-just a book that another goblin s-stole from somewhere. It was, uhm… pretty useless for the longest time… w-when the sponsor taught u-us Iridescian, I g-got the alphabet down as well so… I managed to start reading it.”

“What was it called?” Nyx wondered.

“Uhm… s-something basic…” On her toes, Ellie scanned the selection of smartphones, displayed on a low table. “’T-the Reasoner’s P-primer’, it was called…”

“Stutter included?” Avari teased while she looked up the book on her own handheld computer. Once she found it, she raised an eyebrow. “’Magic is fickle – reason is reliable. The Reasoner’s Primer is the trusted beginner’s guide to practical logic, elegant design and problem solving. Learn how to think like an engineer. Break your problems into simple parts, then how to tackle each part logically. Study the foundations of engineering and coding with the logic issues with our 20 progressively harder trials of logic. A sharp mind is the finest tool, so get it primed.’” The gremlin finished up the reading. “Sounds pretty advanced… how many trials did you solve?”

“A-all of them?” Ellie muttered. “Not like I, uhm, had much else to do…”

“Must have burned through a lot of paper.” Eldred thought back to his math lessons. “So many formulas to write down and such.”

“…no… paper…” Ellie muttered, trying her best to hide her face with her hoodie.

“There was no paper in the cave. She was poor and filthy,” Nyx reminded them.

“…You telling me you did all of the logic trials in a book meant to train engineers in your head?” Avari asked.

Ellie slowly nodded.

“…We got to test that.”

They bought a smartphone for Ellie, two new laptops, one for work and one for outdoor applications, and a tower with all of its necessary attachments for Eldred’s office. As CEO, Eldred just listened to Avari when she told him what they could or could not afford. For the vast majority of his life, he had not handled money and for the short stretches that he had gotten a wage, he had not given it much thought.

Keeping it that way worked just fine for him. He had a greed demon to handle his finances. If she wanted to pull some of the funds into her own pocket, she was more than welcome to. With how much she had invested into getting him started, she was more than entitled to it.

Eldred doubted she would though. She was a good girl.

They grabbed the lighter devices and carried them home. The larger objects were air-dropped onto their property via drone, sitting near the entrance upon their arrival.

They all got situated inside Eldred’s office. It remained the cleanest and most comfortable room around, a fact that would not change until the construction crew had swept through. They quickly assembled the desktop set-up on the old wooden desk. Programmed crystals were placed on the desk, cables connecting them to the back of the PC. Keyboard and mouse resonated with the communication frequency of the machine as the light behind the power button came to life.

“Computer,” Ellie repeated, looking at the machine with growing interest. She put one of her large ears against the side of the case. “Krrrrrrkrrrrkrrrrkkrrrr,” she mimicked the almost inaudible clicks of the hardware working.

That was too adorable. He had to pat her head.

“Ehehehe…” There was no jumping, no surprise, just the happy little giggle of a goblin that was getting her head scratched. After the bath and the brushing, her hair was a little less messy – little being the operative word. Predisposition to chaos ran deep in the goblin DNA and apparently that manifested in the cascade of her black, blue-streaked hair. She had woven it all into a messy braid again. A borderline necessity, given its length.

Messiness was thankfully the only part that was persistent. Courtesy of Avari’s care and the hospital’s thorough measures, her hair was silky smooth. Blessed little goblin sounds echoed from her throat as he continued to pat her head. When he did pull away, she turned her head to look up at him. Embarrassment was only a small part of the expression she wore. A light smile, the little twitches of her ears, and eyes that asked: ‘Why stop?’ were all almost enough to distract Eldred from her very eye-catching lower half.

The clothes she had picked were quite loose, but no pants could have hidden that fat ass from view. Seam digging into the gap between the twin spheres, the squatting greenskin was showing it all off and she was entirely unaware of that fact. The base male urge to protect her cuteness mixed flawlessly with the equally base urge to pick her up, lay her over the edge of the table and see just how well that bubble butt could serve as a cushion.

[Ellie Hoodie AI: https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/78e1a0464339.png ]

Yellow eyes drifted down to his pants immediately after. A visible tent strained the cloth. The goblin’s green lips parted, her blush deepening.

“Alright!” Avari interrupted the moment, “Sit down!”

The gremlin pat the foldable camping chair that was placed behind the desk. It had been their temporary solution to the lack of seats around. For Ellie to actually reach the height of the human-designed desk, the camping chair was also placed on a small stack of rusty plates that they had carried up there for that exact purpose.

“When you short-proof everything, don’t forget that tall folk work here too,” Eldred told his chief financial officer.

“Now that you said that, I will have the pipes installed under the ceiling just for you.” As she delivered her bratty retort, the gremlin pulled her shirt over her head. It sailed right into Nyx’s arms. His banshee already displayed all of her snow-white glory, having stripped while Avari was busy setting the PC up.

The crystal boxes on the table projected three holographic screens into the air above them. Poking a finger at them, Ellie snapped back when her hand caused the cheap projections to fizzle. “D-did I-“ before she could ask, the screen restored itself to normalcy.

“It’s just because we bought the poor people screens without the fancy touch reactions or stabilisation effects. Now, stop being a primitive for a second. See what I put on screen?”

“Y-yeah?” Ellie asked.

“I want you to solve it.”

Eldred scanned the webpage. The URL displayed the blatant name ‘logictests’, matching what Ellie was now staring at. Trying to stare at between glances at Avari’s tits. Those orbs of hopes and dreams just jiggled everywhere while the gremlin took her pants off. Nyx took those too, adding them to the folded pile in the corner.

“Yes, I know my tits are spheres of mass distraction.” Avari squished them together. “Get your ogling in, then focus!”

“O-okay!” Ellie squeaked, forcing herself to stare at the screen.

Eldred had already solved the puzzle in his head, though he couldn’t be proud of it. Sixteen numbers were arranged in a string, with a prompt requesting the next four numbers to be entered.

“Uhm… w-what do I do?”

“This is the cursor.” Eldred pointed at the small white thing on the screen. “You move it with this.” He wiggled the mouse around a bit. “Click into the field and then use the keyboard to type your answer.”

“Okay…” Ellie murmured, more to herself than anyone else, as though gathering courage. So far, she had been taking to Iridescia fairly well. Eldred had expected a whole lot more ‘Ooooh’ and ‘Aaaah’ing.

‘I suppose the mind is more resilient than that, getting locked in constant amazement wouldn’t do her much favour.’

Like anyone who used a keyboard for the first time she hen-pecked her answer one index finger tap at a time.

“Now press Enter,” Eldred instructed. She did. The box next to the question played a small animation of a green checkmark appearing. Then, the next logic puzzle appeared in front of Ellie.

Initially, the goblin was mindful of the crowd. The trio, remaining silent, tried to solve the puzzles with her in their heads. What was fairly easy soon turned out to be a problem purely of Ellie’s operating speed. She was unfamiliar with the mouse as much as the keyboard, moving the cursor too little or too much as she struggled to get to the answer box.

Improvement was rapid. Ellie soon was entirely focused on the screen. The time the group behind her had to work out the logic puzzles became shorter and shorter. Soon enough, she had put in the answer and advanced to the next trial before Eldred had found the answer. After that happened three times in a row, he tapped out. Avari had also backed away. She was good with numbers and she knew more than him, but on pure logic tests they seemed about matched. Nyx stayed engaged for a little longer, but the trials had advanced from number strings and pattern recognition to problem solving by that point.

Ellie was clicking around a map of logic gates, trying to get an electric pulse to light up simulated lumens in the correct sequence. The mouse just kept on moving, each click changing around the ones and zeroes. Even now, her mind was working quicker than her hand could.

“Alright, I think that’s enough,” Avari said.

“Uhm, uh, okay?” Ellie looked around, blinking a couple times as if coming out of a trance. “W-w-was that… good?”

“You’re probably a genius.”

“Wawawawha-? N-no, I’m just… Ugo…”

Eldred put both of his hands on the goblin girlfailure’s head and began to shake her. Panicked, confused and adorable squeaking filled the room while she was tossed about in her seat. “Never call yourself that in my presence ever!” he reminded her. “You are gorgeous and smart.” He lightened the force behind his motions until he was giving her head pats again. “Stick with me and I will get you far.”

Now that it was established that she was both cute and incredibly useful, Eldred had nothing holding him back to recruit her. “I… d-don’t really want to… go anywhere…?” Ellie muttered.

“It’s a figure of speech, small one,” Nyx cooed. “You will stay right here. A dark corner will be provided for you to dwell in between summons to be sexually used and deeply satisfied by your Master.”

“Fuck, Nyx, you are coming on strong!” Avari blurted out. “Ease her in a little bit.”

“Eldred will ease himself into her.” Pervy trill to her melodic voice, the ghost lady flew little circles around the heavily blushing goblin. “Why waste precious time when the path ahead is clear? Our CEO has graciously chosen to elevate you to a better life. Repay him, repay us, put your mind and body to service.”

“Uhm, uh, awawa… uh… ehm…“ Ceaseless, uncertain noises sputtered from the goblin’s mouth.

Avari scratched the back of her head. “You said she made an improvised watermill with nothing but wooden gears, she can probably be turned into a fantastic software engineer. The girlfailure yearns for the programming closet.”

“Join me.” Whispers into her right ear had the short greenskin shudder. “I’ll keep you clothed and fed. I will make sure you have everything you could ever want. Forget that life in the cave, you are never going back to that. You can be mine now, be part of a corporation that will grow and grow until we stand among the Great Ones.”

“Be his, be one of us,” Nyx whispered into Ellie’s left ear. “No longer are you surrounded by unworthy savages. Assume your proper position, aid us with your brilliance, please your Master with those wide hips and eager lips. Become one with the harem that will grow and grow as we please our great Master.”

“…Fuck…” The single, lust-heaving word burst from Avari’s lips. Her whip-like tail smacked the side of the table in rhythmic intervals. The depth of her arousal at the scene became its own fragrance, mixing with that of the others for a slight, sweet note of pheromonal release.

Ellie was still stunned, locked between a pushy dom and his supportive sub. And why wouldn’t Eldred be pushy? He absolutely wanted her and he was convinced he was the best choice for her future.

“I-I… uhm… awawa… awawawawa… wha-wha-what am I s-s-s-supposed t-t-to doooo?!” Ellie cried out in confusion and thinly veiled desire.

“You do not know what to say, that is natural when faced with such a wonderful proposal,” Nyx cooed. “Act, little one… stand and show his cock how thankful you are for being saved from squalor.”

Ellie sat still for one more second.

Then she rose to her feet.