Chapter 38: 33. Cold Comfort

With a deep and ear rendering gasp followed by a snort Hoglah sat up after about an hour of poor Une screaming in her ear. Even for Hoglah it was psychologically damaging to look down at her left side and see it so badly torn apart that she could see her liver on her RIGHT side. She simply pulled her splayed and mutilated side into place before magic flooded into the entire portion with what looked like transparent yellow, green and violet magic, including the visible heart inside which slowly began to fill with visible, dark blood.

 

Une began screaming “EVERYONE WANTS AN EXPLANATION. NOW!” Hoglah snarled her upper lip and looked at her. Une squeaked “P-please Empress, we were worried a-about you!” Hoglah chortled and snorted at her back down before explaining. “You can stock up on magical energies all you want, but it’s useless without imagination. You might have the ingredients, but if you can’t come up with a recipe or at least follow one you’ll just make a bunch of shit. Seems the man upstairs has forgotten that. He’s let his little farms run so long he doesn't know how to make a plow share anymore. I just copied his recipe, made a heart and lungs in my buttocks, I breathed through my asshole and let my beautiful fat cover the sound. All the magic of God and The Marquis can only move faster, make bigger scourges. Pathetic really.”

 

A small projection of Une from Hoglah’s earring was agog, as were all the denizens of Castle Tongue which was now returning for a rendezvous. “The good lord thinks I’m dead, dunno if he cares about my darling, but it shouldn’t matter as everyone ought to be converted or dead soon enough in this nation. The tricky part is now my body is roasted, I’ll need to bolster up what forces I have since I have just enough magic to hold my body together and keep healing, not to mention slowly undoing the transformation of my posterior. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped. No way to be ready for a direct confrontation with the time I have. Ready up everyone Une, we’re heading for shaft five again! Poisons take time to go into effect.” Hoglah limped off into Castle Tongue which began trudging towards the mine once again. She knew the Marquis' hand was probably feeling a little itchy by now.

 

Hoglah now realized the danger she was in, Volen was her typical point guard. Sure, Her momma and Dr. Guu could hypothetically fight, but neither were particularly strong suited to it. Grinida was strong, but her time was needed by her staff and in meal prep for her forces. She’d need someone new to take point, of basic Moblins there were some stand outs. Moblins were easily influenced by mindsets and magic which typically manifested physically and one particular standout was a milkmaid from the Lankashire estate. Galatea, she was the one who would buried or retrieve most perishable foods in the river, it was work that killed many through the sheer shock of temperature. Yet she survived and once the Moblins began to train Galatea stood out to an incredible degree from the other Moblins, she was at least a third of the size of the typical Moblin!

 

Hoglah summoned her for a personal interview at once. The little Moblin poked her powder white snow snout into The Empressess’ chamber and gave a worried, but cheerful “Yo!” before squeezing in through the crack in the door. She was stooped over greatly and with her white and long hair hanging over her eyes she appeared to be an old woman at first. “Stand up!” Hoglah shouted.

Despite wincing her one visible eye she made no motions to follow and simply responded with “I just want to quietly fade into the background, why are you doing this to me?” With an eyebrow cocked in defiance.

Hoglah bellowed and terminated the rancorous laughter with a snort. She then spoke to the stooped woman. “Because you have potential. Because above all else you are smart. Please let me see how you survived those frozen streams even in winter. Show me how you’ve lived.”

With a despondent huff that blew the hair from the pure white Moblin’s covered eye she dropped her robe and stood straight. She was enormous and beautiful, the only color anywhere on her body was her eyes which were sapphire blue interspersed with teal. Her body was covered in extremely defined muscle and she struck a bodybuilder-like pose. She had a generous chest but it contained no breast at all. Simply concentrated muscle. Her posterior was similar. The muscle was not thick or bloated, but dexterous and tight to her frame, almost looking skinny. Her face was a blank. It was a completely neutral expression.

 

With a haughty eye to the Empress from her beautiful porcelain like face she spat “I didn’t change much when I became a Moblin aside from my nose. I trained hard with my mother so that I wouldn’t be taken advantage of. Our natural beauty is high, but our class is low. Women like us are raped constantly. We got a job that put us out of much direct contact with the highborn and disguised ourselves to both earn high class lodging and stay safe...now I don’t know what to do with myself, but I won’t be taken advantage of.”

 

Hoglah simply clapped with a big smile on her face. “Excellent, listen, I have some plans for you, but I can see from your posture you might not be comfortable with how you’ve been addressed in your life…would you like me to call you like a man? As in I’d say he and him when I address you?” The white beings mouth hung open. She contemplated before speaking again. “I don’t know, perhaps only when we’re alone for now. What of these plans?” He began to eye her suspiciously again. She chuckled and snorted “I need a vanguard, as you can see I’m pretty injured.” Hoglah gestured to the mostly missing section of her upper torso. Galatea for her part spoke in barely noticeable upset monotone. “I never wanted anything so flashy, you don’t survive flashy.”

Hoglah took on a serious expression and spoke. “The reward is enough strength to never fear. Anything. After all if you are swinging on my behalf why would I want anything less than the best?”

 

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Before Galatea could answer the Castle lurched to a stop and Tongue’s bellowing voice intoned through his own inner workings “We’re here!’ Galatea sighed. “Listen your highness, I have obviously felt stagnant in my life, it is a quiet life but I love it. I’m looking for more, but if I want to slink back into the background will I be free to return?” Hoglah maintained her serious look and sighed. “Yes, truth be told you are doing me a favor. I need someone strong as hell to accompany me because I have no idea what’s in that mine besides some kind of metal ghost, can you help me?”

 

Galatea was someone who was completely content with her life even if it was a tense life, this whole Moblin situation had altered it…but was that a bad thing? A chance at a new start, being a boy? He always wanted that, but never though he had a choice. A queen’s guard too? Here was more out of life, could he take it?

 

He extended his hand to Hoglah and said “Call me Galatian and I think I’ll have everyone call me a man, please.” Hoglah squealed with a big smile on her face. “You won’t regret this Galatian, you also have my explicit permission to crush the head of anyone who refuses to accept your gender choice. Speaking of which, could you come close?”

 

Hoglah was occupying the equivalent of a dead body on magical life support, the large scale magical transformations she’d done in the past were beyond her, it’s why she picked someone with talent rather than just forcing so much magic into a regular Moblin that they became something extraordinary. The resultant Moblins were also very muddled typically and needed time to truly become Moblins, hopefully she wouldn't have to do that too often. Galatian was different, he was already becoming something fairly unique and Hoglah loved unique things.

 

Hoglah’s finger lit up like a sparkler, a very weak one, the sparks flew out around Castle Tongue and pierced it’s various inhabitants. Her voice asked each for permission and a small degree of magical force was sapped from each, the sparks returned larger to Hoglah’s hand and she crushed them together with a closed fist. As she opened her hand a pure ball of energy that shifted between yellow, green and violent rested on her palm. The effort had reduced Hoglah to a sweating, gasping mess. The blood traveling through the missing parts of her torso was stopping and starting, barely able to resume its natural flow.

 

Hoglah tossed it to Galatian and collapsed into the sad wooden chair she was using as an impromptu throne and it nearly buckled under her enormous weight. Galatian caught the glowing ball in his hands, no sooner did he make contact with it than it shifted icy teal and white before disappearing into his hands. His fingernails shifted icy teal blue at the base along with the roots of his hair. Hoglah groaned between gasps. “Sorry, I don’t have the juice for anything big, that’s raw potential basically, should stick to what you have and, heh, snowball. I make the joke because it looks like you have an affinity for cold. I always hated it personally, but I can still give you a hint to making use of it. Don’t think of it as an energy. Heat is adding energy, cold is taking it away.” Galatian looked at his hand and began trying to work his new ability. After a few minutes he discovered it worked best by cupping his hand like a scoop and swinging, the cold absence he formed in his hand rent the air, when he examined his hand it was filled with the cold and compressed gasses that filled the air he’d just swung through. He cracked an exited smile, the first expression he'd made since coming into the throne room.

 

Hoglah on the other hand kinda grimaced “Well, I dunno how, but I need you to figure out a way to use that to dig, kill a BUNCH of monsters down there and help me subdue something I barely understand…now that I have to rely on others I’m starting to see this plan was presumptuous. Pretty impressed with you though, even if you are taking this like a cardboard cut out.”

 

With the same placid look on his face that he’d worn through the entire exchange returning Galatian looked at Hoglah and spoke, for the first time with some nuance to his voice. A trembling. “ I did not have the luxury of emotion, a look at the wrong noble and I’d be raped, my throat slit and my body tossed in a ditch I...” He took a swing that formed the moisture in the air into a bladed scoop of ice over his hand. “...am still figuring myself out, I know I adapt well.” He smirked at his reflection in the ice thinking he looked very handsome.

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