As Hoglah and Toby walked down labyrinthine halls of the manor that groaned and constricted as they began to rearrange. Halls ripped like they had a seam and re-positioned themselves. As they trudged on Hoglah’s enormous weight began to tire her, it was a feeling she liked, it challenged her strength and she realized that until now she’s never liked her body at all, but until she had time to properly build the muscle needed to carry the bulk she needed a way to go easy on herself. She thought of something fun and blew some snot bubbles which floated down to her feet. Despite her enormous size with her billowing dress she had a bizarre grace about her and pulled off a triple axel spin on her snot skates, she’d enjoyed being summoned to help figure skates when she was a Concubus. She blew a pair for Toby too, but slowed down greatly to teach him how to skate and he was positively glowing from the chance to have fun.
These cavernous halls had been such a threatening bore, always traversing them at night as a child Toby was scared of ghosts, or worse his own family. For once in his life these dead halls seemed to live and he was able to laugh. Flecks of the walls crumbling danced through the air and created a glowing, happy atmosphere as they caught the lantern lights which were slowly extinguishing as the oil lamps filled instead with an eerie bio luminescent liquid of varied ghostly colors like green, purple and blue. As they approach the library they heard a slapping sound and Hoglah spoke. “You can peek through the door, but don’t disturb Gu too much, he’s been trying to learn to be our medic for two days now.” So Toby creaked open the door and saw a large corked gourd sitting on a table, it was surrounded by many of the manor’s captives, political prisoners who went against the Lankashire estate, they'd been liberated from the dungeon. They were in terrible shape however, many still having burnt out eye sockets, severed ears and cut tendons. They sat in rich bed clothes that contrasted their torn, rough, scared skin. They each drank tea and ate bread, weeping as they comforted each other. A dark purple figure that stood tall and muscular, it was the source of the slapping sound, it moved in a flurry that drew Toby's attention.
The purple behemoth was a flurry of activity, it had four arms and four eyes, Toby was familiar with the library so he knew it was pouring through the medically inclined texts. It’s four pink, glowing eyes rolled in a blur, each trained on a single book that occupied each hand. When a text was read through it tossed it into an ever growing pile and spoke in a deep, bubbly, aquatic sounding voice.
“Blub-Blasted Blorp-Books. Onlah good inflo iz da diagramphs. Blorf-Vincent Daven-plort, Clome Hure.”
A man excitedly rose and stumbled over on all fours as his hands and feet crumpled painfully under his wrists and ankles, it was clear his tendons had been cut. Gu spoke again. “Nec plose.”
As if used to the creatures’ difficult to understand speech he presented his neck, the creature wasted no time injecting him in the neck with a glowing pink solution from it’s index finger. It continued to read while doing so, arms reaching as high as the third story for new materials to read, three eyes and arms had shifted it’s back while a single eye and arm remained focused on the Patient. The man appeared to wobble, so an errant arm pulled a chair over to him. He sat down and the gelatinous saw bones continued. “Bli’ve only gibben you enouph to dull plain a liddle and keeph you awak. Dis Bli’ll be painpul.” His fingers became like tiny scalpels and as he worked on the man’s wrists and ankles sweat began to pour down the man’s face in discomfort. When Gu was finished he left a tar like patches instead of stitches. The man began to cry saying he was happy because even though it hurt he said he could feel them. Gu spoke again, “Yeth, blit’ll hort a longh timeh. Nerph damage and lehament atrophfi. Terraphi will helph, or becomp a Mophilin.” He had not stopped reading the whole time. Toby closed the door.
Toby’d already made up his mind that if this is what the monsters are doing and that if what he’d lived through was God’s will then God needed to get his head crushed with a brick. That was TOBY’S WILL! Hoglah for once seemed to read Toby’s mind and put a silent, reaffirming hand on his shoulder before sending him into vicious spin and catching him before he could fall down from dizziness.
They continued toward the stable as they giggled, another kind of slapping sound caught their attention, though this one sounded faster.
Hey yo I smell bullsh*t protag learnt stuff off screen or while in first world.
Glad it didn't mean she's an expert in all things she's currently doing, but I can't ignore all the protag knowing random stuff cause they had an infinite free time
The reason you gave for her actually knowing it actually makes sense and not just plot convenience.
You are correct, but really I just thought the image of them skating was cute so I wanted to work it into the story early. I also erased a whole thing where I was gonna give her backstory on interacting with Tanya Harding, but this story about Gu was already a side track on a side track so I'm saving that story for later. Skating will be a thing that is consistently a behavior Hoglah engages in when she's happy or feeling charming.
@Feixe Dancing, singing and swimming will also come up later. Hoglah likes coaching people to do things she finds "beautiful", especially if she feels she can get them to do it for themselves rather than others.