Chapter 23: The Thrall

There it was, the unmistakable appearance of the white-skinned thrall.

It stood alone at the center of the cleared path and stared at the Collector with mouth open, baring yellowed, chipped teeth. In its right hand was a stick fashioned out of bones and topped with the skull of a human.

The thrall jolted backwards in surprise, its tattered, rough cloak of animal hides clattering as the many skeletal adornments decorating it moved. The specimen raised a wrinkled white hand to the Collector, but too late.

The Collector was too fast. Charging in at top speed, a speed that even the champion, a prime physical specimen among this kind, found difficult to perceive, it speared its tusks straight through this 'thrall.'

Yet, its calculated scenario of events did not manifest into reality. Instead of the Collector's tusks and flesh piercing and breaking a body far weaker and aged than that of the champion or even compared to the other hobgoblins, the Collector instead passed straight through the specimen.

The Collector clicked its mandibles in muted surprise as it whirled around, ready to strike again. The thrall's form was misty, almost transparent as it seemed that its body wavered between states of solid and gaseous matter.

"I-I am alive?" remarked the thrall with shaky voice. It stumbled backwards again when the Collector rushed in, swiping with its monomolecular edged claws to scythe off the specimen's head.

The thrall flinched, but when the claw passed by its neck once more, it opened a beady blue eye and reveled with a broken-toothed grin. "So, I was not wrong. You do lack mana, you foul, imperfect creation.

Without it, I may as well be like the gods to you, untouchable in the genius of my mistborn spell. You only have your maker and his incompetence to curse for your end."

The Collector growled, insulted that this creature, this mere, primitive thing, would talk to it so lowly. It continued an onslaught of attacks, slicing dozens of times at the thrall only to find all of its claws simply phasing through the fog-like form, finding no yielding flesh nor bone.

"What...is this?" uttered the Collector in confounded surprise. It opened up its jaws, brought out its pyrocatalytic glands, and activated the biotrigger, shooting out a stream of chemicals that ignited into a stream of burning blue and white fire.

"You can speak? Good." The thrall loosed a cackle as the fire parted its form almost entirely, reducing it into a few wisps that floated a dozen meters away and reformed. "Then you will tell me all you know."

It pointed its bone stick at the Collector and shouted, "Winter winds, reduce this thing into nothingness!"

Bright blue lines manifested around the thrall's arm, streaking up from its fingers to its shoulder in a slanted criss-cross that looked, as the Collector noted, like circuitry.

The bone staff rattled for a second before glowing blue. A cone of howling winds propelled countless shards of sharpened ice towards the Collector.

The Collector lowered its head and weathered the storm of projectiles. The ice shattered on its carapace, and the frostboar blubber ensured that its body and musculature would not freeze from the winds.

The Collector analyzed the attack.

Winds at sufficient velocity to knock back the average human of this world. Temperatures low, nearing freezing point. Shards of ice fueled by wind. Ice of regular structure. Unlike that of the clubs and weapons the other white skinned variants wielded.

Unremarkable.

The thrall continued, pride and gloating beginning to leech into his voice as the fear of death started to ooze away from the initial scare against the Collector. "This hideous form of yours, no doubt it suits the tastes of that miserable human sorcerer that cowers even from his own kind.

Rejected by even his own kin, he said he would not raise a finger against our invasion, but look, it appears he has some compassion for his own in spite of his twisted tastes.

When I get to him, I will carve his bones from his body and take the magic from them, and you will be mine to control."

As the thrall prattled on and on, the Collector thoroughly analyzed this 'thrall.'

This 'thrall' was no exceptional specimen. Hunched spine. Atrophied muscles. Eyes lightly cloudy with cataracts. Aged.

Unremarkable.

Weak.

Yet, still evidently special. But not in the same way as the champion which possessed strength and speed beyond its physical means.

Possessed the ability to manifest ice without the usage of any technology.

Possessed the means to shift its state of matter from solid to gas interchangeably without deconstruction of the consciousness, and the gaseous state itself, though reminiscent of fog, did not dissipate from intense heat.

The capability to utilize lowered temperatures as a weapon was rare even among tinkerers, with the only available weapon corresponding with such a capability being industrial scale laser coolants largely impractical for combat.

The capacity to freely shift states of matter like this, however, held almost no correspondence to anything the Collector knew of throughout its stored memory database.

No warrior strain Collector had ever encountered anything remotely even similar to this.

The only thing that came close to this was the existence of certain clouds of microbes that possessed the psionic capability to maintain a hivemind consciousness. This adaptation formed the basis of the Collective itself, but again, this was entirely different.

"The winds of the north will not work, it seems" said the thrall, narrowing its eyes and snarling as it realized its spell could not harm the Collector. "But my magic does not hold dominion over the cold alone. I thought to preserve you, to keep you as my own familiar in time, but you are too much a threat.

Burn away."

The thrall kept the blast of wind and ice going with its staff, and with its free hand, ripped off a few finger bones dangling from its mantle. With a grunt, it tossed the bones at the Collector.

The Collector did not sense anything aberrant about the bones, but when they neared it, they lit first with intense red light, then exploded into roaring balls of fire.

The Collector remained unharmed through the blaze, closing its eyes and letting the fire douse down as it found the Collector's durable flesh and carapace far too difficult a surface to burn.

Also unimpressive. Also weak.

Yet, the fundamental nature of this ability was incredibly dangerous.

The thrall seemed to bend reality itself to its will, flouting conventional physical laws to a far greater extent than any other special specimen among its kind.

But, having now received this fire generating attack, the Collector remembered the human female sorcerer could do something similar in much the same manner. Even the heat of their flames were nearly identical.

The mechanisms through which specimen performed these tricks was much the same as well: through a stick-like receptacle utilizing certain words.

Combined with the thrall's babbling providing new context clues, the Collector tied the threads together.

All this was 'magic'.

It clicked its mandibles. It had severely underestimated the nature and scope of this 'magic'.

Its initial theory was that this 'magic' was a simple tool of war akin to the firearms tinkerers wielded, but even more primitive in scope. That these specimen, human and goblin alike, all seemed to possess not even a shred of threatening technology had also fueled this miscalculation.

That this 'magic' possessed the capability to manipulate the states of matter itself was a threat the Collector could not have fathomed. Such manipulation of raw atomic structures and the transfer of energy between them would likely be the most dangerous capability throughout the known galaxy.

As if wielding the essence of creation itself.

Yet, there were limitations. The thrall did not simply turn the Collector into air. It relied on its fire and ice and equally meaningless and pitiful tricks to try and harm the Collector.

Though the thrall boasted, it was evident that this altercation would go nowhere. The thrall did not have the means to eliminate the Collector and-

The Collector leaped backwards as it noticed blue light under its feet again. Another ice pillar rose up where it had been.

"Curses, you are quick. He must have found a way to sacrifice mana into pure power in his familiars," said the thrall.

The thrall was too slow to encase the Collector in the ice it could create. Soon enough, the lord would arrive with reinforcements from the stronghold.

The situation became highly disadvantageous for the Collector. It had been willing to face risk to continue the battle and the fight, but this, this prancing around and weathering attacks that did nothing whilst it too could do nothing, was no battle, no fight.

It was meaningless. Risk for no gain.

Boring.

The Collector felt the heat within it quell as it realized this was no longer anything resembling a battle like that held between itself and the champion or even the lesser but still special variants.

With the heat fading, the Collector did not hesitate and charged away, ignoring hails of ice and projectiles from the thrall breaking against its carapace with about as much care as it would give raindrops.

It sunk into the thick of the darkwoods where without the aid of the light generating stones, the goblins could not follow it.