Sunday, October 26, 2014

Page 865 -- XCIX.

At length, Asad simply gave up, instead choosing to add several more layers of glass to the pyramid around Sabas. Then he raised a platform beneath the prison and pushed it along behind him while he ventured over to collect Fidel’s severed head.

Hector annihilated his own work, revealing Silvia’s flattened corpse, splattered against the pavement in gruesome enough fashion that it actually made Hector grimace a little beneath his helm. He’d seen plenty of carnage before, of course, but it usually involved people who were still moving and regenerating. This brought back some of the more horrible things he’d witnessed. He had to remind himself that Silvia wasn’t actually dead.

Garovel floated up behind Hector. ‘Her reaper fled underground. We will be seeing Silvia Blackburn again, it seems.

Oh well,’ said Qorvass. ‘Two out of three isn’t bad.

I see you’ve decided to spare their reapers after all,’ said Garovel.

You disapprove?’ said Qorvass.

Quite the contrary, in fact. It’s nice to see a bit of mercy on the battlefield for a change, and I’m sure they’ll make valuable hostages.

Indeed.

They started back for the tunnel together with their captives in tow. Hector queried Garovel about Asad’s tattoos, but the reaper didn’t seem certain and so posed the question to Qorvass.

By the way, why were Asad’s tattoos flashing yellow?

Trade secret, I’m afraid.’

Ah.


Chapter Ninety-Nine: ‘The Siege of Rheinhal...’
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Dunstan Rofal was not enjoying his new position very much, even if it was technically a promotion. All in all, the Rainlords hadn’t pressed their assault very hard, but every time they did, he ended up directly in their line of fire thanks to his station in the southwestern tower. A week ago, Rhein’s Keep boasted four towers, but the two easterly ones had since been knocked down.

A host of Vanguardian servants protected his tower from the outside, but only Dunstan had the privilege of occupying the tiny Watcher’s Nest at its peak. There simply wasn’t space for another person, especially not with this beastly swivel-mounted .50 caliber HMG in the middle of the chamber. It had an ammo feed up through the floor, which one of Dunstan’s comrades attended to.

For the most part, though, he didn’t get to use the gun. His primary job was simply to keep watch, as per usual, and when enemies came within firing range, they were typically repelled by someone else--often Cpt. General Miles. And so, whenever Dunstan DID get to use the gun, it naturally meant that he was in imminent danger of being obliterated along with the entire watchtower.

And that was not a very pleasant working environment.

18 comments:

  1. I agree, that doesn't sound very pleasant. Though him being a Rofal obliterated my pity for him instantly :D

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  2. Dude. Come on, Hector's got some shitty family members too. Hell, look at Helen's family.

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  3. Oh trust me, I despise Hector's parents as well, and I'm not a fan of most of the princes, but I dislike the Rofals as well!

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  4. Its interesting to see the rules of engagement in fighting between servants

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  5. Hey, nobody said it's the same branch of the family. The Rofals of Sair might be honest upstanding citizens.

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  6. Or they might be loons that have sane complaints about their surroundings.

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  7. Remember, Dunstan was actually pretty reasonable the first time we saw him - he was polite, not any more brutal than strictly necessary, and clever. I very much doubt he'll be anywhere near as bad as any other Rofal we've met, even if he is a villain.

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  8. Maybe it is just me, but i don't understand all this restraint on the rainlords part. Since there are no civilians in the mix, just drop a very large bomb on the fortress. Surely they can afford a few fuel air bombs or napalm. After you blast the servants to jelly, have people standing by to snag the reapers as they try to flee. Or kill them, as that eliminates future enemies.

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  9. Materialization/Destruction/Some Alteration/Clever Transfiguration/Correctly Applied Fusion/Pan-Rozum Most Things could more or less negate something like that. Basically, when you've got that diverse an array of superpowers, they're probably gonna negate each other on the grand scale. The only exception would be destruction users, really, as they can pop small holes in almost anything.

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  10. Besides, they have a guy on an HMG turret for a reason. In order to get something like that in, they would need to basically already have control of the airspace around the castle, and at that point the best course of action might be to threaten to drop some nasty transfigurator, who could kill the reapers directly, unless the reapers come out to be collected and the servants self-destruct. The only thing that might have a large enough blast radius to get through would be a nuke, which can't be soul-strengthened unless they have a uranium or plutonium power user, and a soul-strengthened nuke would definitely be dangerous to civilians even if there aren't any nearby.
    What I don't get is why they don't go for help from the real vanguard. It has been stated that most powerful vanguardian servants would kill Lawrence for his betrayal, and threatening to leave if their complaints are ignored would almost certainly convince them to help.

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  11. They did get help from the real Vanguard. Remember, their real goal here isn't to actually reduce Rheinhal or Marshrock, it's to keep the enemy bottled up inside until Sanko arrives and sorts things out personally.

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  12. Are the tattoos some sort of integration material?

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  13. Dude..! what is going on with you... what happened to posting once a day??

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  14. well Mr Frost must be a bit tired...i think?

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  15. Eh, I wouldn't worry about it. He could have gotten a promotion, or been laid off, gotten sick or gotten cured. He could have hit writer's block, or hit his stride in another story. Long story short, many many things could delay updates, and if it's something terrible, we'll probably hear about it.

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  16. Sorry. Been rewriting/reimagining upcoming stuff that I wasn't completely satisfied with.

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  17. taking time out to polish your work makes it better in the long run

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  18. Don't know if I can say if I'm thinking this story is real or what now, a great big hole in the clouds have just appeared. Still can't see dimas anywhere though haha. This would make a great film, or series ;-)

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