‘In that case, I hope they will not mind Hector and I tagging along,’ said Garovel.
“I’m sure they won’t,” said Xuan. “I’ll take you to them after this. They won’t be leaving without me, so just stay close.”
‘Appreciated, thank you.’
Asad had questions for Rayen and Octavia. “You are sending all of the Sebolts and Delagunas? That is nearly a third of your forces, no?”
“It is,” said Rayen. “They will need no less than that in order to breach Marshrock.”
“Even then, we may have trouble,” said Xuan. He eyed Asad another time. “Your assistance would be most welcome.”
Asad pursed his lips. “I came here in order to help free Zeff.”
‘Be that as it may, I think you should accompany Xuan,’ said Axiolis. ‘I know Zeff would tell you to prioritize his children over himself. And besides, this way, the Vanguard won’t become aware of Hahl Najir’s involvement. You’d be assisting us without doing anything that might cause reprisal against you and your family.’
‘Axiolis is right,’ said Qorvass.
“What about the fight here in Rheinhal?” said Asad. “If you send so many of your fighters to Marshrock, will you still be able to take the Keep?”
“Breaching Rhein’s Keep may not even be necessary,” said Octavia. “Thus far, we have only been testing their defenses, and while they have proven quite solid, it won’t make much difference as long as we continue to hold the city.”
“Our opponent has a time limit,” said Rayen. “Sanko is coming. When she arrives, she will settle the matter for us. All we need do is prevent the enemy from escaping.”
‘You make it sound so easy,’ said Qorvass.
“Simple, perhaps,” said Rayen. “Not easy. Our forces are going to be spread thin. But if Asad wants to put his skills to the best use, he should go to Marshrock.”
After a beat, Asad gave a reluctant nod. “Very well.”
Garovel posed another question now. ‘What more can you tell us about the children’s captors?’
“Xuan can fill you in on such details,” said Rayen. “However, do be aware that Melchor Blackburn is not a man to be trifled with. Do not attempt to fight him unless you have him absurdly outnumbered or Xuan is with you.”
Xuan laughed. “Stop, you’ll make me blush. I’m nothing special.” Then he wiped his mirth away and turned to Garovel. “She’s right, though. Don’t try to fight him without me unless you want your servant to be turned into a fleshy pudding.”
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
‘Axiolis is right/i>,’ said Qorvass.
ReplyDeleteYou missed a Italic close. th whole thing is slanty after that.
ReplyDeleteWhat can you tell us of the reaper hierarchy? Like is the older a reaper the more respected they are, or maybe the more powerful a servant they have is more important? Or is it all reapers are the same?
ReplyDeleteGot it, thanks.
ReplyDeleteFixed, thank you.
ReplyDeleteTheir authority is generally based on their servant, yeah. With a few exceptions, of course.
ReplyDeleteSo, are there any reapers to whom the servant is just a fragile and oft-discarded implement of their political power?
ReplyDeleteWelp.
ReplyDeleteCaught up.
Meh. Now i'm hungry.
I want some fleshy pudding.
If they were discarded, they wouldn't work as political tools. Servants' value is tied directly to their power, which is tied semi-directly with their age, unless they're like Hector and get emergence every 2-3 months. There is never any sense in releasing a servant without a very, very good reason.
ReplyDeleteThe next page will have to be delayed. Apologies. Check back in 24 hours, and I'll have two new pages for you.
ReplyDeleteLil typo:"All we need do is prevent the enemy from escaping." --> all we need [to] do.
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't happen often. The condition for emergance is: you're about to die but you can't accept it. You deny it sooooooooooooo hard that your will to deny actually gives you the power to deny it (most likely). And that comes in the form of a power-up. But it might be, that you won't get enough power to survive.
ReplyDeleteMost people would try to avoid situations where they are in mortal danger that includes servants too. So most servants don't emerge often. Furthermore there is the psychological factor. At some point you expect to get your ass saved and then it won't come to save you. So in the end it sounds is but is very hard to pull off. Even harder to do it consciously in a fight.
It's more important than you think. For sync imbalances that vast, yeah, soul pressure would go a long way toward negating training advantages. On the other hand, passive soul defense can be defeated with enough sheer mass/energy (else Melchor wouldn't need to worry about ANY weight of numbers), and even Sermung would probably have a problem if a 100-years-old-with-emergence-every-Tuesday Hector dropped a 1:1 iron model of Hawaii on him from outside soul-pressure radius.
ReplyDeleteAbility interactions are important too. Karkash has several times more soul power than Hector, but they fought almost as equals, and if Hector's metal had been copper or something else with low magnetic presence it would have been a walkover.
this whole thing is amazing i just wanted to say thank you very much.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're enjoying. :)
ReplyDeleteOddly enough, the "to" is optional in this instance.
ReplyDeleteok thanks guys i kinda get it right now.
ReplyDeleteA quick question for Mr. Frost: does soul power get in any way enhanced by servant power? My thought is that if a servant is x years old, they have the soul sync to strengthen their maximum amount of metal by x, but if that maximum is higher from above average amounts of training or emergence, they would still get the same power per unit of metal if they made their full load and soul strengthened it, even though that comes to more total soul power that a similar age but weaker servant.
ReplyDeleteNo, they grow independently of one another. A greater volume of mass would only mean that the soul power is spread thinner.
ReplyDeleteHmm... Yeah, I guess it isn't incorrect, but it sounds so formal somehow. Not really something I'd use in an ordinary conversation. Well, I don't speak that much English in my day to day life, so I probably don't know too much about that stuff :p
ReplyDeleteSame from me. I wouldn't have wasted so much of your time with questions if I didn't love the story.
ReplyDeleteAlso, you need to have a problem dangerous enough to force you to believe it is beyond your power but not so much that it is beyond your imagination to be able to suceed. As Garovel said, 4 rounds of emergence is an insane amount, especially for a servant as young as Hector, in fact most servants grow more by training than emergence. The funny thing is that, as I understand it, emergence becomes less and less important as servants age, even if one could maintain a Hector-like rate of growth for 100 years they would lose to an emperor, because their soul pressure would keep that immense power from doing anything useful.
ReplyDeleteUmm just a quick question mister frost does emergeny happens very often?
ReplyDeletebecause even if I read it so many times what it is exatly i am still getting really confused.
And i am anitcipating the next chapters, it's been some time hector and garovel started to fuck some shit up :P
So Hector's disproportionate servant power might actually become a glaring problem even further down the line?
ReplyDelete