Ax had informed Zeff of Asad’s involvement, along with the sudden appearance and assistance of Chergoa’s brother, and while Zeff was thoroughly glad to hear that their siege was progressing well, he could not imagine leaving Rheinhal right now, not while he knew that Francisco and Dennex were here.
“I will wait with you,” he said.
“Are you sure?” Octavia asked. “Because if I were in your position, I don’t know if I would be able to control myself.”
Zeff nearly told her that ‘he was not her’ before thinking better of it. “I’ll stay close to you,” he said instead. “If I step out of line, you can give me a good caning.”
The day drew on from there, painfully slow. He met with the other family heads in turns, as they came and went from their patrols, and he exchanged words with each. It was frustrating, to say the least, but he felt that it was also good, seeing everyone’s support like this. These were his people. His kin. Redwater, Merlo, Stroud, Garza, and Zabat. Commanding more than sixty servants in total.
They offered him their sympathies, of course. But they also offered him their anger, which he found much more comforting. Their desire for justice. The Rain’s justice.
But of them all, Rayen Merlo surprised Zeff the most. By appearance, she had not changed since Zeff’s childhood. Unlike Octavia, Rayen was a large woman, soft-faced and motherly-looking, until she really started sharing her feelings. The vitriol in her voice nearly rivaled that in Zeff’s own heart. And he could not have appreciated it more.
At length, however, word finally arrived.
“Sanko is here,” said Octavia.
Chapter One Hundred Five: ‘The Gargoyle of Korgum...’
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Zeff had never met Field Marshal Sanko before, but he knew the woman as soon as he saw her. She had that inexpressible something about her, a kind of invisible aura that every servant who stood at the top of the world seemed to possess. He’d felt the same thing when he met each of Sermung, Jackson, and Lamont. The Crystal Titan, the Star of the West, and Iceheart.
And now, the Gargoyle, too.
Axiolis had explained it to him once. These were people who had acquired such immense synchronization with their reapers that it made their passive soul defenses begin to feel oppressive to the less powerful people around them. It was a kind of gravitational pull created by the sheer strength of their souls.
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
What is up with all these vaguely power revealing Titles.
ReplyDeleteDo you dislike them?
ReplyDeleteLove 'em its just worrying how much time I'm spending in my day trying to figure out what powers these sons of bitches have.
ReplyDeleteThe Title they have kind of implied it.
ReplyDeleteI like that we're getting a sense of Hector's weakness through the perspectives of other characters, as I've mentioned before. The power gaps are pretty vast, tentatively speaking. I enjoy the way that you've built a world with a realistic power growth through Hector's perspective, with the "emergence" aspect being key. Although he does have the plot-progressing-super-cheat shield at the moment to allow him to be relevant to the plot at this point, I still see this as a very early arc of a VERY long story. I look forward to seeing where your wonderful imagination takes us next Mr. Frost. On a side note: re-reading the explanation of "emergence" and how it works gives me the impression that once Hector begins to open up and become convicted to a cause, he'll have even more explosive growth due to his personality type. Ah, the great thing about a constantly evolving story, the theories.
ReplyDeleteForget power revealing, I think Lamont's might be personality revealing. A traitor to his boss being called Iceheart? Even before he reveals himself?
ReplyDeleteDoesn't "Marshal" only have one L?
ReplyDeleteAh, apparently, you can spell it with one or two L's. I kinda like the double L better, personally, but I've already been inconsistent with it in the text. The first time I used the word, I used a single L, so I'll stick with that from now on.
ReplyDeletetl;dr Fixed now, thank you.
I feel like there may be a correlation between emergence and soul synchronization, even though it's been said that there isn't. It is true that Hector doesn't stand a chance against these monsters he's around right now, but that's a point of this arc (I believe). He does however stand a chance against younger servants who are older than him by several years due to his rapid emergence. Therefore we can correlate that as he further reaches higher emergence that his soul sync may grow at a faster rate. My personal theory is that soul sync works at a set rate for a ever growing glass but as the glass grows larger through emergence the rate increases proportionally. But I am just making pretty large leaps in imagination.
ReplyDeleteWell, Mr Frost is the author and can make up rules as he sees fit. Making synchronization solely dependant on time spent as a servant means that Hector has a lot to catch up to, with no possible way of cheating. However, maybe Frosty will introduce some "shortcut" along the way -- but I doubt it. Maybe there is some non-linearity in growth times like you say, but it won't be a game breaker like thing that would make Hector the most powerful servant anytime soon.
ReplyDeleteI agree though -- by now Hector would do well against most of the younger Abolishers we've seen so far.
However, I don't think that the story will go back to Hector going against some unimportant Abolishers. We're currently in the middle of a really serious conspiracy in the faction that was formerly considered the less evil one. The logical step, story-wise, would be to bring Abolish into the picture. What better time to strike against the Vanguard than when they're fighting each other?