Thursday, December 25, 2014

Page 924

Parson rifled through his box another time while Overra picked up the conversation for him.

Believe it or not, we aren’t trying to annoy you,’ she said. ‘We DO have the evidence you’re looking for, but we also wanted to establish a more precise sense of what is at stake here. Hopefully, you understand that much now, yes?

The Gargoyle might as well have been made of actual stone, for all the response she gave.

And... well, the evidence involves some photographs... which I’m sure Parson will find... any second now.’ She tossed a few glances at her servant. ‘They depict the Elroys in various places, you see. And I’m sure you’ll understand once--

“Got ‘em!” Parson pulled out another folder. “Sorry about that. It seems it was misfiled.” He threw a look up at the General still atop the gate. “Lawrence can be such a dolt, sometimes.” He offered the folder to Sanko, but she didn’t take it just yet.

“If these photographs are so damning, then why were we not informed of their existence earlier? Over the telephone, for instance. Did you not think to save us the trip here?”

“Ah, well, I apologize for that. It was an unfortunate miscommunication. And you know how these things are. With so much going on--so many moving parts. Sometimes the right hand forgets to tell the left hand that it has been conducting covert surveillance on suspected traitors.” He gave the woman a big smile.

It didn’t seem to do much for her. She snatched the folder away from him, though, and started thumbing through the pictures.

Parson pointed one out to her. “This here--we suspect this is Gema Elroy crossing the border into Sair. A mere twelve hours after the information leak took place, I might add.”

“This photo does not even show her face,” Sanko observed. “It could be anyone. You call this conclusive evi--?” The sentence was cut short as she stopped on a different photo. She flipped it over, perhaps to inspect the timestamp.

Is something wrong?’ asked Axiolis.

Sanko held the photo up for Zeff to see.

It was a shot of Juliana Salazar leaving the Elroy’s home. Zeff and Mariana were standing on the porch, watching the woman go.

“Explain your relationship with this person,” said Sanko.

She was the commanding officer of Zeff’s wife, Mariana, before they got married. Why?

“Because this woman is a known traitor.”

12 comments:

  1. Great, deserter communism. "This heap of trouble belongs to all of us in equal measure. Except me, because I'll be out of reach when it arrives."

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  2. Awesome chapter, thanks for the release and happy holidays.

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  3. "Why are you associating this traitor?"
    "I didn't know she was a traitor."
    "We didn't tell you."
    "F***"

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  4. More like, " Well if you had not murdered my wife she could have explained why this woman visited her. Now we will never know."

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  5. Don't forget the reaper.

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  6. The irony is, this is exactly the screwed-up power structure Parson was so angry about in the first place. If they had released information like that, Mariana could have reported her appearance to the proper authorities, and there would be no suspicion. As it is, Sanko is going to be distracted distrusting Zeff while Parson schemes away. I had figured he would need an ace in the hole to remove Sanko, and it looks like he's got in now. I wonder if that might be proof that he is right about the need for a restructuring.

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  7. Argh! Forgot to say Merry Christmas... (Assuming you partake in the holiday, otherwise happy *insert holiday here*, or just Happy Holidays!)

    I feel as though this was part of their plan all along... I don't like it. The cavalry arrives, but now it looks like it's the enemies cavalry. Not to mention that this could jeopardise the alliance, since it was based on the fact that they had done nothing wrong in the first place. Now there's evidence that they were actually conspiring with a known traitor, the other Rain lords may have second thoughts.

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  8. Everything will be peacefully resolved. But then they'll get into a huge fight over which ninja turtle is the best, and then Rheinhal will be completely destroyed.

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  9. Notta spoila: nevva sed witch turtle, init? ;)

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  10. Agh! The spelling! *twitch*

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  11. Bwahahaha*cough*ha! It worked! It worked! xD

    Although, I can't be certain I raised fifty winces... For science, you know.

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  12. Definitely no more than 37. Please don't keep trying.

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