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‘Wow,’ the reaper said privately. ‘That went even better than planned!’
‘I know, right?! I thought for sure we’d have to let him escape!’
‘Dang. When was the last time ANYTHING went better than planned?’
‘Hmm, not sure. Lac’Vayce went really well... until everyone died.’
‘Yeah, but that one wasn’t even our plan,’ said Overra.
‘I know, but I still feel kinda responsible.’
‘Mm. But anyway! How about that triple emergence from Zeff, eh?! I know he hates us, but I’m so proud of him!’
‘Oh, I know! I really didn’t think he had it in him! Frankly, I was happy with just the double. I only kept pushing him ‘cuz we had so much extra time on our hands, and then he went and did THAT. Just--agh! Beautiful.’
‘And he was even smart enough to flee instead of trying to fight us! That was one of my biggest concerns!’
‘Oh yeah! It would’ve been so annoying if he’d just decided to throw his life away!’
Overra laughed. ‘Ah, Zeff, you darling boy. Now I feel kinda bad for all those mean things we said to him.’
‘Yeah. But nobody ever got stronger by listening to comforting lies.’
‘Indeed.’
They arrived at the crumbling bridge that the Rainlords had been using to escape. Parson had been taking Zeff away from Rheinhal, rather than toward it. It would have been annoying if Sanko interrupted them, after all. Now that the bridge was out, however, he had to briefly merge with Overra again in order to fly over it. They resumed walking afterwards, knowing that they would tire themselves out if they used pan-rozum for too much longer. Parson stuffed his hands in the pockets of his ragged white overcoat and began whistling the tune to Turkey in the Straw.
‘By the way,’ he said, ‘why did we decide to kill Socorro? I can’t remember.’ Now that he wasn’t sharing his mind with Overra, all knowledge that had been acquired during the hyper state had been split between the two of them.
‘Oh, that was mainly to rile Zeff and Angie up--but also, because platinum materialization is way too risky to leave unattended. That woman could’ve crashed the Continental Market by herself if she’d wanted to.’
‘Ah, right. Good call.’
‘With everything else going on right now, we really didn’t need that as an extra variable. And with their backs to the corner, who knows what the Rainlords would’ve done?’
A dark serial novel. Set in a modern fantasy world called Eleg. Mature language. Updates every night at midnight PST by ~400 words.
so annoying if he’d just
ReplyDeleteMissing?
Extra word: "And he was even smart [to] enough to flee instead of trying to fight us!"
ReplyDeletedid you miss an end italics quote?
ReplyDeleteIn case anyone else forgot what happened at Lac’Vayce:
ReplyDeletehttp://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2014/10/page-869.html
'Overra and Miles were there at the Battle of Lac’Vayce a few years ago.’
‘Wasn’t that the one where nearly a million people were killed?’
‘Yeah. Lamont and Jackson against Jercash, Ivan, and Gunther. The
fight leveled the entire city and completely wrecked the local
ecosystem. And Lamont and Jackson almost lost. Barely managed to hold on
until Sermung arrived and bailed them out. [...] Five of the strongest servants in the world all
duking it out in one place. Overra said Lac’Vayce won’t be habitable
again for hundreds of years. They basically made a mini version of the
Dáinnbolg all by themselves.’
I did indeed. I also forgot to finish a sentence. Fixed now.
ReplyDeleteGot it now, thanks.
ReplyDeleteFixed now, thank you.
ReplyDeleteSecond to last paragraph is still missing end quotes.
ReplyDeleteAh, yeah, thank you. Fixed now.
ReplyDeleteWell i guess now we know why we dont see to many materialization users just fucking up economies everywhere
ReplyDeleteIts pretty dispirating to think that Parson had a hand in that battle. And that it went (mainly) according to plan.
ReplyDeleteSo I really, really, really, REALLY hope all of their plans come tumbling down on them. I want this story to BREAK. THEM.
ReplyDeleteNoooo *curls up in the TZKSC (the zombie knight sad corner) and hugs my garovel plush*
ReplyDeleteI really hope there's gonna be a good pay-off to the whole Zeff/Rainlords/Parson story at some point.
ReplyDeleteOk. So Parson is probably not abolish, but I think I can safely label him as a self righteous sociopath.
ReplyDeleteWe need Ivan Drago here then.
ReplyDeleteI'm suddenly wondering if they were telling the truth even to Dergoz and Lawrence. Was he really the proxy founder of Lamont's sect? He's lied to everyone else, sometimes with multiple different lies.
ReplyDeleteNo it didn't go mainly according to plan. It went almost according to plan, and that made a huge difference for a million people, Parson included.
ReplyDeleteNot really. Parson can't deal with every lucrative power all by himself. I know that if the diamond market in Eleg is anything like what it is on Earth, especially what it was before the De Beers monopoly started to weaken, I would be more than happy to crash the market even if I didn't get much of the money from it, and I probably would.
ReplyDeleteA quick question for Mr Frost: Did Parson mean the continental market in general, or just the platinum market in particular?
Maybe not. Maybe Lamont doesn't even know about this sect. Maybe founding the sect was just a ploy to weaken the Vanguard. After all, the events at Lac’Vayce demonstrated that Lamont (even when helped by Jackson) is not powerful enough to measure up to Abolish's best. Without Sermung's interfering, Lamont und Jackson might have died there. This is pretty obvious to anyone with a few braincells and many comments have already pointed out the brainlessness of removing Sermung. So yeah, that's not Parson's endgame.
ReplyDeleteWhy weaken and probably destroy the Vanguard? Well, maybe Parson is an Abolish spy after all. However, he shows regret about the events of Lac'Vayce resulting in so many deaths, which doesn't sound very Abolish-y at all.
Ok, there goes the possibility of Hector and Garovel making a deal with them for platinum to save their country. That's kinda depressing.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, are the rain lords the result or the cause of their country having so much rain and water? It's come to my attention that there's probably a lot of water materialised by the rain lords over the years that they never dematerialised before they died. So was their country always that rainy and they just happened to live there, or possibly have the environment effect their materialisation abilities (an interesting concept, that their materialisation elements are influenced by their environment.) Or, did the massive amount of water created over the course of hundreds or thousands of years create the environment they live in?
So I guess Hector would be safe from Parson, since his Iron is not that expensive.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Garovel, the other side of the country of Sair is always raining. Garovel explained it way back from the beginning. When Hector was listening to his history class, and Garovel explain some history of the continent they are currently in.
ReplyDeleteWell I think Parson wanted to be one of the Emperor, so maybe his plan is to kill the four Emperor, along with their personal men.
ReplyDeleteBudge over :(
ReplyDeleteHmm I'm just glad we found out why he killed Socorro. Though it is annoying when you remember that Socorro would have been a reaper for around as long as Zeff and we hadn't been given any info that she did anything with her platinum.
ReplyDeleteEither way, I can say NOW I kinda like Parson. Now that I know that gloating was all an act, I can focus on his other qualities. He's interesting
Well Hector could be able to connect their country to the other countries by train tracks if it's possible and with a customized train.
ReplyDeleteIt crossed my mind as well, but I doubt it. It's difficult to tell how much of his recklessness and childishness is just an act, but I'm pretty sure that some of it is real. He's the personification of wind, dammit, that's gotta tell you something. Wind is often wild, untamable and chaotic. We've seen before that abilities are a mirror of a person's character.
ReplyDeleteParson is also a thrill-seeker. His "plans can go wrong and you need to improvise" speech showed that -- he likes improvising, when things go a little haywire. Being the sole Emperor would be... boring, and way too much trouble and responsibility to be worth it. Maybe he's just an anarchist, wanting to get rid of all Emperors eventually, and their organisations along with them.
I seem to remember there was a maximum a materialization user could do? Hector had to dematialize stuff he had made to make more as I recall. Admittedly Socorro could make a few tons which would be worth a mint, but she would eventually have to dematerialize it.
ReplyDeleteMaterialization users have a volume limit, but only within their range. So she could make a couple tons of platinum, have it moved somewhere else, make more, move it, rinse and repeat.
ReplyDeleteHmmm OK. I guess that makes sense since the soul strengthened stone within Hector's caste would have long ago dematerialized otherwise
ReplyDeleteWell, bear in mind that it was three on two. Lamont and Jackson might have been more than a match for the Abolish three one-on-one.
ReplyDeleteAlternatively, this whole plot thing might even be an excuse to get a bunch of dissidents gathered and identified, so that they can eliminate them later and maybe accomplish some side objectives along the way. Like how the Rebel Alliance was secretly founded by Darth Vader.
No, it's just an extreme example of an ordinary rain shadow. There's a moist eastward prevailing wind, and as it hits the giant Waress Mountains and rises, all the moisture is precipitated out. Hence the Wetlands to the west and the Drylands to the east.
ReplyDeleteWell Hector could accidentally crash the iron industry himself unknowingly.
ReplyDeleteNow I'm wondering about the economic effects of an iridium materializer. On one hand, iridium is crazy rare (only three tons are produced worldwide in a year) and crazy expensive ($900/oz, about 3/4 the price of gold). On the other hand, no mining industries depend on it (iridium is a trace byproduct of copper and nickel production), and we'd probably use a lot more of it if more was available and the price was lower.
ReplyDeleteBesides, the plan wouldn't remove all of the Emperors, just the one who works for Vanguard. Either he has a secret plan beyond Lamont's, (Such as forcing Sai-Hee to weigh in because her subjects are in danger) or he
ReplyDeletereally is a double agent (which seems unlikely given that he has shown remorse in private for causing deaths), or he plans to root out the dissidents (in which case killing innocent good guys is not the smartest idea he's ever had), or he is really confident that good leadership could let even a materially weakened Vanguard succeed. My guess would be either a crazy plan or the leadership thing, although that probably means he plans to force a conflict which will obviously need every servant he can get or the world ends, because otherwise the lords are too valuable to alienate like this. If he can make them take part in a final battle to destroy Abolish that takes priority over revenge, he can afford to deal with his non-evil enemies on his own time, and might find it worthwhile to offer his own life in exchange for their help in that final battle.
It wasn't necessarily materialized, it was made by an integration servant. Also, you can't dematerialize stuff outside your range, and the stuff is persistent if you die. Also, the limit would barely inconvenience someone of reasonable age. Recall Hector's iron asteroid, which he made despite being the power equivalent of about one sixth of Soccoro's age (assuming she was about 30 with reasonable growth and no massive emergence).
ReplyDeleteI just realized a really stupid joke about how everyone there is technically undead. Rainnnnns!
ReplyDeleteWell, the moment that Sermung got replaced the Abolish would take it as a chance to annihilate the Vanguard. And if this is what Parson wants, then I guess everything goes as planned. Abolish won't came out of this whole, maybe some of the tops of the Abolish would end up permanently dead, and I'm pretty sure Sai Hee won't just stay as a neutral since a fight of this caliber would endanger the whole continent. While the top servants of the continent are out there killing each other, it would be to the benefit of Parson.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is just my guess. Don't take me seriously about it.
A crashed market causes a monopoly, which hoards monetary value and then because of that the entire market crashes.
ReplyDeleteNot arguing, just asking: how do you get a damaging monopoly on something that just got devalued? Because if a servant was going to mess around with a lucrative power, they wouldn't go half donkey with it.
ReplyDeleteI JUST GOT MIND FUUUUUCKED!
ReplyDelete