Saturday, May 30, 2015

Page 1036

Zeff didn’t know of his family’s connection to Gohvis, and even Axiolis seemed unaware, though Parson could never be entirely sure how much the old reaper knew. Regardless, the best way to discover more about Gohvis was to groom Zeff. This much was obvious.

But there was a problem. The more Parson got to know Zeff, the more it became clear: this boy would never be able to pull it off. Parson needed someone who could infiltrate Abolish and get close to the Monster. An Elroy should have been perfect for the task, but Zeff simply did not have the temperament. The boy was not a spy. He could hardly tell a lie to save his own life. Most of these modern Rainlords were like that, it seemed. According to Overra, they used to be so much more skilled in sabotage and deception, but generations of governing, power, and self-congratulations had made them too proud for their own good. How could they claim “honor” was of such importance when their ancestors practically invented guerrilla warfare? Where was the logic in that?

Instead, the key went to waste, reduced to normal service like any other Vanguardian, and Parson was left to scrounge for scraps of intel wherever he could find them. Painfully slow and inefficient. Which was actually strange. Gohvis did not make a habit of showcasing his exploits like most of the other Abolishers. His deeds were few and far between.

After years of negligible progress, the mission was all but dead. The Covert Intelligence Division had given up on turning Gohvis and moved on to other, more appealing targets. It was a common enough tactic, and Gohvis had by no means been their first attempt.

But then Gema Elroy appeared. And Parson saw new life in that old string of failures.

12 comments:

  1. Nicolas Sagrillo de AraujoMay 30, 2015 at 8:38 PM

    Ah, andwers. I had forgotten how that felt.

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  2. I don't ever recall Frost providing any andwers. Answers only rarely, and much more commonly his infuriating little smiley emoticon.

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  3. Air Marshal Artemis was a man...

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  4. Having Zeff at his most powerful definitely serves to protect his life and the lives of the other Elroy children. Getting any more of Gema's close family members killed might hurt Gema's willingness in his little operation.

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  5. And the name is spelled Gohvis, not Ghovis.

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  6. Sorry. I was thinking of the Greek goddess, I think of the hunt, by the same name. He's the only character that I can recall who had a name that distinctly sounded the like the other gender. Both things fixed now.

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  7. You know, disregarding the circumstances of Ibai's creation and the whole overthrowing Sermung thing, Parson might actually be a good guy... *crickets*

    So yeah, maybe he was telling the truth about protectice custody.

    Another theory: (Some of) the Rainlords have been allies of the Vanguard for generations. If I was with Abolish and responsible for recruiting, I'd be kind of suspicious of the oldest Elroy spawn claiming to want to join my organization. But right now, the Elroys are in disgrace and considered traitors and deserters. That's a different picture entirely.

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  8. I've been meaning to bring this up for a while now -- I re-read the stuff about the Elroys and there's this thing about Gema's apparent falling out with her parents that seems kind of important.

    http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2014/03/page-597.html
    “[Emiliana] may desire a quiet life now, but what will she want in five years? Or ten?”

    “I don’t know, but I don’t want us to decide for her.”

    “We decided for Francisco,” she said.

    His expression darkened. “We also decided for Gema.”

    Mariana’s face tightened, eyes narrowing a moment before looking away. “Gema made her own choices.”

    “Only after we took away the one she wanted.”

    http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2014/05/page-672.html
    “I was hoping you could tell me where [Gema] is.”

    “Ah...” Zeff shook his head. He was in for an embarrassing conversation, it seemed. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea. My relationship with Gema is... strained. I’ve not spoken to her in over two years.”

    [...]

    ‘You are her father. If you do not know where she is, then who does?’

    “I don’t know. She has not been home in over two years.”


    What the hell happened there? If your sixteen-year-old moves out and and you hear absolutely nothing from her in two years, you probably fucked up pretty badly as parents.

    It's kind of heartbreaking to think about it, really. Gema will never get to make up
    with her mother. God, I do hope she'll get the chance to slap Parson around a little.

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  9. My guess: she originally wanted to leave and settle down, possibly without dying and becoming a servant, but her parents told her no.

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  10. I don't really think so. That's really more Emy's wish, and Mariana said that Emy's quite different from her sisters.

    http://thezombieknight.blogspot.com/2014/03/page-596.html

    “You do know that it is not because she is merely scared, don’t you?” said Mariana.



    “Yes,” said Zeff.



    “She’s not like her sisters. Gema and Ramira are both tomboys, but Emiliana is about as girly as girls come.”


    Zeff threw his wife an odd look--curious and amused by the way she put it.



    “She wants to marry young and live quietly as a mother,” Mariana went on. “She wants a different kind of life for herself--one without all the commotion that the name Elroy brings with it.”


    So Emy wants the quiet, married life with children, while her sisters are said to be different in that regard. We haven't met Gema yet, but Ramira really doesn't seem the type to dream of a prince and a dream wedding and stuff like this. She's more into spies, and who would have known, Gema might be as well.



    Actually, I always kind of imagined that Gema's problem might have been the opposite of wanting to settle down and not being allowed -- as the oldest child, she'll inherit the title of lady Elroy and all the responsibilities that go with it. With a bunch of siblings, she's not technically required to keep the bloodline alive, but then again, the Elroys and Rainlords in general are awfully traditional. And we've already heard that Zeff isn't all that averse to the idea of an arranged marriage (Asad had asked Zeff to marry Emiliana to one of his sons, and it wasn't the "arranged" part that threw Zeff off). So yeah.


    I'm actually not really into this idea anymore. If Gema had a husband, they surely would have taken him in for questioning as well. Maybe she ran away before the wedding? Or maybe she's just been preparing for her undercover mission for the last two years and obviously couldn't tell her parents about it.

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  11. I had forgotten about that tomboy line. Now I'm guessing that it might have been something about either Rainlord life being too boring, or too high profile, or she might have quit to join Parson. Its one thing when some minor Rainlord has a fight with the parents and leaves to join Abolish, its quite another when an acting Rainlord, possibly too high profile to keep her intelligence work a secret, suddenly turn traitor and then joins Abolish without being able to seriously prove her loyalty.

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  12. You might be right. It might even have been that if an active Rainlord faction had heard about someone who not only refused to fight but actually turned traitor, they might have aggressively sought her death. I mean, that makes them look bad, and anyway the Rainlords don't have a very good track record for keeping level heads when angry.

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