Bloodline 209
on December 20, 2017
at 7:30 pm
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At last, Cormac spills the beans.
… Oh hey, I didn’t do a Christmas filler this year. Oh well, more comic that way. Hope you all have a merry Christmas!
Fanart!
And now we know: Shields are worthless!
Aw… Gale didn’t make it. Well at least Hillel doesn’t have to keep an eye on him anymore. Then again it seems Hillel is significantly more angry about this then Cormac.
Honestly I thought it would be the other way around seeing Cormac is the patrol leader and Bernin disobeyed his orders that resulted in the death of of Gale. Cormac might still have a big speech on standby for Bernin about how he placed his self-interest in fighting a strong demon over the safety of the patrol.
I do wonder how much does Hillel knows? The only two big thing Hillel probably knows are: Bernin’s recklessness got Gale killed, and Bernin may have some relation to the greater demon HE went after. Which might bring the impression that Bernin intentionally lead the group to a trap.
Well it’s a shame that Gale didn’t make it, I wanted to know more about him especially after his bio was filled up, but it does make sense that Gale died. This way it’s like Veera is telling Bernin that If you don’t do what we want I’ll kill your friends one by one and you’ll be powerless to do anything about it. So essentially… message sent. Than again how close was Bernin and Gale? It seems like Gale was the biggest social outcast between the two.
…So was Cormac and Sil getting it on before of after they got the news of Gale’s death?
Given that Gale died, it seems likely that the discretion shots revealed a large hole through his belly and his face was probably in strips. Discretion shots kept his fate somewhat of a mystery from us. Little things like “How deep did those ice-shards cut?” and “Is that pike jutting from his belly a physical spike that goes all the way through? Or just some metaphysical thing? Or maybe a blunt block of ice that would just cause a really nasty bruise?” were not quite entirely certain. Cormac and Sil, unless one or the other was keeping the other from seeing too much, probably didn’t have much doubt about Gale’s future.
But good on Callum for surviving a heroic sacrifice! It is very rare to see someone give up the heals for someone else and not die for it.
Speaking of which does Callum know about this or is this his first time hearing the news too? Also depending on the injuries Callum has maybe he’ll be fully recovered when Gale’s replacement is sent over.
So now Cormac has had one deserter, and now his first casualty. Even though Gale was probably not that well liked given his attitude to others, its got to have some major impact to Cormac.
Though who will this impact more? Cormac who made the call to follow Bernin or Bernin that charged head first just so he can fight a greater demon? Heck maybe Hillel is taking this the worse given how angry he has gotten.
Also Hillel himself wanted to interrogate Bernin? Sounds like either a patrol’s chronicler doubles as a interrogator or maybe it’s something personal. I’m leaning towards the latter. I only bring this up because they are in town, and if Hillel really wanted answers he could’ve gotten someone else that would be more suited in getting answers.
So chances are Hillel isn’t around to meet with Bernin. Which does make me wonder what is he up to? Right now two things must be going through his head:
1) If Bernin didn’t charge in head first everyone would be fine.
2) If Cormac wasn’t so soft on Sil and stuck to his guns about reaching the town (page 107) the encounter could’ve been avoided entirely.
Right now it looks like Hillel might be sending in a damning report about Cormac’s group if he really is extremely furious about what happen in addition to requesting a replacement.
It occurs to me that all the high-ranked people may have been in the strike team, which likely ran off to hunt Veera, so the Patrol might be as highly ranked as it gets. We have yet to see much of the military structure but the guy Ember was chatting with seemed to be representing a village by himself, voluntarily, with just patrols coming through now and again. Whatever formalities they have in the command structure seem to deteriorate around the edges, so all the command staff running off to hunt a powerful demon that threatens the region may seem unprofessional, but also seems plausible given the little that we know.
But you are probably correct about everything! I think that we can all agree that everything is Bernin’s fault. I wouldn’t expect a chronicler to be able to just grab people for interrogations without any oversight. The patrol seemed to be a bit too casual around Hillel for it to be a case of full-blown :political officer here to shoot your for treason” commissar-type stuff. It is plausible, but a personal grudge over running off and getting one of the patrol killed and the rest in various states of disrepair seems likely, and I can’t see as he will have much nice to say in his chronicle of these events…
Seeing that the Hillel as the groups chronicler he knows a lot about each and every member. Knowing so much about each and every member means he must have some personal investment.
In addition Hillel knows so little about Bernin. At most all he knows is Bernin lived in Brairwood and really wants to fight demons. I highly doubt Bernin would mention anything about Ember or Cole.
I hope we’ll be seeing Hillel soon, I would like to see what he has to say about this mess, what he wrote in his report, and what he has been up to in general.
Hey, Merry Christmas to you, too.