Annotated 35-12
I was pretty surprised, honestly, that anyone thought the Beast might be dead after this. I mean, admittedly, it does look super dead, but it’s a physics-breaking monster, of course it’s going to play by its own rules. And it’s way too soon, even by my quick-action standards, much less Flo’s! Maybe we just did too good a job of selling Frigg’s grasp of the situation.
Magda and Penk are mostly stunned just by the fact that Frigg and Rachel are there. Actually, come to think of it, that raises a question. Clair and Hollister are probably able to find Rebel camps and transport people there, and if the Cultists and their monster were not the more immediate threat, that could be very bad news for the Champions and their charges.
But what they can do, presumably Caneghem can also do. So why doesn’t he? Based on the series as a whole, I think it’s fair to say he and the elders are withholding a lot of information about their abilities from their Gastonian “associates.”
Caneghem doesn’t want the Gastonians to actually win, he just wants them to leave the Sky Elves be long enough for him to enact Plan A.
I always assumed they didn’t track the rebellion there, and just kinda stumbled into it while tracking the beast.
As to why they didn’t before… it may be that they did, but just were not ready/positioned for a large scale battle.
Its not unheard of – especially before modern transport speeds – for both sides of a war to know where the other is, but not actually be fighting yet.
You’re right that they didn’t track the rebellion there: I only meant that finding Sundar while he’s moving on an undetectable transport is probably not more difficult than finding a Rebel encampment.