EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (GODSBLOOD)

[aionmods]

Sovereign Citizens

GODSBLOOD

At the height of the Sovereign's moon, Vaeka Lovenskol's execution is announced. Outside of the City Hall, a dignitary of Achamoth is flanked by an entourage of Kenoma, reading the words of Regent from an unfurled letter: Vaeka stands accused to conspiring against the Regent and abetting the fugitive menace known as the Pleroma. Though the details are not made public, rumors spread quickly, some far more wild than the actual truth. The full truth, after all, is something only the Regent's agents and the Pleroma themselves know, and even to them the manner of her exposure is unclear.

Though losing a proud daughter of an influential family, there seems to be little that the people of Godsblood can do besides accept it. After all, they are still a city of the Regent's empire, and for all the freedom they've enjoyed, there are limits. If she was truly aiding the Pleroma, the sworn enemies of the Regent - and in an organized manner, if the rumors are to be believed - can they truly object? Or would challenging the Regent's claim simply invite more death?

As with many things, the families of Godsblood are torn. Tensions are thick for the five days leading up to Vaeka's appointed execution by hanging, with everyone having an opinion and few wanting to go on record talking about it too loudly. As such, the people's frustrations come out in other ways. Bloodites are uncharacteristically unfriendly to strangers in this time, keeping to their own and treating everyone else with overt skepticism.

Those that have arrived as part of the Regent's official envoy, or seen guarding Vaeka, will receive a particularly icy reception. No longer are the Kenoma curious wanderers on personal business. Now, they are here as the hands of the Regent; few of the Godsblood citizens are foolish enough to challenge them outright, but they are ever an honest people.

Early on, the Kenoma and the rest of the Achamite contingent sent with them will be able to take over a jail in downtown Godsblood to hold Vaeka until her execution, clearing out all other Bloodite prisoners and employees in the meantime. This means they have a relatively secure position to guard their prisoner from, which is a good thing; after all, the Regent did outright invite the Pleroma to stop them, and Pleroma are nothing if not stubborn.

EXECUTION DAY

After five agonizing days of waiting and several high visible conflicts between the Pleroma and Kenoma, finally the hour of Vaeka's execution arrives. A gallows is set outside of City Hall, ready to welcome its newest victim, and a massive crowd has gathered in an spirit of anxious anticipation. Some worry that violence may break out in the streets, even without the Pleroma's agitation, but gradually the minutes tick by and the gallows remain empty.

First one minutes passes. Then five. Then fifteen. Slowly, it becomes clear to the people of Godsblood that Vaeka will not be arriving. Are the rumors true? Has she been saved? Have the Pleroma been successful, despite all odds?

As the hours pass and the crowds disperse, Vaeka Lovenskol is not officially reported as either living or dead. Fortunately, Godsblood is a place where information has a way of getting around, whether those in charge like it or not. Some are saying that she was seen being whisked away as if by powerful magic, following a bloody fight at the jail in which she was being held. Where did she go? Maybe her supposed connections to the forest people did her good, some surmise.

The days following Vaeka's failed execution carry a strange and uncertain energy. Where before there was tension and distrust, Godsblood now finds itself in a surreal reality where the Regent's word is apparently not absolute. Then again, do they really want a repeat performance?

QUESTIONS

What is the best way for Aions to travel to Godsblood?
For Pleroma, this is very easy, as they are likely to either already live there or be able to easy take Greentruth's portal. For Kenoma, they may come directly from Achamoth by boat as part of the Regent's envoy or arrive via Eustace's portal which is set up in a shed a fairly long jaunt outside of town. Once there has been some time to get established, Misa will be setting up another portal leading straight to the prison where Vaeka is being stored.

Are the Kenoma permitted by the Regent to kill other Godsblood citizens?
Though the Kenoma are authorized to kill any Bloodites that try to physically fight them, they are expected to keep things clean. The Regent prefers to only punish the guilty, and having the lines be clear will create less of a hassle in the future. Generally, Godsblood is not in a state where physical resistance is likely to happen unprovoked.

Comments

[galdorleod]

[ With that loud, sick cracking noise, the fight begins. They all knew it was coming, even though nobody could say exactly how the Pleroma would start their assault, but a surprise attack against Misa from way afar is not the sort of... hard, almost cruel action that Howl would have expected from the Pleroma. He spares a minute checking over her, and after determining that she's relatively alright — their multiple healers should be able to take care of the wound — he turns his attention to wherever the shot came from. Misa is in no condition to come with him, and so, it lands on his shoulders.

The unnatural silhouette of Howl's transformed body is perceptible, even from far away. Deep black and ragged around the edges by countless rough feathers, it starts as a winged inkblot rising from the roof of the jail and climbs in altitude with shocking speed. He's looking for the source of the shot by baiting it to try attacking him — and it seems to work, although the fireballs he coaxes from the sniper's hiding place are not the same as the projectile that struck Misa. Howl serves in a tight circle, easily dodging the fireballs as he watches a winged creature flee from the same window that the blasts emerged from.

It occurs to him immediately that this is a ploy to distract. Flapping his wings hard, he watches the small dot flee eastward and struggles with his next course of action. Leaving the interloper alone is an option, but surely, they will simply double back and fire more attacks at them. This would put not only Misa's safety at risk again, but the security of the entire building.

But, with unknown Aion having taken to the air, Howl has the clear advantage. Even with the double dose of caution and humility that his defeat by Estinien months ago had given him, he feels confident that he can prevail in an aerial fight. After a moment of decision, Howl's enormous black wings tuck backward into a dive. He's swooping fast and hard toward the small winged figure, set to precisely intercept it like a bird of prey snatching a sparrow mid-air. Halfway into the dive, he finally recognizes his target for what it is — a swan — but he knows that cannot be all there is to it, even as he reaches out with both enormous talons to strike. ]

[wolof]

[ Akua's form was smaller, and far slower than How's was. A matching, smaller ink blot of night in the sky next to his much deadlier frame, she'd suspected that she would be in trouble, but she hadn't expected him to be able to fly, or at least fly that fast.

Last time she'd taken this form in battle, she'd been a shade -- dead to all but the soul forced into her foe's mantle -- but she had to be careful this time, and the aion -- man -- creature was following her fast, and she couldn't cast like this, not without a significant dip in her capability.

So she did what any self-respecting Praesi would do. She did the unexpected.

His Talon's reached for her, and Akua let the form slip from her body, that black swan seemed to grow, dark feathers turned to browned skin, her body grew, neck shortened, and she turned mid-air with a swipe of her hand to raise a small, very weak shield -- but enough to turn the blow of his Talons away. ]

Hello there, dear.

[ As if she were at a party, and not about to plummet to the ground. She appraised the man-bird with golden eyes, before she made her decision. Her fingers move, like she's about to pull something from the ground, and it's a gust of wind, hard enough to catch her aloft, and possibly make him waver in the air, before she tipped her body, and let it fall to the ground. She transformed back into a bird, if only to catch the wind, and land safely. ]

[galdorleod]

[ Howl's talons his something stiff and invisible. A familiar tingle tells him that he's butting up against protective magic, and with a single massively powerful beat of his wings, he halts his dive and swoons towards the right, preemptively dodging whatever additional magic the shield might have been accompanied with. It saves him from the disorientation that the gust of wind would have caused him, but puts enough distance between them for the Aion to land without further interference. With a hum of annoyance to himself, he winds a tight half-circle towards the ground and lands with a heavy thump on the grass. ]

Who are you?

[ The voice that comes out of the monster is very human, clashing with the inhuman proportions and features. Howl shakes out his feathers as he lifts his head to look at his opponent, a round human face emerging from the end of a head and neck that's a little too long, a little too large, and yet still too small in comparison to his body. ]

[wolof]

[ Akua barely even balked, at the sight of a human face emerged from the long neck and bristling black feathers. It's eerie, and weird, yes... but it's not enough to shock her. She lifted an eyebrow, instead, and looked him up and down, as if he she could take stock of the form, and determine who this was, just by appraising him. If she had been home, in Calernia, she very well could have, but as it is, she can only give the impression of doing so.

Not that she gets much, and so she answered him. ]

I could ask the same of you, darling. [ Still, the pet names always served to disarm, particularly in battle. ] I am Akua Sahelian -- [ A pause, and she considered. What could she say? She was no longer the Diabolist, and had not been in some time, but she was not without a name, either. Her pause only lasted a brief moment, before she lit on the proper title. ] -- I am Calamity itself.

[ She didn't attack, but from her clawed hand, Howl could see that she was not without her weaves and defenses. ] Before we begin this song and dance in earnest, where I'm from, it's polite to know who one is fighting.

[galdorleod]

[ Howl huffs a laugh. It catches in the back of his mouth on the way out and devolves into a sigh at the end. ]

Calamity, you say. What an honour.

[ Just another war mage, from what Howl can tell. Slimy, scummy abusers of magic, no better than military dogs. Whether Akua is anything like that, of course, does not really matter to Howl — not in this moment and probably not after this moment, either — but it's a convenient assumption to make, to make palatable what he's about to attempt to do to her. ]

I am the Wizard Howl. [ Howl ruffles his feathers from head to tail, like a dog shaking his fur free of water, before spreading his wings wide in preparation to take flight again. ]

Prepare yourself, Miss Calamity.

[ And with loud, heavy flaps, Howl leaps back into the air, rapidly climbing high into the afternoon sky. His long legs dangle beneath him, talons opening and flexing, as Howl discards the lingering feeling of her magic against the claws. He isn't going to hold back on the next strike, but he peers down at her out of the corner of his eye as he climbs, watching. ]

[wolof]

[ There's a keen look in her golden eyes, when he identified himself. She wondered, idly, if there was a weight to that name, in the way that Calamity should be to her, but even identifying herself as that, she felt none of the power or weight that she would have felt, even in claiming it, out loud for the first time. There's no weight or power to his name, either. Or to his declaration.

The rules that Akua plays by are different, and she feels adrift, in a sea that is a world that doesn't allow her the control she expects out of the situation. She should be able to tug at the weave, tug at the fabric of creation by using words, and actions, but she's left with nothing.

She prepares herself, regardless. She uses her hands, but does not need to, because she does not think the "Wizard Howl" is of her caliber. She was, after all, more than simply Calamity, she was the Doom of Liesse, the Diabolist, and so much more. The crutch is an old one that young mages, follow, but she does it regardless, and when he is at the apex of his flight, she uses an easy, old spell, to start it off. It's a chain of fire, and after completing the quick computations in her head, she launched one, after the other, after the other. With the bright sun above, it should be hot enough, with those.

She doesn't like transcribing her workings, though, and if Howl's eyes are keen, he will notice letters appear before her, that aren't perceptible, their shape present, but if he tries to decipher the make of them, they will slip from his memory like water through a sieve, leaving nothing behind.

Her working was destructive, meant for close range. Instead of the wind like before, it's worked into the shield she placed before herself, something to reach out, and grab, like tendrils of white-hot flame, to grasp and hold his talons in place, when he tries to get close.

She doesn't move, not yet. She can move fast, once he tries to reach her, once she can ensnare him, and keep him from simply dive-bombing her.

She looked up at him, an over-confident smile, and a quirk of her eyebrows, as if to say: "come along, now, let's play." ]

[galdorleod]

[ The thousands of obsidian feathers covering Howl's body shimmer briefly as he tilts into a turn, catching the hot sunlight burning above. He spies the machinations of her hands, and although they do not match any spell he's familiar with, he's learned that he is unlikely to recognize such things in Horos. There is magic in this world, but it's not his magic — the fraction of power that he still has cannot even be called his power, he suspects, but the power of an Aion.

With that in mind, Howl is relatively prepared for the chain of fire. He deftly swerves out of the way of the first volley, his wings tilting his body almost vertical as he maneuvers. The second comes quick; he feels its intense heat blow past his tail feathers in a near-miss. More fire is coming. Surely, she's either preparing another shield for when he strikes again, or has something entirely different up her sleeve. If only he had some idea of what she could do, he could try to formulate some sort of plan — if he can't take her out fast, this will be nothing but a waste of time, and he needs to get back —

A link in the chain of fire crashes into the underside of his right wing. It sets his feathers alight and singes the contorted, hastily conjured flesh underneath, sending a scorching burn straight to his mind. An animalistic, guttural wail escapes from Howl, from somewhere underneath the veil of black covering his face in the force of the air rushing past him.

In that instant, the strategic choice seems to be made for him: screw strategy and just fight. Go straight for the throat. He'd tried this exact same thing with Estinien and it had failed, but Howl is no tactician. Even in his efforts to stop the war in Ingary, he'd barreled straight ahead, tearing opposing wizards to shreds and crashing their warships without much care for whether he'd make it home uninjured, if at all. And it's all he can think to do as he channels more magic to his wing to regrow the lost lining plumage.

Opening his talons wide, he chooses an angle that would twirl past the additional fire already heading towards him and dives. He's aiming for her torso: primary talons into her chest and shoulders, hallux into her gut. ]

[wolof]

[ She's prepared for that. Akua was not called the Doom of Liesse for nothing, and she let him come, an array of bursts of fire, to make him think it was not so easily found, but her shield was the real target. He knows it is, she can see it in his eye, that he does not care, that he wants to slam straight through, and take her. Akua would let one person on any reality take her without something even close to the fight she was capable of.

When he came close, she did not flinch. She barely blinked. When his talons made their way to her, she smiled, sharp, and wicked, her gold eyes were aflame not with fight, but delight. Her hair started to swirl from the force, as his talons hit the shield. ]

Mistake.

[ A phrase so commonly used by the Woe, she can't help it. She doesn't see the hallux, and the Shield shattered, but the pieces of the shield catch the light of the sky above, and on the undersides, catch the dark of the simmering pool beneath them, the tendrils that crawled up, and reached out to grab him at his feet, and pull him down to fight with her. If he was a wizard, certainly he had something, right?

Akua didn't notice it until a moment later, that when she'd shattered the shield, something go through, and something had hit her, blossomed with blood. His hallex had caught her, she hadn't thought to consider it, and she sneered, before she took a hand, hot like molten lava, and pressed it to her stomach, as if to cauterize it, as she took a step away. ]

If you are a wizard, then fight me like a true one, instead of some feathered beast of the night. [ Her voice raw, and furious, and wracked with pain. ] Can you only attack from the sky, or are you more clever than that?

[galdorleod]

[ Something grabs his legs with unexpected force, something he can't see from around his own feathery bulk, and keeps him from launching back into the air after the strike. A frustrated, animalistic growl vibrates from somewhere at the base of his extended neck as he thrashes against the tendrils for a moment, but after quickly realizing that he's stuck for now, his spread-wide wings halt their flapping and he trains his eyes on her.

Fight her like a true wizard? Nonsense. This is a battle to the death, and Howl is not about to sacrifice any advantage he has over her in the name of propriety. That would be a grievous mistake, and one he'd made already, months ago, when he sought out Estinien, still under the misguided belief that he could fight in this war with some degree of respect for his enemy. He can't. And he won't. Especially not right now, as the Kenoma squeezes tightly around his soul, oppressive and merciless, like a constrictor suffocating a mouse. He doesn't need to be clever. He doesn't need to fight like a proper wizard. He only needs to win.

Howl digs his claws into the earth beneath him, the tingle of her shattered shield making his toes feel half-numb. But this violence is making his feel energized. The smell of blood is in the air. He can hear the pain in her voice. He can do this. He can do this, and avoid the wrath of the Regent.

He may be rooted to the ground at the moment, but that doesn't mean he can't attack her. With another bestial wail, he beats his wings into the dirt, sending a cloud of dust and particulate into her face. As he does, there's a sharp, loud crack of wood breaking, and in the same instant a tree at Akua's flank is crashing down towards her, snapped in half under the force of Howl's projected magic. No — he needn't attack from the sky. Ne doesn't even need to attack her as a beast. He just needs to win. ]

[wolof]

[ She's almost insulted, that he starts to beat his wings.

Akua is many things. Prideful, deceitful -- she is a woman who desperately wanted to see her ideal evil come into being. Only months before -- when she'd arrived -- she'd been fresh from being stabbed, from the Dead King's own necrotized blast taking half of her body with it. The fact that she still looked like she did was a testament to her own aion power, but her fingers and hand on her left side still looked like necrotized, warped flesh.

She bared her teeth, hands spread, as she started to cast a weaving, something larger than what she normally did. Here, she could not construct a gate to summon demons, or create a working leashed with souls as the fodder. She had no way to take the elegant construction of power, and siphon enough night into it to blot out a star brighter than the sun, or weave gates in the air. She has only smaller workings. She cannot even teleport a lake above Howl's head but Gods Below, she thought about it. About trying to pull something over his head.

Her working is still vast. A weave of dark power to rend flesh and tear. To take it and pull it apart, like a necromancer's touch. She wants to rip him to shreds in the way that any proper villain would Her working is complete, slippery letters of high arcana flitting into being, like phased, little things, that couldn't be grasped without the training. Ones mind would gloss over it, and Akua, oh -- Akua.

In her folly, her pride. Her need to fight like a proper sorceress, she is never the one down in the mud. She's not like Catherine who weaves night and fights with her sword atop an undead steed. She isn't the one who steps in front of an encroaching army and lights a pipe and waits for them to stop. No, Akua is different. She rode flying fortresses, and created grand workings with time and study. Perhaps, in another world, her and Howl could have been friends.

As it is, her working of dark night is released, a wave that isn't aimed right -- it's angled improperly when the the tree started to fall -- and her hands rise, to create a shield, but it buckled under the weight of it -- too hasty, too much folly. She tightened one hand, as if to pull the leashes that pulled Howl down tighter, to try to break something, the wave still coalescing and toward him, but if he breaks free, he can escape.

And as her shield buckled, the grip on Howl slipped. ]

[galdorleod]

[ Could they be friends, under different circumstances? They will probably never know, and any chance of it slips away as the sickening crack of bone joins the racket of the collapsing tree. A blinding pain racks Howl's body as he feels one of his legs snap under the leashes binding him to the ground, and if it were not for her faltering as her shield buckles, his other leg out have likely given way to the force of her magic. Howl wails as he manages to break free, a mix of an inhuman scream and a cry of pain, but he cannot stop — he can only win , he must, he must —

Through the agony, Howl hurls his wings downwards and pushes off as hard as he can with his good leg. He screams again, but it's a scream of ferocious determination. Awkwardly, furiously, he descends onto the mess of branches surrounding the collapsed Akua, aiming the talons of his good leg directly for her already injured belly. It doesn't matter that she's still alive, that she can still kill him with the right spell... Tear her open, the Kenoma growls at him, and he obeys it, having no capacity in this moment to do otherwise. ]

[wolof]

[ It burns, it hurts, Akua can feel her body, pinned beneath the tree -- how it squished, and collapsed -- she can feel her body fighting and struggling, but the tree is large, and she knew it would be. She should have -- she thought -- been less prideful, and stayed back.

She fights, even so. A growl of frustration, of pain, escaped from beneath the tree, but she's still here. She died twice before, what was another one? And she would not go out without a fight. She looked up at Howl's frame, golden eyes alight with fire, anger -- respect, perhaps -- and her mouth moved, one word -- burn.

It was an easy spell, but through the blinding, searing pain, she could manage that. It's a working -- a twist on the one the academy had -- fire that lit white hot, and seared its way to Howl, only to explode on contact. It's meant to burn and raze an army if necessary.

She wanted to take him down with her. She wanted to make him burn, hurt and wither, and her flames are hot -- nearly blue, when she cast them, almost an unending wave that hurled themselves toward Howl, lighting and exploding on contact, to try to make him seared from her own pain and fury. ]

[galdorleod]

[ He only has to win. That single thought loops in his mind at a blistering speed, repeating a dozen times in the mere seconds it takes for all of this to come to its resolution. As Howl's talons crash through the branches, he can see his victory at hand — even as the sharp points of splintered wood drive into his flesh through the force of his weight, and his shattered leg splatters blood across the leaves, and the fire —

Fire. Not just any burst of flame that any wizard could conjure, but a massive, overwhelming conflagration. It slams into Howl like storm winds, singeing his thick coat of feathers and reaching the bloated flesh underneath. Another monstrous screech cuts through the noise, now completely devoid of any humanity at all. Memories of the war in Ingary flash before his eyes, of bombs falling on homes, and of wizards throwing away everything in service of the king, and of airships exploding in hellish plumes of fire as his talons tore through their hulls. The fire back then hurt, too, although not as much as it should have. Howl's magic was tempered in fire, after all. The fire of a fire demon, but fire nonetheless. Calcifer was there with him, during every one of his foolish forays into the battlefield. Calcifer, the source of his power... his oldest friend. His only friend. Now just as dead and gone as everyone else in his world, nothing more than a memory, the same as the war, and the other wizards, and his castle, and Markl, and Sophie...

The fire rages around him; every feather on his hulking body alights in a flash. And yet... it does not overwhelm him. The pain is there, but it isn't like the pain when her fireball hit his wing. It isn't even like the pain he felt when he let out that scream an instant ago. With each hundredth of a second that passes, it winds down into a tepid ache. Through the fire, Howl contorts his neck to look down at Akua with one piercing blue bird's eye, enlarged and bulging out from the mop of long feathers hanging from the top of his head. His talons find their mark, plunging into her body and flexing mercilessly to tear her entrails apart. ]

[wolof]

[ Akua had a plan, of course. The plan had been, with the fire to hold him back, the next slide of magic to his wings, to burn them away with acid and fire, to make him useless, to make that beast understand that there was little he would do, with a sorceress of her caliber. She was the Calamity, a sorceress of Praes and second only to a man who would become a god. There was nothing she could not do. She was the fire and power, the soul of the Age of Wonders, and had made a weapon so powerful that there had been a war, while her corpse had still been warm -- for control of it.

Her fingers moved, as Howl lunged in, and she was half-way through the spell -- an unnecessary show Akua had taken on, around those who didn't use magic -- and she had been too proud, too over-confident to stop, when he leaned forward, his eye enlarged and boring into her.

Her teeth gnashed together, and she spit a glob of blood toward him, furious, it was acidic, a final shot although weak -- and when his talons found her --

She gasped. No, it was no knife like Catherine's that had bored into her stomach twice now. There was no comforting kiss, like the last time she'd been killed. This was hard, and cruel, and her body -- shifted, slipped, as the darkness closed on her, she found herself cold and angry, a bit like the old her, as her body dissipated, leaving only a heart-shaped shard falling to the ground. ]