aionlogs | EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

Sovereign Citizens

VENERA

In contrast the Aion's last visit, they now arrive in Venera on a completely average day... or so it seems. Unlike Godsblood, Venera has been given no warning as to what's about to befall it; the Kenoma are simply authorized to arrive and begin their bloody work without fanfare. Even their entourage of Achamite soldier don't stick out that much; in the time since the plague left, the city has refilled with occupying forces. Notably, the Hylician ones seem to be keeping out of the way, almost as if they've heard some things and would rather not be involved too closely in what's to come.

As opposed to the ghost town it was during the plague, Venera is now reasonably active, with most attending to their usual business. Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers. Initially, the targets of the Kenoma hit list will have no way of knowing what's coming for them, but after the first couple attacks word will begin to spread. Those that have recently been engaging in seditious behavior will become harder to find, leaving their usual homes and workplaces to stay elsewhere, and making other attempts to escape the Regent's attention.

Once those alerts have been raised, the Kenoma will have to engage in more detective work to find their targets, questioning other Venerans and seeking out fugitives in the homes of their family and friends. In the meantime, some of those who believe they are in danger may become desperately enough to seek out the Pleroma directly, imploring them for aid. Unfortunately, seeking out one sect may just as easily draw the attention of the other. Most uninvolved Venerans will be too terrified to intervene one way or another, reluctant to aid in the persecution of their neighbors but fearful of consequences. If your Aion travels openly, it will take some effort to pin them down long enough to hold a conversation.

SEEDS OF DESPAIR

Several days into the culling of Venera, the Aions will have witnessed the city gradually withdraw into itself. The streets become vacant as more and more people decide it isn't worth the risk to be seen outside, abandoning work and play alike to hide out in their homes, refusing to answer their doors to all except the most desperate pleading. Those that can't avoid their daily obligations are quiet and morose, trying their best to remain unseen and unremarked upon.

If your character has been observed as a Kenoma, either now or in their previous visits to the city, the citizens will look upon them as if they are the messengers of death. If you are seen as a Pleroma, they will resist your gaze, as if fearing your presence alone might leave them marked. In rarer cases, you will see those with stronger spirits, with glares of hatred or determination. They are powerless now, but seeds have been sewn, and whether they are the seeds of despair or of action are yet unclear.

By the time the Kenoma's hit list has been fully addressed, several have been killed and several more have been rushed from their homes to flee the city entirely. There have been holes left in the tapestry of the community they were once part of. One way or another, their absence will be felt keenly by those they left behind.

QUESTIONS

What is the best way for Aions to travel to Venera?
Estinien has plans to get an early start for the Pleroma by teleporting to the Lover's shrine and flying somewhere closer to set up a portal from the ocean caves near the Godsblood Lodestone to a spot of farmland closer to Venera. Paul will be setting up a portal directly from Achamoth to one of the Achamite outposts in Venera.

How much force can the Kenoma use while interrogating Venerans?
While they are generally not permitted to kill Venerans who haven't tried to physically fight them, they will be permitted to apply both physical and mental pressure upon those that refuse to provide them with information regarding the whereabouts of their targets. This duress should be proportional to the resistance the Veneran is offering. The Regent is not inviting them to terrorize Venera on a level to a level they cannot reasonably blaim themselves for.

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[Hayame has stopped being shocked at seeing people who ought to be human moving as if they were demons or monsters. Actually, that wasn't true- she still possesses the ability, and she still recoils instinctively from magic and abilities unbecoming of the humans she had grown up surrounded by in her world...

But the rage burns the shock out. This man moves faster than a man should be able to move? Fine.

But she doesn't run yet. She dislikes running almost as much as she dislikes hiding, but though she still at least barely maintains the glamor spell, still wears a cloak... there's nothing subtle about a bow over six feet long. Venerans around her finally scatter, scrambling to get away from anything that might involve them in a dispute between aions or implicate them to the Achamites, leaving plenty of space-

For Hayame to fire off another arrow. This time, one aimed at his head.]

[ He's watching her do it this time, and he catches it inches from his face. He makes eye contact as he pushes his demonic qi into the arrow, making it shatter in a burst of black smoke. It's completely unnecessary, but he decides he can afford to he gratuitously threatening. (Also, his shoulder hurts, and he's mad she got that first hit in.)

He stops about twenty feet from her, and draws Xin Mo. The sword's sinister miasma isn't visible, exactly, but it doesn't, like, feel good, to look at or be around. He raises his voice to call out to her: ]

I assumed the Pleroma's soldiers believed they were here to protect people. I must have been wrong.

[Twenty feet of distance. He has a blade. He has some sort of magic.

Fine.

With the Venerans scattering, scrambling at the corner of her senses, Hayame's mental grasp on the glamor spell she wears begins slipping, and the cloaking mask of a two-legged woman begins giving way to her natural shape, to seven feet of solid muscle carved out by harsh living and even harsher training, but the face stays the same. She'd be an elegant beauty... if her expression didn't promise death. If her lip didn't curl back in a disgusted snarl.]

Protect people?

[This isn't her world. Her race didn't even exist here. These aren't her people. Even if they were, she could count the ones she had once cared to protect on her fingers, and this man thinks- ?]

Do not think me one of those compassionate fools.

["Compassionate", when she says it, is most certainly not a compliment. Not when her fingers snatch another arrow from her quiver, notching it expertly on the string, an issue of two seconds max to level it at his heart.]

I came here to kill servants of the Regent.

[And he was glad enough to be one to smirk. So what if he could do magic? So what if he could destroy an arrow in the air? That had been one shaft.

She will just have to shoot faster. Something she sees no reason not to try right now, releasing her string and moving immediately for another arrow to follow the first.]

Hah—!

[ He lets out a grunt of surprise as he deflects this arrow with his horrible sword—she's faster than he expected—but he's still sneering. ]

Why? If you don't care if all these people die, why should you care what we do?

I don’t care what you do.

[The snarl is brazen and loud, accompanied by the twang if her bowstring as she fires off another arrow, and then another, willing to use every arrow in her quiver if she had to in order to find just what speed was required for him to slip and miss that fancy bladework that was far speedier than any human ought to be.

In order to care for what they did here… Hayame would need to feel connected with the native residents of this world, and she has spent her time since waking up here hating it, resenting it as a foreign land she had never asked to visit. Her shape did not allow her to walk among the natives as a friend, and so she kept to herself, alone in the forests of Greentruth consumed by hate. She wanted go home, back to her world where she belonged and where she’d promised to die-]

I care what your Regent did!

[She cared about the cold, simple “yes” that had been supplied when Rand demanded if the Regent was responsible for destroying their worlds.]

[ The speed of her arrows is the kind of thing Binghe might expect from a cultivator who specialised in the bow, not a huge horse-woman with a weapon almost as tall as he is; he deflects a couple more with his blade but he only narrowly manages to avoid a headshot with the third; it punches straight through his ear, streaming blood as it whizzes out of the other side and thunks into the street behind him.

He hisses, clapping his hand to the side of his head, and leaps back to put more distance between them, more space for him to deal with the arrows. Grimacing, he makes a hand seal to command Xin Mo, and the sword rises into the air in front of him, shimmering with demonic energy. He doesn't go on the offensive straight away, though, compelled by what she's said in spite of his pain. ]

What could they possibly have done that would impact you?

[ He was there for that, of course, they all were, but he didn't take it all seriously... ]

[There. It might not be much, it might be only blood and a ripped ear, but it's proof enough that perhaps she has a chance, that perhaps she could hope to match whatever strangely inhuman strength that this smirking man possessed.

This smirking, ignorant man?]

They claimed to be responsible for destroying our worlds, and you ask... me... that?

[Each snarl is accompanied by another arrow, each pause a few steps back towards him to try and re-close the distance he's opened between them. His sword is moving, something sick is hovering around it-

But for now... She keeps firing, her quiver quickly depleting.]

[ Oh. That? Binghe scoffs.

Xin Mo soars through the air at his command, bisecting arrows closer and closer to Hayame as she moves closer and it weaves towards her. ]

You believed that? If they were truly responsible for that destruction— [ he snarls as an arrow grazes his cheek ] —why would they need our lowly assistance to destroy this world?

[ He twitches his fingers, and the sword plunges towards her, aiming, approximately, for her humanoid half's midsection. He has no idea where the organs in a creature like her are located, but his experiences fighting various chimerical demonic beasts have taught him that most things will die if you stab them enough. ]

If they didn't, then why are you even serving them?!

[By chance, other Kenoma she had met and spoken with had been very vocal about their belief that their worlds were all dead. The last jinba, one had called her, we have nothing left, another murmured.

Did she believe it? She didn't want to, no matter how it had felt like she had seen it, in that dreamscape between light and dark. In that court of shadows, when the Regent had declared so sure that they were responsible for the destruction of their worlds... it had seemed believable. Was it more comforting to think it existed and only she was denied being in it, or was it better to think it all gone and everyone dead, and she the only one left to suffer life?]

Even if they didn't-

[The accursed magic blade in the air comes for her, and Hayame has to throw her power into movement rather than targeting, though she still shoots in his direction as she dodges the sword in a clatter of hooves, slamming into a storefront with enough force to bruise deep just so that she could then use the wall as force to push off and propel herself in a loop around him, torn between the risk of long-distance when a sword could fly and the risk of close quarters when he might be able to pull the blade back in quickly.]

Someone will pay for bringing me here!

[If not the Regent, then who?

Her aim isn't as good in motion, but she still fires at him while the blade is chasing her instead of only guarding him.]

[ He laughs, bitterly and incredulously, at that question. ]

If I thought they were the one who'd done it, I'd be fighting on your side instead.

[ If the Regent had been the one to obliterate his world—his beloved—he would be doing all he could to tear them to shreds. Good thing he's decided that's impossible!

He turns to keep facing her, but attention on driving his sword towards her diminishes his ability to dodge her arrows. It wouldn't matter if his healing ability was what it once was—but he needs to stop lamenting that. It is what it is; and what it is right now is this woman's arrows drawing blood he can't do away with as soon as it happens.

It will be worth it, he thinks, if he is able to injure one of her legs, so that's what he aims for, swinging the sword through the air aggressively at horse ankle height. If he can't injure her like that at least he can try to throw her off balance avoiding Xin Mo. ]

[If Hayame were as equine as her lower parts appeared, the blade would have cleanly sliced through her fetlocks and made of her a cripple fit only to be put down. But thankfully for her... her body might be like a horse's in some respects, but her mind was mostly human. Or rather... it was jinba, just like her body was, neither human nor horse no matter how she appeared as half of one thing and half another in others' eyes.

And jinba knew how to use their bodies in ways horses never would, even if they were physically capable of it. ... Like leaping straight up and pulling her legs in as tight to her barrel as she can.]

Then why?!

[But that didn't mean she was stable or particularly graceful in that movement. It temporarily saves her comparatively vulnerable legs from the flying blade, but she stumbles on the landing and has to throw herself bodily into a run straight after, no time to fire off an arrow this time when she has to use all her efforts to avoid the blade. If she could just get enough distance-]

[ Holy shit. This really couldn't be more different from fighting a man on horseback; Binghe is too shocked to initially register her question. It sinks in a moment later, though, as she stumbles and breaks into a run. He launches himself after her in the break from being shot at. Xin Mo flies back into his hand as he runs. ]

Because if my world is gone, then the rest of it might as well go too.

[ He's still holding onto the hope of a new world, afterwards, that will be better, where he will be loved, but he's not fully certain of it. Not enough to voice it to someone who's liable to dismiss it. ]

[There was a reason her race had been called jinba. The best of horse, the best of man... the same reason that humans had used their overwhelming numbers to make of that strong race tools of war.

Hayame is a slave to that system who always longed to be a warrior. And warriors did not turn their backs and flee. But she does run, she needs the distance... She doesn't seem to be caring about making a mess of their surroundings, though, there's no helping the swell in attention the longer this fight drags on. So fucking be it. His sword is back in his hand, if she drags this out his freakish speed will overtake what little distance she had-

And a laugh, a harsh, judgemental laugh escapes her lips as he explains his reasons for following the Regent, as her hooves scrape on the cobblestones and she skids into a hairpin turn about face.]

So you are a coward- !

[With a snap of bamboo in the air, she has her bow back out, an arrow on the string... viewing him in a new, dismissive light.]

A coward afraid to die with his world!

[Killing him would be be practically the same as serving as the second in an honor suicide. Another thing she had once dreamed of doing.

But for now, she settles for loosing one of her few remaining arrows.]

[ He sneers. He doesn't care if she thinks he's a coward⁠—or rather, he doesn't care if he is, objectively, a coward. But he does want to gut her. Xin Mo really wants him to gut her. He can feel its hunger for it all the way up his arm.

His eyes narrow as she draws her bow again, and he surges forward, timing his movement to the moment she lets go of the arrow so he can leap improbably into the air to avoid it, sword poised to swing down at her. ]

[Funny.

She wants to gut him, too.

Perhaps after this week, she will learn to stop being surprised when human looking people move like beasts. There isn't any way she can pull an arrow from her quiver fast enough to notch an arrow and fire, he's too close, too fast, and as the sword swings down she doesn't even have time to dodge or run. At the last moment... she pulls a short hunting knife from its sheathe on the harness around her "waist", just barely managing to bring it to bear between them, sparks flying as the metal collides and forces her back a hoofstep.

Her elbow locks, the harshly trained archers' muscles in shoulder and arm strain against his above human strength... and her pupils dilate as the sword...

Hayame may not have a sense for magic, coming from a world as mundane as could be despite the biology that made people think it must be otherwise... but even she can feel something foul and wrong emanating from the blade. If that thing touched her-

A snarl bares teeth far too sharp to belong to a prey animal, despite the features on her lower half, fighting through the surge of fear...

To haul her head back in a whip of long ebon mane... and then slam it forward to crack her skull against his.]

[ He bares his own teeth back at her as their blades clash, and in this moment his are fanged as well—but an instant later her head smashes into his, sending him reeling from the force of it.

He lands inelegantly, skidding, and looks up at her with gritted teeth, fingers clenching on the hilt of his sword. ]

You—!

[ He snarls and rushes towards her again, aiming for the legs once more but this time sloppy with anger and possibly a bit of a concussion. ]

[It might be a risk, but she takes it anyway, gambling on the hope that her skull was thicker than his. The crack of contact is loud, but there's something else growing louder... the sound of Achamite guard boots on the cobblestones, responding to reports of potential aions fighting in the street.

Damn it.

Hayame grits her teeth, her forehead aching and the bruise already beginning to form beneath the surface of her skin as she keeps her blade held out in front of her... but it wasn't a match in a long, drawn-out clash against a proper sword. Not even much of a short clash. And with his speed... she doesn't have enough arrows left to try and get enough past his unnatural defenses to bleed him dry. As much as it galls-

She uses the moment he wheels back to gather her hind legs, build up the strength... so that she can leap over him when he comes in swinging low and wild, a hoof perhaps glancing against his skull in the jump. As much as she wants to push it, attempt to see if there were chinks in the system, some way to punch her arrowhead through his throat...]

A coward in one thing a coward in all!

[She can't resist the insult, the way it burns to see that the guards approaching seem ready to at least defend their Kenoma or at most join him in the hunt. As much as she hates it, knowing that to retreat is also cowardly... she cannot die against such unworthy opponents as these. She can't. Not before she's had her revenge.

... So she turns tail, trying to take advantage of landing a hit to put more distance between them and his unnatural speed, galloping away from the chaos they've left in the once calm market in search of the closest hidden place where she might redon her glamor, if not her pride.]

Edited 2022-07-31 23:59 (UTC)

[ He snarls like an animal when her hoof gets him in the back of the head, whipping round to go after her, but he's not fast enough; she's already covered too much ground, and his head may be spinning a little...

Gritting his teeth, he clenches one of his hands into an angry claw like a teenager who thinks he is afflicted by dark powers. Except he is actually afflicted by dark powers, unfortunately.

Some of the Achamite guards hurry over to him, and he waves them away impatiently, calling after the ones pursuing Hayame to not waste their time. None of them are mounted, they won't be able to catch her by chasing her directly. He stalks away with some of the guards still trying to talk to him, his own pride seriously in need of some nursing. ]

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EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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