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 Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers.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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Oh ... he likes that smile. It makes him sad, the way being around Liem always makes him feel a little bit sad. But something about it pleases him--maybe because he can see he's thrown Liem off, and that makes him trust this smile more than the last one he tried.

Matt takes up a seat near Liem. Not too near. On Liem's left, within polite reaching distance. He wouldn't normally think about proximity through any other lens than the vibrations between bodies--where's the warmest place to be that makes them both comfortable--but now, his nearness is an artifact of having to think twice about how much levitation magic he tries.

He reaches for the flask and takes another long drink before answering. ]

My body thinks I still have it. The hand. [ He lifts his stump, reflexively trying to wiggle his fingers before he realizes oh, right. One more quick sip. ] So my brain sends signals to figure out what's wrong, and it ... hurts.

[ Matt passes the flask over. ]

So yeah. It helps.

[Ostensibly, they’re up here because they’re meant to be watching the merchant down on the street. Liem can see their stall out of the corner of his eye when he looks at Matt, so he’s not entirely neglecting their task—but his attention is focused on the man next to him. He doesn’t have the emotional capacity right now to both talk about Matt’s hand and plan for the capture and execution of the vendor below. So he picks the one that seems more important to him.]

I’m sorry.

[The flask sits in his left hand as his right rests on the stock of the crossbow he’s set down beside him. Symmetrical. Whole.]

I had a lot of chronic pain when I was younger. Not the same, of course, but I know how distracting that can be.

[Distracting is perhaps an understatement. A fly buzzing around your head while you try to work is distracting. For pain that wakes you up from a dead sleep, that commands every scrap of your attention in miserable crystal clarity… perhaps disabling is a better word. He’s glad to have left those years of his life behind him.

He lifts the flask deliberately and takes another measured drink.]

How long has it been?

[ Matt shrugs in a jerk as Liem says he's sorry. ]

Don't be sorry. It was my choice.

[ That feels important to disclaim from the outset, before Liem can waste any more of his sympathy--or at least so he can know what he's actually sorry for. Matt wasn't a child when he took on this loss, and it wasn't the result of accident or violence. He made a calculation, and now he's living with the echoes. ]

It's been ... [ In a strange way, it feels like years. In another, equally strange way, Matt feels like he's still meeting Xishen's haunted gaze. Still watching the skin and tendons of his hand unmake themselves. ] Couple weeks? Happened early Soviseri. So I definitely don't have the hang of it yet.

[The sympathy living in Liem’s expression remains quietly in place despite Matt’s protests. He isn’t dissuaded by the insistence that Matt chose what he’s now living through, or by his insistence on referring to it like an inconvenience he just hasn’t yet become used to. And he isn’t tempted to rescind his compassion simply because Matt might not think he’s earned it. In his own storied experience, that is exactly when compassion from others is most needed.]

All right.

[A simple acknowledgement. Right now, he won’t ask what was so important that Matt felt he needed to sever his own hand for it. And although he knows that sometimes the very point of a choice is that you must live with its consequences, he hopes that Matt isn’t letting the weight of them burden him more than he actually has to.

Liem almost speaks that thought aloud; he seems poised to, on the heels of his acknowledgement. But instead hesitates—and then he shifts the flask from his left hand to his right.]

May I ask you something, about your other hand?

[His fingertips brush it with all the cautious precision of someone trying to free a live falcon from tangled wire, skimming from his wrist down to the flesh of his palm.]

This mark. How do you feel about it?

[ When Liem's fingertips land on Matt's wrist, Matt's breath sticks in his throat. His eyes go very wide for a moment, and his body very still. People have touched him since he lost his hand, of course. Xishen. His retainer, to help him bathe and get dressed and cut up his food. But apart from that, Matt's foregone his usual brothel visits, and he's been doing what he can to stay out of sight of the other residents of the Citadel. He and Kaeya talked about meeting up, but Matt's been avoiding him.

Liem's fingers brush gently down, down, skating towards the center of the symbol on his palm. As they do, Matt turns his hand slightly to offer him easier access. His fingers unfurl like slow petals. ]

Honestly ...?

[ Matt hesitates, looking not at Liem's face but his hand. ]

It feels like I got drunk and got a stranger's name tattooed.

I want to learn more about the Visionary. But the literature in the Citadel library is a little more ... morality play-like?

[Liem watches Matt as the pads of his fingers trail cool and careful over his skin, and his heart breaks at just how immediate and how familiar his response is. He sees his eyes go wide, feels his body freeze for the length of a caught breath—not just like he wasn't expecting Liem to touch him, but like he's shocked that he would. Perhaps shocked that anybody would.

And when Matt surrenders his right hand to Liem's gentle explorations, he understands with crystal clarity that it isn't just the use of his left that he's missing.]

Do you feel beholden to it?

[He speaks the question with quiet curiosity as he traces the lines of the scar, mapping it by touch as he continues to watch Matt's face.]

Howl told me how you came to be marked this way.

I don't know how beholden I can feel to someone I don't know.

[ For a moment, an unhappy combination--Liem's gaze on his face, his fingers following the Visionary's brand, the words "Howl" and "marked"--leads Matt to wonder, with a surge of paranoid nerves, if Howl told Liem about the demon.

He figures that's impossible, or at least unlikely. But the spike of anxiety stays after the suspicion is gone, leaving Matt wishing he had the flask back.

Not wishing hard enough to pull away from Liem, though. ]

Maybe to the Kenoma. I think it's the only thing listening to me anymore.

But that's a two-way street.

[Liem hums in quiet acknowledgement, finally dropping his gaze back down to the mark etched into the skin of Matt’s palm. He manages not to notice the spike of anxiety his question has inspired; that quick beating of Matt’s pulse could just be from their contact, after all. Gods know he felt his own pulse jump a little when he reached out and that contact didn’t pull away.]

I understand. It’s hard to be here and to be alone. Without guidance.

[He’d felt the lack of it so painfully, and so incessantly, from that first moment months ago in the Champion’s shrine, when he’d first reached for Abadar’s presence—and been met with nothing. When he finally reached for his book and found that it was actually there, it seemed clear he’d manifested it out of sheer desperation.]

At first I thought you’d chosen yours. It wasn’t until Howl told me about the ritual in the throne room that I realized I’d been mistaken.

[ Matt would really rather not return to the cavern. To those sunless days when he called and called with nothing to answer for the first time since he'd started asking, sickness and black oil roiling in his gut. He wasn't raised within a religious tradition the way Paul was, the way he gleans that Liem was, so part of him feels like he has no real grounds to feel the loss he does. The aloneness, as Liem puts it. And yet there it is, at the bottom of everything he says and does here. He's not like the rest of the travelers who were ferried to Horos: a precious piece of him had disappeared long before the throne room and its rituals.

He can't bring himself to acknowledge what Liem's said, not even with a nod or half-hearted agreement. He just keeps staring down at Liem's fingers against his palm. ]

This isn't the hand you wanna talk about.

[Liem can tell easily enough that he’s travelled as far down this particular avenue as Matt is willing to go—and besides which, Matt is right. Even if Liem had been circling around the topic of his other hand, loath to ask outright about the lack that was staring him in the face, the gravity of it was what kept him there. Eventually, it was bound to pull him in.

He sighs quietly, lifts his gaze from Matt’s palm. And he drinks again from the flask, withdrawing his hand back to the warm stone next to him so he can offer the flask back.]

Matt. Why did you choose to give it up?

[ Matt inhales slightly as Liem pulls his hand away, an unconscious sort of bracing. He takes the flask immediately, and drinks from it for a long time. Long enough that his throat feels noticeably warmer when he stops, the throb at the end of his wrist dimmer. ]

Don't go spreading this around, [ he says quietly, by way of a disclaimer. He told this same story to Amos without preamble, but he and Amos have been through some truly serious shit. They have things in common. ]

A few weeks ago, Xishen asked me for my help casting a spell. It was to find the Innocence entity, since ... you know, she wasn't actually destroyed, or even really defeated. And when we first tried it, we were close, but she sort of rebuffed us. We couldn't get through. So I asked Xishen if there was some other way to come at it.

And she told me, well, actually, she can transmute personal sacrifice into magical power.

[Liem watches wordlessly as Matt drinks, wondering how much of his compulsion to return to that flask is born from the pain of his missing hand, and how much is because of the conversation they’re having. Since arriving in this world, he’s found himself increasingly unable to keep himself from picking at unhappy memories, scratching them raw and making them bleed. Is that what he’s inflicting on Matt now—or were those wounds already opened to begin with?

He nods fractionally at the request preceding his answer. But when it comes, the small frown that has been creasing Liem’s brow since they first started having this conversation only grows deeper. His reply comes slowly, as though he’s reluctant to speak it aloud.]

You sacrificed your hand… for the chance to find the Innocence entity?

[It almost doesn’t matter if they were successful or not—although he wonders how much success they could possibly have had, for this to still be a secret even weeks later. But even if the spell worked… what then? He feels like there’s some piece to this puzzle that he’s missing, without which it simply doesn’t make sense. What stakes did Matt have in the spell’s success that made this sacrifice worth making?]

[ Despite the smoothing influence of the liquor, Matt bristles slightly, defensively, at the timbre of Liem's question. ]

She's dangerous, [ he says. ] I mean, I don't think it's her fault, it might kinda be ours. But still, she almost annihilated like ... several people I really like. And Venera. There's no way we can change the universe if all the people with the power to do it get subsumed.

[ He pauses, gaze falling to his left wrist. The smooth bump at the wrist-bone, the cliff that follows it. ]

Xishen also said that the sacrifice might yield longer-term results. For me.

[Again Matt refers to the Innocence entity as she, and Liem wonders if that insight was born from the spell he’d done with Xishen. He doesn’t recall the creature being identified in such a specific way before. But the idea that Matt’s spell has at least enlightened him in some way does nothing to ease the frown from his face.]

I didn’t say she wasn’t, [he says quietly.

He remembers quite clearly just how impossible reversing the Innocence sickness had seemed, how after days of struggle, the entity had simply… receded, apparently of its own accord. How, ultimately, that had been what had released Liem from his dreams of home, more than any effort of his own.

He doesn’t even disagree that a sacrifice might be necessary to find the entity, to extinguish it for good. Liem has always considered himself acceptable collateral in his pursuit of his duties, whether that means enduring risk, self-denial, or even change to his very being. If the cause is great enough, there’s little he wouldn’t give up in order to achieve it.

What bothers him is the idea that Matt might feel the same way.]

Is that why you did it?

[ Matt nods softly, in acknowledgement of what Liem's said rather than strict agreement. And he considers. ]

It's a part of it, [ he allows, and then allows further, ] a big part. I can do some small things with magic here that I couldn't do back home--illusions, mainly, and some elemental magic is coming easier--but it doesn't feel the same to cast spells anymore as it felt back home. Like I was tapping into something limitless.

[ He speaks in a quiet, careful tone, but honestly Matt wouldn't be saying any of this if he hadn't spent so much of the day drinking. He takes another sip now. ]

Magic's the only thing I've ever been really good at. So I thought, if there was a chance I could gain some longer-term magical boost ...

Maybe it'd be worth it. I could make it worth it.

[Liem leans back, resting his weight on his palms as he frowns up at the greenery sheltering their conversation. The things that Matt is telling him sit uneasily in his gut, foreign and yet hauntingly familiar. He doesn't want Matt's reasons for what he's done to make sense. He doesn't want to understand them, to relate to them—not if doing so means condoning what he'd done it all for. And he's increasingly finding that he can't stare the reality of their stated cause in the face without flinching.]

To find your way back to your purpose?

[He wonders aloud, curling the fingers of his right hand against the rough stone beneath him. If Matt's connection to his magic was at the heart of what he was, then how far would he chase it—and where would he let it take him?]

Then… what now?

[He lowers his eyes to aim a quiet look back at Matt, where he sits nursing his flask.]

Do you believe that this [—he gestures toward the street below, toward the vendor who has unknowingly been slated for execution—] is what that connection is meant for?

[ Matt's gaze snaps to Liem. For a long moment, he's still as he watches him, cautiously poring over Liem's face for any hint of danger. Of course, Matt's not sure "danger" is the right word for what he might face if he says the wrong thing to the wrong Kenoma. Maybe he's overreacting. Still, he can't shake the worry that transparent disagreement with the Regent's methods could be more trouble than it's worth.

Liem, though, doesn't seem the type to tattle. And Matt remembers he's had trouble accepting all this--the death of his world, the necessity of the Kenomas' mission--from the beginning. ]

No, [ he says at last. ]

I mean ... I knew this was gonna be hard. I know these people will have to die eventually. [ He frowns, expression going distant. His hazel eyes, wide and troubled, seem fixed on a point a mile past Liem's head. ] But I don't understand doing it like this. It seems like we're wasting a lot of energy on politics.

[Although he himself is ostensibly here on the Regent’s business, the look that Liem aims Matt’s way along with his question is free from any trace of judgement or suspicion. He simply looks curious and, as has often been the case over the past few months, a little bit sad.]

Politics wins wars, [he points out.] And we are at war. I’ve seen similar done in my own country.

[He still says my own country as though he’s simply travelled far from home—as though it’s waiting there for him to come back. A frown flickers, unbidden, over his features as he does.

He can’t condone the Regent’s methods for inefficiency, but that doesn’t mean he supports them. Despite the reverence he holds for the dominion of order, methods such as these have always left a foul taste in his mouth.]

I wouldn’t call it wasteful. But it is… rather base.

But we're not at war against these people. [ Matt waves the flask to encompass the street below them, the merchant in their stall. ] We're at war against the universe. The way it is now, the way energy is flowing--or not flowing, in this case. The stuckness of it. So I don't understand why like, mortal-style, mundane, land war politics are part of our strategy here. Apart from helping in Venera with the Innocence thing, this is the most concrete thing the Regent's ever asked us to do, and I have no idea how executing a few people is supposed to move the needle on any of our longer-term goals.

[ Which is to say: Is it wrong to kill people? Of course it is. A certain amount of wrong is going to have to happen before they can hit reset, but to Matt's mind, it should all have a purpose. Otherwise, it's just sadism. Stress relief for the powerful. ]

Maybe "base" is right, [ he adds after a moment, softer. ] I was gonna say tawdry.

[Using “tawdry” to describe the methods of a despot whose reach extends across the very farthest reaches of reality seems almost laughable, but given the circumstances, Liem can’t bring himself to crack even a ghost of a smile. He just sighs, lacing his fingers together in his lap and turning his hands apart to look down at his open palms.]

I don’t understand it either.

[The quiet admission has the tone of a confession, like he’s divesting himself of a weight.]

Or anything that we’re doing here, really. There’s clearly some greater plan at work. The Regent doesn’t need the service of people like us simply to rule a continent. But is the real goal the same one that we’ve been promised?

I don’t know if I believe that.

[ Matt, meanwhile, feels somewhere between nauseated and strangely cleansed. Saying all that at once is like purging the uneasy thoughts he's kept to himself for days. But it also means being exposed. It's an uncomfortable, raw-nerved feeling.

And then there's what Liem has to say in turn. "To simply rule a continent." ]

What else could they want? [ Matt protests faintly. ] "Destroying what's left of the universe" isn't exactly a winning sales pitch. Why would they make that up?

[ Something in Liem's expression, in the set of his shoulders, tugs at Matt's heart. Tenderly, like a purpling bruise. He shifts closer to him, and holds out the flask. It's significantly lighter now, but hopefully there's enough left to warm him. ]

It’s not, [he agrees.] But we’ve all agreed to pursue it, haven’t we?

[Liem has spent long hours thinking about what else the Regent might want. His nights have been so often long and sleepless, his worries end up chasing themselves in circles until he’s too exhausted to put one thought in front of the other. Though the activity does little to bring him peace, he’s compelled to pursue it regardless. The question is too horrifyingly pertinent to set aside.

He folds his hands together again, glancing at Matt as he holds the flask out for him. After a moment’s stillness he takes it, and, leaning against the low wall behind them, drains the remainder of its contents in one long swallow.

And he thinks of Matt back in the Champion’s shrine, speaking with such brittle care as he called his own life pointless. He thinks of Amos saying most people are better than me, so easily and so simply. He thinks of Paul’s fervent desire to bring about the end of the world at his God’s behest. He thinks of the words he’d spoken the last time he was in Venera, two months ago:

I will end this sick world's suffering, and mine with it.

How many of them would really care if they didn’t live to see the world the Regent created? And why would a being who personified destruction and despair give a single thought to the birth of a new existence after this one was gone?]

That wasn’t the part I was doubting.

[ Matt can't tell what's running through Liem's head. But he can tell something is--a lot of somethings, most likely. He can relate. Though he hasn't spent much time questioning the Regent, per se; rather, he's been questioning himself. "Am I going to be able to do what I need to?" "What exactly is the process for starting the next world? How will I know when it's close?" And even, at the tail end of some nighttime spirals, "If we need to develop as Aions, and if the rest of the world needs to be culled in order for a new one to start, why are we only worried about rebellious locals? Why are we leaving anyone alive? Wouldn't it be kinder to let them rest?"

He watches Liem drain the flask. Watches his throat work as he swallows, unable to stop hoping that he'll see Liem's shoulders drape more gently, his posture ease.

Quietly: ] What are you doubting?

[Liem lets go of a long, slow breath as the last of the heat lingering in his throat takes up residence just below his ribs. The flask rests idly in his grasp, leaning against one knee, and when his face tips back towards Matt, his pale cheeks are kissed by the faintest suggestion of bruise-like grey-violet. But although the lines of his shoulders aren’t quite so tightly wound as when he first sat down, he doesn’t seem any more at ease. Instead, as the layers of cautious poise begin to loosen and slip askew, his bearing becomes increasingly forlorn.]

Haven’t you noticed that the Regent doesn’t seem to care for their people?

[Frustration has him toying restlessly with the flask in his hands. Sentiments like these are among the things that have drawn them here to enact their campaign of executions on Venera’s citizens, but how can he support such final judgements when the people who express those opinions are right?]

This world is the only one they have. The Regent might not yet be ready to cause its end, but… how can they show so little concern for the existences of those in their own domain?

I don’t know how I can believe any of their promises about a new Creation when they have so little regard for this one.

[ Matt frowns abruptly.

Liem's putting words to thoughts that, up until now, have only swirled messily in the basement of his brain. The question serves as a lightning rod, focusing disparate glimmers of discontent--the Regent's fixation on fealty, their jokes and snide remarks, the lack of a concrete plan--into a framework. ]

They've lived a long time, [ Matt murmurs, distant. ] I think they're frustrated that all this suffering ... persists, despite everything they've done. Maybe they kind of lean into some gallows humor to cope.

[ Which is fine in itself. But it still doesn't really address what Matt sees as a gap in the core of their recent rhetoric--a lack of concern for anything past political expediencies. A lack of vision, if you will.

Matt watches Liem's face, his eyes catching on the color in his cheeks. Is that a flush? He's never seen anything like it. Despite the dour conversation, his fingers half-flutter on the ground between them, as if thinking of brushing the twilight hue. ]

Does the Regent have to be perfect for the cause to be worth it, though? [ Matt asks gently, softly, turning at the waist to regard Liem more closely. ] Because I want to think that we can still make it work, even if we don't always get what we want from each other.

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