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 Shops are open, and its people are withdrawn but superficially friendly when meeting strangers.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

Understandable, then.

[He's quiet for a moment, then. Not sure if he should go ahead with what comes to mind; eventually deciding that it doesn't matter. The Regent should know by now where his loyalties lie; he has little doubt that they can see it in him.]

...You realize that I don't hold your questioning against you, right? All of that before. It's not like I'm going to say anything about it to anyone, and I don't really blame you for having done it.

[Liem glances back at Paul, vaguely inquisitive, when he hazards his next question. He doesn’t dislike Paul, and it would be disingenuous to pretend that he isn’t desperate on some level for the opportunity to connect with him further after their first conversation. He doubts most of the Kenoma’s other aions would understand the specific kind of loss he’s been grappling with since his arrival.

But he also very much doesn’t trust the wholeheartedness with which he’s aligned himself with the Regent. It makes his reassurance difficult to take at face value.]

Oh— [He frowns apologetically.] It certainly wasn’t my intention to make you feel interrogated. I hope that isn’t the impression I imparted.

[Granted, there's also the argument that if he were that wholeheartedly dedicated, he would have mentioned any awkward misgivings he may have had to the Regent already. Either way, he hasn't; he does like Liem well enough, honestly, though it's fairly hard to get him to dislike people as a whole.]

No, no, it didn't - don't worry about that. It just seemed like something you were really invested in. Again, not that I blame you - I'm invested in a lot of things around here that a lot of people wouldn't be. It happens; our circumstances aren't like a lot of people's around here.

[This is a strange conversation for Liem to be having with Paul when he’s already committed to quietly sabotaging their sect’s efforts in this city. If he continues what he’s doing, he’ll certainly end up either dragged back to the Citadel’s dungeons or leaving the Kenoma for good. There isn’t really any scenario where he ends this month on good terms with anyone else of his sect, save for those who share his incompatibility with the Regent’s methods—and he’s already seen that Paul doesn’t fall into that category.]

Getting used to my place here has been challenging, [he admits.] Nothing I learned in my old home prepared me for anything like it. Which I suppose is true of everyone, but… maybe not in the same way.

Maybe not.

[Weird, maybe, but it's not like Paul knows that. He has his suspicions, but even so this is less like he imagines Liem is going to do anything particularly off-putting now and more that he suspects that Liem has his reservations but surely those reservations can still be worked through.

...Honestly, even if Liem does end up in the Citadel's dungeons, it takes a lot for Paul to want to simply dispose of people.]

If you ever need to discuss anything, you know how to find me.

Oh.

[Liem is… probably not going to take him up on that. Even if he wasn’t actively betraying their sect and planning to defect for his own safety, he’d be reluctant to bother someone he knew with discussions like that regardless. But it’s still nice that Paul made the offer.]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

[His read on Paul so far is that he wouldn’t have made the offer if he didn’t genuinely mean it, so after another moment, he adds,]

I’m sure I’ll find my feet soon enough. I had a similar experience trying to fit into my church when I was still an acolyte. I just needed to find my own way.

That's how it's been working out for me, more or less.

[As confident as he sounds in the Regent and their way of doing things, he'd meant what he said when he told Liem that what he does here isn't really a reflection of his own faith. He's just better at adapting his beliefs to the Kenoma than others would think.]

I'm certain it'll work out for you, though. Whatever you end up doing.

[Now there’s a statement that’s going to age like milk. Here and now, however, Liem appreciates the sentiment, even if he has good reason to think that Paul is 100% incorrect in his assumption.

It’s a nice thought—sort of like how the nighttime Veneran streets are quite nice, calm and peaceful, swathed in a blanket of shadow and starlight. Neither reflects the strife waiting in the wings to steal over the scene like a bloody dawn, but for now, the illusion of peace is enough to afford some measure of comfort. He wonders if Paul feels the same way.]

If you don’t mind my asking—what was your home like?

[He hasn't been asked often what his home was like; he can't say that he minds the question, though his gaze darts a bit as he makes himself recall it. It isn't difficult to pull up, the images and the homes and the faces; it's a little surreal to be doing it while he's with someone else.]

For most of my life, I lived on an island. A small fishing community up north. It was cold often; times were pretty hard. The community itself was... Well, the sign said 127 people, but it hadn't been updated in a while. I'd probably say about a hundred, give or take. I knew more or less everyone personally, though not all of them were faithful.

It was peaceful. There wasn't much there - a couple of unpaved streets, a general store, and the church. But it was a community, it was home. I imagined that either the community would die or I'd die serving it, but I was all right with that notion.

[Liem is surprised by how easily he can imagine the community Paul lived in from just his brief description of it. He hasn't spent much time on the coast, and the country he hails from was warm almost year round, but he's visited enough tiny, backwater villages in his travels to know the kind of place he means. It doesn't sound entirely dissimilar from the community he'd been given charge of during the last few months of his life in Taldor.

He can’t decide if the sleepy mundanity of the described village is at odds with a mission to bring about the end times, or if it’s exactly the kind of place he would expect to play the setting for such an endeavour.]

Did you have family there?

[There's...a sizable pause, before he answers that.]

The woman I loved lived there. As did our daughter.

[And another, shorter one, briefer in duration but no less awkward.]

Priests are supposed to remain celibate, in our religion. She was married to another man besides. It shouldn't have happened; it wouldn't have lasted. It was just a set of circumstances that aligned for a short time and then never again.

[There are multiple things about this response that Liem hadn't at all been anticipating when he asked his question, and although he initially looks sympathetic when Paul mentions his lover and daughter, the expression quickly freezes onto his face as the priest follows up with the rest of his admission.]

Oh…

[He's not judging, exactly; he's sure Paul has judged himself enough for it already. But he hadn't been expecting such a personal admission to follow on the heels of that initial bit of information.]

I'm sorry for your loss. Of your community, and of them as well.

[He shrugs a bit, though he has the basic goddamn decency to keep his gaze low.]

It's...not fine, the loss, but it's one I've lived with in a few ways.

Of course.

[He wonders what kind of state Paul left his home in when he was taken from it. Were that village and its hundred-odd inhabitants still there at the end, or was the destruction of his world only another, more final note to culminate some other end? But perhaps now isn’t the time to ask such questions.]

I still think about my home often, but there was no one there whom I could call family.

[Don't ask questions you aren't prepared to receive the answer to, let's put it that way. Because if nothing else, Paul will answer, and he tends to answer completely; there's something in the way he responds to things that tends to be walking a very fine line between straightforward and resolute, and perhaps alarmingly unaffected by most things.]

Even so, I'm sure there's something about the place that kept you grounded. That were the reason you considered it home to begin with. Or am I wrong?

The place, yes.

[Without any kin tying him to a single place, Liem could have wandered from his home at some point in his long life. He could have sought a living in Andoran, or Qadira, or even Galt, where his parents had once lived. But as much as he enjoyed seeing new places and learning about other peoples, he'd never been tempted to leave Taldor behind.]

I lived there for a very long time. Long enough to see most corners of the country, although it wasn’t a small one. It was built on good bones, and whenever I travelled it was inevitable that I’d see hints of the country it could be, if it had the chance.

[He lets out a small, pensive hum. He’d always felt that the place was his, that the people were his, although neither were particularly welcoming of him. That in and of itself had been comforting.]

It could never really have happened, of course. Too many of Taldor’s aristocrats were obsessed with looking backwards, to the glory days. And many of its common people as well, for that matter. But there were still things to love about it.

I can understand the feeling of always having something that brings you back. Something that's...familiar, something you can't quite leave behind.

When I was younger I used to do all sorts of missionary work. Some of it took me pretty far away from anything I called home. Beautiful places, beautiful people. But none of that would have been home for me.

[He shifts a bit; his hand brushes up against the handle of one of his knives. Ritual things from the church, long and sharp. Meant to offer him protection here.]

This place isn't either. I don't really know that it will be.

[Liem nods absently, thinking about the city where he grew up, when Paul mentions his travels. Oppara always seemed to him like, if not the heart of the world, then at least the heart of Taldor—the largest and oldest city in the entire country, mysterious and thriving even for all its flaws. He'd spent many unhappy years there, but plenty of relatively content ones too. He'd never dreamed when he left it on the princess's instructions that it would be destroyed before he could return.]

It isn't really meant to be, is it?

[He glances over at Paul, pensive.]

This world is a battleground. If we succeed, and Creation is destroyed, it will cease to exist along with everything else.

[That's one way of putting it, he supposes; he doesn't flinch away from the description, though he does pause, for what it's worth.]

Of course. Though we don't have anything resembling a timeline on that, either.

Hm.

[Liem does have to acknowledge that; supposedly achieving the Kenoma’s goal is within the power of their current “generation” of aions, but what does that really mean for a group of people who no longer age? They might be here for decades before they actually gain sight of their goal. Maybe even centuries.]

I know you’re right, but I don’t know that I could think of anywhere but my old land as home. That’s why I’m still here. If I didn’t care about it, I don’t think I would have had the will to keep going.

I understand. I don't know if I can say I feel the same, but I understand.

[His feelings on where he came from are...difficult; one of the few things he can still bring himself to have many feelings about, nowadays. It's a good thing, he supposes, that something can still evoke that kind of response from him; he tries to avoid thinking too much about it.]

I... Some part of me feels it's best to leave all of that in the past. We can't go back to it; I'm not sure I would if I could. But I also feel like it's always going to be there, whether I want it to be or not.

Maybe that would be best. Certainly it would be simplest.

[It would be less painful to simply leave his memories about his old life behind, to live only in the present, caring only for the future awaiting at the end of existence. But would that be wisest? It's Liem's memories of his old world that make him doubt the Regent in this one. Wouldn't casting those memories aside be the same as turning a blind eye to painful realities just for his own peace of mind?]

I also don't think I could understand the Kenoma if I stopped caring about the world I left behind. If I didn't mourn what it was, I doubt that I could find it in me to pursue the destruction of what's left.

...I think it would just encourage me to reject the Kenoma, in the end. Not through any fault of the world or its people, but because I don't think I could let go of them without being made to.

[So it's for the best that everything was destroyed, that Mildred and Sarah and Bev and poor goddamn Erin are gone; it's for the best not to think about them any further than he needs to anymore.]

[Liem continues beside Paul for a while in sober silence, considering this point of view, wondering if he could really say any differently. His memories and attachments to the world he left behind propel him forward in this one; he believes that wholeheartedly. But he still remembers how desperately he had clung to the belief that his world still existed, back before he accepted the Kenoma into his soul. If he couldn’t be convinced of its destruction, would he have the strength to seek the death of existence, knowing that his own world’s destruction would be on his hands?

Probably not. And it seemed that the same was true of many of the Pleroma, who from what he’d seen, refused to believe that their worlds were actually gone. After a long pause, he ventures a question.]

Do you think the Regent chose to summon aions from only worlds they destroyed for that reason?

Possibly.

[The answer is immediate. Then another.]

Probably.

[He seems bothered by that, though; like it's something that's going to needle at him, if he let's himself think about that too long. Perhaps he shouldn't, for that reason; perhaps he should, for that same reason.]

There's going to be inherent cruelty in it either way.

[Paul usually isn't one to criticize the Regent, but... well. There's not much else to think about it now.]

EVENT #5: SOVEREIGN CITIZENS (VENERA)

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