EVENT #3: THE COST OF INNOCENCE

[aionmods]

The Cost of Innocence

INVESTIGATION

As the Aions arrive in Venera, they will find the natural beauty of the city in sharp contrast to its uncomfortable aura. Though the sun still shines and flowers still bloom in a place filled with physical vibrancy and life, the air itself is impossibly still, as if wind no longer blows. You can taste the stagnancy of it when you breathe, and the pleasant sights only make that feeling of absence more haunting. The streets are mostly empty, with most of the city's residents hiding away in their homes, fearing the touch of whatever illness has caused this. That is, all the citizens besides those most affected, who wander the streets in a lifeless and painless daze.

Normally, Venera would be occupied by both Hylician and Achamite soldiers, but it quickly becomes apparent that both have abandoned the city, only guarding its furthest outskirts. Their reasons vary: the Achamite soldiers seem to take religious objection to the feeling of the city, believing it to be some trickery of the Innocent, while the Hylicians simply see it as a plague they have no interest in catching or spreading. Because of this, it will be easy for Aions of both sects to explore with little pushback from any form of law enforcement. The Kenoma will be directed into the city with warnings about the potential physical and spiritual danger while Pleroma will be able to sneak in mostly unbothered. After all, no one is eager to follow you.

Most shops and businesses are currently closed, though some uninfected individuals still nervously keep watch over their workplaces, fearing potential looting. It's difficult, but not impossible, to find people to talk to, and while the most plentiful wanderers are the infected, the reactions from those with their minds still intact will vary. Some will be eager to speak to anyone who looks like they're trying to do something about their situation, desperate for any source of outside help. If revealed you are an Aion, this may either entice them even further or cause them to retreat, as if fearing that you are somehow to blame for their plight. For those that are enticed, it will become clear that they hold onto faith that Aions are in Horos to save them, and will tell these new arrivals whatever they can without discriminating between sects.

The base level information that can be found is thus: the infection began at the same levels it has been in the rest of Horos, only for the numbers of the afflicted to rapidly accelerate upon the coming of the Innocent's Moon. Some see it as a form of divine punishment for their cooperation with the Regent, while the less cooperative citizens see it as a malady brought about by the Aions themselves, their only hope being that they will be able to clean up the mess they made. Some citizen have managed to corral their inflicted loves ones into their rooms and will be willing to introduce you; most of these individuals are past the point of conversation, and seem fully lost to whatever fantasy world they are experiencing. They are disinterested in eating or drinking and it seems like, without help, they are destined for a slow death of starvation and atrophy. That is, if their apathetic state doesn't result in a severe accident, as it has in many cases already.

Any other clues will take more dogged investigation. It will be a day or so after the majority of Aions have arrived in the city that the first signs of their own infections become clear.

HEAVENLY BODIES

The first to feel its effects will be the Innocents, Lovers, and Celebrants; like a voice has fully awakening to them, whispering of how their touch can be the cure to the others' pain. It bids them to take their fellow Aions into their loving embrace, to share this gift, as only suffering lies ahead. It expresses without words that it will be a shield for their Aion kindred, and that those that accept will become their outstretched hands to a cosmos that craves peace. Any form of physical contact with those three Legacies will either introduce or rapidly accelerate the infections experienced by the others, this effect only becoming more intense if the wielder intentionally forces the power of this strange entity into their victims.

Even without that accelerating touch, however, other Aions are not necessarily safe; the infection will still seep in, albeit more slowly. All Aions may experience a growing feeling of connection to the infected Venerans, as if the energy within them is being drawn into their their own bodies. As the Aion's symptoms worsen, the the ones suffered by the Venerans will gradually lessen, though not go away entirely. It seems that the Aions soaking up this strange power is enough to take the edge off of what is happening to the citizens: but at what cost?

Various symptoms will manifest in afflicted Aions with outcomes far more diverse and devastating than what the Veneran civilians have experienced. Visionaries, Firebrands, and Artisans will suffer the most catastrophic symptoms, the clash between their spiritual natures and that of the Innocence being the most extreme. This malady is characterized by its innate desire to quell its victims of their resistance, smothering them in artificial peace, even if it has to deprive them of their bodies and minds to do so.

It is not without treatment, however. It will gradually become apparent that feelings of intense suffering or upset are capable of purging the infection, that clash with painful reality seeming to wake them up from their trance and reduce or eliminate physical symptoms. The more intense the distress, the more effective it will be. Fortunately, this heightening of Aion spiritual energy has the added consequence of making empathic communion connections far more acute. Instead of just transmitting and receiving emotions and thoughts, Aions will find themselves more easily able to enter the delusions and memories of their kindred, drawing them out and manipulating them for this purpose. The catch is that they will only be able to access what is on the surface of the other Aion's mind.

When an infection is reduced or expelled this way, the energy causing it seems to be dispelled from the city, lowering the intensity of its ambient effects. While similar can be done to Veneran citizens to help treat them, the energy will not leave, and will either go into the Aion casting it out or return to the nebulous source of Innocence and eventually infect someone else. Something about going through the Aions specifically seems to act as a filter, as unpleasant of a way as it is to help.

IN THE SILENCE

For those unlucky enough to develop complete, or near complete, infections (IE. a full Innocence petrification) a presence will awaken within them regardless of their Legacy. It will urge them to join with it, to embrace the peace it offers, and to become the extensions of their will in this ravaged world. With an infection of this intensity, there will be little they can do but to hear its call. What exactly this would ultimately entail is unclear, but there is the sense that his entity is looking to join with you on a spiritual level. If your character becomes infected to this degree please let us know under the Committed Actions toplevel below along with the context of that transformation and whether or not they are being cured from it. You may receive some additional information in return!

QUESTIONS

What is the best way for Aions to travel to Venera?
The quickest travel paths are for Kenoma to take a boat from Achamoth, which will take about a day, and for Pleroma to teleport to the Celebrant's shrine and take either a carriage or river boat to the city (there are offshoot rivers not marked on the setting map). The riverboats would be the faster option option of the two, and would also take about a day. The carriages/delivery carts would be slower and take a couple days, but have relay access to horses and therefore could keep going overnight. Characters with flight are also able to use that, though flying right into the city might cause a bit of spectacle. Then again, none of the local law enforcement is eager to chase you at the moment.

Are Veneran civilians experiencing the same symptoms as the Aions?
Veneran civilians are only experiencing apathy/loss of self/daydreaming and maybe the loss of pigments/color for advanced cases. The more body horror orientated effects are Aion only and are being caused by their body's spiritual makeup.

Can 'cured' Aions be reinfected?
Yes! Even if cured or treated, symptoms can return or worsen again. This will keep happening until the build up of Innocence energy in Venera is entirely expunged, at which point the illness will fade away across the continent. Whether or not the Aions mere presence will be enough to trigger that is yet unknown, but it does seem to be helping lessen the effects suffered by the civilians, at least.

How long does the infection period last in Aions?
Chronologically, we are considering the infection period of the plot to last 2-3 days.

Comments

3 – Every Trial Suffered – Infection [Venera / Dreamscape, OTA] – CW: body horror, self injury

[fightforthejoyofit]

He has always been pale - blame Garlean genetics or a childhood spent indoors or an adulthood shrouded in monstrous plate, all are equally valid - and so when his skin starts to turn white, he does not notice. It is a very small thing, next to the monstrous wrongness of Venera as a whole. One voice, in a crowd of many.

When a section of hair near the front does likewise the similarity (even passing) between himself and Solus rankles, when, mere hours later, that spreads, the entire once-gold curtain bleached to pale bone, he smashes the first mirrored-surface he catches his reflection in, seeing Varis there instead.

When the first papillae erupt, sending rivulets of watery blood across that too-white skin – along his forearms (almost a parody of bracers, downy crimson-stained fluff where there should be rigid plates), at his neck (mockingly circling that scar that wasn't there, but should have been, when he had His Own Body and not this Construct) - he tears them out. Individually, at first, then by the handful when they replace themselves too quickly for that. They itch. Always, they itch. A maddening distraction.

It is the sitting here, he decides. He has done a passable job, playing at Scholar, but it's not who he is (it could have been, once, but that was another life, wasn't it?). He needs to walk, to clear his head, before he can resume the chase. It does not matter where he walks, as long as it's Away. If he can find something to kill, so much the better.

Perhaps that's why he brings the shard of mirror with him.

For whatever reason, though, when he notices he's got it clasped in his hand still, Away becomes Here, in the Imperial Palace, the ceilings so high they might as well be the white expanse visible through the skylights, the walls and floor a sterile grey save for the flourishes of gold which surround each doorway (and at the top of each arch, the Garlean chain) or spill across the ground. Even the Boy's private chamber has the same severe sterility, save for the books and scrolls that now litter it. In the centre of these discarded tomes – the eye of the storm, as it were – sits the Boy himself. Not yet the giant he will become, but tall for his age – a good height for a full-grown hyur, even. The same spun-gold hair . The same weariness.

- no. Not quite the same weariness. This is not Tedium, but a bone-deep ache. His clothes hide most of the marks, but there's mottled purple-and-yellow visible where the fabric ends (outside this room he would likely think to cover that too, but here, as far as he knows, he is alone).

The Boy sits, and regards the shard of crystal laying in his palm. He knows what he must do, to sate the curiosity that's hounded him this past month.

He also knows the irreparable aetheryic damage he might do himself, regardless of whether the theory is wrong or right.

He inhales, flexes his fingers, and begins to drive the point of the shard down into the meat of his palm and where the Boy's flesh yielded, the Man's does not, a spiderweb of thin cracks splitting the too-white, too-hard surface.

[galdorleod]

Howl's infection had been severe. While he had not turned completely to stone, his body was starting to stiffen just as he was cured. The ordeal was followed by several hours of shaken and harrowed reflection, and then a newfound resolve: to heal anyone and everyone he could find, human or Aion, Kenoma or Pleroma. He'd infected far too many people himself while in the throes of the disease. If there are people he can save, he must save them, or else their fates will weight too heavily on his conscience.

The young wizard stops the towering man, coated almost entirely in white, in the darkness across the street. That height reminds him of a certain other someone, but he's already cured that person, and left him alone to stew angrily over the things Howl was forced to say to him to impart the cure. So it seems like mere concidence at first — but as Howl steps across the cobblestones to approach the enormous man, he spots an unmistakable circular mark on his forehead, and just as the city around him starts to change, he realizes that the combined resemblance to Emet-Selch cannot be a coincidence.

He's prepared to be drawn into another daydream, another memory projected by the victim's mind, and again his suspicions are confirmed. Against all odds, Howl actually recognizes this place. It's the same decor as the throne room and bed chambers Howl saw in Emet-Selch's reverie. His heeled boots clack against the polished floor as he turns to gaze around the opulent room. No — perhaps this is the same room, one of the two he saw before, although it is hard to say for sure.

The implications are obvious, and Howl feels a pang of jealousy not unlike the jealousy he feels towards anyone else lucky enough to have other people here from their dead worlds. But that will have to wait. He's already got a mountain of questions for Emet-Selch when the time comes to ask them, what's another added to the pile.

Turning to the bleached figure sitting in the middle of the room, Howl takes a few uneasy steps towards him, trying to stay prepared for anything.

"What are you doing?" he asks gently. No use introducing himself or asking for the other's name, not in the middle of a memory.

[fightforthejoyofit]

It is not the same bedroom - that had belonged to the heir-apparent, while this room's occupant is one step further down than that - but it's similar enough. Smaller, with fewer tapestries, and none of the ornate corner-carvings, but the same colour scheme, the same canopied bed. There's a distinct resemblance, too, between the two occupants, though the dead man's blindly-staring eyes had been the same gold as Emet-Selch's own; the boy's are pale blue, and snap towards the interloper with a brief flare of panic that morphs swiftly into the kind of indignance natural to those born rich and powerful. That he's directing that indignance at Howl suggests whatever place he's given him within the dream, it's definitely not an equal.

"I did not call for you." It's a protest, yes, but with emotions bleeding all over the place Howl might be able to sense that it's also reassuring himself that he had not cried out, as the shard pierced flesh. Speaking of said shard, it's quickly concealed, the boy's arms crossed defensively over his chest as he turns and rises to his feet, the wounded hand the one pressed closest to him, hidden from view.

[galdorleod]

"Yes, you did," Howl answers calmly, although his hands flex into fists at his sides for a moment before relaxing again. It's a bit risky to push back against the daydreamer this early, but Howl is making a wager by doing so. He knows what he needs to do here — upset him, shake him out of that overwhelming apathy — but it's going to be far more tricky in the case of a complete stranger. What he needs first and foremost is information, about this man and this boy and this room and that glint in his hands that he so quickly moved to hide.

"What do you have there?" Howl asks. May as well start with that. There has to be something significant about this memory.

[fightforthejoyofit]

"I did not." he asserts, though there is... not an uncertainty, but a growing curiosity beginning to swell beneath the surface. Staff (for that is what he has assumed this newcomer must be, though there is something of The Galvus Look about Howl, isn't there?) do not answer back. Staff barely think, but trundle on their invisible rails like exquisitely-crafted mammets.

Perhaps Varis has noticed (or read, rather, for his visits have always been infrequent and fleeting; it has been six weeks since the last, and Zenos does not expect another for at least a moon, more likely several) how much the Blessed Gift Of Adversity has meant to his son, and decided to offer the Boy more of the same? A faint and foolish hope, certainly, and one he will chastise himself later for indulging in, and yet. Either way, Emperor help him, the challenge is Invigorating, isn't it? Both to the child-he-is (was?) within this dream and to the man-he-will-become (is?) struggling against Innocence outside it. And so, as risky as telling anyone what he's planning is - especially now, when the plan is so close to fruition - not knowing how Howl will react is too exciting a prospect to entirely pass up.

This opening strike is clumsy, he knows, but necessary to test the man's reaction, he sets his chin defiantly, though his arms remain crossed. "A crystal. The kind the savages use to summon their wretched Eikons." A beat. "You're new. From which Province do you hail?"

[galdorleod]

The man he'd spied on the street was enormous, so perhaps it's to be expected that this younger version of him is almost as tall as Howl is, despite appearing to be a teenager. Howl is lucky for that, because... well, attempting to agitate someone who towered over him would probably be a lot more difficult. But even so, Howl eyes the boy with caution as takes a few more steps towards him, not knowing what to expect or what dangers might arise at any moment.

"Ingary," Howl answers flatly, giving the name of his real home back in his world. He continues talking, making everything up as he goes, not caring if any of it fits with this memory as long as it gives him more insight into this man. "A savage's crystal, you say? Are you sure you're allowed to have such a thing?"

Not that Howl knows whatever it is he's talking about, but if the boy is trying to hide it, he'd guess the answer is no.

[fightforthejoyofit]

Ingary. Not a name he recognises, which is odd - while his interest has waned as his apathy has grown, he is still expected to know the Empire he may, one day, inherit - but perhaps this unusually defiant servant is using a local dialect? Or lying. That's always a possibility. It is not unheard of (in fact, it is a common practice) for the Imperial Household to seek to secure its foreign vassals' loyalty by threatening their homes and families.

It's what Howl says next that's more interesting, though; Zenos is not used to being questioned - outside of Family there is, in fact, only one other person who he can recall telling him No, and it's the one he's supposed to be gearing up to face right now. So he stands that bit straighter, eking every inch he can out of a frame normally at least slightly slouched, and his tone shifts to something that bit colder (a harsh, derisive note Howl might well recognise as Emet-Selch's, or a passable fourteen-year-old's attempt at it, anyway).

"I invite you to consider where you are standing, and ask me that again." The implication being, of course, that as Prince of Garlemald he should and can have whatever he so chooses (though as Howl's noted, the fact he's conducting his experiment here, and not somewhere more public, suggests it's a little more complicated than that). "Or better yet, go do whatever it is you were brought here from 'Ingary' to do. Your presence is not required."

The scene ripples slightly, at the corners, as if preparing to change, though it does not yet melt into some other place and time.

[galdorleod]

"I'm sorry to inform you," Howl begins, his throat tightening with anxiety while he manages to it from showing on his face, "that you are very much in need of me here, boy."

That final word is spoken quite deliberately — putting aside the authoritative tone that the boy takes with him, if one assumes he's related to Emet-Selch, then he is most likely royalty. And in Howl's own experience with the royals of Ingary, he won't take kindly to being addressed so patronizingly.

So he is fully prepared as the room ripples in the corner of his eye. Something is happening. The surface of his skin starts to tingle as he calls upon the magic in his body, preparing for the need to react immediately.

Howl holds out a hand, palm up. His nails are already lengthening and turning black, but that is the only sign of any magic so far.

"Give it to me."

[fightforthejoyofit]

This is not what happened that day. That the memory itself is rejecting the concept, trying to push forwards to somewhere, somewhen else is proof enough that on some level Zenos knows this isn't Right. The corners pulse again, desperate for the scene to fade out and reform.

And yet this horribly audacious man is Right Here, and needs to be Dealt With, and so it does not move yet. The Boy's expression slides from imperious towards actually hateful, his tone sharpening from to a more juvenile indignance - "How dare y-"

- and then he stops, abruptly, and that hatefulness shifts towards something more like panic. Because while the lengthening, blackening nails are subtle, they're also very obviously magic, and that means Howl is very definitely not an ally and Dictator damn him, he should have seen this coming. He's always known that there are those who want his family dead - it rather comes with the whole Glorious Conquest territory, after all - but none have been brazen enough to attack here, in the heart of the motherland, in the actual Palace.

Give it to me Howl commands, and the panic sharpens further.

Well. This is not what happened that day, but it's what's happening now; not the experiment he'd intended, but desperate times and all that. The Boy shakes his head, and in a swift and decisive movement unfolds his arms and with his left hand slams the crystal into the palm of his right, driving it into the meat at the base of his thumb, sharp point angled through that towards his wrist. It likely looks quite Badass... for the second or two it takes his body to register what he's done, because while the adult him would likely not have flinched, in the dream he is still a child, and it's with a child's half-gasp-half-cry of pain that he reels as everything catches up, falling to his knees, colour draining from an already-pale face. If there's anything bleeding out along the empathic connection right now, it's pain.

[galdorleod]

This seems to be it, Howl thinks to himself, as he witnesses the boy's increasingly emotional reaction to this intruder in his memory. The wizard knows that agitation, anger, frustration, are the keys to exorcising the Innocence from those Aions it's still clinging too — however much of those feelings are required to make motive return to them, and hopefully no more.

(But as he learned earlier today with Emet-Selch, that's a very difficult needle to thread.)

At any rate, he won't abandon this stranger, stranger that he is. Howl could certainly be faced with a more burdensome task than upsetting a royal brat. A brat belonging to someone he's a bit annoyed with himself right now.

The jab of the crystal into his hand, and the acute pain that reverberates from it, makes Howl wince. And it's... quite concerning, all things considered. Is this a memory of self-harm...? But, it doesn't change what must be done; this pain is nothing compared to what he's experienced in the past, and Howl knows it isn't real anyway. Gritting his teeth, he takes the last step forward and reaches out with his clawed hands to snatch the boy's wrist. As he's moving, feathers burst out of the skin of his hands and arms, forming the start of a thick, protective coat. He intends to stop him from hurting himself further, and maybe retrieve the sharp object from his hand, and maybe that will be enough to imbue him with a sufficient cure.

[fightforthejoyofit]

It hurts so much more than he expected (so much more than it, in fact, did, because that had been careful and pre-meditated and not... this), and for a few moments the world narrows down to just the throbbing pain in his palm and the rising nausea twisting his gut, so as the feathered hand reaches for his wrist it is an animal intelligence only that responds, throwing his arm wide in what would be a vicious backhand if it connected with anything.

Which it doesn't. Not physically. But the shard sings - a single, sharp note - and there is a rush of raw aether. Unfocused, lacking the precision and ferocity the Man has since learnt to bring to bear and with none of the finesse of Emet-Selch's spellwork, but a wall of force none the less, slamming into Howl with the intent to drive him backwards.

[galdorleod]

Howl jerks his body backward, anticipating that the boy would lash out to avoid the wizard's grip. The clumsy surge of magic force that accompanies the blow is also not beyond Howl's expectations, and he's already steeled himself for that possibility. What is not expected is the sheer amount of force behind it — and whether that power is a result of the boy's own abilities or is exacerbated and enlarged by the context of his own memory, it is powerful all the same.

Howl grits his teeth and turns his face away as he takes the brunt of the outburst. Possessing the power and experience that he does in combat by magic, it does not throw him backwards, or even throw him off his feet. But it's enough for Howl to involuntarily stumble backwards and abandon his attempt at grabbing the boy, too preoccupied with enduring and defending against the force to grab him through it.

This reaction just about confirms Howl's suspicions, though. The 'savage's crystal' is not something he is supposed to have; otherwise, there would be no need to defend it so ardently. And it's the opportunity Howl needed. They don't have to fight to shake the stranger from this infection-induced daydream. Howl only needs to invigorate his will to act.

"Oh my. Now you've really done it, haven't you?" Howl laughs through a gritted grin, turning his icy blue eyes back on the boy. His arms lower slightly from the defensive position he'd instinctively taken, but the thick black feathers do not stop growing. "Are you sure you don't want to give it to me, before your situation gets worse?"

[fightforthejoyofit]

It takes a couple of seconds for anything Howl's saying to register; that the experiment worked - and moreover that he has a hand left at the end of it - seems to come as considerably more of a surprise to the Boy than to the experienced battlemage, so there is a stunned silence at first and then a delighted, relieved crow of laughter, a rush of exhilarated joy flooding the link between them. But there is no time to rest upon his laurels just yet, not while this... whatever Howl is (a beastman, maybe? Definitely a savage of some description) remains standing. It is not specifically defending the crystal which concerns him; as far as he is concerned, right now he's defending his life.

So he scrambles to his feet, left hand shielding the right against him (at least in part to reassure himself that yes, it really is still there).

"It is not my situation which should concern you; the guards will have heard that. No doubt they are en route as we speak." (though if that were true, then they should already be here; has this would-be assassin perhaps already dispatched them?) "Whether death comes at my hands or theirs, you will not leave here."