Jycenna Kairos the Vengeance of the Light

Role

Chapter 8

"Your methods attract notice, Maran", declared the bloody god Akresius to a
surprised Jycenna. She wasn't sure what to make of his attention, but came to
understand it to be a good thing. He recognized her deeds and challenged her to
choose a family name, the very thing she had been struggling with. "Titles mean
little without a surname," he insisted. "I cannot give you a surname, Jycenna.
That must come from within yourself."

She thought long on their conversation. One of his comments that stuck with her
was that some ancient language might have a word for "orphan" which would serve.
Although Jycenna was an orphan, and although this was the reason she felt no
kinship to a name which would have been hers by birth, she knew that she was,
that she had become, so much more than that. The idea of searching for a name
in the languages of the ancients did hold an appeal for her, though, and so she
spent time in the Lyceum and other libraries. She read more than she had in her
life. Jycenna had never had much use for book learning, but now it had the
allure of a thing in which she might find herself.

In the writings of an ancient human people, lost to the mists of time and
perhaps only perserved in the depths of the afterlife, she found a concept which
intrigued her. These people understood time as a thing which passes as others
do, but they also had a word for a special kind of moment, kairos. This was a
turning point, a singular instance in which much could change and great things
could be possible if the right action were taken. Jycenna thought of the
kairotic moments in her own life, from the day she first chose to act instead
of looking away. She thought of days she had spent trailing twisted men,
learning their habits and waiting for that one perfect instant in which she
could unmake them with a single strike.

At the right time, anything could be possible. No matter how rigged the system,
how corrupt the watchmen, a chance would always arise for the wrong things to be
unmade. This, Jycenna felt, was her essence. Not the orphan, and not even the
killer's reputation. Precision, opportunity, surprise, and the will to pass
judgement and act without hestiation in that instant.

Role

Chapter 7

In time Jycenna earned quite a reputation for shedding evil blood. It became
harder and harder to truly surprise the wicked, except in the specifics of where
or when she would show up. Sometimes an enemy that she'd been trailing for days
before slitting their throat would protest that she couldn't have been watching
for more than a couple hours, and that did still feel like a moral victory.
Like she was living up to her aspiration to be an unpleasant shock for people
who believed themselves safe in their loathsome, twisted lives.

With all the blood on her hands, it was no surprise to anyone that Jycenna was
recognized as Maran. If anything this only drove her harder because she felt
like now maybe Squires would be inspired by her example and be more relentless
in their war rather than simply playing at it.

As she gets older, she starts to think, at times, of the family she'll never
have. Not that she would have done anything since leaving Udgaard differently
if she could, but she still feels a sense of loss for what might have been. Her
thoughts increasingly turn towards her own family name and legacy. Her mother's
name has no draw to her, for it is of a life she has put behind her. She
briefly considered taking her mentor Kavan's surname, but this doesn't feel
right to her, either. She has asked a few of the Squires for ideas and their
suggestions have been fearsome names like "Darkbane", which do appeal to her in
part. She knows the name she has made for herself in this respect is
considerable. The part of her that is humble and self-doubting still hesitates
to choose such an audacious name, but she can't deny that it has some draw.

Her skill at slitting throats has become exemplary, nearly perfect, and even
Kavan is forced to admit that Jycenna has become the best he's ever seen, maybe
even the best ever to employ such a skill in service of the Light. Should she
feel that the last flaws have been worked out of her technique she may dare to
describe herself in less humble terms than she has been accustomed to use.

Role

Chapter 6

If Jycenna's allies weren't entirely what she expected, her enemies were at
least as self-deceptive and surprising to her.

Some didn't see themselves as wicked or as steeped in innocent blood as she
knew them to be. They protested their innocence and proclaimed her bloodlust
must be great to plague them as she invariably did. They cried out about how
cruelly she treated them.

Others underestimated or misestimated her in any number of ways. Some had very
rigid views of what it meant to feel the calling of a Squire, and proclaimed her
hypocrite or coward for not living up to their idea of what she should be.
They fumed and raged at the occasions when she made deception, misdirection,
or stealth her weapons against them.

Jycenna came to realize that everyone deceives themselves, but that these
twisted souls also meant to deceive her. They wanted to trap her in a
definition of Lightblessedness that served their needs, not hers. They wanted
a Jycenna so meek, passive, and unswerving that she could pose no threat to
them. They wanted a Jycenna so harmless that it could never surprise them or
instill dread.

She had been that willing to keep her head down, follow, and obey once. She
would not be again. These sinners would never be persuaded to cast aside their
illusions, and truly, what would that serve? Whether they were shrewd or
deluded, their acts could never be allowed to continue. It was the knife for
them regardless, and to misunderstand her purpose or strength could only help
Jycenna see that they got it.

Role

Chapter 5

In short order Jycenna pledged her loyalty to the Fortress of Light, and not
long after became a Squire. She set to the business of dispensing her own brand
of retribution upon the wicked with renewed zeal.

The Fortress wasn't what she had expected. Everyone was nice to her, of course.
For the first time in almost her whole life she started to have a feeling of
belonging, of family. But she was surprised at how lackadaisical most of the
Squires and Maran seemed about the grim task that was their duty. Certainly
they were quick to raid a poorly defended Imperial Palace or Night Chasm, but
the task of being a hunter seemed beyond most of them. Even when Jycenna
helpfully would find or track their enemies for them and call out information,
most seemed uninterested in following through. She found herself thinking of
these Squires as children who had lived sheltered lives and who wanted to play
at war, but didn't understand the true nature of evil people or have any sense
of urgency about killing them.

In the end she decided this was all right. Maybe all kinds of people could help
the cause and serve the Light, not only people like her. Maybe it was better
that the Fortress wasn't only full of scarred, traumatized killers. She would
do what they wouldn't, just as they contributed in ways she couldn't.

Role

Chapter 4

Having finished her apprenticeship in the assassin's guild, Jycenna began a
life of adventure. Her purpose was clear, but how or where to begin wasn't.
So she wandered, as easy to overlook as ever, like a ghost watching a wider
world. She did odd jobs and helped others as she could.

As she traveled, she soon learned that her former home of Udgaard, while surely
a terrible place, did not have a monopoly upon human cruelty. Visiting Jaragh's
orphanage in Balator, she encountered a necromancer splattered with the blood of
orphan children taking a nap in Jaragh's own office. To think, that a person
could be so twisted as to slaughter these children, so brazen as to nap nearby
without fear of discovery, and so callous as to sleep well in such conditions?

Her face grim, she shut the office door quietly behind her and drew a blade.
This one deserved her own unique brand of surprise. Only Jycenna, herself now
splattered with the blood of her victim, walked from the room alive.

She begins to wonder if there is some better way to make war upon the most
twisted, beyond simply wandering the world until someone offends her moral
sensibilities enough to warrant an assassin's touch. She resolves to ask her
mentor to teach her more about the Fortress of Light.

Role

Chapter 3

After a series of close calls and misadventures, Jycenna managed to reach the
Voralian City. Although not all of its people were kind or prosperous, she was
surprised to find people willing to care for the orphan girl and provide food
and shelter to strangers in need.

Somehow, in the whole experience, Jycenna found that a line had been crossed
inside herself. Although her instincts still screamed at her to hide, run, or
look away at the smallest hint of danger or scrutiny, she found that she could
not turn a blind eye any longer.

She understood, too, that she was not as worthless or powerless as she had long
been lead to believe. She knew that she had changed the world for the better
by fatally surprising a man who felt secure in his place in corrupt society,
who felt that the shadows of the slums held no threats or challenges for him.

She knew that she could make more of a difference, still, by doing it again.

Having realized this, she apprenticed herself to Kavan Lassion, and bent her
will to becoming a more perfect instrument for this purpose: to shrink from
sight and notice as she always had, but also to decisively strike to cull the
worst of humanity.

She finds in herself, buried deep beneath all her emotional scars, faith that
one person with the willingness to see and act can make the world a better
place. She finds the hope that serendipity is real, that life has good
accidents, and that despite everything, she herself is one.

Skill List

Role

Chapter 2

She could not have said what was different about the day her life changed,
until it did.

Jycenna was well accustomed to her life of degradation and banal sorrows. She
had looked the other way when others suffered for so long that she did so
automatically. She knew the world was without justice or heroes and had
long since adapted accordingly.

A hard-faced well-dressed man walked past the narrow alley where she had been
squatting, dragging a sobbing, struggling young orphan girl behind him. If the
girl was lucky, she was being abducted to be sold into slavery, and Jycenna
knew that she probably wasn't lucky. She had seen this scene play out a
hundred times and ignored it, as the powerless feel they must to survive.

Maybe this particular girl reminded her too much of herself at the same age,
or of things that had happened to her. Maybe it was the look on her face or
the way she cried, as only someone who does not yet realize that the streets
of Udgaard are a harsh place where no help will be coming, on that day or any
other. No paladins, angels, or heroes were there to hear the cries for help.
Maybe it was all, finally, too much to bear, even for hardened Jycenna.

Whether because she had learned to be quiet or because of her ability to blend
in as only a small girl raised in the slums can, she was on the man and
slashing open his throat with a broken bottle before he even noticed she was
there. Shock set in, as much at the realization of how many of her own rules
of survival she had violated and at how much trouble she had made for herself
as at the horror of the violence she had committed.

Now dreading the retribution which would come, either from the man's friends or
Udgaard Loke's men-at-arms, her terror at the unknown world outside the gates
paled compared to her fear of what would befall her if she remained. Dodging
Loke's sentries, Jycenna fled the city, taking the orphan girl with her.

Role

Chapter 1

Jycenna was an accident.

She never knew her father at all. Her mother used to say that he had been an
angel, but her mother also had a tenuous grasp on reality on the best of days,
and there weren't many good days. The idea that her father might be special or
important, or even might just have a good reason for not being around was
something she had clung to, for a while, as a child, for lack of anything else.

Life gradually choked that childish dream from her, along with so many others.

Jycenna's mother died when she was eight years old. The Udgaard winter was
too long and too cold, the charity of people who took pity on a crazy lady and
her daughter too few. One bitterly chill night she fell asleep clinging to her
mother as she always did, but only Jycenna woke up the next morning.

If life with her deranged mother had been hard, life on the streets as an
orphan was harder. She grew up ill-used by ill people, told she was worthless
and shown it was true. She was beaten and bullied, forced to steal and worse
to survive, subject to the whims and capricious desires of anyone with the
strength and cruelty to make use of her.

But she survived, when others did not. She became hardened and streetwise,
struggle and toil honing the fearful, cynical, and grim instincts of a prey
animal, one that endures not by challenging human predators but by appearing
weak, yielding, and of little interest. Guards and other authority figures
she dealt with the same way, for in her world they were predators even more
merciless and corrupt than the pimps and petty thieves.

Immortal Comments

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