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| !!__Akizet__!! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Akizet's Collective signature | |
| ::FULL NAME:: | Akizetesche Qou Jokzi |
| ::SPECIES:: | Obesk |
| ::ETHNICITY:: | Vaznian |
| ::PRONOUNS:: | She/her |
| ::CASTE:: | Vel Qou |
| ::OCCUPATION:: | Call Research |
Akizetesche Qou Jokzi, also known as Akizet and colloquially as Aki,[1] is a vel qou obesk who worked in the Call Research Initiative in the Embassy.
Her personal corrucyst is the central point of interest in corru.observer. Throughout the course of the game, her damaged, archived memories are slowly repaired, uncovering the mystery behind her disappearance and the near-total withdrawal of the Obesk from Earth.
She has a sister named Rouzesche. She is heavily implied to have been very close friends with Cavik, who cares deeply for her, since they were both larval.
Appearance
Akizet's Collective signature portrays her receptors as curling in front of where her eyes would be, while her eyes are in front of them. She wears a dress with a coiling symbol of Oltazni winding down the front, with spiralling ornaments on either side of the collar.
Personality
Akizet, despite an outward appearance of calmness and competence, is a reckless, superstitious, ambitious person. She holds humoristic beliefs, despite them being antiquated, and has beliefs relating to Velzie's presence that she takes seriously, even being repulsed by Miltza's spiteful depiction of Velzie's eye.
She is willing to cast aside concerns of safety to satisfy her own curiosity, even violating predetermined obesk rules to launch a personal investigation into the Call alongside Gordon and his associates. She encounters some difficulty handling social interaction, especially regarding sensitive subjects, as she often says things wrong or gives unconscious signals to unintentionally indicate her true intentions to interlocutors.
She is highly playful, even playing a trick on Isabel and frightening her, then being pleased afterwards.
She is a competent leader, able to function well even under pressure and build morale within her team, as long as she has a plan. If her plan is broken, however, she quickly loses hope.
Combat
Akizet has 15 max HP and cannot be removed from the party menu. Her attacks are primarily offensive, with high damage and reliable debuff application. With her augment, her kit becomes centred around the Puncture status, and is able to deal massive damage with sufficient careful preparation, though she loses her ability to stun foes.
Primary
80%
20%
Stunskip turn, 
WindupSecondary
100%
10%
Puncture-10% hp/turn (min:1), 
RegenSupport
auto
Focused+100% HIT%, +400% CRIT%, 
Weakened, 
Fear
Evasion-75% IN:HIT% & IN:CRIT%, 
VulnerableAugments
Surface Runner Claws (Cost 2)
Primary
80%
Puncture-10% hp/turn (min:1), RegenSecondary
70%
10%
Puncture-10% hp/turn (min:1), RegenStory
Pre-ascension
Akizet's earliest remaining memories are from her time as a surface runner on Obeski, where she established diplomatic relations with other cave-cities by sharing novel knowledge and technology of the burgeoning corrucystic revolution. Her home city of Oltazni was one of the earliest to see the widespread adoption of corrucystic technologies.
Through the course of her work, she became an adept melee fighter, and grew to rely on and admire the corrucystic tools and gadgets that would assist her. In one memory, she is introduced to the mindcore by a larval relation (possibly Cavik), and is enthralled by the concept of combat in a body made of corru.
It is implied that at this time, Akizet's personality better reflected the current personality of Cavik, and vice versa.
The Funny Little Room
Akizet is first introduced to humans through the interview in The Funny Little Room. During this interview, she introduces herself, the reason her kind came to Earth, and answers some general questions about corrucystic technology. She struggles to answer specific questions about corru due to not having the expertise of an engineer.
Recollection: Discovery & Suspicion
One significant gaze in Akizet's death begins with her awakening from her rejuvenation chamber. Feeling refreshed, she leaves her room to gather her team to begin a focused meeting, having arranged for the Timestopper to be used. In the Recreation room, she finds Kazki and Bozko conversing in front of a Window. After friendly conversation, Akizet informs and makes sure they are ready for the focus and moves on to the Timestopper Room, where the rest of the team is waiting. Once ready, Akizet begins the meeting by having everyone connect to the Timestopper. Near the end of the meeting, they discuss the spike observed in the Call. Tozik theorizes that the Call may be raw thought that is broadcasted, which spreads dread throughout the shared connection in the Timestopper, though Akizet is unsure who it is from. Akizet ends the meeting shortly after this discovery and returns to her chambers.
The next gaze, Akizet awakens from her rejuvenation chamber as usual. However, she notices an unfamiliar cyst delivered to her desk. After connecting to it, it bears an anonymous echo that urgently and concernedly warns Akizet to not tell anyone about the discovery. It reveals there were members of two certain groups in the Call Research initiative that already knew what the Call truly is, and that they would kill to maintain the secret. The cyst subsequently self-destructs, much to Akizet's frustration. She decides to investigate by questioning each of her team mates if they delivered a cyst to her chambers. After getting no fruitful answers, Akizet assesses the reactions and arranges for a meeting with Gordon.
City Surface & The Room High Up
Gordon accompanies Akizet as an envoy. Together, they walk through an unidentifiable street on Earth and visit a flower shop, a coffee shop, and finally, the FBX bureau. Akizet also talks to several streetwalkers, an FBX employee, and views broadcasts on a TV in the coffee shop.
In the FBX Building, the two go up an elevator to a conference room and discuss the Call Research Initiative's alarming discovery. After the meeting ends, the two descend back to the ground floor. Akizet brings up the Storm, a shelved experimental electric-corru interface, last minute, promising to give him the technology if he and his team keeps quiet and assists her with the investigation of the call. Gordon does not accept the offer immediately, having to confirm with his superiors to keep the development confidential. Akizet is inappropriately giddy and agrees to keep in touch regarding the deal.
Between this meeting and the Collapse, Akizet works with the humans to track the call's origin point, deliberately leaving the rest of the Call Research initiative out of these meetings. She becomes detached from the initiative, like Gakvu. The humans and Akizet ultimately succeed, but Akizet tells them not to investigate until her preparations are complete.
Recollection: Collapse
Akizet is with Tozik and Gakvu. While they are analyzing their recordings of the Call through the help of the Timestopper to look for any other spikes in the Call, a strange and painful signal interrupts their work. Akizet utilizes her surface veteran experience and uses the Timestopper's remote capabilities to lead the team in defeating an aggressive attendant golem. The three take shelter in the Relocation room. After inspecting a dying Movefriend, Tozik believes it can be fixed if they are able to find sufficient materials. Through the help of Gakvu's illegal groundsmindry, they are able to navigate to Personnel and Recreation. The trio rescue Miltza in Personnel and Itzil and Karik's mindcores in Recreation.
After Tozik completes his repairs, Movefriend activates for a moment but is then seized by the groundsmind. Akizet, Tozik, and Miltza weaken the aggressive Movefriend while Gakvu removes the groundsmind's connection to it.
Once Movefriend is active again, Akizet and the team conclude that they must seize the groundsmind, and traverse to Golem Maintenance to arm themselves and search for Itzil's kivii, who Itzil is desperate to locate.
Optionally, within the memory, they can go back into the Timestopper room, where they can encounter a collapsed archival vein containing BSTRD's section of the collapse. This section, upon completion, contains a weapon schematic which provides instructions on how to create and use a gun.
Golem Maintenance
The team descend to Golem Maintenance and encounter a second signal followed by reanimated qou-bodies that move without apparent internal control. Thoroughly shaken by the experience, she and the team nonetheless presses on through the personnel tendril to the lobby, which she clears. Itzil encounters and awakens Geli who, despite her naiveté, serves the team well by securing the lobby, maintaining the segment's cohesion and informing the team about the area. The advanced operations chamber cannot be opened, and an impressor for Tozik to make more timestopper connectors therefore cannot be retrieved from within, so the team makes it their mission to arm themselves and prepare to enter.
The manufacturing, sfer supply and minor operations tendrils are explored in no clear order, but all before entering the advanced operations room.
Within manufacturing, Akizet locates lesser vats, which are used to arm the team with small weapons and abilities, including an attack drone for Miltza, and the greater vats, which cannot immediately be used. The door to the distribution chamber is sludged, but Karik instructs explosives to open it. Within, a weak Dozkallvi can be found, who tears her mindcore out of her body and crushes it, traumatizing Itzil. After her corpse is struck down, Gakvu can get the advanced operations door into a usable state, and grant better cohesion to the spire, if only a little. Golem parts are also found within.
Sfer supply contains a tiny construct in the shape of a dog. In the room at the far end is a glazika making use of dull microconnectors to summon containers. Destroying it lessens the noise suffusing the spire sufficiently to enable communications. Akizet is unable to contact anyone, other than Cavik or Bozko if they have not yet been found, or Gordon. Gordon reveals that a member of his team recklessly sent a probe to the source of the Call without his knowledge, which may have caused the Collapse-starting signal. Akizet is overcome with guilt, but finds the strength to continue onwards thanks to Funfriend's programmed direction, as continuing is the only way to fix the mess she made. Also within the chamber is golem-grade sfer.
Minor operations is relatively uninteresting, until Cavik drops from a higher floor, having been fending off enemies with improvised explosives and Bozko's fighting ability. Cavik is about to be impaled by an archival golem, and it is too late for Akizet and her team to make a move, so she sends a final message to Cavik, tying all the loose ends that have been left in their closely-entwined lives. Bozko smashes the golem, and the two greet Akizet and her team. Akizet is highly embarrassed that the message was sent and a now-living Cavik heard it. At the very end of the tendril is a translation core that interprets the signal into something audible, piercing and dangerous. If the team does not run away, they hallucinate their worst fears as they fight to disable the core. Defeating the core, while unnecessary, gives Gakvu access to a deadly cyst containing an interpretation of the signal, which she can weaponize.
The team gather in the greater vats to construct a powerful golem for Itzil and Karik using the golem parts and golem-grade sfer. They are then prepared to enter the Advanced Operations tendril and there they successfully slay the golem. Itzil awakens only to exact blind revenge on the golem. Tozik uses the impressor to create timestopper connectors for the whole team, and the team arms themselves with the lesser vats. They are ready to proceed, and they leave Geli to die to a losing battle to maintain the segment's cohesion and delay the collapse.
Pale Halls
The team enter the pale halls of the groundsmindry floor with a plan: split up, work around, slay threats, retake the core. However, when they enter they notice that it is strangely quiet. A few teams split up and work around, finding the same. Gakvu lingers near a window, hearing a strange joyous song emanating from it, that she calls an okidoia as reference to her larval life. Cavik realizes that a dull ceremony - a ritual to open a dull contrivance - is underway, with the core as its catalyst. The reason for the pressure building in the lower floors is so that the dense corroyi and spireblood can be consumed to open the contrivance. The team conclude that whatever is causing the contrivance to open means them harm.
The team enter the Lesser Mind, and Tozik connects to a terminal, which causes the okidoia to take notice, latch within Tozik's mind and enter a defensive stance against the team. The overlap with the dull plane consumes the team, and they fight through strange distortions of the chamber full of mobile, intelligent specters, eventually returning it to nearly its original form. Tozik reawakens, horribly ill and rippling with membrane failure, while Vekoa stands before the door to the core, trying and failing to communicate her intentions to the team. She provides memories to them, one belonging to Bozko or a friend of his, and another belonging to Dozkallvi. The latter enrages Itzil, who charges forward in the golem, which effortlessly is split in half by Vekoa, while Itzil joins the okidoia. The remainder of the team are swept away towards the dull mind.
Akizet, despairing at the loss of the golem, the lapse in timestopper connection, and the lack of any option of what to do next, takes this as as good a time as any to admit all the secrets she was keeping from the team. She states the contents of the anonymous warning cyst, her involvement in deals with the humans, and what Gordon revealed to her. Gakvu recognizes this conflict as the one she is part of as an antimeteorite saboteur, and outlines the nature of the conflict: it was always known that the meteorite is the source of the Call, and it is a huge mass of living corru at the bottom of the ocean, containing organ-structures at all, the sheer scale of which is "truly chilling". A group of leaders concluded that the meteorite should be supported and returned to health, such that it will render the obesk part of something far greater, "forever advancing beyond death". This prometeorite side of the conflict is larger, and includes Miltza. The antimeteorite side, of which Gakvu is part, believes the prometeorite sentiment to be, for lack of a better word, delusional. It is sheer scale and strength of conviction that has kept the conflict going for so long.
Tozik draws Akizet out of her spiral of despair to realize that Vekoa is not pursuing the team. Cavik then realizes that they are within the radius of a silencing spire, and once they leave the timestopper will regain functionality. Furthermore, they require active maintenance, so there are likely other survivors. Also, the collapse within the Dull Mind at the end of the hall was faked. The team resolve to enter together.
On entering, the team discover that Idril is camping there, observing the contrivance's formation with dullima pods. She explains that she had a team who had assembled on the groundsmindry floor, but most had perished, so only she and Telyu remain. That team's plan was to construct silencing spires throughout the groundsmindry floor to prevent dull instruction, but they had been too slow, so Idril had resigned herself to watching dreamily. She explains that dull contrivances require a lot of resources, and these are being pulled from the archival system, golems, organs, qou and furniture. She and Akizet's team devise a plan to halt the contrivance: place disguised bombs in the Archival Spine, Groundsmindry Heart and Lesser Mind, then detonate them remotely to halt the flow of resources; then let an interim groundsmind repurpose the timestopper to hold up the spine as a "loud, angry and distant vertebra". Tozik immediately proceeds to describe the plan as "insane".
Tozik's illness is reported by Idril to be "contact affliction", contracted from connecting to a lesser mind terminal. The infection is described as terminal, but only because they were killed once they started "speaking madness". Tozik is willing to keep fighting despite his affliction, if only because he will be dead either way. Meanwhile Miltza consoles Karik for their inability to take care of Itzil, Bozko begins to lose himself to rage, and Cavik and Idril work together to construct bombs.
The team move along to the Archival Spine, where they encounter Malvi, the archivist. Malvi appears horribly distorted, and they try to reason with the team then watch from above as golems and glazikas attack. They show desperation as their body is animated, seemingly against their will. When they are struck down, they are torn from their body, leaving a barely-recognizable mangled corpse and an otherwise-empty archival spine root. A door opens to let in disguised Telyu, who is initially suspicious of the team and dismissive of their plans, but then gains confidence when Karik enters. Karik recounts the team's victories and losses to Telyu; Tozik discovers that his affliction is granting him insight into the workings of the dull plane; and Gakvu and Idril plant the bomb.
Idril returns to the Dull Mind, Telyu and Karik agree to sneak ahead and destroy the windows to the core chamber in case they bear eyes, while the rest of the team continue towards the Groundsmindry Heart with timestopper connectors. They end up in a clearing full of distorted, dead containers, in which the okidoia was waiting for them, as Tozik tells. They fend off the apparitions in a chamber that throws them around, before they are separated by something that splits the chamber in two. Only Tozik recognizes this as one of the ceremony's limbs, and Cavik plants a makeshift bomb to destroy it.
The heart is entered, but it is barely recognizable, reality is so sparse. Bozko leaves with Karik to guard the way, while Telyu requests that Akizet help her with a particularly difficult vein. There Telyu reveals that Karik recounted Akizet's admission. She remains suspicious, but acknowledges that the team is beyond suspicion at this point. Akizet is worried that Telyu would intentionally cause the vein to detonate in her face, but she is safe. When she turns around to scold Telyu, she is gone.
In the heart, Tozik operates on his qou-body and reluctantly recounts the details of his affliction to Akizet, Gakvu and Miltza. When he connected to the lesser mind terminal, he witnessed a vision. He was in a place that might have been the dull plane, but the bright obscuring light was gone, replaced with a sight that "went on forever", with "such color, infinite webs of connections in shapes that are lost to [him] now". In front of him was a "presence", that he describes as "perhaps [...] the space itself", and "as if the eye of velzie itself were in claw's reach". It looked inwards, "into itself, into [him]", and reached for him, pulling him deeper and deeper into the vision. He tore away the connector, but the thing could still reach him, and its claws found purchase within his mind, where it continues to pull at him, altering him slowly. A mindcore renewal would not help Tozik, as whatever grasps at him now truly knows him. Akizet is struck by Tozik's terror and hopelessness, and how much he cares for the team, especially considering his apparent emotionlessness in former conversations pre-collapse.
The rest of the team returns and they set the bomb. They botch the execution, however, and they have to run out of the room as quickly as possible before the chamber collapses on itself. They are split apart, and Tozik, Miltza and Gakvu retreat into the hall towards the spinal root, while Gakvu, Bozko, Akizet, Idril and Karik go towards the entrance. The detonator is lost, but Akizet resolves not to blame Idril. She instructs the team to manually detonate it. Specters appear in the hallways, and Akizet leaves Bozko and Gakvu to fend off the creatures on her end while lending her expertise to Cavik, Miltza and Tozik, the latter of whose sickly insight grants them guidance through the dull.
The three enter the spinal root, and begin to fix the bomb, though Tozik is incredibly weak. Vekoa enters, but Miltza resolves to attempt to reason with her, tearing off her timestopper connector. Vekoa obliges, assimilating Miltza into the okidoia. Tozik pushes Cavik away from the bomb to ensure that only Tozik will die upon its activation, then raises the spinal tether, leaving Cavik alone with Miltza. Akizet directs Cavik to plant bombs to defeat Miltza, then Telyu joins the timestopper connection and helps by dropping large objects, while Cavik directs Miltza to stand under them. Miltza is overcome by a regretful Cavik, and the three flee into the Dull Mind while the spinal root explodes. Meanwhile a barely-intact Gakvu, with Bozko, Idril and Karik, return around to the Lesser Mind through the entrance hall.
Within the Lesser mind, they find Itzil and Dozka, reunited and part of the okidoia, alongside the reanimated golem. They attack, with the okidoia-inhabitants gleeful and joyous. When the golem is destroyed, the two collapse the room around the team into the dull, but this is undone by Akizet's team brutally tearing the two apart. Vekoa enters the room, enraged, but the bomb is set off just in time and she is forced to retreat into the Groundsmindry Core chamber.
This has not entirely stopped the ceremony, and Tozik says Vekoa is attempting to form a smaller contrivance within the core chamber. He fashions a dull-pulse weapon for Cavik out of the golem's limb, while Akizet, Bozko, Cavik and Gakvu prepare to enter the core chamber.
Upon entering, their goal is to destroy ceremony limbs. When a few have been destroyed, Vekoa emerges from the core and attacks Akizet, but is held off by Telyu, who, alongside Karik, fights without a timestopper. Akizet faces Vekoa alone within the ceremony core, while the others destroy the tendrils alongside a horrifyingly distorted Tozik. Just when Vekoa is about to strike down Akizet, the last limb breaks and the ceremony halts.
It is too late, however, to seize the core, so the team moves to escape via Movefriend. Tozik stays behind, the affliction still affecting him to some extent, and saves the obesk still within the spire while also sharing the details of the conflict. Bozko tries to stay with him, but relents. Tozik is left to die while the others shelter in Movefriend and tumble out of the spire.
Mindspike Log