Veovis
| Race | D'ni |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Died | 9400 DE |
| Father | Rakeri (lord) |
Veovis (vEovis[contested]) was the son of Lord Rakeri, and thus an influential member of D'ni society in his own right. A young but prominent member of the Guild of Writers and D'ni's Guild Council, Veovis was a writer of exceptional ability. One of his works, Ader Jamat, was the last Age to be inducted into the Canon of the Guild of Writers before the fall of D'ni.
Early life[edit | edit source]
As a child in school, Veovis had an adversarial relationship with Aitrus, who went on to join the Guild of Surveyors. When he learned that his former schoolmate was working on the expedition digging to Earth's surface, he sent Aitrus a set of expensive geological surveying tools as a way of apologizing for his past behavior. A few months later, when Aitrus's crew was completing work on the Great Shaft, Veovis joined the delegates and dignitaries from D'ni at the celebration and capping ceremony, even though he personally felt that the surface-dwellers—humans—were barbaric, and should not be contacted. Following the ceremony, an earthquake struck the shaft as Veovis was traveling down it in a service elevator. He was rescued by Aitrus just before the elevator fell, and the two became close friends in the wake of the experience.
Career[edit | edit source]
Veovis became a member of the Guild Council, representing the Guild of Writers. During his time on the Council, a woman named Anna arrived in D'ni, having navigated down from the surface using the tunnels dug by Aitrus's team decades earlier. He begrudgingly accepted the interest in her that Aitrus took, but felt that she was a dangerous outside influence. His relationship with Aitrus became increasingly strained the closer his friend got to her. Veovis's disapproval only grew when he learned that Aitrus was teaching Anna the Art.
When Aitrus went before the Council to request approval to marry Anna—an act that was little more than a traditional formality—Veovis officially disapproved, effectively blocking the marriage. Undeterred, Aitrus reminded Veovis of the debt he owed since Aitrus rescued him from the elevator in the Great Shaft. Bound by his word to honor that debt, Veovis reversed his vote, but broke off his friendship with Aitrus from then on. Suahrnir, one of Veovis's friends in the Guild of Maintainers, suggested that Veovis might find common cause in opposing Anna's place in D'ni society with an outcast named A'gaeris.
At first, Veovis refused to talk to A'gaeris because of the man's criminal history. But when Aitrus and others on the Council introduced a proposal to increase the lower classes' representation within the D'ni government—a proposal that many felt wouldn't have been written without Anna's influence—Veovis finally consented to a meeting.
Downfall[edit | edit source]
A'gaeris held a deep grudge against the Guild Council, who he felt had wrongfully convicted him of fraud and theft over 50 years earlier. He saw his new friendship with Veovis as a means of exacting revenge, and played the young lord against his former colleague, Aitrus. He orchestrated a plot to frame Veovis for trading in illicit Ages, as well as for the murder of two apprentice guildsmen from the Guild of Maintainers. Never knowing of A'gaeris's part in the plot, Veovis was convicted of the crimes, stripped of his rank privileges, and sentenced to life in a prison Age.
Rebellion[edit | edit source]
Five years later, A'gaeris and Suahrnir broke Veovis out of his prison and went into hiding on another Age. Together, he and A'gaeris plotted the destruction of the civilization that had wrongfully shamed them both. The three executed a number of terrorist attacks on D'ni. They assaulted several Guild Council members, bombed the Guild of Ink-Makers' Ink-Works, and desecrated one of the Five Great Classics of the Writers' canon. They were finally stopped when Anna discovered their hide-out and lured Veovis back to D'ni.
Although his innocence in the original case had become clear – as had A'gaeris's involvement, Veovis was tried and convicted for the crimes he had committed since his escape. The Council sentenced him to death, but Anna interceded and pled for mercy on his behalf. Moved by her words, the Council instead chose to imprison him on a bespoke prison Age from which he would not be able to escape. The Age would be crafted by multiple Writers to prevent anyone from knowing the full text, and it would be burned immediately after Veovis used it to preclude anyone else from gaining access to it.
Final revolt and death[edit | edit source]
In spite of the secrecy and security which surrounded the creation of Veovis's prison Age, A'Gaeris was able to free Veovis in the moments between when he linked to the Age and when the Book was destroyed. Free once again, Veovis and A'Gaeris concocted another plan to destroy D'ni, and several months later, they succeeded. They released a plague throughout the city, and infected most of the Ages as well, killing nearly everyone in the D'ni empire.
In the aftermath of the destruction, A'gaeris demanded that Veovis write an Age where the two of them could go to rule as gods. Veovis refused, feeling that this was a violation of the very founding principles of the Art, and a fight between the two men ensued. A'gaeris stabbed his former companion in the back and left him to die. Veovis lived long enough to direct Aitrus to where A'gaeris had fled, enabling his old friend to defeat him.
