Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
at adventu, we believe that colorful story and plots far outweigh the need for a battle system. rp should be about the writing, the fun, and the creativity. you will see that the only system on our site is the encouragement to create amazing adventures with other members. welcome to adventu... how will you arrive?
year 5, quarter 3
Welcome one and all to our beautiful new skin! This marks the visual era of Adventu 4.0, our 4th and by far best design we've had. 3.0 suited our needs for a very long time, but as things are evolving around the site (and all for the better thanks to all of you), it was time for a new, sleek change. The Resource Site celebrity Pharaoh Leep was the amazing mastermind behind this with minor collaborations from your resident moogle. It's one-of-a-kind and suited specifically for Adventu. Click the image for a super easy new skin guide for a visual tour!
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It must be that old evil spirit So deep down in your ground
The change in climate was immediate. The dry sun scorched desert with its dry air was replaced with cool wind and cold wet moistness. The mist swirled around her paws as Ultimecia appeared in the glen. The sunlight struggled to peak through the canopy and the place was covered in the twisiting shadows of the branches and leaves and the things that crawled and slithered through them. The darkness here hummed and pulsed like the beat of a drum as she waited. She'd give him only a few moments before she searched again.
She smiled with satisfaction as she heard the footfall behind her. "So, you've come," she said turning around her arms crossed as she looked over the boy once more. "Give me your name," if there was any bond to be formed she would need the boy's name. Ultimecia began to circle the boy once more thinking the process over. She could tell already that he was to be much less easy to control than Seifer had been. Then again that boy would have fallen over his own feet to serve any Sorceress. If only he hadn't been such a failure. This boy had better not be a failure too.
"Do you feel it?" she asked stopping her pacing and looking out into the forest. Beyond the Mist, deep in the forest's heart there was rot. It fermented the place with its darkness and its power was staggering. She envied it, its power over the place. It consumed her thoughts when she was away from this place. She would find it. She would have it be her own. "We've much work to do," turning her gaze back onto the boy. "But first we've a bond to form."
Ultimecia twirled her talons through the air producing a small orb of darkness that lay in the palm of her hand. "A Knight protects his Sorcerer from both the external world," she began a smirk appearing before her next words, "and her own power." To protect her from the price of magic as it were, her wings, talons, and paws proof enough of the sacrifices made. She reached out her palm to the boy the small orb delicately balanced there. "Take it for you own." She bore into his eyes with her own waiting for his action.
Kuja crossed his arms, choosing to watch the gnarled branches of a tree rather than meet her eye. She was circling him again, eyeing him like a predatory bird. He hummed at her acknowledgement before finally glancing her way. ”Kuja,” he said. ”And might I ask yours?”
It was an odd thing to field introductions only now, but he supposed he hadn’t been worth a name before. Now her talons were sharpened. Now he had come willingly into her grasp.
”Do you feel it?” The woman stopped and looked out into the Mist. Kuja wanted to laugh. Of course he felt it. He’d felt it since the first moment he’d stumbled across this accursed forest, and he’d studied it ever since. In fact, he’d dare say that with his sensitivity to souls that he felt it better than she ever could. Such words would only draw her ire, however, and with his choice made, he had no use for the truth.
”The Mist?” he asked lightly. ”It’s a point of interest. I would share my findings by your leave.” After her previous performance, he doubted she’d find his research worth her time. If she did, she would most certainly dismiss it as nothing but the prattlings of a child. Idiot. Her own ego would be her undoing.
But it seemed she had no intentions of engaging in conversation. Instead, she moved on quickly from her musings and started about business instead. A bond. She summoned some sort of dark magic to her hand and held it before her like a gift. Kuja tilted his head in interest before he touched at his lips and laughed lightly behind the back of his hand.
”And are you to be my queen?” He supposed it had a certain dramatic ring to it. He far preferred the role of sorcerer, of course, but he could twist the part to his liking. They were both to be villains, afterall. He had no need for valor.
She offered him her magic. Kuja had never seen such a power before, and that uncertainty gave him pause. He captured it in a magic of his own, pulling it towards him without meeting its touch. Could he learn such a spell? Perhaps with enough study and dedication.
But that would come later.
He glanced at her and knew instantly what he must do. Take it. His blood chilled at its dark power, but he brushed such instincts aside and instead cast her a placid smile. ”Certainly,” he said.
It must be that old evil spirit So deep down in your ground
"Ultimecia." The woman looked over this boy, this Kuja, again as she said her name. Every time she spoke it aloud it sounded foreign, like she were speaking of an object that she possessed. Not that it mattered. Ultimecia was all that she was and would be, name or no name. Such power in something so simple as a single word.
She stopped her musings and scoffed as Kuja said he could feel the Mist. Ultimecia shook her head with a soft chuckle. Of course he couldn't feel it. The boy was too busy looking at the surface, a way to make his silly useless vessels. The Mist didn't interest her nearly as much as the darkness that lapped at them like waves in the sea or the constant feeling of someone watching when no one was around. She thought to dismiss him, but stopped as the thought came to her head. Perhaps in his simple pursuit he had come by something of value.
She smiled wafting her hand through the Mist letting the cold vapors dance through her talons. "Then you know the Mist does not leave these woods." She concentrated as she watched the wisps circle around them. It felt more natural than what she was after but still slightly sinister at the same time. "And even though you've used it, there seems to be as much as last I walked here." She was getting to her point as she wafted it away reaching her hand out to the trees in front of them. "Have you found where it comes from?"
Ultimecia just kept her gaze not deigning to respond to his quip aside from, "A Sorceress and her knight." Kuja took the magic from her and she watched as he eyed it suspiciously. As the boy crushed her gift in his hand, her wings unfurled on their own, and her eyes glew yellow for but a second. The moment passed as quickly as it came, and Ultimecia reached out curling a lock of hair behind Kuja's ear as she leaned in to comment. "Do you feel that? Just as easily as it was formed, this bond can be broken." She straightened and leaned from him turning back out towards the myriad of trees and beginning to walk into the thick of it.
"Now then," she said as the light was blotted out even further by the canopy, her eyes a beacon of uneasy light. "Do you feel it now? That darkness that seeps from an unknown point?" It made her angry the way she could not find it alone. What powerful magics veiled this place in illusions? Had this place not learned yet. Things slithered and slimed and watched them as she continued walking. She lit a fire in her palm as a warning not a source of light as she held it out in front of her. "Your first task as knight is to help me find the heart of these woods."
It hit him like a deluge of glacial water. Kuja gasped against it, nails digging sharp into his palms. Magic. It sparked unrestrained at his fingertips and he touched at his forehead, nearly numbed by the power that hammered in his heart.
He laughed. His sight had tinged with red.
As quickly as it had come, it waned. Not weakened, only balancing. A hand touched at his cheek and swept loose hair behind his ear. ”Just as easily as it was formed, this bond can be broken.” Could it? This magic had already taken root inside him. It was his now, locked away as tightly as his own soul. Perhaps it could be severed from another, but his body had been crafted for this.
To accept magic. To accept a soul. The sensation flitted through his memory like a butterfly with broken wings. This power was his. Its possibilities were endless.
She walked away. Kuja smirked as her back turned. Whatever she planned for him, it wouldn’t come to pass. He’d make certain of it.
The forest engulfed them in a chill breath. ’Could he feel it now?’ Of course he could though not quite as sharply as he had before. Before, the Mist had clawed across his skin -- desperate and wanting. Now it slid off like the cool waters of a stream. That place inside of him had already been filled. The lost spirits could take him no longer.
”The heart?” His voice echoed lightly against the gnarled and twisted branches. ”There’s a shrine southwest of its center. The tomb of an old dark knight.”And he’d found it almost immediately. He wanted to hold the victory above her head, but he sought her favor more than his own satisfaction. He’d play along for now.
”I would have brought you along my usual route had we come by physical means. Shall I guide you by sense in its stead?”
It must be that old evil spirit So deep down in your ground
"I care not the means of our arrival," she said coolly as she cast her gaze upon her new appointed knight. "Just show the way." Ultimecia prompted crossing her arms save to gesture in the direction they were to go. Ultimecia let her gaze linger on her knight for quite some time as she waited for him to show the way. All he was a stepping stone that she would shatter if he proved less than useful. Still she needed that stone to leap into powers unknown to her. This dimension was grating against her senses and needed dissolved into time as soon as possible. The two walked and Ultimecia kept silent until the arrived at the cesspool of dark energy.
The obelisk towered above them as though looking down upon them, jet black obsidian in nature and emotion. Ultimecia crossed has arms as she walked the length of it feeling the darkness ebbing and flowing from it like dark waves crashing into her. It smelled so powerful, and it caused her flesh to prickle as she thought of it running through her own blood. She went to place her hand on the stone, but the air around her forbid it stopping her like an unseen wall. She scoffed letting her own magic swathe around her talons as she tried to pierce the veil again. This time the magic fought even harder against her advances, causing a few splinters or magic to spit from the confrontation until it sealed the hole she had created.
Ultimecia scoffed waving the magic from her hand. "To pries open the gate, might ensure it's destruction which would be most unwanted. Every door has a key. Every puzzle a solution." Ultimecia turned to Kuja rolling her wrist to point two talons his way. "You will help find the solution to this enigma. Soon enough this power shall be ours." Hers. But how was she to inspire her knight when she knew he had none of the sentiment of that dumb blonde idiot. "I will know when the deed is done as shall you," she said with slight smirk as she strolled past him into the forest proper before her form shimmered into the mist as she flickered through the forest to its edge. Perhaps it was time to infiltrate the masses of this world for their knowledge.
The condescending hag. Ultimecia was a creature of few words, it seemed, and even fewer thoughts. She cared little for his at any rate. Familiarity flickered at the back of his mind like a painting in candlelight. The hushed halls of Daguerreo.
’I’ve studied the lights of Esto Gaza my whole life. What could you know?”
The gleaming marble manors of Treno.
’You’re the supplier, I’m the seller. I don’t care what you think, just keep making more.’
The sickly blue haze of Terra.
’Your feelings mean nothing. You have a purpose. I expect you to follow through.”
Kuja touched at the side of his head and stifled laughter. Idiots, all of them. Self-assured idiots too dense to see the world outside their own thick skulls. He’d proven them all wrong in turn. Each time had satisfied him more than the last.
’You think I’m your tool? I’ll play along, you hideous, deer-antlered, monstrous, old-’
Kuja flicked his hair over his ear, turned to her, and smiled. ”As you wish.”
The walk took longer than he’d have liked. Directing them by nothing but sense would do that when he hadn’t a clue where he’d started. The forest was dense and shadowed, and Kuja kept a hand in front of him, using magic to clear a path for them both as he swatted away the bugs and the spiderwebs with a short scowl. How she’d planned to traverse this place on her own, he had no idea. No paths, no directions. Truly, a brilliant plan. But what were plans when one was already perfect? The immaculate had no need for such trifles as forethought.
In fact, why exert any effort at all when there were inferior beings to do it for you?
They made their way in silence. Of course, Kuja could have used that time to inform her of every property of the Mist she had such interest in. He could have told her the exact position of the shrine and its likely importance. He could have shared the magical implications, but she’d have only silenced him again. She cared nothing for the shrine or its magic except for how she could harness it. For her, there was only power. How he longed to exploit her greed.
He guided them to a clearing and ritualistic obelisk that loomed at its core. The Mist twisted in a thick and living haze that Kuja had no desire to approach. Instead, he waited at the clearing’s edge and watched her do it for him. A fire lit her eyes as she reached for it. It wouldn’t work. His lips twitched as her hand hit solid magic. My, but who could have warned her? She wouldn’t have listened anyway.
She tried her spells. She brought her power to her fingertips and punched it through the wall like a dagger. All for nothing. Satisfaction welled in him like a rising tide.
She scoffed and turned to him, uncurling two wicked claws in turn. "You will help find the solution to this enigma. Soon enough this power shall be ours."
’Ours?’ He could have laughed. She was as likely to share her power as she was to waste her precious time solving puzzles. Her orders were nothing but a farce to cover for her own failure. He would know when the deed was done? Of course he would when he would be the one doing it.
He glanced to her as their paths crossed. ”Certainly,” he said. ”And shall I exert any other facets of your-?” She shimmered away. ”Will.”
Silence closed in from the space she had once occupied. He’d been left alone in the thickened center of a haunted wood without supplies and out of reach of his dragon. How kind of his new master. He supposed he’d had worse.
Kuja sighed and strolled to the obelisk for himself. The Mist was suffocating. It thickened around its source until Kuja could hardly see it through its shroud. There were inscriptions there etched out in a dead language he could only cypher through books she had tossed violently to the floor. ”You want me to solve it? What happened to your endless time?”
He laughed. Every word she’d spoken had proven insincere. His trivial magic. His useless curiosity, and of course, her infinite patience and the superiority that came with it. ”But surely a goddess could do no wrong.”
Only the swell of crickets answered him. He scowled. He could ruminate on matters later. Tomorrow. As the forest resisted him and he forged ahead blindly with no other direction except away from the shrine's core. He would live. He had suffered in the wilderness before, and he would do it again, but still the question bubbled its dissatisfaction.
Had he made a mistake? He had made the only choice he could have, and a choice he would have made again in an instant. He willed his mind forward and his eyes sharp, but still he felt something watching him as though peering between the branches.
Even now, he could feel her talons tightening on his neck.
