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!
Final Fantasy Adventu is a roleplaying forum inspired by the Final Fantasy series. Images on the site are edited by KUPO of FF:A with all source material belonging to their respective artists (i.e. Square Enix, Pixiv Fantasia, etc). The board lyrics are from the Final Fantasy song "Otherworld" composed by Nobuo Uematsu and arranged by The Black Mages II.
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The moon shone silver off of untouched mountaintops that night. The wind carried with it a harsh sting that might have frozen the bare skin of a lesser being. Trapped between jagged stone cliffs and steep drops, the path rose in treacherous edges. A tower loomed over the nearest mountain peak, its many arches and spires barely visible in the shadows of the night. It had watched over this mountain for centuries, and its eye could catch any traveler for miles.
The World Sight. The highest peak in all the world. Or at least, that was the legend of it.
In practice, it served the world more as a monument than a fortress. The locals spoke of some ancient hero entombed deep into the tower's catacombs, but the tale had grown so old and irrelevant that they couldn't validate that claim one way or the other. Still, it was said that any visitor upon these hallowed paths would be graced with the spirit of a hero, and that their troubled souls would know peace.
Kuja wished the spirit luck in that regard.
After a far-too-long journey from Sonora to this mountain pass, Kuja wondered if he had ever known warmth, or if the entire world was not one freezing tundra from end to end. The ice did not bother him so much as the wet, sloshing snow. It dampened his hair and slid slick where it met his cheeks and hips. His porcelain skin did not pucker as it would with humans nor did his complexion blush. In fact, to the outward onlooker, he would have seemed perfectly comfortable in this adverse weather -- oblivious to it and completely immune to the mortal sensation of cold.
That would be a hideous lie.
Thrice Kuja had cast high-level fire spells just to warm himself. Far more often, Kuja had brought weaker flames carefully to the ice on his boots. The cold would not kill him (not even the icy waters of the Esto Gaza would do that) but it could do much to infuriate him.
The World Sight was the last stop on his tour of Zephon's wide array of magical ruins. Kuja had opted to explore the Metaia Temple, the Crystalus Divider, and even the city of Sonora before braving its foreboding archways. The reason for that had been two-fold: first, that security had tightened after a massacre had stained the mountain pass in red, and second, that Kuja had not wished to draw attention negative attention to himself.
But the second no longer held true, and the first fell apart without the second. Kuja would examine the ruins here, and he would not accept no for an answer. This time, there would be no coy manipulation and no exhausting himself with teleportation. Kuja longed for the feel of blood beneath his nails.
'Listen, whatever you remember, we're on the same side here, okay?'
Zidane's voice rang inside him like a siren. Again and again, Kuja heard those words. He saw the honest emotion in Zidane's eyes, he saw that outstretched hand, and each time the vision made Kuja's jaw tighten. There were memories behind those images -- memories and pain. He didn't wish to think on it, and yet, he couldn't rid it from his mind.
Standing in that desolate, snow-lined street, Kuja had caught a flash of clarity in the dull haze of amnesia. He had remembered a broken green canopy and the feel of gnarled wood. He'd gazed through shattered sunlight and closed his eyes to the scent of rotting leaves and fresh blood. Above it all came an overwhelming sense of loss. And then he knew -- his life had been meaningless. His quest -- futile.
Kuja's nails formed deep white crescents in the palms of his hands. Was this why Zidane had looked at him with such pity? Had something happened on that terrible day in the Iifa Tree?
'And to answer your question, yes, I do trust you. Even though you don't trust me.'
"How careless of you to tempt me like this, Zidane." Kuja's eyes wandered above stone spires to the faces of merciless guardians. "You know how I so love betrayal." He ascended crumbling staircases as though floating on an inhuman wind.
Above him came shouting voices. "Stay there!" "Turn back!" "We're not accepting visitors!" Kuja did not slow his step. It had been far too long since Kuja had ended a life. It had always been safer to work from the background, manipulating the trust and greed of his pawns like puppets on his strings. Yet, such manipulation would have required patience that he no longer had.
Besides, this method was far more satisfying.
There were twelve of them in total. Large men, all of them, bulky in their down-feather coats and wool scarves. They carried their world's strange weapons -- small black cannons -- aimed and ready at him. Kuja eyed them coolly and then touched lightly at his forehead.
His laughter echoed like the soft ringing of bells on arching stone ceilings. His shoulders shook with his own amusement.
"My, such hostilities! And here I am, just an innocent scholar in pursuit of knowledge. Surely, you would not stand in my way?"
The soldiers answered with their predictable cries. "Stand down!" "No trespassers allowed!" "Leave now!"
Kuja sighed heavily. "And what exactly are you afraid of? Me?" His hand slid up to the flyaway hairs of his bangs, and he flipped them back over the side of his armor. A smile played on his lips as he observed the men before him. His eyes lit with anticipation. "Hm. Perhaps you're right. It seems the world needs a villain, and I am more than happy to play the part."
There was a gasp to his right. One of the men took a step backwards. "Oh god, I think it's one of-!" Kuja raised a hand and the man burst into flames.
Screams gripped the night. Screams, smoke, and the smell of burning flesh.
The others joined his victim's panic. Their weapons rang out against him, but their projectiles were deflected with only a few simple spells -- Protect. Shell. Reflect. He laughed at them.
'Do you see what I am, Zidane?' Kuja brought his hand down and with it, the wrath of the heavens. Violent thunder seared the air in super-heated cracks. Every strike quickened his heart as he watched his victims writhe. 'Do you see what I am capable of?'
Zidane would never offer him that loathsome hand again. His eyes would clear of pity and fill again with hatred. There would be no more painful memories, no more confusions over lost guilt. With every death, Kuja imagined Zidane's anguish at the meaningless destruction. It was almost more satisfying than the blood.
Almost.
The mountain regained its natural silence. The air cleared of his magic, and the shrine was still. Kuja listened to the soft whistling of wind through the rocky chasms below. He stepped carefully around the motionless figures strewn in his path.
Before him stood a great iron-wrought door. He approached it breathlessly. The ancient tomb awaited.
Every night when the moon was shining, having tossed its silver blanket over the darkened land, lulling the innocents away to dreamland, Tidus would be staring at the ceiling. While the rest of the world tucked themselves into their plush beds and closed their eyes to let go of the hardships of yesterday, Tidus could not bear to close his own blue. It seemed that once the moon rose in the sky he was fantastically awake and aware, nervous energy boiling just beneath his skin. Maybe he refused to sleep because he couldn't dream--where had all his dreams gone?
Tidus found the silver lining even to his restless nights, because he had so much more time! True, he was sore and his eyes were heavy throughout the sunny hours of the next day, but he could wander this new land to burn at the sizzling anxiety bubbling inside him all throughout the night. And that's precisely what he did--the moment the stars peeked from the sky's gloom the blonde would be out scouring forests and cities for information, or hiking grand mountaintops and loping along pretty beaches. These nighttime excursions were often spent alone, because everyone else could still dream.
Tonight, these seemingly endless dark hours were going to transform into a waking nightmare.
Tidus heard the countless tales about the World Sight. Apparently a legendary hero laid inside a tomb within it and whoever ventured there would feel his strength and thus, feel at peace. Or something like that... Tidus had difficulty recounting the exacts of anything--his head was often too cluttered with mundane, useless snippets to have such clarity when recalling details. Still, the idea of it intrigued him--if he were to go there, perhaps he could feel that inner bliss too... and be able to finally sleep again. Despite his chipper smile, Tidus was very tired and he missed the escape sleep once offered him.
That was why he slogged through slush and snow, huddled deep inside a cotton jacket he purchased from the city. He wore fingerless gloves and sturdy boots--such clunky pieces made him feel like a teetering punching bag, full of unnecessary fluff and suffocating warmth. He grudgingly remembered how mild and perfect the weather always was in Zanarkand... and more than ever he yearned for the gleaming lights of his hometown.
He began to climb the stairs in a jog, his boots slapping upon the slick stone in steady claps. He heard that there would be guards, but he was certain they wouldn't mind if he lingered just close enough to feel that enticing bliss...
He came to the top, panting from his quick climb heavenward, face splitting apart to smile for his victory--
He stepped forward and suddenly slipped with a cry. Tidus snapped his gaze down to find what his boots smeared in, steadying himself with an annoyed huff...
Blood.
It was everywhere, garish streaks covering stone and ice and snow--it was everywhere, why--he stumbled back, his nose filling with the stench of rust and musty air--
But his hand outstretched and his fingers spread apart, as if his arm had a mind of its own. Tidus was going to run back the other way, yet his feet remained planted despite the fear threatening to make him puke on the mess already on the floor. And one could see the struggle as plain as day on his handsome features--his eyes were wide and horrified, his full lips quivering, his gaze skirting over each dead man with a whimper threatening to sound--
Yet he stood there, his hand held out, and while he wanted only to run, something within him gifted Tidus with a rare sense of clarity. This allowed the hapless Blitzball Ace to finally break his eyes from the gore around him to land directly upon a graceful male settled before a large iron door.
And finally a burst of light erupted from his hand, shimmering brightly against the dark, and when it settled a blue, glassy sword was clasped in his firm grip. Tidus gasped aloud then, confused and panicked at once, taking several shaky steps back as he watched the silver monster across from him.
How did I do that?! Who's weapon is this? I don't know how to fight! But an escape was impossible now, unless this sadistic villain would allow him to leave. ...Then he found himself looking at the crisped, battered faces of the dead and he suddenly felt so damn angry! Why did he kill these innocent people? Tidus tried to make sense of it, but knew it was foolish--he couldn't divine reason from madness.
An awful, roaring rage filled his heart--Tidus didn't recognize this reckless bravery, because it wasn't just sheer stupidity driving him headfirst into battle... it was a steel resolve he'd never once dreamed of! It was a wild courage, a senseless one.
Tidus moved a few steps forward, his sword's tip clanging to the ground as he tried to awkwardly hold the handle. Still, he managed to keep his gaze averted from the red blood and instead fixed it upon the silvery villain.
"Why?! Why would you do this?" Tidus cried, his voice jarringly loud in what had once been tranquil silence. And his questions were too simple, questions that hardly deserved a notable answer. But what more could he say? All he could see was senseless death in mounds surrounding him and he wanted to know what could inspire this carnage. He couldn't understand!
And maybe he knew the answer didn't matter anyway--something whispered in his ear that some men just wanted others to suffer, there was no reasoning with them. It was an odd truth to suddenly become aware of, the sort that left you breathless and your hands clammy, much like Tidus now as he quivered with dread. He knew their words were empty at this point--only their chosen weapons could make any claim worth hearing.
But he was just a sports star. He was not a hero. He didn't know how to fight!
Maybe it truly was blind stupidity that made him confront this murderer...
Funny thing, I was actually going to have him say this no matter who showed up. Since I don't want Tidus to die, I made it a bit more elaborate.
Why should the world exist without me?
Kuja did not believe in karma.
As far as he was concerned, there was no universal sense of morality. There existed no sense of cosmic balance nor any gods to smite evil-doers from on high. There existed only planets -- great rocky mounds that cycled endlessly through the empty void of space. As much as Kuja liked to muse on it, life was not like the plays that so consumed him. There was no justice to await the evil-doers of the world. There was no writer's hand plotting judgement against the villains and granting the heroes their reward. All of it was superstitious garbage -- nothing but antiquated children's fables passed on in the guise of wisdom.
Or at least, that's what Kuja would have liked to believe. Lately, his life had a way of proving him wrong.
In fact, Kuja did not make it so far as the tower's door before fate sent him another punishment for the blood on his hands.
"Why?! Why would you do this?"
The cry gave him pause -- not due to any real concern for his safety, but only because the shrillness of it had succeeded in startling him. It was a child's voice: high-pitched, nasal, and forward. His jaw clenched at its atonal timbre.
"Pardon?" Kuja tried to keep the tension from his voice as he sent the intruder a sideways glance. The boy stood alone on the edge of the cobblestone terrace. He seemed almost a silhouette with the silver-lit backdrop of mountains behind him and the shadows of the night at his face. Still, the boy stood with his shoulders hunched aggressively and his eyes burning with rage. In one hand he held a kind of glassy sword -- one that seemed almost made of ice -- but it angled awkwardly beneath his fingers until the tip touched the ground. In fact, if Kuja had to guess from his stance, he would have labelled the wrathful child as a complete amateur -- weak, nonthreatening, and an absolute joke.
And then there were his clothes.
Kuja had never seen anything like them. The boy wore black leather overalls adorned with silver chains, bangles, and several sets of zippers seemingly sprinkled over it at random. The legs cut off at uneven intervals so that one brushed the boy's knee with a strange red symbol while the other barely reached past his hip. Beneath the overalls' upper straps, the boy wore an open yellow half-jacket with one armored shoulder-pad, a single glove up to his elbow, and what appeared to be red wicker holding all the pieces together.
Combine it all, and the boy looked as though he'd been dragged through a stage-production armory by a particularly eccentric grand dragon.
Yet even as Kuja felt his lip curl, even as the first wave of endless mockery touched at his tongue, something gave him pause. Logically, there was no reason to reserve judgement on this young idiot who had dared to interrupt him. In fact, Kuja would have loved nothing more than to destroy the boy with insults and then, perhaps, with fire. Still, as his eyes grazed over the boy from head to bright-yellow toe, Kuja could not bring himself to act. A nameless, inexplicable something told him that he'd met this boy before. It was the same familiarity that Kuja had suffered at the hands of that cliched Warrior of Light, and it could be described as nothing but the most infuriating sense of deja vu.
Still, there was no use in antagonizing a hero -- particularly not one who might know the Warrior of Light. Kuja let the magic drop from his fingers. It was not his most dangerous weapon after all.
For this, his tongue would prove far more effective.
"Ah..." Kuja's eyes widened in surprise. "But you misunderstand." His hand arced from the door to the columns at his left side. A troubled frown touched at his lips as his eyebrows furrowed. "You see, they attacked me. If I had not acted as swiftly as I had, then I'm afraid I might not have survived."
Kuja took a step towards the boy like an actor gravitated towards center-stage. He bit lightly at his bottom lip and glanced at the corpses with a troubled eye. "You look as though you too are from another world. The people here, they do not take kindly to those of us who were pulled from other places. They call us outsiders, thieves, murderers. Haven't you faced the same hostilities?" Kuja touched at his forehead and laughed quietly. His voice trembled with unease. "I awoke many months ago in the hot desert sands. I had no recollection of my coming here nor of anything in this place. And all around me, the people whispered their suspicions that I might be evil."
Kuja couldn't help a smirk at his own dramatics. They hadn't been entirely wrong, after all.
"The guards here knew that I was foreign. They slung curses at me. They told me that I was not welcome on these steps. Then they pulled their weapons and-..." Kuja sighed. "If you had been ten minutes faster, well, I suppose it would not be their blood staining the ground, would it?"
Kuja tilted his head, touched at his chin, and gave the boy his most innocent smile. "So please. If you could lower your weapon...?"
Welp. This is what happens when villains aren't stopped. xD I asked Baha, and he said it was okay. If we get another Tidus, he can just wake up in a snowy ravine.
Why should the world exist without me?
At first, the boy had only jumbled noises to offer in answer. He looked almost fish-like with his eyebrows down-turned and his mouth gaping. Kuja waited as the gears turned in the boy's atrociously slow mind. He waited for the dawn of realization -- a horror that the boy's life had almost been forfeit, and then perhaps a reluctant trust. However, it seemed that Kuja had miscalculated in his schemes.
This boy was far too stupid for manipulation.
"Uh...I, uh..." The boy stammered incoherently as he brought a hand roughly to the back of his neck. All at once, something seemed to click in his defective brain, and he shoved the hand away impatiently. "No way!" he screeched through his nose. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I know you did something!"
The warmth left Kuja's eyes. They watched the boy like glittering diamonds.
"Really," he said. "Well then. I will make this simpler for you. If you raise your blade against me, then you will become my enemy. And if you lower it..." Kuja salvaged his least intimidating smile. "Then perhaps we may meet some middle ground."
The boy faltered for only a second before his eyes lit with childish impulse.
"Oh, who needs you?" the boy said, and in the next moment, he charged.
The boy floundered forward with long, slapping steps. His sword dragged clumsily behind him as though he couldn't properly lift the thing, and yet his eyes screamed of such fiery determination that Kuja couldn't restrain his sudden and wild laughter. This boy was a child with his wild impulses, fierce sense of justice, and complete lack of self-awareness. He couldn't even dress himself properly, let alone defend the innocent, and the absurdity of it all proved far too much for Kuja's sense of irony. In the ten seconds it took for the boy to bridge the gap between them, Kuja had touched his forehead, tilted back his neck, and stood laughing at the sky.
The sword swung. The boy let out a wild grunt. Kuja's hand lifted and the sword was deflected with a flash of ethereal light. The boy gave a pained cry, stumbling backwards until his feet dragged. Kuja let his laughter subside before giving the boy a sidelong glance.
"Would you like to hear a story? It's about a villainous sorcerer and the idiot who tried his patience." Kuja clenched his fist together and captured his victim in a web of blue-white light. With a flick of his hand, the light and boy rose together. "Once, there was a villainous sorcerer who had grown tired of the world that held him. He traveled from temple to monument to ruined city to find the key to his freedom -- all in vain." The boy wriggled against the magic that bound him. He grunted and cried and protested as ethereal ropes hung him helplessly in the air. Kuja stepped past him thoughtfully. The magic followed at his heels like an eager pet.
"Then one night when the moon shone above in a nearly perfect whole, the sorcerer found himself halted by the complaints of an idiot." Kuja stopped at the edge of the terrace's sheer cliff-side. Darkness stretched far below him. "Would you like to guess how the story ends?"
"Ah...haha...No. No, I'm good," the boy stammered. Kuja raised an eyebrow.
"My, but you have such little imagination. You won't even give it a try?"
The boy paused for a moment. "Um. He said sorry and you let him go?"
Kuja's eyes darkened. "No," he said. With a wave of his hand, the magic catapulted the boy into the ravine. It wasn't the most efficient means of murder, but it proved oh so satisfying.
Kuja listened as nasally screams faded into the distance and then stopped altogether. Once again, he was struck by a sudden sense of deja vu. "Have I killed him before?" Kuja mused, but then silenced himself with a quick shake of his head. "How absurd. It seems that knight's rubbed off on me." He twisted a loose tussle of hair around his fingers and tossed it carelessly to the side. "Now then..."
Kuja turned back to the iron-wrought gates that barred his entrance. A few spells and they were blown apart. Kuja stepped delicately through the wreckage. "What secrets do you hold, I wonder?"
The World Sight's inner sanctum smelled of dust, parchment, and blood. There were three more security checkpoints between the outer walls and its most sacred core, but Kuja had little patience for delay, and his magic spoke words he didn't care to. The guards fell with only token resistance. Without them, the native priests and scholars fled like mice aboard a sinking ship. Kuja spared only a few for questioning, and once they'd sputtered their answers, their blood mingled with that of his enemies. He had no need of witnesses.
Through seven barred and guarded gates, down three flights of spiraling stone steps and crumbling archways, there stood a library that had never known moonlight. Kuja's fire flickered across rotting wooden tables, dusty tapestries, and stone inlets like catacombs along the walls. In each of these inlets rested several scrolls, bundled together tightly by leather and cobwebs. Kuja touched them only with magic and gently pulled them aside without daring to rustle their pages.
This place, it seemed, was a tomb. And in this tomb, the knowledge of ages past had died.
The scrolls spoke of ancient legends -- of the reign of two brothers, of the clash of good and evil, and of the eventually decline of both. It spoke of forests haunted by regret, of heroes entombed forever in stone, and of the divide of worlds held apart by only a thread. Though their authenticity could not be spoken for, the scrolls painted the picture of a world somehow caught in the middle. A kind of resting place between conflicting planes. It seemed the perfect landing place for wayward dimensional travelers --perhaps something about this world had called them to it? What that was, however, Kuja couldn't say.
He did not find records of the Metaia Temple nor did he discover anything of note about the Crystalus Divider. Instead, he found lore, legend, and the kind of myths that most dismissed only as the stuff of fairy tales. Kuja learned the names of ancient heroes -- of Atticus, Andrix, and the tomb's patron Zadiken. Kuja did not know how many hours had passed. His mind lulled into a kind of trance, encouraged by the familiar scent of parchment and faded ink. How many hours had he once spent combing the ruins of Madain Sari for something more concrete than myth? How long had it taken to find anything of note? A single lead? A ritual to use as his own?
This did not take that long. In this timeless tomb, he could not say whether an hour had passed or maybe twelve before his fingers caressed the scroll he had unknowingly searched for. At first sight, it seemed no different than the others -- just as cracked, faded, and curled into its natural roll. Still, Kuja's heart fluttered at the title alone.
"On the Draconic World and its Seal."
Kuja's finger traced the words. 'Torensten.' 'Sorcery.' 'The Dragon's Gate.' He copied sigils. He recited incantations. As he reached the page's bottom, he muttered another passage aloud. "Only the kin of dragons may open Certo's seal and awaken what lies beyond."
Kuja laughed. He laughed in anxiety and in relief. Another world, another ancient power slumbering forgotten in its core. His fingers arched carefully about this sacred document. "How interesting," he muttered, "How very, very interesting."
Long into the night, he read. He read until his eyes drooped and his writing hand grew sore. Still, he did not slow as his imagination took form and the future laid before him.
Soon, this world would change forever. And he would be the harbinger of dragons.
((OOC: To be continued in a future plot thread near you!))
