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 sign above the tavern door read, ’The Oaken Barrel, Brewing Since 1232.’ Balthier watched it idly, his head slightly tilted as he leaned back in his chair. He had no idea what that meant, the year. This kingdom was on another calendar in another time in another world. ’Brewing Since 1232.’ He supposed it must have been some sort of accomplishment.
”What do you make of the city?” Balthier idly flipped a single gil coin between his fingers, folding it first one way and then the other. He and his partner had taken their customary seat at the back of the tavern, blending among the shadows with their backs to the wall. They sat at a small, two-person table, Balthier angled out to observe the rest of the establishment with unenthusiastic interest. ”It seems a poor mark, but an excellent hiding place.”
He glanced to Fran, waiting for her opinion. She had far better instincts than he had after all, and he trusted them implicitly. While she was a woman of few words, she made every one count for ten, and she was, in fact, the more vital part of their operation. Balthier had done his best on his own and had done quite well if he might say so himself, but it felt good to have such strong support at his back. For the first time since he’d awoken to this strange place, he felt somehow secure.
Somewhere near the bar, a table erupted into a shouting match. It seemed a game of chance had taken a downward turn, and the affected party was unwilling to pay. Swords were drawn. Balthier pocketed his gil and took his glass from the table instead, sipping at a double shot of whiskey on ice. It was home-brewed, the tavern’s specialty, and he had to say it certainly did taste of both oak and barrels. It was fine as far as such things went.
”I suppose we’ll stay the night at least. It’s not the best of accommodations, but I’d like to save our gil for renovations. Unless you have any objections.” Another sip. ”And how did you find yourself stranded in this lovely patch of nowhere? It was quite the shock, I assume.”
How many days had passed since she found herself in this new land? Could it have even been weeks? When you knew no one and were even more unfamiliar with your surroundings, time seemed to go by at an uneven pace. Traveling passed the hours. Being stranded in a city with no leads made the days blur together in a long drag. However, she had found what she was looking for, and time seemed to normalize. In a way, she felt she could... relax.
The bar they had entered was not unlike the ones from back home. She had seen her share of well kept, niche taverns as well as the seediest bar that could be shoved in the seediest alley of the darkest city. This one was sub-par. As long as it had a smooth drink, it'd be fine in her books. Fran settled herself into her seat, nearer to a wall so she could lean back easily. Arms folded across her lap, sharp red eyes scanned the perimeter of the bar. Most patrons had turned their head when she entered, yet turned away when they caught the Viera's rigid glance. "It'll do," she commented, her eyes closing briefly as she breathed through her nose.
As the noise and commotion filtered through her ears, she cracked an eye open. Though weapons were drawn, Fran felt no sense of danger here. Attention had turned elsewhere. She followed Balthier's lead and took a sip of her own whiskey. The liquid ran smooth and warm down her throat. She almost smiled. Alcohol was the one thing she had abstained from, until she found Balthier. Fran knew her limits, but she did not trust a glass handed to her by anyone other than Balthier. The drink almost felt foreign to her tongue, yet with each sip it felt more and more like home. Like things were back to normal, for a while.
"That seems wise," she responded, regarding the gil situation. "We will need as much coin as we can to have a proper ship." A brief shiver ran up her spine. It was as if she could feel the texture of the gaudy velvet along her thigh at this very moment. It would be one of the first things to go, after a proper engine was put in place. And then came an question which made her wonder why he did not have an answer. Didn't he remember? The crashing of the Bahamut, and then waking up... Here?
Fran uncrossed her legs and leaned her weight on a hip, heightening the other to bring attention to it. A lengthy, dark scar curved down from her hip and just onto the top of her thigh. "I was injured in the explosion," she recalled, closing her eyes. "Then darkness." When they reopened, she settled herself back in the chair and took another sip of her drink. "I woke in a forest. Alone. Bleeding. A man... He brought me to a Moogle village." Her nose wrinkled just thinking of those creatures. "He helped me. And led me to Torensten." A small smile creased her lips. "And now here we are."
Balthier smirked. High praise from a woman such as herself though Balthier had never known her to spurn accommodations. More likely, she would have simply kept her dissatisfaction to herself. She was a practical woman, Fran. She understood the necessities of their rather tumultuous survival.
It was the instability, he thought, which made it worthwhile.
”So long as it gives some respite from prying eyes.” His own drifted towards the ceiling. ”I’d gained some notoriety before the business with the airship. Put together, and I dare say there may yet be another bounty on my head.” The mark of a successful pirate, he thought, though it was a troublesome complication. Bounty hunters were often a persistent lot.
He glanced at her, eyebrows raised. ”I don’t suppose you’ll choose to keep your own name clear?”
It was a joke in part. If she’d ever objected to such things, she’d not have taken his company in the first place.
He settled back, arms crossed as he watched the violent chaos below. Such things were to be expected of establishments such as this. Balthier himself had gotten himself into no shortage of fist fights in his time though he’d never been the one to initiate such things. Someone claimed the other owed him a hundred gil. The other said foul things of his mother. It was familiar, really. No matter the nation, some things never changed.
Such as engaging in thievery to make ends meet. Or investing in a proper ship. Balthier smirked at Fran’s subtle indication of offense. Strong words for a viera. With some experience, it became less subtlety and more a matter of interpretation.
He thought his upbringing uniquely suited for it. They had both been raised in somewhat stifling circumstances. The Viera were encouraged into silence due to their heightened senses and relative peace. The Archadian nobility were cursed with the weight of social expectation.
In the empire, implication was a language all its own. Balthier thought himself strongly spoken for a former member of their ranks. Compared to the rest of her kind, Fran was positively social.
Fran shifted pointedly, and Balthier glanced over with no small amount of interest. She drew his attention to her hip, and he frowned. A scar streaked white and vicious across her bronze skin. His eyebrows furrowed in a kind of mild distress. He knew every curve of Fran’s body both from her notorious lack of social decency and from their more intimate moments. He knew nothing of that scar.
”I was injured in the explosion,” she said. ”Then darkness.”
The explosion? He glanced from the scar to her eyes, closed in thought. She spoke as though he ought to know of it. His brow furrowed deeper.
She spoke of waking in a forest, alone and bleeding. It gave Balthier no small amount of unease, and he quickly banished the thought. It would do nothing to imagine her in such an ill-disposed state, in pain and without him. She had weathered through. She was far stronger than anyone he had ever known.
”Here we are.” His eyes drifted back to the tavern uneasily. The fight had been ended by a rather stocky man who must have worked security. It was familiar, the sight of so many quietly huddled around their drink. It was familiar, and yet…
”I don’t remember it.” He paused, allowing himself to regain composure before he reached for his glass. ”I mean to say that my recollection of events has been unreliable as of late. I feel as though there’s something I’ve forgotten. I’ve had no shortage of reminders of that.”
Word of rebellion, new allies, movements against the empire. Even those reminders felt vague and unreal to him now, and that didn't account for the near impossibility of their implications.
Balthier was no rebel. He’d forsaken matters of politics a long time ago.
”We were making preparations for a raid on the royal vaults of Rabanastre.” Balthier brought the glass to his lips, drinking perhaps faster than he should have. The hard swallow burned in his throat, and he felt its fiery path straight to his core. ”It would seem I’m rather behind.”
He was not afraid of adventure or the repercussions of taking what he wanted. It was something she silently admired about the man, and one of the reasons she stuck so closely by his side. If ever he were in a sticky situation, she'd help him out of it so he could be free once more. It gave her a purpose since she had been discarded from her old life. Fran let a small twitch of a smile play on her lips. "A little too late for that," she commented, "Dubois knows my name. I'll join you on that bounty."
The hum of the other tavern goers was a welcomed backdrop during the times Fran chose to remain silent. She sipped her drink, watching, observing. Especially Balthier's reactions, which seemed a mix of concern and confusion. He did not remember the explosion of the Bahamut? Further yet, he could only recall back to their preparations of infiltrating the vaults?
"Maybe the explosion hit you too," she thought aloud. A simple shrug rolled off her shoulders and she took another sip. "No matter. You remember me." That was more important than anything.
I like playing with his anxieties like this. He really tries to hide them.
I play the leading man, who else?
Fran considered him for a long, thoughtful moment. Balthier was used to such moments, and generally appreciated the close attention. At the moment, however, it felt almost scrutinizing. He had never liked to have the lower hand, not with Fran or anyone else. At the moment, the advantage was hers in both knowledge and experience. While he trusted her with his life, it still made him itch.
Balthier tapped his finger along the side of his glass. His rings clicked softly.
After another moment’s deliberation, Fran shrugged. ”Maybe the explosion hit you too,” she said. She took another sip of her drink. ”No matter. You remember me.”
’A tad callous, wouldn’t you say?’ Balthier tapped a little faster before he willed himself still. She had no way of knowing the anxiety that tightened within him. He’d often found success in smothering it whenever it reared its head, but with Fran, it felt different somehow. Harder to ignore. There was that feeling of vulnerability, yes. But also something more…
He had always lowered his defenses a tad more with Fran than anyone else. Which wasn’t saying much, but he felt the difference implicitly.
Balthier cleared his throat, rolling his shoulders as he leaned his head to the side. ”Maybe so, but that still leaves things a tad messier than I’d like.” He glanced at her. ”Care to fill me in? Seeing as you seem on stable ground, I’d say it’s hardly fair otherwise.”
