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.
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year 5, quarter 3
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Three stories above them, a great wooden beam collapses.
The weight of it is enough to shake the house. Screams echo from nearby followed by shouting. That first crash is followed by several others, and the smell of smoke breaks free from its second-story ballroom prison. The fire which had been so keenly hidden behind thick doors has broken free of its constraints. It can be heard across every corner of the house from the east wing to the west wing to the secret basement to the old archival library in the entrance hall.
Ths missing people are incapacitated. There are still (to your knowledge) three other search parties. Outside, the storm rages on, flooding the road and coming down in suffocating torrents. Help isn’t coming, and who knows what danger the other occupants might have faced?
There isn’t much time.
G’raha is surrounded by books that are likely one of a kind. These are records, tomes, theories, and legends that can be found nowhere else and that might be the key to discovering the mysteries of this strange world. If they’re left behind, they will surely be consumed by the fire. Removing them would take time that could be spent saving lives, and even then, they would need to be protected from the rain.
Time stasis, pocket dimensions, the power of crystals.
What other knowledge could be lost to the flames and the mud?
The computer system takes Cissnei’s hard-drive and hums as its drive runs through this new programming. Upstairs, she can hear the crashing and screaming, but can’t smell the smoke of the fire. Something is happening, but it’s hard to tell what.
Her program runs through options and passwords. Slowly. Steadily.
And then she’s in.
The technology here is outdated by Sonoran standards. It’s been reworked to run on the manor’s own independent power grid and isn’t particularly sophisticated. Still, it isn’t difficult to navigate. There are folders of experiment results and notes as well as a few programs to run whatever it was that the researchers were doing. Then there are the controls for the tanks. Accessing these controls brings up a program with a table of names, descriptions, numbers, and statuses.
Cissnei can only open one tank at a time, fully completing the draining and revival sequence before starting on another. She doesn’t know what’s happening upstairs, but it seems urgent.
For one of the missing persons, salvation is only a click away.
[attr="class","crashBody"] Cissnei took note that Gau seemed unsure of what was happening. “These ‘science words’ suggest that we are all victims here. The owner of this room hoped to use us in a science project by…” How did Cissnei explain, it was even a bit complicated for her. “By parsing the time-space magic that brought us here from us. The person is trying to use it for...well it doesn’t say. To transfer it to some other subject?” Cissnei found at the moment, understanding was not of the utmost importance. Evacuation was and if she waited here long enough… [break][break] The house suddenly shook. The sound of something heavy breaking, followed by terrified screams. What was happening up there? Either way, it was clear the house was going to collapse in on itself. She should have been frightened. [break][break] The adrenaline flooded in her and she felt a second wind hit her. Turks were like cats, weren’t they? Nine lives and a bit of luck was on their side in these situations. [break][break] “Gau. You need to leave.” She told him firmly, cursing the old computer with low RAM and a terrible processor chip. She felt her back teeth grind. “If you don’t go, you could be trapped down here with no exit.” Her eyes flashed to him knowing that he would be hard pressed to leave his friend behind after finding her. “The people above need your help.” Her eyes turned back to the commands running and finally she saw “Access Granted” flash green. Her fingers dash across the keyboard. [break][break] “I need your help. There is another woman up there - dressed like myself with short blond hair. Emma. I came with her, so she might still have a similar scent.” There! The options for the controls! [break][break] “Tell her what is happening down here and that I will have to rendezvous with her outside with a VIP.” If Cissnei made it out alive. Part of her statement suggested it. “Her priority is to evacuate in the meantime.” And let the house collapse in on itself. Cissnei didn’t care what happened to her, as long as Emma was safe. [break][break] Cissnei was going to stay behind and free those unconscious. It would be a painless death for them if they slept through this. On trained instinct, Cissnei already knew who to awaken first. She pressed number 3, for Rufus Shinra to disengage. Her eyes drifted to Gau, “I will do my best to get your friend out. I will let her know you are here when she awakes. For now, you must stay safe for her. That’s what she would want. ...And I need eyes, ears, and a message above.” [break][break] She felt irritated that the scientist didn’t put an emergency release on these things. She could hear the gears and machinery begin to work as it began its disengagement process for Rufus. There was little time to truly think. Her eyes darted to look for something heavy. She found a long and heavy pipe, perhaps a replacement for this and tested it in her hand. [break][break] Sturdy enough. [break][break] Though she wished Reno or Rude were here to do this work instead. [break][break] The materia in her glove hummed the whispers of the Ancients as she called upon its power. Her hair basked in an invisible wind as she reached out and made a crushing motion with her hand. She tried to crush the machinery back of Celes’s tank, while taking a pipe to the front glass of it. She felt her arms jar under the first hit. But she ignored the shock of it and swung again, as hard as she could.
BATHED BLACK IN SILENCE, OUR SURRENDER A SOMBRE REVERIE
There was a soft tsk tsk from Hades at G'raha's rebuttal. "I only need a new trick when the old one stops working." After all, if it continued to give you the same results, why go through all the effort to come up with something new and grand? Why display your mighty magical powers when shooting someone in the back had worked so many times before? Anything more than that was just wasted energy that could be put to better use. Like sleeping. Instead, he began to scour the books, a dark portal appearing and spiriting away any that caught his eye. After all, the man was dead, what further use would he have of this knowledge? Hades craned his neck, staring at the Exarch as he went about his work. "But clearly then, I merely imagined your magic. The staff an illusion, the sword and shield a glamour, and I am quite sure that I did not feel seven other combatants assaulting me alongside our mutual friend that you most certainly did not summon. You have only ever been a witty archer away from the Tower, nothing more. I obviously overestimated the students of Baldesion and Emmerololth." His remark dripped with sarcasm as he sighed. "As for your other question, my dear Exarch; there are no ghosts in this manor that I know of." Surely a water spell wasn't too much to ask for? And, well, this place wasn't haunted.
As far as he knew.
Turning away from the books, he folded his hands behind him, before throwing them up in a lackadaisical shrug. "Regardless, my goal is to obtain any information that would help me understand the workings of this world. But why should I be the one to play the hero? That's not my role, now is it? Always the scheming villain, existing to cause chaos and mayhem, a stepping stone for a true hero, am I not? I'm surprised you didn't accuse me of starting the fire." Which, well, he didn't start it. He may have antagonized someone into starting it, but he wasn't the one to cast the spell.
Not that it mattered, he was quite content to simply listen to G'raha wax poetic about the Warrior of Light. Lovestruck doesn't even begin to describe it. He couldn't help but think to himself. Still, there was one small bit of wording in G'raha's gushing that stuck with him, and he cradled his chin between his fingers for a moment, mumbling softly to himself. "Keeper of the Moon..." Now that was most certainly not Alexander or Cassandra then. He could, with relative certainty, rule out the Exarch being from his timeline. Not that it mattered, not at the moment, anyway. It was a small piece of information that only reinforced what he already knew of this world, nothing more. "Nevertheless, what do we have here?" Instead, he would move on to other topics, pressing a finger down on the pieces of paper.
His golden eyes scanned it. He didn't have G'raha's photographic memory, true, but fortunately the cat man had been so nice as to not set the paper on fire out of spite. "... I know of this spell. Well, somewhat. With the Rift separating this world from the Source, the spell itself is different, but the result is the same." He remarked, looking up. Really, that should have been a warning for the Exarch that grandpa Emet was about to start rambling. "During the Final Days, Loghrif and Nabriales toiled away on a spell to compress time to one moment, halting the advancement of the Final Days. ... Unfortunately this also meant that it wouldn't end, thus we rejected as a solution. No, whatever solution we came up with, we had to navigate and resolve the crisis first. There had to be an after." He wondered how Loghrif and Mitron fared, now that he was gone. Had Elidibus raised more shards up to the positions or did they yet remain vacant? Simply rescuing Mitron had always been an option, true, but, well, their obsession with Loghrif had always been something of a double-edged sword, easier not to deal with. He hoped that whatever happened with those two, that Mitron didn't do anything... rash.
Nabriales though, well, they didn't really do much anymore, did they? He wouldn't exactly weep if no further shards were raised up. Anymore, they all seemed to have some agenda of their own. Was the fire getting worse? Not that it mattered for him. He glanced up to see how bad the blaze had gotten. "Pity, I think they would have quite liked to examine this." He remarked.
Promise Me You'll Take me on your next Adventure. A Journey. Together. That's all I ask.
G'raha side eyed Emet as he came over poking and prodding at the reports he was reading. "Much and more can be said of the Ironworks research," he said remembering the works he had pondered and awed over. The hopes, the dreams of everyone of that timeline. He had not let them down, and he would continue to do whatever he could do to not let any others down, no matter the cost. "Damn, no crystal" he cursed quietly only partially listening to the Ascians talk of the Final Days. He did not posses the DeLune crystal. A key catalyst for rewinding time it seemed. Still with a few tweaks to the formula and sigil, he figured it should be possible to at least halt it for long enough to get everyone out and some books stowed away.
That's it. "Without the crystal I can't hope to turn back the strands of time," he muttered picking up the book only giving Emet an occasional glance to make sure that he wasn't about to be gunned down again or the man disappeared. G'raha quickly opened the drawers on the desk until he found what he was looking for. Chalk. Just as quickly he began to push the desks away from the center of the room "But we need not turn back the hands of time, only stay their movement long enough." He was talking more to himself than to Emet at this point. He drew the sigil upon the ground and took a step back. He hoped this would work. It had to work.
G'raha began to recite the incantation he had read from the book substituting key words as he calculated. "The hands of time, by my will, be stayed; let not the sands erode us away. By my energy in exchange for crystal's light, let time stay silent for our respite and leave." G'raha slammed his staff onto the sigil pouring his own aether into the spell. He prayed and hoped this would work as he felt his energy siphon into the staff and sigil. He was vulnerable, yes. But if this would be enough for Gau and Cissnei and whomever else to escape, he would show his weakness to the Ascian once more. G'raha slumped to his knees still holding his staff strong as his aether began depleting into his hope and spell. The lack of aether in the atmosphere made this struggle all the harder, and with no one to lend theirs..... This had to work.
Transferring magic... just thinking about the concept made Gau feel a bit nervous. Who knew what it could do to Celes and the others if it went unchecked? He fidgeted a little, kneading the ground with his hands...
It was shaking. Something was upstairs. This house was going to come crashing down.
Run, little wild one. Run away.
Gau crouched, ready to start off, but stopped to listen to Cissnei's command. He had a feeling she needed him to do something. "There is another woman up there - dressed like myself with short blond hair. Emma. I came with her, so she might still have a similar scent.”
"Kay. Ya ya. Got it." He feigned an air of confidence as best he could, but his eyes were still full of fear.
“Tell her what is happening down here and that I will have to rendezvous with her outside with a VIP.”
Rondy-voo... no time to sound it out. Whoever this Emma person was, she needed his help. "Yes ma'am. Will do." He gave a little salute before scrabbling out of the lab. Eyes open, ears alert, nose at the ready, he would find Emma no matter what.
The house was falling apart fast. He didn't have much time. All he could do was go back upstairs and attempt to search for her.
"Emma? Emma?" he called out to her. "Where are you, Emma? Awoooooo-yip-yip-yip..." Could she hear him? Where was she? And what was going on up there? All he could do was track down her scent...
And what would happen to Celes? Would she survive? Would she be broken out in time? Would she be twisted into a horrid monstrosity like those he'd encountered before? Or would she, like everyone else, be trapped under the rubble? It was anyone's guess at this point...
No time for that. Follow the scent. Go find her. Good dog. Eyes open. Ears alert. Nose at the ready.
With magic and science in hand, G’raha makes a gamble and offers his life as possible collateral. The spell cast by the mad nobleman was complex and drained the light of a crystal. That energy is now supplied by G’raha himself, and the world spins as he himself is drained in the casting. Still, he feels the world around him shift and stall. It would work. But at what cost? As G’raha sinks to the ground, the progress of the fire is put on pause. The manor will stand for a while longer than it should have, and this time will doubtlessly give the others a chance to save lives.
But who will save the exarch? As his strength fails him, it’s only a matter of time before he himself is consumed. Perhaps someone will come across him and save him from the flames and wreckage once time has caught up to him once more. Perhaps his strength will return in time to crawl out of the way of danger himself.
All of that is uncertain, however, as the world fades from view and G’raha’s spell besets the manor.
That leaves Emet with a great freedom. He’s left alone with boundless tomes on forbidden magic. His only rival is unconscious. The manor is defenseless and could be ransacked for any of its priceless valuables. There are all sorts of terrified people running this way and that to escape, and with G’raha’s spell cast, there’s all sorts of time before he has to make his exit. His opportunities are simply endless.
Gau quickly finds his way back through the secret tunnel, down the darkened hallway, and up the stairs onto the first floor. But who is this “Emma?” And where? Gau tries to follow Cissnei’s scent, but all the smells are messed up now, overwhelmed by the thick smell of smoke. It smells like a forest fire. It smells like danger. Still, the “almost-like-Cissnei” smell leads him to a strange man with white hair and a mask who looks kind of like Shadow, but isn’t. He knows Emma, and agrees they need to evacuate.
Together, Gau and the ninja help everyone escape. All the time, it feels like the fire should be spreading. It feels like danger, but somehow they have time to find almost everyone and get back to the entrance hall. The doors to the outside are locked, but between the ninja’s skills and Gau’s primal strength, they manage to break the hinges, and everyone pours outside followed by a thick plume of smoke.
It’s dark outside and very, very wet. The rain comes down in thick sheets that soak Gau to the bone. Between the smoke and the rain, all the smells are mixed up and wrong. Where is Celes? Or Cissnei or G’raha? For now, he can only wait and see if they join him. It is far too dangerous to run back inside. His animal instincts are sharp enough to tell him that.
The glass cracks as Cissnei slams her metal pipe into the container. Some of the strange, efflorescent liquid streams down the side, but it doesn’t give. On Cissnei’s second swing, the cracks deepen and Cissnei is splashed with the strongly smelling fluid. Still, it doesn’t shatter. Not yet.
Inside, Celes stirs faintly. The manor’s other victims are unresponsive. And Rufus…
He wakes up, coughing and sputtering as the liquid drains down to his hips. His eyelids flutter as he painfully regains consciousness. He’s alive, but it doesn’t take a white mage to know that he needs medical attention. Between Rufus, Celes, and the others, it’s all too much for one person to manage. Thankfully, Cissnei is not alone.
Behind her, another man appears from the shadows of a locked door. Somehow, impossibly, Caius Dragelion has appeared from absolutely nowhere. There’s footsteps coming from a staircase on the far side of the room as someone else -- a girl in a black dress with pink hair in a side ponytail, comes to join them.
These three souls have found the heart of the manor as well as its captured prey. There isn’t much time left if they hope to escape it with their lives in tow.
[attr="class","crashBody"] Gau raced off without any complaint. Cissnei was relieved as she expected a fight to keep his friend safe. Instead he trusted her. That was certainly a strange feeling from someone she did not know well. She would have to trust him to do his job. If she died here, at least Emma would know what happened to her. She let out a heavy sigh and shook her hair off her shoulders. [break][break] Cissnei did not notice the others joining at first. She was so focused on trying to get these tanks open. The frustration grew in her. She was not strong enough to do this alone. She needed tools or at least the other Turks with a different skillset than her’s. She gave a low growl at the slowness of this process. She had a grenade on her belt, but she risked blowing a limb from a victim if she used it. Or worse, the shrapnel would prove deadly to all parties involved. [break][break] She heard the crushing of broken grass as the newcomers padded closer, still trying to take in the reality of their surroundings. She turned to gaze over her shoulder at them. “So, generous of you both to help.” She wittily remarked in her urgency. “She’s important to you, isn’t she? She is to the boy I sent away too.” She huffed in irritability at Caius. Why did she have such a weakness to seeing these things? She couldn’t help Zack or Cloud back then. But Minerva be damned if she couldn’t try to help in this situation. She’d pay with her life to correct her mistakes and past regrets. [break][break] She did not worry about her now soiled clothes or the strange liquid. There was not enough time. She dropped her useless pipe. Her head snaps to see Rufus waking up, then her brain starts working. “Take over. Once his pod opens I can open another.... I don’t know which, but it will start draining. The last one will need to be broken open.” She did not know the names of the other two. She could only pick one at random and hope for the best. She didn't even know the other lady that walked in here. Or what she would do. But she knew Caius well enough to know he was too kind to leave someone behind. [break][break] She would aid in what she could. She was better off using gravity magic to aid in weakening the other pods for the others, and finishing what she could do with the computer. After that, she’d bolt with Rufus Shinra.
Post by Claire Farron on Sept 12, 2021 20:01:32 GMT -6
"Mystery"
"Something's not quite right, I sense foul play..."
Talk about a sudden brain blast, her breakthrough of this wretched amnesia hit her the moment she arrived at the scene of the crime. Well, at the very least where she had been taken to. Kidnapped, she couldn't believe it but it didn't take long to surmise how. She'd been scoping things out, preparing for this event; a business woman should come dressed for the occasion after all. She'd prepared quite the gown too. Having been kidnapped, it explained why she wasn't wearing it. Mystery...solved, right? Not quite.
There seemed to be others and once she'd gotten close enough, a lady with a metal pipe had called out to her, as well as a man. One she didn't recognize but given how she looked like Claire, he'd possibly recognize her. As for the lady, she volunteered Lumina to help. Brave, perhaps...foolish, most definitely but obviously, she was desperate. "We don't have much time and I doubt either of your strength is enough. Please search the area for evidence instead, a friend will help with these pods." Lumina stated rather calmly, before grasping her head.
Wincing a bit, as her memories were flashing before her mind, she soon moved her hand away from her head and upwards. A flash of light and darkness as she summoned a Cyclops. With its mighty club and upper body strength, it'd be able to break open the remaining containers. The Cyclops would be dismissed after as Lumina left to retrace her steps a bit. She'd recalled a room to her left when she entered and that's where she'd went, the files room. Quite frankly, she'd just retrieve whatever she could and stuff them...in Tonberry's conveniently large burlap sack. It's not like a lithe little thing like her could carry everything, that's just sloppy detective work! Once she did her sweep, best she could and had to hope Vincent caught the scientist, she'd be back where there was some life.
"Do you all need a lift out of here? If so, gather round." for the trickster's final act; Teleportation. Though bringing so many people, the best she could hope for was somewhere on the property, away from the mansion. They could figure it out from there, while she got out of Provo for awhile.
tag: DM [rest of you are tagged on discord] words: xxx outfit: See post notes:Final Phase: Absolution, Finale
Caius didn’t need to intervene, as it happened. No sooner had Cissnei given him orders before a giant had appeared at the will of the mysterious girl who had joined them. The Cyclops smashes the containers with reckless abandon, leaving behind gushing pools of sticky liquid and shattered glass in its wake.The people inside slither out of the pods like dead fish, completely limp and pale and bleeding from the glass shards. All except for Rufus who is freed shortly later as his cylinder properly drains.
They’re alive. Or they were alive. It’s impossible to tell until one of them starts coughing, breathing in wet, ragged breaths. Another follows and then another as they each regain a kind of hazy half-consciousness spurred by a gasping need for oxygen. As Lumina sets up her magic portal, Cissnei and Caius are left to collect the survivors who can’t stand on their own. Above them, there is a terrible cascading crash as the roof finally gives in. The house shakes and groans and smoke billows in from the stairs leading towards the library. The fire has spread, and there’s no time to waste.
With all known routes blocked or dangerous, there’s only one path left. The teleportation circle of a strange, mysterious, monster-summoning girl. The party takes it and disappears into the ether.
They step out into torrential rain. The sky is hollow and howling. The air smells of smoke and wood rot. The crew stands at the edge of the forest, lit only by the blaze of the manor as it caves in on itself. The other survivors are gathered a little away, muttering to themselves of their worries, fears, and of an unsolved mystery. But the three who delved into the basement know what happened here, and as the manor groans in its final agony, know that it likely deserved its fate.
The night isn’t over. The storm has yet to pass, and there’s still the matter of getting to town through the woods. Still, this chapter has closed for now. The mystery of Moonwhisper Manor has been solved for good.
notes:Final Phase: Absolution, Finale
