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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An airship seemed far-fetched. Tellah had the distinct feeling that they were much farther from home than a simple airship could take them. “An airship seems unlikely,” he commented, “But surely there has to be some type of magic that could take us back. Magic is the key to most of life’s problems.” At least it had always worked for him. [break][break]
Tellah’s eyes narrowed behind his thick glasses as Cecil questioned his memory. He was about to quip about old, not stupid. But the jab died in his throat. Because clearly he had forgotten things before. The question really wasn’t out of line. “I remember Mount Ordeals,” he began slowly, “I remember your quest completing there. But… I cannot remember my own.” He let out a huff of frustration. [break][break]
“I do not know about that,” he said in response to Cecil’s assertion that he had always been a great sage. “Great sages don’t constantly forget their own spells.” He groaned again. “I’d tell you to not get old, but I guess it beats the alternative.” But then Cecil went on, sorrow lacing his voice. They’d confronted Golbez? He’d cast meteor? How? When? [break][break]
He was about to ask more questions when the paladin apologized, distress evident on his face. Oh. Well. It was clear what Cecil was leaving unsaid. What he couldn’t give voice to. Tellah had died there that day, hadn’t he? He’d cast meteor and it had claimed his life? But then how was he here, alive and well? [break][break]
The sage’s voice was uncharacteristically low and somber when he responded finally. “I suppose it truly is better than the alternative. I guess I don’t know if there is any getting back for me.” But would it be so bad? To meet his end, sacrificing himself for friends? Maybe he’d see his wife and daughter again then. It had been too long… [break][break]
“Is this some twisted afterlife?” he finally asked, after musing on the implications of his apparent death back in the Tower of Zot. “We’re not all dead, are we?”
[attr=class,bulk] There was a long silence between them. It was a thoughtful silence. A terrible silence. Cecil watched as confusion clouded Tellah’s eyes then realization then sorrow. He understood without being told. He’d known the cost of his spells. He’d known, and yet he had sought that dire magic regardless in his quest for revenge. Cecil had been grateful for his friend’s sacrifice. He had spared their lives from Golbez, and in the process, he had spared Rosa’s as well. Yet there was something painful in that gratitude.
Tellah shouldn’t have had to give his life. He’d had such courage -- more so perhaps than any man Cecil knew -- but there should have been no reason for his sacrifice. Perhaps if Cecil had been stronger. Perhaps if he had seen through the lies of his king, that terrible Fiend, then this never would have come to pass.
”Of course you could come back,” Cecil said with an almost desperate urgency. ”You’ve been revived. Yang, Cid, Edward. I thought all of them to have been lost, yet they returned all the same. It must be the same!”
It had to be. If Tellah truly lived then that meant an end to his grief. It meant that Cecil hadn’t failed.
But there was another side. A side which Cecil, in all of his wondering, had never before considered. Tellah was alive, perhaps, or maybe Cecil was…
”Dead?” He looked at Tellah, his eyebrows furrowed. ”But that can’t be. We’re here. We must be…”
Alive. He was alive. He still drew breath. He felt his heart beating, stronger now than ever before. He felt a terrible weight in his stomach, turning as his throat tightened with dread. He was alive. He knew it to be true, and yet…
”My last memory,” Cecil said slowly. ”I’d gone to the moon to confront the dark mage Zemus. He was defeated, but his hatred spurned him on more powerful than ever before. He engulfed us in darkness. I must have lost consciousness.”
He’d assumed Zeromus must have somehow banished them away. He’d assumed that it had reached between worlds, and that he had fallen through. He’d assumed so many things while spurning the obvious. Cecil frowned then looked to Tellah, alarmed.
”It can’t be,” he said. ”We’re alive. I don’t know how, but it must be so. I feel it!” Cecil touched at his chest, his eyes lowering. ”Don’t you?”
Cecil’s expression had grown darker, more clouded as Tellah spoke. As the sage realized the implications of what had truly transpired before he appeared in Zephon one fateful day. The paladin seemed to try hard to retain his trademark optimism. Cecil tried to argue that Tellah must be able to return home. But his voice was becoming noticeably more frantic, like he was trying to convince himself just as much as Tellah. [break][break]
He leaned back, bones creaking as he shifted positions and stared absently up at the swaying palms as Cecil spoke. As the paladin tried to work through what was going on here. Though, Tellah suspected, there was no way for them to truly know what was happening. He spoke of someone, a Zemus on the moon. He went to the moon? Tellah’s brow furrowed at that, wondering how his friend meant that. Surely he didn’t mean the actual moon? [break][break]
I must have lost consciousness. Tellah’s expression hardened as Cecil finished. The sage closed his eyes for a moment, lost in thought. Lost consciousness? Or died? Had Cecil met a terrible end in this lunar fight? And just like that, they’d found themselves reunited in this land of the dead? But… how could that be? If this was an afterlife, wouldn’t he recognize more people? Wouldn’t he have seen his family? His jaw tensed and he turned his spectacled gaze back to his friend. His optimistic, endlessly good paladin friend. [break][break]
“I don’t know anything anymore,” Tellah admitted with a huff of air. “I don’t feel dead. You’d think in an afterlife we wouldn’t feel pain anymore. Or heat or fear. But I feel all of those.” He shifted and his joints creaked again, highlighting his words. “I don’t know what this is. If it’s some sort of stasis, some magical prison, or the trick of an old god.” The sage shook out his mane of tangled white hair. “I don’t know how we ever know for certain. I suppose more adventure and travel is necessary. There are secrets to uncover here. Maybe those secrest will hold answers to these questions.” [break][break]
“Or maybe we’ll never know. Maybe we’ll be adrift here forever, lost in the flow of time.” His voice had grown dark and distant. “But I truly hope that’s not the case. And even if it is, I am heartened to have you beside me again.”
[attr=class,bulk] Dead. They couldn’t be. They couldn’t both be. He’d seen Tellah pass in a way that he’d thought had been definitive, but hadn’t the others been saved? Yang? Cid? Even Edward had been pulled from the raging sea after Cecil had thought him gone. He’d grown accustomed to such reunions. He couldn’t bring himself to question it, and yet…
The darkness had been suffocating, pressing in upon him. He’d heard the cries of the others. He’d searched desperately for Rosa, blinded by the sheer weight of Zeromus’ power. He couldn’t protect her. After everything, he couldn’t protect his friends or the world and as he'd felt his vision darken, he’d reached for the only one still near him.
’Brother!’
Cecil’s fist clenched tightly where it rested at his breast. He had known in that instant that there would be no awakening. How could he have so easily forgotten?
Tellah gave an irritable huff. ”I don’t know anything anymore,” he said then went on to complain about the heat and the pains of age. And just like that, Cecil’s fears were dispelled.
He laughed softly as he listened. His friend was the same as ever -- grumpy, determined, and skeptical. Somehow, it made him feel more at ease. If Tellah could rise from his fear and grief, perhaps Cecil could do the same.
”As am I,” Cecil answered, and he meant it from the depths of his heart. He felt better at Tellah’s side. There was relief not only in their unexpected reunion, but in the simple familiarity of it. After so long adrift, there was finally someone he could trust and care for. Tellah had never disappointed him before.
”We could be dead,” he said slowly. ”But even so, it would change nothing. Rosa was with me. And Kain. Rydia, as well.” He glanced away. ”Whether this is an illusion or an afterlife or a slip of time, I have to find them. No matter what becomes of us, we can weather it together.”
He thought of Rosa, alone and terrified. He thought of her, left behind at the mercy of Zeromus. It chilled him.
Cecil raised his head to meet Tellah’s gaze. ”Will you accompany me?” he said. ”We could support each other.”
It felt like old times, like they were back in their home, relaxing at the end of a long day of travel and adventure. It warmed Tellah’s heart to hear the paladin’s laugh again, to simply be sitting here sharing company and conversation with a friend. Even if everything was strange and confusing, even terrifying, it was good to be facing it with an old friend. It made the future seem less unknown. [break][break]
And Cecil’s endless optimism made sense here. Truly there was no way of knowing what was happening here, but he was right. It changed nothing. Even in the afterlife, would Tellah sit idly by and watch time pass? No, of course not. That had never been his way. “I do wonder if my Anna is here,” he said in a soft voice. ”It is probably foolish to hope, but if we are here… then nothing is impossible.” Would that he could see his beloved daughter again, to hug her, to tell her how sorry he was. Maybe, just maybe it wasn’t such a foolish dream. Maybe in this new world anything was possible. [break][break]
“I will accompany you,” he agreed. “As long as this tired old man won’t slow you down too much. I would like to see the others again, too. It seems like so long ago, I barely remember their faces sometimes. But I miss them.” He let out a snort of laughter. “Even that bard,” he added begrudgingly. While he’d hated Edward for taking his daughter away, he had to admit that the man had grown on him. Especially when he’d come to their rescue when all had seemed lost. [break][break]
Tellah stood then, bones creaking and joints complaining. He stretched his arms and straightened his robes. “I suppose we should see about finishing the quests that sent us here in the first place.” Then he glanced around ruefully, scowling. “Or at least yours. I think I was sent on a fool’s errand.”
[attr=class,bulk] Cecil smiled sadly at his friend. It was never foolish to hope. Hope took strength, and with all that Tellah had lost, he had every right to fall to despair. He hoped only to see his daughter again. If this were truly the land of the dead or if it was some strange middle ground where the dead could meet again, then there was no saying what could happen.
”She must have been a truly special person.” Cecil looked out at the oasis and its soft, shimmering waters. All around them, the sands burned and shifted. The sun was cruel and unrelenting, but here beneath the shade of the rustling palm leaves, it felt as though maybe there would be some respite after all. ”I’ve seen how she inspired you and Edward both. I’d like to meet her one day.”
He’d lost his chance in his last life, but maybe he’d find it in this one, and if not this one, then perhaps the next. Tellah’s determination. Edward’s courage. It all stemmed from the love of one woman’s heart.
Cecil wondered what legacy he would leave behind. What legacy, perhaps, he had already left?
Tellah would accompany him. Cecil straightened at his words, smiling brighter. ”Tellah, you could never be a burden.” For as long as he’d known him, Tellah had always disparaged his age, but Cecil couldn’t think of anyone less tired or slow. His memory might not have been what it used to be, but what he’d lost in vitality, he’d gained in experience. Cecil never would have made it so far without him.
”I know they’ve all missed you too. Even Edward.” He laughed softly. There may have been animosity between the two, but he knew the bard prince would want nothing more than to reconcile. Cautiously. Edward may have strengthened his resolve, but he still wasn’t one to go charging in headlong.
Tellah stood, and Cecil watched him. Cecil had almost forgotten his quest. He nodded then got to his feet, silently groaning to himself at the weight of his own exhaustion. He dreaded returning to that endless, oppressive heat. He looked at his discarded armor then back at the water.
He wasn’t dressed for the heat. At this rate, he was liable to drop from heat stroke should he reenter the desert. Cecil thought for a moment then smiled.
”One moment.”
Cecil unbuckled the last of his armor, set it carefully aside, then found a rocky outcropping and plunged feet first into the oasis pool.
He let himself fully submerge into the lukewarm waters, sinking lower and lower as it seeped into his hair and under armor. Once his feet hit the sandy bottom, he opened his eyes and strained them through the slow and shimmering light. It was a quiet world, under the water. A clear, distinct, and sluggish world of silver fish and lily pad roots gathering around him like a garden of ivy. He watched bubbles dance lazily towards the sky. His hair drifted about him as though in low gravity. After a long moment, Cecil pushed himself upwards, kicking until he left that world behind.
The wind was chilling as he broke the surface, gasping for air. He stabilized himself, treading water as he flipped the hair from his eyes. Tellah still stood at the opposite side of the bank, and he swam over to meet him.
His clothes were heavy as he trodded back onto dry land. In any other circumstance, it would have been uncomfortable and damp, trapped beneath his armor. For now, however, it felt lovely and cold in a way that melted away his exhaustion. Cecil found his armor and began buckling it back into place.
”I’ve been tracking a lost Kujata,” he said. ”It shouldn’t be far from here. The farmer plotted her natural migration patterns.” Cecil shook the sand out of his pauldrons and attached them to his shoulders.
”It’s good to see you,” he said again before turning to face him. ”It’s been so long. You’ve missed so much.” Cecil secured his sword to his hip and nodded, ready to move out. ”Perhaps I could fill you in on the walk there?”
[attr=class,ooc-notes]
[attr=class,tagline]@tellah
I would very much like to watch Cecil flip his wet, beautiful hair
