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.
The current skin was made by Pharaoh Leap of Pixel Perfect. Outside of that, individual posts and characters belong to their creators, and we claim no ownership to what which is not ours. Thank you for stopping by.
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.
”K-Kupo?” The moogle freezes as Alex grabs its pom. It stares at Alex with wide eyes until it’s released and then it jettisons itself back with a great flutter of wings letting out an indignant, ”Kupo-po!” as it goes. ”Why, why, why!” The moogle is so flustered that it can’t seem to get its words straight. ”You’re not nice at all! Some attendant you are!”
Then it flits away, leaving Bartz, Alex, Ragnabawk, and the other chocobos to their business.
The kupo nut doesn’t taste all that strange as Alex bites into it. It tastes like a nut. The surrounding chocobos squawk as Alex finishes it. One of them, the largest of the flock, ruffles its feathers and stretches out its neck.
”The guide has accepted!” it squawks. ”Now the dance may begin!”
To Alex, it sounds like a strangely syncopated ’kweh!’
It doesn’t take long for Alex to realize that the kupo nut was more than just a nut after all.
He feels dizzy. Or is the ground beneath him actually moving? It pulses like something alive, and as the feeling settles in, the colors grow somehow more...colorful.
The Wanderwood’s breed of kupo nuts, as it happens, are psychedelic. Or maybe it’s the will of the wood pulsing through him, calling him to adventure. The chocobos flock about, migrating towards the great temple’s entrance. They usher the two humans along with them, their moogle friends urging them forward with their encouraging squeaks.
Once outside the temple, the chocobos form a circle. They trot left then right then they stick a foot out, their talons scratching into the dirt. With this motion done, they hop up, flapping their wings and start it all over again. The birds leave three spaces in the circle for Bartz, Alex, and Ragnawbawk. The moogles look at that expectantly.
”Go on then, kupo!” A nearby moogle waves them forward. ”If you want to meet the Fat Chocobo, you must dance!”
There are many tales of the Marshlands told in hushed whispers in temples and around the flickering shadows of campfires. These mucky trails are home to those that skate the line between life and death. This is a cursed land where corpses are as plentiful as the snakes, lizards, and other monsters which call this dreadful place home.
With the help of guides and maps, the journey here has been relatively uneventful. With the bogs flooded high with the heavy first quarter rains, most of the undead are buried in the muck below. That doesn’t make the trip any more pleasant, however, over the rain and the smell and the constant whine of mosquitos seeking fresh blood. The travelers come across the ruins of the once great temple of Metaia where the dead never sleep.
Introductions are made in that dark, oppressive place, shadowed by the heavy cloud cover of the rainstorm. Visibility is low, and even outside of the city walls, the moans of the dead carry over howls of the wind.
Before them is a cursed city haunted by abominations on blood stained altars. Behind them is a flooded nightmare of low-hanging trees and shallow, overflowing waterways home to lamia, tonberry, and marlboro. Before they can so much as finish their conversation, the waters bubble around them. A shadow lurks beneath the thick fetid waters. It slithers closer and then-
Tentacles erupt around them, violet and wet, followed by red eyes and a mouth of sharp, uneven teeth. Its mouth is half-obscured behind a layer of what looks to be dirty, matted fur, and some kind of black column protrudes from its head like a spine.
Or a hat.
”’Alla ‘allo, I am Justa Gaia.”
The dim light glints off a piece of glass the monster has fashioned over one of its deep red eyes. Its rows of sharpened fangs pokes out from behind its strange moustache which is so ridden with swamp water that it looks like the pelt of something that died in the water three months ago.
Behind them, the gate to the city is broken and rusted. It’s easy to squeeze through the gaps and enter the ruined town beyond. The walls at this point seem more a measure to keep the dead contained rather than keep any intrepid explorers out. However, the gap does seem a tad narrow for a monster of tremendous size and octo-pedal mobility.
The tower is indifferent as introductions are made. The air is heavy with the morning’s rain, and a slight breeze rustles the surrounding leaves. Inside of the tower, that breeze can only reach so far. The air here is dead and old. A relic of an ancient time and a long lost people.
There is a moment of silence after Emet speaks before it answers, ”The term ’ocular’ is undefined. Please select another language or try again.”
Deep within the heart of Zephon’s subtropical paradise, a tower rises up over the morning mist, undeterred by matters of physics or probability. It can be seen throughout the region, and like a beacon, it has led many bands of explorers to its gates. The roads here are overgrown with vines and fallen leaves. The paths have been smoothed by the constant bursts of rain showers. The morning is cool and damp. A light wind bustles through the trees, carrying with it the light scent of floral perfume.
The path leading to the gates is littered with debris and lost belongings in varying states of aging. There are rusted lanterns, half-melted candles, and backpacks that have long been ripped apart by the local wildlife. Then there are the bodies. A full skeleton rests against the base of a tree, its skull hanging sideways and wreathed with wiry gray hair. The white glint of bones pepper the underbrush, sometimes broken, sometimes gnawed upon by some wild beast or another. Strewn across the path is a withered corpse, maybe six months dead, face down in the dirt and still grasping at some wound in its side.
The tower can be seen throughout the region, and like a beacon, it has led many bands of explorers to its gates. In all of that time, not one has successfully infiltrated the tower. Until now.
For the first time in recorded history, the gates to the World Sight tower have been opened. The entrance is like the opening of some vast and mysterious cavern. There is only darkness within and the smell of rusted metal.
While there were once sentries mounted to the tower walls, they are currently powered down. The way is clear. For now.
The light of the morning doesn’t penetrate far into this first entrance hall. Without a light of your own, you can only squint into the shadows. The room itself is shaped in a circle. Along the far end, a curving staircase levels out to a plateau, empty but for a circle of strange magical runes carved into the stone floor. At the center of the room is a flat-faced pedestal. As you approach, its smooth top glows with a deep blue light.
This light projects a series of holographic symbols hovering above the pedestal in front of you. They flash by in an unknowable sequence as the pedestal emits a strangely monotone voice that could be any gender or any age. It cycles through several unidentifiable languages, pausing between each as several circles blink on the pedestal display.
”Common speak. End of the second age. Is this your language?” The symbols on the pedestal morph into legible script. One circle says, “Yes.” The other says “Cancel.”
There is a moment to process before the voice continues. ”What is your inquiry?”
The Wanderwood is a strange and temperamental place with a mind of its own. Its paths, at times, can lead in an endless and unwitting spiral. At others, they might lead in a straight line right back where it started. The Wood is an entity to itself that only allows access to those it wants within its heart.
And tonight, on the night of the chocobo’s dance, it had two particular travelers in mind.
Bartz Klauser was an easy choice. The wanderer had spent some time in the Wood already, and had won the favor of its moogle inhabitants in spades. With the sharing of a kupo nut, the pact was sealed, and Bartz was brought along with their merry band. He had, for the night, become an honorary moogle. But could his light heart and bright smile win the favor of their elder god?
The mercenary, on the other hand, was more a matter of practicality. It was decided among the Wood that the wanderer would need a companion in his quest which was something the forest was sorely lacking these days. For a time, the Wood solemnly pondered its long and storied past of cursing its travelers with endless mischief, but then it came across a great surprise! With only hours to spare, another had taken to its paths. A human one, it thought, with two arms and two legs and a patch of corn-yellow hair sprouting from its head.
More importantly, the human had brought a chocobo of great heart and utmost honor. That chocobo, it thought, would prove the most excellent of companions in Bartz’ quest. After much debate, it was decided that the noble Ragnabawk’s human attendant would be allowed within the forest’s heart as well.
With the decision made, all paths would now lead to the temple with no exceptions.
Alex came with the chocobo. Bartz came with the party.
Bartz meets a great variety of native chocobos as the flock gathers in the clearing. Most are yellow. A few are blue or green or red. One elderly yellow bird, a female named Choco-Moco, is particularly pleased to make Bartz’ acquaintance, and squawks about how nice it is to see such a gentle, bright boy paying respects to the lord of the chocobos. More humans, she thinks, should be just like him. ’Now is there anything I can do for you, dearie?’
To Alex, it sounds like incomprehensible bird noises. The chocobos are giving off all manner of warks and kwehs and the occasional tweeting like a canary. Alex doesn’t need to speak the language to know that the flock is excited. Perhaps too excited. They strut around him, eyeing him with interest and chatting up Ragnabawk with a great ruffle of feathers.
One of the moogles stops as it’s waved down by Alex, turning towards him with its head cocked to the side. ”Don’t you know, kupo?” It waits for a moment before sighing, shaking its head and bobbing up and down with a flutter of its violet wings. ”Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” it tuts before bobbing closer.
”But you’re the Chosen, kupo!” it declares. ”Chosen by the Wood! Or don’t you want to meet the Fat Chocobo?”
The answer to this, it seems to think, is self-evident because it wastes no time in fluttering over to a bowl overflowing with small brown nuts. It plucks one from the pile then comes back, holding out the nut as a reverent offering.
”If you want to be part of the trial then you must partake of the sacred Kupo Nut!” it says. ”A great honor, kupo. A great honor, indeed.”
With Gau’s tapping, the fluid inside the vat bubbles and shifts. It has a kind of energy to it, almost magical, that glows faintly in the darkness. This liquid is then siphoned into tubes splitting off from the vats in a great tangle of glass and Sonoran plastic. It leads away from the main room into the circular antechamber beneath the ballroom where a great mass of whirring machines run in a constant, staticky hum. There are vials here and droppers and all manner of chemicals. Along the back of the room is a row of what appear to be modified computers, also Sonoran in make.
There are a few more vats here. One is broken, the sticky liquid splattering the floor like aquamarine blood. Another contains the lifeless body of Emet-Selch.
The notes on the desks are cryptic, full of scientific jargon and references to past research with no given context. The notes all refer to a certain Project Moonwhisper to take place on this very night. The thesis hypothesizes something about off-world subjects carrying their own traces of residual extra-dimensional power. If this power could be collected, refined, and then allocated to other subjects…
The rest is a mix of jargon and illegible shorthand.
G’raha’s journey back to the entrance hall is a silent, oppressive affair. The path is no less dark or dreadful than before, and without the company, it feels almost as though the darkness could close in on him. Is he being watched? The house, it seems, is itself a predator, waiting for its chance.
The entrance hall is exactly as G’raha left it. No one else has taken an interest in the Griffon since the trio left for the east wing. There are voices down the hall towards the ballroom and the sounds of a scuffle. There’s a peculiar smell in the air. Smoke? Something creaks upstairs and crashes with the sound of splintered wood.
The night has become no less eventful since the death of de Lune.
As G’raha sets the emblems into place, a mechanism behind the plates grinds into motion. The statue clanks with the sound of hidden cogs moving together like an old clockwork tower. After a moment, the statue shudders then slowly sinks into the floor like an elevator. It lowers until shuddering to a stop in the basement, revealing the hidden room beneath the entrance hall. There is a ladder along one side of the drop. It’s easily scalable.
There are books here. Hundreds of books, maybe thousands, in this secret library beneath the manor. Bookshelves line every wall from top to bottom, heavy with the weight of old pages. The tomes are strange and arcane. Some appear centuries old. Some are in strange or lost languages. There are titles on the occult, on the gods, and on theories of dimensional travel beyond the stars. There is an entire wall dedicated to theories on the de Lune family crystal.
Notes scattered across one of the three desks show equations and algorithms all written in the same neat, looping script as the manor invitations. Though they are difficult to decipher at first glance, it appears to be a way to harness the time altering magic of the crystal to create a kind of a separately controlled pocket dimension confined within the manor’s grounds.
When the spell is ended, time resets to the time of casting with all elements inside the pocket dimension keeping its new state. All of this is complicated and obscure, but to a scholarly man such as G’raha, the general concept, at least, is clear.
Doctor Susan Stein mutters something to herself, scratching endlessly at the paper before she comes to a sudden stop, eyebrows furrowed. ”Maybe if I carried the one...Then there’s the unstable influx of time.” She squints at her paper, makes one more flourish of a mark, then leans back, sighing.
”I doubt it will ever be solved,” she laments. The windows flash with a sharp streak of lightning. ”Maybe if I had another hour. Blast it.”
With that said, she finally stands, turning to face them with her hands clasped in front of her, half-perched on the desk behind her. ”You both must be the Off-Worlders Jules was so excited about,” she says. ”Funny. I thought there’d be more of you. Then again…” She frowns, adjusting her glasses. ”Still operating on instinct…? Even without activation…? It’s certainly possible.”
Another flash of lightning in that dim, dark library. The space between you feels hollow with a sudden absence. Where there had once been four in your party, only two remain. Princess Garnet and Rufus Shinra have both vanished at some point along the way. Perhaps they’d strayed from your path?
”Poor Jules,” she goes on. ”Poor, useless Jules. I told him there was a seventy-three percent chance of a time reversal, but he just couldn’t keep his hands to himself.” Stein crosses her arms, a dark look settling into the lines around her eyes. ”But there’s still data to be collected. So if you wouldn’t mind...running along?”
The woman screams again, raising her hands in a futile attempt to stop the razor sharp claws descending upon her. There’s a flicker of magic, however, and they merely glance off the newly cast Barrier spell. The blow has hardly had time to land before the monster is thrust off balance by the force of Mu’s blade strike and then downed as a bullet tears its way into the creature’s chest. It gives a gargled, suffocating cry and hits the tiled floor heavily, blood pooling around it. Still, it writhes, unwilling or perhaps unable to die.
The woman stares at it in obvious shock. Then her gaze drifts to her three saviors.
Only three. Caius and Vossler have not followed. The blonde woman, too, they appear to have lost somewhere along the way.
”Th-thank you,” the woman says as she hurriedly gets to her feet, straightening her apron. The kitchen is a disheveled mess. Steam obscures the place like a sauna and she quickly hurries to the stove, turning off the heat. ”I was cleaning,” she says, ”When that thing…” She puts a hand over her mouth with a panicked noise.
She counts slowly. One, two, three…
”I’m Primrose,” she says, turning to them again. She has a mousy kind of face, her wiry hair pulled loosely back into a ponytail. Most of the hair has fallen out. ”I’ve been...Well. I’ve been…” She gives a short shake of her head. ”It came from there,” she says, pointing towards the pantry. ”I don’t know where it came from. Or what it is or-...”
She bites her tongue. ”I heard a commotion outside. Did something happen?”
Adjacent Locations
Pantry: The pantry door has been smashed open and half hangs off its hinges. This cluttered space is stacked with fresh food, grains, and milk bottles. These items are torn and scattered across the floor. A bag of apples has burst and the red and green fruit are strewn about in all directions. A section of floor leads to the wine cellar, but its door has also been forced open. A ladder descends into utter darkness.
Emet has worked hard to derail the events of the night, and an immortal trouble-maker amused by chaos could hardly have asked for more.
At his doing, the manor is on fire, the questioning of witnesses and search of the second floor has been abandoned entirely, and both remaining parties are spooked and potentially haunted. The fire has not reached beyond the ballroom, but it will soon prove a deadly obstacle, removing the only shelter from the secluded and stormy elements outside the manor’s walls. G’raha in particular, it’s certain, will be displeased.
And what remains? There are several options.
The combined forces of Genesis, Mu, Emma, and Caius Dragelion are in the entrance hall, following the trail of a frenzied monster. In the hall outside Emet’s office, Vincent Valentine and the dark, mischievous girl, Lumina, are interrogating a scientist and monster-keeper. Then, of course, there’s G’raha with his investigator and feral child companions. They have made their way into the basement.
Strangely, several previous members of the search party have been magicked away, unconscious, to the basement.
As far as witnesses, the mad scientist Susan Stein is in the library speaking to Vincent. The mercenary Roman Castillo is in the yellow lounge with Lumina. The butler, Saal Lambert, is now a broken shell of a man after Emet’s meddling and is frantically trying to reach the fire. The maind, Primrose Ware, is under attack by a monster in the kitchen under rescue by Mu and Genesis. The gardener, Adrian Giles, continues his work in the rain outside, unbothered.
The manor is open to any more of Emet’s investigation or meddling. What will he do?
