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.
Post by Celes Chere on Aug 5, 2015 20:37:15 GMT -6
Whatever this creature was, they were clearly at an advantage. With the thickness of the trees and foliage, the monster didn't seem to know how to approach them. It was enough to make Celes wonder if this was its natural habitat at all, or if they were witnessing something of a freak occurrence. She had seen weirder in her life, of course. Some flying enemies had only attacked them on their airship. Once, she had been swallowed into another dimension by a giant land worm. And then there was Ultros.
She tried not to remember Ultros. She still couldn't look at tentacles without shuddering.
Douken Sota took her advice and attacked the monster before Celes could draw its attention. He leaped forward and punched it several times in the leg. Though Celes was uncertain how much damage one's unarmed fists could possibly do against a beast like this, it certainly seemed to irritate the monster. It gave a cry of pain and then thrust its wounded leg towards him. Thankfully, the monk managed to dodge away and the monster was left stomping at solid earth. It screeched and then swayed, clearly unbalanced and enraged.
Celes moved quickly. In one solid strike, she dodged from the trees, ducked behind the monster's legs, and sliced her blade across its ankles. Muscles split. Ligaments snapped. The creature gave one final, desperate sway before toppling face-forward onto the ground. With it defeated, she stepped past its arms and shoulders and planted herself by its neck.
Her sword cut as easily here as into had in its back. Arteries severed. Blood gushed out thick and black like tar. It stained the leaves and grass around her boots with a sticky deluge of gore. Celes eyed it coolly. She was no stranger to blood, nor was she unaccustomed to risking her life to dangerous creatures. As she watched the monster's face convulse in shock, she felt nothing. Monster blood left no stain on her conscience. She could not pity something that had so pointlessly sought her death.
With the beast swiftly taken care of, Celes wiped her blade on the grass and then sheathed it at her side. The monster had not yet died when she re-approached Douken. It gave its final death throes behind her.
"Thank you for the help," she said. Though she hated to admit it, the encounter would have been far more difficult on her own. She was not used to magical resiliency, and it bothered her. "As you saw, I can use magic from the espers. If you have any wounds, I can heal them if you want."
Her arm still throbbed from where she'd been struck by the beast in its opening blow. From the feel of it, it wasn't broken, but she had been unable to remove the deep bone bruise that had already spread purple across her upper arm. Her previous cure spell could only do so much when cast so hastily. Which reminded her...
"You seemed awfully calm for someone who's just seen magic." In fact, the man had seemed utterly unimpressed by her power. Almost insultingly so. "Have you...seen it before?" The thought was utterly absurd. Only magi, espers, and her friends could use that power. But if he was truly insane, perhaps nothing could surprise him. It seemed the most plausible solution.
Final Fantasy VI
22
YEARS
Female
Complicated
Heterosexual
429 POSTS
Fin
Use your own eyes and see for yourself whose side I'm on!
Post by Celes Chere on Aug 5, 2015 15:00:28 GMT -6
[[OOC: Lol! When I was checking the monster stats, apparently the original NES didn't really DO magical defense, and that's the one I checked. xD So I had no idea it had an absurdly high magical defense. Um. Well, she used a level three ice spell and has magic stats from the end of the game. So I'm going to say it gave the monster pause anyway. xD Because she's awesome. Maybe she had earrings equipped. Yeah, that's it...]]
If nothing else, it appeared that Douken Sota knew his way around combat. Just as his absurdly toned muscles and careless attitude suggested, he appeared to be a highly trained fighter with no small amount of skill. He moved quickly at her call to action, raising his fists and nimbly dodging its attack before moving into melee range and delivering several quick blows with his fists. Celes would have called this suicidal if it didn't appear to have worked. Even Sabin used punching spikes or bronze knuckles when attempting to fight monsters hand-to-hand. To attempt to physically beat the beast to death without a single weapon sounded almost crazier than his made-up kingdoms. Almost.
Sota had told her that the monster was called a "minotaur," though she had never heard of it. Indeed, the creature before might have resembled a behemoth if it was larger and of a different complexion. She assumed the two must be related, though she certainly didn't remember behemoths sharing a resiliency towards magic. Why should they? Magic was something of express rarity in the world, of which very few creatures had built an immunity to. She was surprised that the monk had even recognized her power for what it was. At the very least, he should have seemed more surprised about it.
Still, he appeared to be proven correct in his assessment when the monster merely shrugged off her high level attack. She had felt the drain of magical fatigue, released a magic strong enough to give even a behemoth pause, and yet this beast shrugged it off with only enough hesitation to allow her a cure spell. Her eyebrows furrowed as she gripped her sword tightly at her side. So her greatest power had proven next to useless. Thankfully, she was no stranger to a blade.
"Use its size to your advantage!" Douken told her. It was elementary advice applicable to any fight against a larger opponent, and he seemed to be taking it in stride. He had drawn its attention away from her, and as it charged after him, it couldn't quite seem to maneuver around the underbrush and trees. It took to ripping branches and saplings completely aside, so enraged by his strikes that it noticed little else. Leaves, brambles, and ivy flew through the air like a miniature cyclone. It didn't notice her standing with a sword at its back. She took that as an opportune time to strike.
Her runic blade sliced into the enemy's flesh with ease. It cut deep between ribs, burning with its own special magic she had absorbed from her enemies over the years. The monster gave a screech of pain and scrabbled backwards at her, but she dodged away towards the safety of the trees. The blow had hurt, she knew. Perhaps it would even kill it with time, but it was not the kind of wound that would take immediate effect. If they were to end this quickly, she needed a smarter blow in its stomach, lungs, or neck. At the very least, they could wear it down as she cut into it over and over again.
She wiped thick splatterings of blood from her cheek. "Hit it again!" she called, "Keep it distracted! I'll stay at its back!"
Final Fantasy VI
22
YEARS
Female
Complicated
Heterosexual
429 POSTS
Fin
Use your own eyes and see for yourself whose side I'm on!
Post by Celes Chere on Aug 5, 2015 11:27:56 GMT -6
From the moment Celes had met the man, he had done nothing but confuse, offend, and disgust her. As he leaned against his tree and answered her concerns, however, the source of her revulsion became entirely clear.
Douken Sota, it seemed, had gone completely insane.
"It does not mean anything to me," he said, and though she might have taken this to mean that her previous alignments did not bother him, he then continued, "For my world had no Empire to fear from."
Was he referring to his time as a "traveling monk"? Had he somehow managed to evade the Gestahlian Empire's influences on his journey? But no, that did not appear to be the case. "The Kingdom of Cornelia was kind and one with its people, not afraid to walk in public and commute with the townsfolk," he said, and before she could ask what he thought he was blabbering about, he told her, "I have also heard no rumors of a corrupt empire."
The devastation to the planet had clearly caused this man to lose his senses. How else could he never have heard of an empire which had once spanned the entire world? Why else would he be going on about kingdoms which had never existed? He directed her towards a "trade city" to the North. Provo, he called it, though Celes had never read of such a place. Apparently it was a two day's walk, but why had he come so far in that case, and why was he wandering around alone and unarmed? She thought to ask if he lived somewhere closer, but thought better of it. Perhaps she would do better on her own than with a delusional man whose sense of reality had been so utterly broken. He told her that searching for her friends was useless. "For all we know, they could be elsewhere in this world, or not here at all,” he told her, but she had already found them. Her friends had scattered upon the world's destruction, but they had not left it. Sabin had used his strength to aid the most needy of survivors, Setzer had lost hope and drank his problems away, and Locke...
Well, Locke had taken to searching for what mattered most to him -- what had always mattered most. How could she blame him for that?
"They're alive," Celes told him. "And I will find them." If she had fallen off the airship, then they were probably looking for her. Yes, if she could only escape this forest, she was certain she'd find them, shocked and waiting. She had survived worse falls before, after all.
Much worse.
He asked for her name again. "If you will not tell me who you were, will you tell me who you are?" While she didn't plan to stay in his company for any longer than necessary, he did have a point. Regardless, what use was it hiding her identity from a man who had never even heard of the Empire?
"My name is Celes Chere," she told him. Though she reasoned she had nothing to hide, caution kept her voice cool and indifferent. "I am a capable fighter and hope to give the world a second chance." It was the first time she had ever introduced herself like this. She wasn't a General nor was she a traitor. She was merely Celes, and she had her own goals for the world -- she aimed to stop what she hadn't been able to prevent and what she might have even caused.
"If that's all that you can tell me, then I'll be leaving," she said. If he was to be believed, it was proper to head North. Without any other direction, it would have to do. "Thanks for the help, but I think I'll be f-" she started, but a sudden noise stopped her. It was a loud crunching followed by a series of deep grunts. It came from directly behind her, and as quickly as she whipped around, it was not quickly enough to see the beast before it gave a bellowing roar and charged straight for her.
Her eyes widened. "What the-?!" she started before hard instinct kicked in. In her condition, she did not have the time to dodge this rampaging creature completely. Instead, she side-stepped its blow so that it was the monster's bulging shoulder rather than its horns that caught her. The force threw her sideways until she landed hard into the trunk of a tree. She quickly braced herself against it and pulled for her sword. It came easily into her hand even as her other arm dangled uselessly at her side. With a quick grit of her teeth, she stumbled forward and took in the beast in its full form.
It was a hulking creature, maybe eight feet in height, that might have been human but for its size, coloration, head. Its muscles rivaled that of the monk's threefold and it was covered in tan hair sprouting from its neck, hips, and ankles. Its face elongated into a thick snout which almost masked protruding teeth. On its head were two curved horns, not unlike that of cattle. It raised itself to its full height, raised its arms above its head, and roared.
"What is that thing?" Celes asked more to herself than the man she had been eager to leave. She had certainly never seen it and couldn't remember a weakness or attack pattern to save her life. She didn't need it though. Almost everything alive -- be it monster or human -- had a weakness to magic. With sword still in hand, Celes began muttering the incantations to awaken the espers inside of her. When she called, she could almost hear them answer.
"Blizzaga!" she cried when the power had built to a freezing burst. It left her in a sudden rush of energy. The air chilled. What had been a cool spring afternoon could have suddenly been the middle of January. The magic centered around the beast and then sharpened in a quick, life-draining exodus of heat. The monster howled in pain. Celes readied her sword and checked the damage to her arm. The skin had been scraped and beneath the streaks of blood, a violet bruise was already beginning to form. Celes fought back a wince and touched the wound. "Cure," she commanded, and the pain lessened. Broken skin mended. It was only a quick fix, however. She had more important matters to attend to.
"If you're a man, then fight it!" she called to the so-called monk. Insane or not, if he could fight then she would accept the help. Even if she could probably handle it on her own.
Final Fantasy VI
22
YEARS
Female
Complicated
Heterosexual
429 POSTS
Fin
Use your own eyes and see for yourself whose side I'm on!
The man's very next words proved Celes entirely wrong about his character. This man was not like Sabin Rene Figaro at all.
He was even worse.
Though he tried to apologize for what he acknowledged as unacceptable behavior, he did so in one of the most brutish and undignified manners she had ever witnessed. He stood with his casual stance of idle disregard and, for some reason she couldn't understand, hadn't thought to remove a piece of dry meat from his mouth before speaking. "Forgive me. I did not think of calling you so to be rude. It seemed I was wrong." All while he said it, the meat dangled from the corner of his mouth, wagging like a tail for every word as it caught on his teeth. She wondered if this man had ever even heard of society or if he had been raised in the wild like that Veldt child, Gau. Only Gau would have such blatant disregard for social courtesies paired with a strange obsession with meat. Celes half expected the man to hunch over and crawl along like an animal. Despite the forest's thick underbrush and spiny foliage, the man wore no shoes. His feet were calloused over in flaking white blisters and thick skin.
He had the courtesy to introduce himself, at least. Celes had never heard of a "Douken Sota," nor did she understand what he meant by "traveling monk." She assumed that it was a self-assigned title, like Locke's favorite of "treasure hunter." From what she could tell, he seemed to be some kind of traveling fighter, as Sabin had been, roaming the world to learn more at his craft. She suddenly wished that she had listened more to what Sabin had told them on the subject. He had mentioned a certain Master Duncan and Duncan's son, Zangan, who Sabin had apparently trained with and been forced to kill. The tragedy of the story had stuck in her mind, but as for his actual craft, she usually lost interest. Back when their occupations had still mattered, she was never the one he spoke to directly, and she had usually held little patience for such simple topics.
Perhaps they could have found a starting point of common interest had he not then pulled the meat from his mouth, ripped it in half, and held one of the spit-addled pieces out to her as though fully expecting her to take it.
"It may not be much, but can you place this as a sign of good faith?"
Celes could only stare at the meat, disgust rising visibly. Her general instincts called for the discipline of this man she had just met. They called for her to instruct some order into this half-wild man when interacting with strangers. Another part of her -- the Returner part -- soothingly reminded her that Gau had once done something of the same. While she had looked upon the boy's offer with disgust, it was important to remember the intention behind such things. Gau had tried to give her what he cared about most. To this man, his disgusting meat seemed to operate as some kind of peace offering. Besides, it wasn't so long ago that she might have been grateful for such an offer. With the world in ruin, there wasn't a single person who had completely escaped the pain of hunger.
Celes wasn't quite so desperate anymore, however, so she declined with a short,"No thank you." It was the most polite response she could muster.
He ate the other half without even waiting for a response. At the very least, he finished chewing before attempting to speak again, but as for what he had to say, there wasn't much she could learn from it.
"All I can tell you about where we are is: not your home nor mine. Other than that, I, too, am seeking answers of where this is. If I had more answers, I would be glad to share them with you."
Neither his home nor hers? She wondered as to what he presumed to be her home. While this forest was certainly not it, that seemed like one of the least helpful responses she had ever faced. Unless he meant it philosophically (and she did not take him as a philosopher), Celes could only file his response as utterly useless. Her eyebrows furrowed in distaste.
"This is clearly some kind of forest," she said, "It must have been spared the Light of Judgment." That was the only answer she could think of. But how many times had she traveled the distance of the world? Would she not have noticed a forest as thick as this still alive and growing in their dead world? "I woke up over here, but I don't know why. I keep trying to remember what I was doing, but my head..." She frowned. Despite the healing magic, her head was still swimming. She remembered the wastelands made of the world. She remembered how she had gathered most of her friends, but after that, it was all a haze. Had she fallen from the airship and hit her head? Was she lucky to be alive?
The man (Douken, as he'd introduced himself) leaned casually against a tree trunk. "I have made my introductions, would it be too much to ask for yours?" So he hadn't recognized her. Her grip loosened on her sword.
"It doesn't matter who I was," she said. "I was once involved with the Empire, if that means anything to you, but all of that's over. I want to help the world." She paused. No, more than anything, she wanted something else right now. "Can you lead me out of here? I have friends to meet, and I'd rather not keep them waiting."
Final Fantasy VI
22
YEARS
Female
Complicated
Heterosexual
429 POSTS
Fin
Use your own eyes and see for yourself whose side I'm on!
Post by Celes Chere on Aug 4, 2015 21:22:36 GMT -6
Celes Chere was no stranger to comments of her gender. As a child, she had always been considered "cute," even with her scientific altering. Once she began her training in the Imperial army, she became known for her peculiar strength "for a girl." Though women were by no means an oddity in the armed forces of Vector, they were still enough of a minority to give the men pause. She had grown used to their calls of "ice queen" or, even more blatantly, "bitch." She would not date them, so she was "choosy." She did not try to please them, so she was "stuck-up." Before long, their terms ceased to mean anything to her at all. As a general, she commanded respect through both strength and a certain domination of the weak-willed. Had any of her men tried saying their gossip to her face, they would have regretted ever being enlisted. Of course, that respect had fallen away the moment that the Empire had turned on her (or rather, she had turned on it), and then she got to hear what the men really thought of her. It seemed that intimidation could only get one so far and that certain labels never died.
Alone in these strange woods, Celes would not have expected to be confronted with those labels again. She should have been relieved to hear a voice calling through the trees. In her condition, she was in no state to reject aid, and without knowledge of the situation, there was little she could do on her own but wander at random. Still, had she been given the choice of possible allies, she would not have chosen a man such as this.
A glance proved him simple. He wore loose-fitting pants and an open shirt tied at the waist. His stature reminded Celes mostly of Sabin, from body-building frame to shaggy blonde hair. His muscles bulged from his arms and chest, and it was quite obvious from his more than lax approach to clothing that he wanted more than anything to show it off. From his gloves and physique, Celes guessed that he was the same kind of hands-on fighter as a certain Figaro. She doubted that even Sabin would be so stupid to address her as he chose to, however.
"Greetings," he said, "It is not often a maiden chooses to sleep outdoors like this."
Celes wasn't sure which part of his babbling to object to first. Mostly, she was simply taken aback. Upon awakening in this strange place, she would have expected hostility, urgency, or even confusion from any she came across. She had not expected such a casual introduction nor for her gender to take precedence over her situation. It was with only the slightest indignation that she spat out, "Well I didn't choose to," before adding, "And I'm not some maiden, either." When was the last time she had even heard that word? In bed-time stories? Fairy tales? He acted as though she was a mere damsel in distress, or perhaps some silly woman lost due to her own stupidity. The idea was absurd.
"Who are you?" she demanded before he could respond. "And where are we? I've never seen this place before in my life." She didn't mention that its very existence should have proven impossible. That should have been obvious to anyone.
Nor did she mention her name. During the war, the title of General Celes had proven quite infamous. Even after her defection, many were still hostile while still more refused to trust her. After Kefka's ascension, her previous title became useless to most, but she had gained a different kind of infamy among those supporters of the mad god. Either way she viewed it, her identity was not one to be given lightly, and particularly not without a drawn sword. She kept a hand on the hilt even as she spoke to this man. In a world of thieves and bandits, one did not lose one's defenses when approached alone in the wilderness.
Final Fantasy VI
22
YEARS
Female
Complicated
Heterosexual
429 POSTS
Fin
Use your own eyes and see for yourself whose side I'm on!
Post by Celes Chere on Aug 3, 2015 12:07:18 GMT -6
When Celes awoke, she thought that she might have fallen. The ground was hard beneath her and smelled deeply of dried mud. Celes had taken more than her fair share of punishment from the various monsters and abominations that now roamed her world, and this was by no means her first time awakening to bruises, fatigue, and head-splitting aches. Strangely, however, she couldn't seem to remember what she had been fighting. It must have been terrible to have caused her such a spinning sense of vertigo, and yet, as she tried to summon the strength to rise from her stupor, she did not hear growls, snarls, or the appropriate clashes of battle.
Instead, she heard birds.
It was a disorganized kind of twittering, at least a dozen voices all calling at once from far above her. They could only be songbirds -- finches or maybe sparrows -- but these were not the kind of creatures that could defend themselves from monsters, and nothing so fragile had been seen by anyone in over a year.
Celes opened her eyes and immediately regretted the decision. The light was too bright for her muddled vision. Celes fought a groan as her headache gave a sharp throb. She felt at her hip to find the handle of an unsheathed sword. Her hand swept at the ground until her fingers twisted in grass. Plant-life, and it didn't feel dead. Celes braced herself and pushed up from the ground until she was nearly sitting up. The pain came swift and sharp, but she managed to endure it with a curse and a rub of her head. Once it had sufficiently passed, she pushed her hair behind her ear, shielded her eyes, and then squinted upwards.
Trees. She was surrounded by them in every height and size. Springy birches, rigid oaks, swaying pines. Their leaves spread over her like a great, verdant ceiling and diffused the worst of the sun before it reached her eyes. Beside her, there were bushes, ferns, and moss-covered rocks. The birds had not stopped their dissonant song. This was not the wasteland of burnt wood and cracked earth she had grown used to. This was a forest -- a true forest, towering, green, and alive.
What was going on?
Celes felt as though she had been gored by a great behemoth, but she had never been one to sit quietly in the face of danger. She took a steadying breath and then forced herself to her feet. The shock of it nearly toppled her again, but she managed to stumble, half-blind, into the nearest tree trunk where she grabbed a branch to steady herself. The bark was dry beneath her fingers and the crack of foliage beneath her boots told her that maybe this forest wasn't as alive as she'd thought. She grit her teeth against steadily rising nausea.
"What is the matter with you, Celes? You weren't trained to sit back and let someone rescue you. This is nothing compared to-." Her muttering stopped. Compared to what? Her head was spinning too hard to remember. What was it she had lived through, and why did it send a cold chill up her spine? It had been something to do with dark metal and dried blood. When she closed her eyes, she could almost see it -- a series of twisted faces, grinning abominations, and-.
She opened her eyes. Whatever it was, she could wait to sort that out until she'd made it to safety. Her hand clenched on the handle of her sword. If anyone else had been abandoned near death in the wilderness, they wouldn't have stood a chance. Celes was not anyone else, however, and she didn't need potions to heal herself.
"Cure," she muttered and waited for the magic inside of her to awaken. It was a quiet kind of magic that prickled her skin and chilled her blood. It washed over her in a cleansing wave and soon she had stopped shaking. Her center of balance righted itself, and her headache dulled. When her magic proved as strong as ever, she tried it again until her body no longer ached and her sword did not feel heavy in her hand. She pulled it from its sheathe and readied it at her side.
Celes did not know where she was. From everything that she could remember, her current location seemed impossible. Yet, as she steadied herself again, she found that it didn't quite matter. Above all, she was still a soldier, and she would fight until all hope was lost. As she started into the labyrinth of trees, she found that she still had more than enough hope to keep her alive.
Final Fantasy VI
22
YEARS
Female
Complicated
Heterosexual
429 POSTS
Fin
Use your own eyes and see for yourself whose side I'm on!
Post by Celes Chere on Jul 31, 2015 22:21:14 GMT -6
Celes Chere
"Thanks for your concern, but I'm a soldier, not some love-starved twit."
I. BASICS
FULL NAME:: Celes Chere NICKNAMES:: General Celes GENDER:: Female AGE:: Nineteen ORIENTATION:: Heterosexual ALIGNMENT:: Harmonious EQUIPMENT:: Runic Blade, Earrings
HEIGHT:: 5'7" HAIR/EYES/SKIN:: Mid-length blonde hair pulled half-back, blue eyes, fair skin DISTINGUISHING MARKS:: Long white cape, white pauldrons, green leotard, jewelry keeping her hair in place
II. PERSONA
At only the age of nineteen, Celes has the fortitude to command armies, the strength to rival the Empire's Magitek mechs, and the discipline of a soldier. She carries herself with a prideful air that reflects her high standing and does not stand for incompetency in those she works with. Though highly capable, Celes often struggles with casual socialization as she never had much experience with it as a child. For this reason, she often comes off as aloof and does not make friends easily.
Despite her cool demeanor, Celes is willing to die for what she believes to be just. While she will show little mercy to her enemies, she does not believe in killing innocent people and will not stand for seeing them slaughtered. While not compassionate, Celes commands a certain sense of justice that can't be threatened or bribed. Even in her darkest of times, she will find the strength to fight even against all odds.
After Kefka took power, Celes' distinctions and pride became suddenly irrelevant. With everything taken from her, Celes revealed her loneliness and isolation. Though she remains highly independent, she can't stand the thought of being alone in the world. She fights to remain with her friends and any who have learned to care for her.
III. HISTORY
At the age of two, Celes' parents were killed in the First Gestahlian Campaign for imperial dominance on the Southern Continent. Celes was taken into the care of the state of Vector with the other war orphans. As such, when the Empire began looking for candidates for magical infusion, Celes was one of the considered possibilities. She does not know how many children failed before her. She only remembers being led into the darkness of the Magitek Research Facility and being stabbed with several needles. When she awoke, she could perform magic.
The scientists worried that the magic would have a negative impact on her psychological state and that she would prove as unstable as the procedure's previous recipient, Kefka Palazzo. At first, she had trouble controlling the magic and would use it accidentally with her increased mood swings. However, these symptoms quickly passed, and with time, she grew as docile as any young child. Now thoroughly in control of her actions, Celes was deemed the first "real" success of the Magitek infusion process.
During this time, Celes was always surrounded by scientists taking various tests and monitoring her well-being. Primary among them was Doctor Cid Del Norte Marquez, a brilliant engineer and the inventor of the Magitek infusion. Because Celes was his "project," he was nearly constantly present during her childhood. Despite their professional association, Cid took a kind of protective fondness for the young girl and was the only to show her any kind of parental affection. Even when testing was not required, Cid would often speak with her and even took her to help trim his rose garden. In her younger years, Celes took to calling him "grandpa" and learned to love him like a father. In her scientifically mandated isolation, he was the only "family" she would ever know.
At the age of thirteen, Celes was deemed old enough to begin life not as a scientific curiosity, but as a soldier. With her magical enhancements, Celes excelled at her training and quickly rose through the ranks of the Gestahlian army. Among the other soldiers, she gained a reputation for her icy disregard. Still, as an attractive teenage girl, she received several romantic offers from the other soldiers. She declined them all. By the time that she took her place as a general, she had gained a particular disdain for weak men and became merciless with her training exercises should any try to approach her.
By the age of seventeen, General Celes Chere had cemented her place as one of the most prominent figures in the Empire with her capture of the last independent state of the Southern Continent - Maranda. With her status, she was allowed a voice at official meetings with the Emperor Gestahl and was one of the only people privy to their plans to recover and use the lost espers. Still the espers were not under her jurisdiction. She did not even question the use of the half-esper Terra in their plans, though she had met her more than once in the Research Facility. Celes' assignment was the subjugation of territories on the Western continent, and she left for it without hesitation.
It was while attending to the resistance in South Figaro that Celes heard of Kefka's plot. Kefka had stopped there after his failure at Figaro Castle and, upon reassignment to Doma castle, loudly confided his intentions to "just poison them all." While Celes might have assumed this to be an exaggeration from anyone else, his violent nature and the sudden request for several gallons' worth of arsenic proved him genuine. Alarmed, Celes demanded that he cease and claimed that she would force him down if need be. When she proved quite serious, Kefka pulled rank and had her arrested as a traitor. His report passed to the Emperor, and her execution was slated for a week later.
The day before her would-be death, Celes was found by Locke Cole, a treasure hunter and member of a resistance group against the Empire -- the Returners. Though she insisted that she was too weakened to escape and that she be allowed to die with dignity, Locke refused to leave her and brought her to the gathering of Returners in Narshe. Though they did not trust a former general to join them, Locke defended her and she was allowed to stay. From then on, Celes worked to help the Returners in their struggle against the Gestahlian Empire, particularly in their raid of the Magitek Research Facility. When she was confronted by Kefka and the Emperor, however, she was framed as a double-agent against the Returners. To prove her honesty, Celes used magic to help her new friends escape, but was left behind in the process and arrested.
Once the espers overtook Vector and Kefka was arrested for his crimes. , Emperor Gestahl gave her another chance to join them. Her reconciliation with the Empire was short-lived, however, as the change of heart was proven false and the Emperor and Kefka sought to harness the power of the Warring Triad, the source of magic itself. She joined the Returners to stop them, but hesitated upon confronting the Emperor. The Emperor offered her power and a place beside him as he ruled the world. Frustrated and confused, Celes turned down his offer by stabbing Kefka through the stomach. This prompted the madman to destroy the Warring Triad and potentially himself.
As the world was torn apart by the conflicting pulls of magic, Celes fell from the deck of their destroyed airship and landed in the sea. She was joined by Cid who pulled her out from the water and cared for her sickness and injuries for nearly a year, even as the other survivors had died. When Celes awoke from her illness, the two of them were alone. With everything lost, Celes reverted back to her childhood self and remembered her love for the man she had once called her grandfather. When he fell ill, she did everything she could to save him, but it wasn't enough. Without home, position, family, friends, or any conceivable future, Celes attempted suicide. Still, she could not yet die, and when she awoke on the beach of her deserted island, she found a bird with a bandanna wrapped like a bandage around its leg. Though she couldn't be sure, it looked much like the ones Locke had once worn. With the possibility that Locke still lived, Celes was able to muster enough strength to carry on. She found a raft that Cid had completed and drifted to the next deserted waste of a continent and began to search for the friends she had made in her time as a traitor.
While Celes sought to restore the world, the others (who had lived for nearly a year under Kefka's reign) had little hope. With Kefka as their god, every major settlement was destroyed at a whim, sometimes for infractions against him and sometimes for no reason at all. The vast plains and forests of the world had shriveled to deserted waste in which nothing ever grew. The once great city of Vector had been completely dismantled and reassembled into a hideous tower that reached far above the clouds. Throngs of desperate refugees sought to worship Kefka as a god so as to appease his wrath. In a world like this, survivors could only protect the few things worth living for and still others wasted away with nothing left at all. One by one, Celes rounded them up for one last assault against the mad god. It took a force of fourteen elite fighters to ascend the tower and confront him, but at last, they defeated Kefka and ended his reign of death upon the world.
As the repulsive tower crumbled, the fighters knew that the world would never return to normal. What had been taken could not be returned and none of them would ever be the same again. What they fought for was not the chance to protect the world, but rather, the opportunity to rebuild. As her friends separated to begin their own lives, Celes remained with Locke who had twice saved her life. They remained together for a long time, wandering the world and seeking the treasure he so loved. Celes is uncertain as to what her future may hold, but she knows what she will always hold most precious.
"Someone willing to accept me for who I am."
IV. AUTHOR
PLAYER ALIAS:: Fin OTHER CHARACTERS:: Kuja ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIENCE:: 10+ years HOW YOU FOUND US:: NOTES FOR CONSIDERATION:: Already did a writing sample, so... ROLE-PLAY SAMPLE::
