< atton revisited > The information page for Atton has been fully revised and updated with the new map!
< updated calendar > The Fortuna calendar has been updated in the "Other" lore section! This includes a document which displays the calendar for you to see, making it much easier to understand.
< moving map > The first functional map has been released in the News section! This map is also interactive, allowing you to drag and drop between points in order to determine distances. This is the first iteration, and there's more and better to come!
< first annual awards > The results for the First Annual Fortuna Year-End Awards have been posted! Go and take a look at who the finalists were, and who took home the big prizes!
< new default skin > Our new skin has passed the beta test, and is now the new Default for the forums! If you have any issues with this skin, send a PM or Discord to Mellie.
< human lore update > Humans have been updated with TWENTY-FIVE subraces/subcultures which add numerous options, and a little extra lore and flavour.
< magic lore update > Magical Lore has been enhanced with the addition of a post on Magical Education. From Beginner to Expert, this is how you learn the spells.
< a change to member groups > Member groups are now based on storyline! You can change your displayed storyline by editing the settings in your profile.
Welcome to the world of Fortuna, a land of fantastic proportions. This is an original fantasy roleplay that takes place in a world developed over nearly a decade of work and collaboration. We aim to encourage all participants to have a hand in the stories of the characters here, and the world around them. Your choices are key - so make them with pride. You decide who wins the wars, you decide who becomes King, the world is ours, and together we will bring it to life!
The 14th of the Scales of Judgement, evening. Boiss.
Simon needed a drink. Maybe more than a drink. The previous day had been a doozy and this morning had been only moderately better. That wasn't to say he hadn't enjoyed meeting Charlotte or helping out Tehodis or seeing Endless again, but the last had for the second time left him feeling a little out of sorts. Maybe a lot out of sorts. Perhaps a little frustrated. Like he had already thought, he needed a drink.
Boiss wasn't exactly a city of the night, but it had a tavern that attracted its fair share of tourists and locals hungry for something more. It was built into the trunk of a giant redwood, a living tree that had been carved out slowly over time by animals and then later taken over by humans to produce The Witless Woodpecker, as it was called nowadays. Likely named after the birds that had first begun to hollow the tree, and for the state of mind of those people inside its doors. Tonight Simon was going to be one of those people.
He sat at the bar, carved right out of the tree itself, and was already mostly finished the drink in front of him. It was true he had a variety of herbs and plants at home, dried or fresh, that all could have some very interesting effects on a person's mind, but sometimes a good old fashioned drink in a tavern was just what he needed. After all, a tavern had more than drinks - it had people. Simon was here for one of them too, hopefully. His tastes were many and varied, and for now he could settle for a good conversation but he knew that later he would need something more than just words to satisfy him. He needed to get someone out of his head and there were only two things for that, and he had already gotten a strong drink.
As usual, since he was out and about, he had taken some actual care in his appearance. Not a lot, but at least enough to not appear like a vagrant hermit. He wore simple brown slacks and a dark green tunic, a belt tied around it at the hips, and a pair of comfortable black boots. Nothing fancy, and all things that would be easy to remove later, but he looked more put together than most of the shabby outfits he wore at home. His hair wasn't even a complete mess yet, but that would surely come with time and drinks. Speaking of which, he knocked back the last of his drink and signalled to the barkeep to pour him another.
On any other evening, in any other year, the stunning elf would have been walking with her chin high; she had just completed a rather grizzly and difficult bounty. She had a gash on her thigh, just to the right of her precious blade, three long fingermarks of matted blood staining one cheek, and her dark hair tangled wildly behind her, eyes bright with the contentment that always followed a good meal.
But his blood had been dull, his death tedious, and the journey to bring his body back to the lawmen that wanted him long and tiresome.
Well. It had been almost 4 centuries, hadn’t it? Maybe bounty hunting was just growing old. She remembered a time she had harnessed more mortal feeling; the tingling thrill that came with locating her target, the nervous flip in her stomach as he realized – as they always did, like a hare in a dense forest – that she was their huntress. She dared to say it was no job, not then, but a hobby.
Now it was work.
And so, not bothering to wipe his blood off her cheek or even hover a hand over her leg to heal the wound (she sort of liked it when they winced at the sight of her), she strolled into the gut of an ancient tree, eyes taking in the dusky space in the span of a few seconds. She did not allow her gaze to dart about like a frightened insect, but locked them ahead, noting the ruffians in the right corner and the soft-looking lady of the night lounging on the left wall with her peripheral vision.
The Witless Woodpecker, she thought, what a stupid name.
There was a man at the bar; tall, lanky, and unassuming, exactly the sort of man who was always more than he seemed. She slipped up next to him, tossing a dark wave over her shoulder, and pinned the barkeep with insistent eyes. He was already looking at her with a mighty mixture of interest and mistrust, as they often were, and he knew the meaning of her look, holding it for an (impressively) long moment before glancing lazily back to the still-dirty mug in his hand, tossing aside the grimy cloth he’d been “cleaning” it with.
“What’ll it be, then?”
“Whiskey.” She shot back, no thoughtful moment of hesitation, and sidled into the seat next to the tall (even to her) man, drumming her fingers, impatient.
The bartender ignored her expertly.
When the drink was finally shoved in front of her, she tossed it back in one smooth motion, chin high, eyes closed, long neck extended for the most fleeting of moments before the glass was back on the wooden bar with an insistent crack.
“And I’ll take one of whatever he’s having.” She didn’t point at the man next to her – he would know.
She didn’t look to her companion, but felt the need to introduce herself, hard eyes appraising (maybe if she stared, he’d get her drink faster) the bartender.
“Solana Heiralei.”
What could she say? She wasn’t one for pleasantries.
Simon could feel the moment the woman entered the tavern. He had a knack for it - little flare ups of divination that poked and prodded into his life whether he wanted it to or not. Sometimes it led to something interesting, like the time he had the feeling that climbing the berry tree would lead to something good, and it had. It led to meeting Endless. Endless... the reason Simon was here.
Simon had many different tastes in people but usually a common theme was that if he wanted to pursue someone he did, and he was pretty successful with it. Perhaps a result of his intuition, leading him to people who would be receptive to such advances. With Endless things were different. He wasn't just attracted to him. He liked him. And he didn't want to fuck things up with him, because he was shy and adorable and Simon had this horrible fear that once he crossed that line there was no going back.
The woman sat next to him. Rather, she sidled up next to him and took the seat, though there were many open seats elsewhere she could have taken. Despite how on purpose it was, she pointedly ignored him and instead stared down the barkeep until he took her order. Whiskey. Maybe she was here to forget someone too.
She shot back her whiskey with ease, as though she'd done just that a thousand times before. Simon suspected she probably had. She probably practiced every movement. He could see the way some of the other patrons were staring at her, and he knew she saw it too. She probably did it on purpose, but he supposed that was a baseless accusation. He doubted, though, that she didn't know exactly what she was doing. She looked like a woman who liked to take control. Of people, of situations, of herself. Simon could work with that. Unless she was here to kill him or something, there were very few reasons why a woman like her would sit next to him, and he thought someone like her would be a great distraction from his current woes - this woman seemed to be the opposite of Endless in every way he could tell.
When she finished her drink she asked for one of whatever Simon was having, he took that as a good sign. While waiting for the drink, and still not glancing his way, she introduced herself and he raised a brow with a bit of a playful smirk on his face. "I'm sure the wall is pleased to make your acquaintance. Simon Foster. What're you here to forget?"
His gaze was on her from the moment she sat in the chair.
Perhaps it was because half the tables in the bar were filled, but few of the stools; and she had chosen the one next to him.
Perhaps it was because she was difficult to look away from. Solana was a stunner, as half the men in the bar seemed keen to remind her with smarmy looks.
Perhaps it was because she was half-covered in blood, which may have the best reason of them all.
But he wasn’t scared, or lusty, or curious, even. His eyes, the color of dark honey, were clouded with some arcane loss, akin to a grief one doesn’t have the right to feel; like loosing someone standing next to you. Expressing love and being greeted with like.The sort of feeling that squeezes your chest, but you can do nothing but smile.
Like seeing revulsion in your mother’s eyes.
But what can you do? Except become what they see.
"I'm sure the wall is pleased to make your acquaintance. Simon Foster. What're you here to forget?"
He was cute; and that earned him eye contact, her own sly lilt of opaque lips matching his.
“It’s rare to meet a mortal more interesting than the back wall of a bar.”
For some incomprehensible reason, as soon as the elf started talking to Mister Simon Foster, the barkeep decided that he was at work again, and slipped a drink in front of her quietly and professionally, in half the time it took him to pour an ounce of whiskey into a glass earlier. She shot him a smoky look hovering somewhere between perplexity and resentment, picking the glass up from the top by it’s rim, limber fingers clutching and swirling the muddy liquid inside.
“Work sucks.” She lifted her brows briefly, eyes flicking down to the gash on her thigh and then back to his, half a second’s indication. It was a playful answer. A tight-lipped answer. Knowledge is power. “What about you, Simon Foster? Who are you here to forget?”
She hoped he wouldn’t miss that she changed ‘what’ for ‘who’.
Because, let’s be honest: a drink as strong as that one was to forget about a who.
When the woman replied that it was rare to meet a mortal more interesting than the back wall of a bar, Simon's eyebrows raised and then he laughed aloud. He decided he liked her, and then briefly wondered if that would get him killed. She definitely looked like she could kill him. Hell, she looked like she had already killed someone. He decided he didn't care. His morals and ethics were always more on the grey side of things, and as long as he wasn't the one getting killed who was he to judge? But he liked living, which was why he always wore a few charms around that offered a modicum of protection against certain things, and why he always trusted his intuition when it came to danger. Of course it was a little harder to rely on intuition when you planned on spending the night getting as drunk as you could without poisoning yourself on it, but still.
Point being, she showed him in that one sentence that she was a much more interesting person than he would have given her credit for. And she continued to show that when she replied to his question by saying 'work sucks' and glancing briefly at the wound on her leg. She had a wry sense of humour about her that he definitely enjoyed. His own sense of humour had been proven to be terrible so she would probably think his own jokes ridiculous in comparison, or maybe not, maybe she was into his kind of humour. She was a hard one to read, this Solana. It was fun.
She asked him who he was here to forget and he chuckled wryly before finishing his drink, motioning for another from the barkeep. The barkeep was a friend of Simon's, and a regular customer. He had a common and recurring problem with fungus that Simon helped him out with on the house in exchange for drinks at the bar, and it was a very favourable agreement to both of them.
Simon had not missed the deliberate word choice, and he knew he probably looked the part well enough that it was obvious he was here over someone. He was sexually frustrated, was what it was. And emotionally frustrated which was probably the worst part. He didn't normally catch feelings for people but he also didn't normally meet someone like Endless. He wanted to be friends with Endless, he really did. Heck he was friends with Endless, but he also wanted to do some things with and to Endless that friends definitely didn't do, but again he didn't want to scare him off or risk rejection.
Things he wanted to do with someone else tonight to get his mind off of the other boy. Maybe things he could do with Solana.
"Myself," he replied with a wry smile as the barkeep brought another drink over. Want to help?"
He certainly found her entertaining, and tossed back his head to bark a laugh at her comment about bar walls (a decidedly true statement, she noted with experience). It was an enviably casual look on him, his posture lazily humored, an attitude all but impossible for the mysterious elf. Her iron shield, guarding her emotions, leaking only through plated irises. She did not laugh aloud. She did not grin. She scowled, but seldomly.
It seemed to be freeing, the way he did it.
Another chuckle; when she asked him about his who, and she regarded him with mildly curious orbs, tipping her glass to her lips.
But there it was - he was sharp, and he hadn’t missed her wordplay - that shadow fell over his brow again, the one he tried to laugh away.
Whose shadow, she wondered?
"Myself," he dodged, just as easily as she had, ”Want to help?"
She allowed a smirk, then, flashing above the rim of her glass for one revealing moment before she sipped again, then dipped her arm back to the bar, glass clinking dully on contact with the solid wood.
“It’s my specialty.” And she spun a challenging look on him, smirk lifting into view, eyes sharp with half-obscured delight. “What d’you say? Up for a little drinking game?”
Solana lifted the glass again off it’s ring of condensation, clinking the ice about with a supple swish of her wrist.
“The rules are very simple; I guess something about your past. If I’m wrong, I drink. But if I’m right...” the mischievous look in her eyes sprouted again, one brow quirking swiftly, “And then you try.”
She took another swig, just in case she was lamentably better at the game than he, and had no opportunity to get as blasted drunk as she hoped.
“I’ll warn you, though. I’m pretty damn good.” she said, and she thought: I hope he’s better.
The woman smirked and offered a drinking game - something Simon was always up for and especially interested in tonight, with this intriguing woman. He would admit to being terrible at most drinking games which he was alright with because the reason he played them was to get good and liquored up, but when she suggested a guessing game he wondered if she knew what he could do. Did she know he was a diviner? Better yet, did he want to win this game, or be just good enough to keep it interesting?
She said if she was wrong she would drink but if she was right.. the look she gave him implied the answer to that. He didn't know what her look implied, but if he had to guess he hoped it was something that would come into play later, maybe while in a private room, with very few clothes on.
She warned him that she was very good and he had a feeling she would be - she looked like someone who would have mysterious knowledge of things. "I'm in, he replied easily, taking another swig of his drink and feeling the warmth from the others beginning to make itself known. He had a high tolerance for alcohol, but the drinks he ordered were very strong. He would worry for his liver if he didn't do worse things for his health on the regular. "Tell me about myself, Solana."
When Solana left her implication hanging in the air, formless and weighty, his wordless assumptions flashed in his eyes, the cloud of his who being replaced by impish thoughts of the olive-skinned mystery that tossed teasing glances his way.
She was going to have lots of fun with this one; and, for just a second, let her own whims run away on a tendril of unbridled fantasy. Her eyes flicked to his neck, she uncrossed her legs and crossed them again, the subtle motion causing a rocking of wayward hips. Reminding him what he was looking at.
Maybe she’d even walk his dreams when she was done with him, so that he wouldn’t be able to forget that foggy night in some hollowed out tree, and what happened after. So that he'd dream of her long after she’d left him, her hips a-sway...
What a wicked succubus she was: she wasn’t just going to distract him, no, she’d leave him with her memory, long after he’d returned to his who...
Well, she never denied that she was wicked, did she?
His poor girl.
"I'm in,” he started, yanking her from her reverie, and he finished his drink, compelling her to do the same. She tapped a nail against her glass, eyes on the bartender, whose stubbornly slid right over her and nodded at Simon.
She’d have to remember to ask him later why that damned barkeep had such a stick up his ass.
"Tell me about myself, Solana."
And the game begun.
The elf looked him over, eyes searching (and lingering here or there, if they so pleased). He wasn’t badly dressed, just dressed like he didn’t much care about anything, clothes, though relatively nice, stained with an odd colour or burned through by some unfriendly mix of chemicals. She’d have to note that observation for later.
“Okay, Mister Enigma. You have no family; or a family who doesn’t approve of what you do.” One brow rose, confidence leaking through an otherwise stony visage, “But you don’t care.”
She waited, fingers tapping, to see if he was going to drink, or she.
Yes, Simon was looking at her, and he saw the deliberate way she uncrossed her legs, the way her hips moved, the inviting way she looked over at him. Yes, this woman knew exactly how to play her cards and he didn't doubt she had used this exact same tactic on more than her fair share of men, drunken or otherwise, over the years. He knew what she was doing, but he was perfectly ok with it. After all, he had come here for exactly this kind of distraction and if she was willing to give it to him he was just as willing to enjoy it.
The woman looked him over and he let her take her time. When she guessed that he had no family or that they didn't approve of what he did, but that he didn't care, he hummed thoughtfully and raised the glass, but before takin a sip he spoke. "I try not to care about too many things, least of all what my family thinks of me. I'll drink for this one but you've got to get more specific than that, love. Everyone in this bar either has no family or one that disapproves of what they do." He flashed a smile and winked at her before taking a swig of his drink. The rules hadn't included drinking if she was right, but why let it stop him from doing it anyway?
Now it was his turn, and he drummed his fingers on his knee while thinking. He appraised her much like she had done to him, starting by catching her stony gaze and moving to her bloody face, down to her clothes, the wound on her leg. "The person who gave you that is dead now," he commented, returning his gaze to her carefully emotionless face.
"I try not to care about too many things, least of all what my family thinks of me. I'll drink for this one but you've got to get more specific than that, love. Everyone in this bar either has no family or one that disapproves of what they do."
He winked, and she nearly laughed at that, but settled for a casual smirk, eyes lidded with some offhanded amusement, before rolling her eyes to the shackled ceiling.
“Then it was a good assumption,” she teased, but she was glad he drank. What kind of game would it be if she was the one doing all the drinking?
Speaking of: whatever he ordered was strong, and she was feeling the faded buzz in her mind already, disconnecting her words from her lips. She was no lightweight, but work had kept her from this particular sin recently, and she flattened one palm against the bar, reminding herself of balance, control...
"The person who gave you that is dead now,"
Silver eyes crinkled in silent laughter, and the elf tossed back the remains of her glass; an affirmation.
What? It wasn’t like tonight was going to be one for restraint.
As soon as the glass skidded back to slick wood, she turned back to her human companion, her lips pressed together to discourage an outright grin.
It was true that, in theory, he wasn’t “her type”. He was unassuming, and, she figured, likely kept to himself. He wasn’t hungry for something: power, revenge, even her, although that was becoming more debatable as the night progressed. He wasn’t the kind to reach out and take.
But today, she liked it. She wanted to be the one who took. She wanted to be the hungry one.
“I thought we weren’t stating the obvious.” But it was teasing, and she spun on her stool, back against the bar, both elbows propped lazily up on the wood as her hands hung, unhinged. She looked quite thoughtful, intentionally; but she knew what she was going to say and, after letting that coy quip hang in the air, allowing the words to dissipate, she turned to prop her chin against one taught shoulder, looking up at him from underneath heavy lashes.
She let that look speak for her for a heartbeat or two, let him guess what assumption she was going to make. Silence worked wonders, she’d found.
The skin OTHERWORLD was made by JAWN of WICKED WONDERLAND.
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