< 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!
Post by Maldrem "Wight" on May 16, 2018 23:38:03 GMT -7
Can't say this is the first thing I expected
W ight was not someone who was easily surprised, taken off-guard, or captured - his reflexes and savvy were such that he had a knack for avoiding such things. A number of factors this time, though, saw to it that all three of those things happened in the span of a single moment.
One moment, he had been making careful steps towards the treasure pile, eyes and ears peeled for an angry dragon. The next, a tremendous weight bore down upon him, knocking him prone, and powerful limbs locked him to the ground. And above him was the snarling maw of a tiger, fangs bared and dangerously close to his face. He was surprised because, really, how could he not be? This was a Tiger. And not even a Cindermaw, which might have made more sense for this locale (though in hindsight, he was glad it wasn't a Cindermaw), just a friggin' Tiger. He'd been caught off-guard because his eyes had been trained on the tunnels, which were large enough to accommodate a dragon, and his ears had been peeled for the sound of scales dragging across the ground, claws digging into the dirt. He had not been watching the upper rock shelves, and had not been listening for the quiet padding of paws. And, of course, he was captured because - well, again, there was a tiger pinning him down and he couldn't exactly move from underneath its weight.
The beast above him was snarling and roaring, and given that Wight's arms were currently being held down and his legs weren't going to do him much good either, he found himself lacking options, and had elected to simply lie still. He considered that this could very well be the moment he died, and there was next to nothing he could do about it. Certainly not the way he had been expecting to go, of course - he'd always figured he'd go down to a stray bullet or blade in the heat of a battle with Woodrow's gang, or just an angry cop. Or, more recently, that he'd find his life cut short by Salza or Reina. These were methods of death he'd made peace with, given his lifestyle. He had not been expecting to be eaten by a tiger.
...Any moment now it was gonna start eating him, right? The beast above him was not giving him any new chances to move, still holding him down, still snarling, but it wasn't doing much else. Its glare was intense, but it had not yet made a move to dive in for a bite, and though its claws were digging into his arms deeply enough to draw blood, it wasn't slicing him to ribbons yet either. Wight had been staring blankly up at the beast the whole time, partly due to partial shock, and partly because some part of his brain had advised that staying still was probably the only way to gain even a slim chance of survival. And the tiger had not done anything new.
Maldrem began to think. No, Wight began to think. This wasn't the time for Maldrem the charmer, he had zero use here. This was time for Wight, the cunning devil that could survive. Situation: growling tiger holding him down, poised to strike at any time. Claws drawing blood at his arms. Blood. Wight could work with blood. But... well, this was definitely gonna make him sick. But he'd take sick over dead, any day.
He continued to remain still, eyes wide as he kept staring - he'd heard somewhere that meeting a beast's eyes was a good way to keep it temporarily distracted, as they had an instinct to avoid direct eye contact. And while he remained still, his blood began to move itself further up the tiger's claws, seeping into the roots at the paws. Maldrem felt his stomach start to turn as he immediately put his foot on the gas, no room or time to do this gradually. His blood would be a plague - a plague that would weaken himself, and was already making him want to vomit, but hopefully it would make the beast above him feel ill and disturbed enough to stagger.
But as he started to feel horrible, he was noticing something else - his magic was meeting with resistance. He could feel the muscles on the tiger's limbs tensing, and could tell it was feeling something... but it wasn't budging, it wasn't staggering or yowling in distress as Maldrem expected it to be. His magic was hitting some kind of wall, as though this tiger was somehow protecting itself from his attack.
Seeing that he was getting no results, Wight had to stop. Sweat was beading at his forehead already and he was feeling horribly ill, and it was apparently for nothing. As he willed his magic to stop (and his blood to stop being toxic) he felt breath gradually returning to his lungs, but his situation was otherwise no more improved now than it had been earlier. And if he had to guess, once he managed to lock his bleary gaze back upon his aggressor... the tiger looked more angry now.
Great.
"Oh just kill me already..." he wound up muttering, exhausted. He'd only had one play to make, and it had failed him. Because the tiger was an abjuror somehow.
...
That didn't seem like it made much sense.
Wight struggled to lock his eyes back onto the tiger's, squinting as he took another labored breath and tried not to vomit (his stomach was doing flips). Had he made himself delirious, or did that Tiger's angry glower look weirdly familiar?
urprise had worked, which was a benefit. Halulahi had known that Maldrem was not all he appeared to be, and that there was a chance somehow that the devil would find a way to turn the situation upside-down once again.
Instead, Halulahi had the fortune of crashing on top of Maldrem and pinning him to the rocky floor in fear. Even as Maldrem attempted to fight -- repeating the awful pain he had inflicted onto Halulahi earlier, or some form of it -- Halulahi felt nothing but the struggle of movement. The protection of Wyghal was too strong. It had amplified his Abjuration beyond his natural skill, and (for a short time, at least) he would be able to handle the attempts of Maldrem's escapes. The tiefling did not seem to have the same endurance. From what Halu could sense, the pinned man was growing weaker with each attempt.
His magic is limited, Halulahi thought, and in response began voicing small growls and whimpers of exertion, as if Maldrem might actually succeed in harming him if he only exerted himself thoroughly enough.
That isn't what happened, though. No, Maldrem seemed to realize that his tide had rolled in before he could weaken himself to that point of breaking, and was now muttering an ask for death. It would be a little pitiful to Halu if the man were not so clearly evil. It was also drastically inconvenient, as it put Halulahi in a dangerous position.
If Maldrem had fought back, Halu could have attempted to knock him out in the fight. If Maldrem had over-exerted himself, Halu could have carried him out of the Puhi Lanahu. But giving up? It was a tricky proposition, one that could be taken back in a split-second. If Halulahi gave Maldrem room to stand, to leave, to turn back and give up - he would be putting himself in danger's way. He would be letting his guard down the same way that he had done earlier. He could not give Maldrem the chance.
So what options did he have?
Growling in frustration, Halu began to shift once more. It was quick: a smooth transition that went from appendage, to limb, to torso, to head. As his legs shifted, he adjusted them in a dancer's fashion to try and pin Maldrem's thigh down with a heavy knee and muscled thigh (he had no interest in taking a bladed toe to his groin). At the same time, his hands shifted back, and he grasped tightly at Maldrem's wrists and tried to force them roughly upward. Halu tried to restrain them above Maldrem's head so that Halu's hulking frame was towering over Maldrem's smaller head and body. Finally as his face shifted back to normal, he shook off his sweat and grunted down at the tiefling in his heavy accent: "I gave you fair warning. Do you submit, Maldrem?"
Post by Maldrem "Wight" on May 31, 2018 19:09:08 GMT -7
...Is this for real?
A t first, Maldrem thought he must be hallucinating. The tiger above him still hadn't killed him, and instead, its shape began to change. Colors melded and melted, paws turned to arms and legs, and Maldrem was certain that he had lost it. That is, until the beast's head morphed as well, and Maldrem found a rather familiar face staring down at him. The man shook off some sweat, and then spoke.
And Maldrem stared stunned for a moment. Maybe two. And then started laughing.
"Are you for real?" he said between peels, eyes closing in mirth. "You can change into a tiger? And you hunted me down, oh man..." He laughed some more at that, more so at himself now than the situation. He'd been bemoaning to himself all the while that it seemed like Halu just wasn't following after him, and yet here he was. He had shape-shifted and jumped him and Maldrem had never seen it coming. It was hilarious.
Maldrem's laughs finally began to ebb away, and his eyes opened again to take in the sight before him a second time. His head was still swimming a bit, and he had some residual nausea, but this was too good to pass up. Mal's arms were bound above his head, held fast by Halulahi's powerful grip, and his legs were braced firmly beneath the stronger man's muscled thighs. It was... honestly not a bad place to be.
"Well congratulations, Halulahi," he said, a lazy drawl to his voice. "You caught me. Now what are you gonna do with me?" he asked, and he punctuated the remark with a shallow roll of his hips, letting himself brush up quite obviously against his captor. His smirk grew more coy, his eyebrows practically flying off his face. "This certainly is a... compromising position we're in, wouldn't you say?"
f all the things Halulahi expected Maldrem to do, not one thought among them was laughing. Halu felt his skin burn, and a growl rise in his throat, but Maldrem merely continued to laugh.
He was reminded of childhood. Being the thickest child of his age group had made Halu the subject of ridicule growing up. Children were like that-- Choosing things that were unlike them, and aligning against it to protect themselves. The tone had changed as he aged and filled his shape with hulking muscle-- but the memories remained, forgiven but remembered. Maldrem was not a child, however, and so he could not be forgiven in the way Halulahi had been able to absolve the Kaikoan children. Maldrem was, evidently, just cruel.
The childishness on display made Maldrem's shift in attitude all the more strange to Halu. The linger of Maldrem's syllables, and then the sudden roll of his hips caused Halu to start, his back arching up and stomach clenching to pull himself away without releasing the man. He lowered his eyes to the captor and confusedly took in the change. Smirk. Raised eyebrows. And-- The thief pressed his hips up again, causing Halu to tense a second time.
Halu's lips were parted in confusion, and his breath was temporarily shortened by what he would purport to be shock. Suddenly the lithe man under him had reverted to the one Halu had met earlier, the flirtatious devil with defined abdominal muscles, the hair that looked as though it would be downy to the touch, and now: The press of body to body. Halu's mind and form became confused between his righteous anger and the unfed flames of desire. Halu had not been well prepared for an interaction such as this.
"Your tricks shall not work a second time," He finally managed, the words spilling out perhaps too quickly to feel entirely confident, "You are to leave here at my side, Maldrem. With your..."
Halu's eyes drifted down between them for a split second, curious to see the forms of dark copper contrasted against the paler pallor of the rogue. Then, they returned upwards, looking at the crook between Maldrem's neck and the floor of the cave. It was far easier than looking at Maldrem himself. Halu's command was more easily made free of the distraction, "With your hands empty of the objects that belong to this place."
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