< 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!
[attr="class","gilles2"]Gilles was nearly done with his fifth day out alone in the wilds of Atton, and he had yet to find the Attonian Chief. It was to be expected that she would not be easily found, and Gilles was not one to grow tired of the work. He enjoyed solitude as much as Tristan Cowell did, perhaps even moreso. Tristan Cowell bathed in isolation because he was too angry to be around people. Gilles preferred loneliness because of the silence, the quiet meditation, the relaxation of not needing to know precisely what to say. He liked the isolation because he did not enjoy being around people.
Yes, Gilles wanted to find the Chief, but he would not be disappointed if tonight was another alone.
Gilles' journey to this point had been firmly structured, based upon what they knew. After viewing the memories of Corporal Evard of the Aurcaele Army he had determined the best route to finding the chief: The trees. They had disappeared through one, in a beautiful bolt of lightning. And it wasn't just the tree. The gigantic beast who had stolen away the soldier named Ellis Danton had been made of wood as much as the trees themselves. It was a central theme, and one that Gilles could not ignore. And so, in his journey, he had traced a path from tree to tree, following the maps they had made over the years. He would spend a third of his day traveling, and then he would spend the remainder of his time meditating before the tree.
Tonight was no different, except that tonight: It was storming. This was not strange for Atton, nor for Gilles' journey to this point. Storms here were as common as a magical fog in Rielcia... And yet, Gilles felt that this storm was different than others had been. This storm was more alive, more fitful, more painful. Even he, though storms usually made him feel recovered, was feeling it's dangers.
He still refused to take cover. He would view this as a test, a test which he would use to prove himself to the Attonian Chief. So he sat before the tree, not more than a few miles from the Peacekeeper encampment. His legs were crossed, and his arms rested in an upturned fashion upon his knees. He had stripped himself of his cloak, which was folded neatly beside him, and wore only his amulet and his usual shendyt which had been washed in the river this morning. He could feel the needles of the almost hail-like raindrops and the way the static electricity in the air raised his hair, and that was exactly how he liked it.
If there was a night where the Chief would show herself, would this not be it?
The sharpest pain of betrayal faded quickly, as she'd known that it would, after she'd left Ellis and the Peacekeepers. She'd spent time alone with her anger and allowed herself to be consumed by it for as long as it took to burn out like the wildfire it was. At the end of the first day she'd calmed down enough to consider it rationally. Ellis chose Ayniea. It was as simple as that. And he'd been branded for it, too. Pelagia had done that to him.
Yes, the situation she supposed was quite simple, but that didn't make her feelings about it any less tumultuous. If there was one thing it made her realize it was that she needed to spend more time with her own people, and less time with the invaders. She'd gotten so caught up with the peace treaty and with Ellis and everything that was going on that she had completely ignored how her own country was still hurting. Atton needed her, and she needed it.
She had returned to her own village first, but now that they knew her for what she truly was it wasn't the same. She hadn't intended to reveal herself, but when Kav'nok and his people had turned, had threatened her, had almost killed Ellis... It had always been Ellis, of course. Ellis who spoke to her instead of attacked. Ellis who cooked for her. Ellis who taught her his language, and who spoke hers better than he spoke his own. She supposed in a way she'd always felt simultaneously so comfortable with Ellis but also as though she had to fight to win him over, a fight which she now knew she had lost. Perhaps it was her disappointment in herself that hurt her as much as his decision.
Her village didn't need her now. They were safe with Kav'nok gone and they couldn't be found by outsiders unless someone led them there, and with their renewed devotion towards their Jaosi they would be fine. So she left.
She decided to spend her time instead traveling to where Atton needed her most. She could feel it hurting, much like she was hurting, and she had been ignoring it for too long.
The peace treaty had been signed between only a few of the many countries that had invaded Atton, and there were still many others who continued their invasion. They burned down her forests, sent great dark plumes of smoke into the sky, and poisoned the water. She did what she could to reverse the damage that had been done, but even she couldn’t undue the sheer extent of it.
Days passed, and it was after cleaning a river that had been blackened with oil that she heard screaming. The invaders were attacking a village, nestled at the base of the foothills nearby. She didn’t know where these invaders were from, but she knew she needed to stop it. By the time she got there most of the village had already been slaughtered, and by the time she was finished all of the invaders had been too. She washed her hands of the blood in the river she’d only just cleaned, and cried.
It felt like she was failing her country. Failing her people. She had brought this on them and now she couldn’t fix it - she couldn’t take it back and make it like it was before. She supposed it would never be the same as it was before, but after a time she remembered that she may not be able to do it on her own, but she didn’t have to. She had help. She had a peace treaty. She had to go back and do whatever it took to get the other countries to sign it, Ellis or no.
She was angry now, and sad, but it was a new anger than what she’d left with. She couldn’t let her feelings for or against Ellis get in the way of protecting Atton. She knew that now, and she wouldn’t let herself forget it again.
But she also couldn’t allow herself to storm back into the temple as she was, because she knew if she saw Ellis right now it would only make things worse. She needed to cool down, and so she decided to travel to one of the Jaosi S’na near the temple, but far enough away that she could walk out her anger before she got there.
And so it was with a great flash of lightning that she emerged from the tree, but was greeted with a sight that stopped her in her tracks. A man with skin that glowed red, muscled more than anyone she’d ever seen, wearing naught but an immense amulet and a wrap of some sort around his waist, sat meditating in front of her. He looked like he had been there for some time - long enough that he was soaked to the bone by the harsh rain, and yet he sat stoically in the storm, solid as a rock against the wind and rain and unfazed by the lightning. She knew he was not one of her people, but she couldn’t see anything that identified which group of invaders he was a part of.
He looked like he had been waiting there - for her maybe? - and the idea made her instantly wary, though he made no move to attack. She didn’t either, and instead she spoke. ”Who are you, and why are you here?”
[attr="class","gilles2"]He noticed the light before anything else. That tell-tale spark of indescribable brightness which could make the world seem toned only in blacks and whites - at least for a split-second. Even through his closed eyes he could see the flash, the piercing of it lighting his lids in a pink glow. It called to him. His attention sharpened, his mind awoke, and his breath flowed with anticipation.
The other senses came afterwards. The unmistakable heat of electricity, and the singe of static on his skin. The light fluttering of cinders from the Jaosi S'na, which called a smell of summer fires. The crunch of feet meeting earth. The lightning that struck the tree was not of a world he knew, but it was of a world he had seen. Corporal Evard's memories floated through his own, their clarity weakened from mind to mind but still true.
Gilles knew this was who he was looking for, whether he opened his eyes or not.
A man of lesser wisdom would be frightened of keeping his guard so low. A man of greater wit would think it clever to prepare a trap or devise the precise words to catch an attacker off guard. Gilles was neither. He was Gilles.
A woman's voice questioned him from the tree, her distance visible in his mind. He picked up on the accent, but also on the clarity of her sentence. Her common was not broken. She was clearly skilled in both tongue and mind.
Gilles was less comfortable in such schools, but he still had some words: "Gilles. I wished to meet you."
The man spoke, and despite never opening his eyes he knew who she was - after all there wouldn't be anyone else coming through the Jaosi S'na - and said he wished to meet her. "Gilles," she repeated, the name foreign on her tongue but familiar in a way. It felt like Ellis, but harder, stronger. Like the man himself. Most of the foreigners cowered from the storms, hiding away when the clouds rolled in and the lightning flashed, but this man did not cower. He did not bundle himself up and hide under cover. He sat firm, exposed, waiting. Had he known she would emerge from this tree, or had he simply made a guess? How long would he have waited, she wondered, in order to meet her. Or perhaps a better question: why?
[attr="class","gilles2"]When she said his name, something in Gilles stilled, and then flashed. He could swear that he had very nearly seen her through his eyelids. An orange, near-human shape permanently stained in his vision from the exposure. A dancing light of something he couldn't stop looking at. Just as he had captured it, however, it was gone again, and he was left with only her voice and the sharp sting of the rain.
He smiled at her question next, the barest of movement from a man who was so still, and nodded. "Yes," Was his response, too short for conversation. He searched a moment for more, and came up with: "In the way man fears judgment. After fear, is... Cleansing. And peace. You, I think... You are unafraid of both."
The man hardly moved, but for a small smile that played on his lips before responding to her question. Even with his eyes closed, it would seem he was more perceptive than most. He was clearly strong, and not just physically - she could feel the magic coursing through him even from here, and more still coming from the amulet that rested heavily around his neck. Xanthe would normally be wary of someone in his position, but if he truly did understand who she was he would know not to attack her. However, for someone to have their guard down so completely, or at least for it to appear that way, he must be very confident in his own abilities. His words were few and deliberate, crisp and curt. There was no stumbling for words or stuttering on syllables like with Ellis, and there were no unnecessary flourishes or fancy vernacular like with Feofil. Already from this brief encounter she had learned much about this Gilles, and she felt a kinship to him that she didn't even with the Peacekeepers.
"Judgement..." she repeated, the word punctuated with the low roll of distant thunder, "No, I do not fear it." She held out a hand and caught heavy raindrops in her palm. "Sa tsenthe v'nesaqs. The storm protects. I have nothing to fear from it either." She curled her hand into a fist and the rain around them stilled, drops of water suspended in the air while the storm continued all around them. Gilles was lucky at the timing of their meeting. It was only now that she was so willing to speak to the invaders, willing to seek out an agreement as opposed to destruction.
[attr="class","gilles2"]The power of the chief's presence was wearing Gilles down, quickly. It was amazing in many ways, and he fought the desire to look at her now. To glance up and out as the rain halted, but the sound continued not far from him. His flesh was returning to feeling as it warmed, and he refused the desire to stretch, to rub a hand over the ache in his arms. He resisted all urges. His purpose was clear, as was his focus - and those were the two things which could anchor him. Gilles knew himself, and knew that any distraction could dismay his mind from his task.
So he remained stone, and heard her question unflinchingly. Upon hearing it, he remained quiet. Unlike his partner, he did not have words spilling from him like a desert oasis. He had large ideas he could not describe. Feelings that were never meant for words.
"I want..." He began slowly, filling in precious seconds with silence as he constructed the thought. Then, finally, the words came to him: "To help."
He wanted to help, he told her. Never moving, never opening his eyes. Only his words to break his unflinching exterior. She did not know this man, nor the country he hailed from, nor what he considered to be 'help'. Had he heard of the peace treaty, perhaps? Or did he come with the intent to fight, as had been her plan until only so recently? She could understand his words easily, for they were so few, but she could not understand his thoughts or even his true intentions. "To help Atton?" she questioned, "Or yourself?"
[attr="class","gilles2"]The chief's questions quirked his lips with a smile, perhaps impressed by her wit, and her suspicion. He was glad for her defensiveness. He agreed with her defensiveness. "Both," He told her, the answer coming more swiftly than his others, the truth spilling out in the convenient syllable. Lying was Tristan's area of expertise. Gilles did not have will for it.
Xanthe's talents did not include reading or controlling people. Their minds and hearts were their own, as were their choices. She hadn't truly known of Kav'nok's betrayal until it happened, nor of the darkness in the hearts of those who followed him. So there was no way for her to be sure that Gilles was telling the truth, however she found herself believing him when he spoke. "Both," he said, as any wise negotiator would. Only the truly desperate would accept help that would only benefit the other party, and no matter how bad things were in Atton, Xanthe wasn't desperate. This wasn't the first or last time Atton would need protection, and she would do what she could for it but not at the expense of itself.
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