< 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 had been warned not to delve into complexities. He could understand them, it had been insisted, but he could not portray that understanding to someone else. Particularly not someone of importance. Yet... Here was this chief, someone who he felt connected to by a mysterious force, whom he felt understood him already. Gilles would not evade the intricacies of her question. "Storms... Have many forms, and many strengths," He began, speaking slowly as he devised the words to illustrate his point, "If only one path could end war..."
He moved, finally. His hands settled to the ground, and pressed on the wet earth to grant him leverage, and he stood before her. "Would not you have walked it?" His eyes opened as he spoke, the lightning blue-white of them catching on her form, and giving him another moment of pause. She did not appear quite as he had seen in Evard's memory, but more like that which he had in his own recollections. She looked invigorated here, though. Not broken, as she had been on Ellis Danton's back. She looked powerful here, and even as he towered above her, he felt a child in the shadow of her self-assuredness.
For the first time in their encounter, the man moved more than his mouth. He pushed himself to his feet as he spoke and looked upon her for the first time, his eyes not the deep stormy blue of her own but bright, vibrant... electric. He towered over her physically, her eyes more in line with the amulet around his neck than with his face, and not for the first time she wondered just what the man was. Atton was diverse in many ways, but not necessarily with regards to the people that lived there. She didn't know it, but even if she had known what race he was she would have been left wondering about his heritage - even other Kina were unlike the man before her. Closer now than before, the strength of the magic that seemed to flow like lifeblood through him was undeniable, almost overwhelming. It was magic much like hers, so familiar she wanted to reach out and touch his glowing skin, but she resisted the temptation.
The words he spoke didn't answer her question, but they made an important point, one that she hadn't considered before. Perhaps she had been wrong to think of the solution as either peace or war. One or the other. All or nothing. Perhaps both would be required to keep Atton free. She wondered what he knew, then, and whether he was offering help with the former... or the latter. Or, perhaps he offered a third.
"What is it you have come to suggest?"
Judgement. Peace. Freedom. He would not have come here unprepared, not if he had waited all this time to speak with her.
[attr="class","gilles2"]"A conversation. My words... Are few. My knowledge..." GIlles permitted the thought to trail, not having quite the right phrases to describe what he had. Proof against Vieri. Against Aurcaele. Visions of similarity between his people, and her's. Things that he hoped would invite her interest.
He moved to stoop himself down to gather the item he needed, but then stopped before his spine could truly shift. He did not wish for her to think him a threat. He did not want for her to view his new movement as the beginnings of an attack. His eyes scanned her form, noting tension -- only natural. He saw curiosity there, too... Which was useful.
"May I?" He asked in his deadpan droll. One of his reddened hands gestured down to the cloak below, folded on the ground next to the patch of dry ground he had once occupied. Wrapped within it, he knew, was a small glass bottle of fog. Within that, he knew, was his opportunity to interest the Attonian chief.
A conversation, he said. For a man of few words, a conversation seemed like a perhaps lofty goal although he seemed to be confident that his knowledge made up for it. She couldn't judge anyone on their lack of vocabulary of course, given how recently and still incomplete her own learning was. The man didn't finish his sentence but he started to lean down, causing her to tense - he hadn't attacked her yet and she supposed in a way she trusted him not to change that now, however her instincts were quick and strong and it would be some time before her reaction to the invaders would be anything but suspicious.
The man seemed to note this and paused, asking her permission then and motioning toward the cloak he had been sitting next to. She nodded her approval and loosened up a bit, though remained on the lookout for anything untoward. Was he going to put the cloak on? Maybe he wanted them to walk somewhere, or he had something to show her. Her curiosity won out over her suspicion of course. She supposed she would see what it was this man had been so eager to meet her for.
[attr="class","gilles2"]The chief gave her assent, and he nodded out of respect. He still did not move swiftly, wishing for her to clearly see all he did, wishing for her not to increase the tension held between her shoulder blades, at her brow, and in her ribcage. His movements were deliberate as he took to one knee, and -- ensuring he did not prevent her view of the cloak -- gently unfolded the cloth until it revealed the object.
Carefully contained in the fabric was a glass bottle of impressive make and design, not something plain and unassuming. The glass was silver in colour and blown with a pattern along its body, ridging it with flowers - forget-me-nots, or so he was told. A cork made of something other than cork was sealed with a contraption of a mithral metal sort, which gripped the neck of the bottle and encircled the head of the cork. Two small tabs on either side could be pressed with deft fingers, raising the metal limbs and pulling the cork from the neck to open the bottle with hardly any effort at all.
He stood once the object was revealed, showing it to her in calm, and open palms. It was not particularly small by any means - perhaps containing a litre of some unseen substance - but in his hands it was dwarfed.
"These..." He explained, prepared to let her remove the bottle from his hand, or to just look from a distance, "Are memories."
The man moved slowly and deliberately, ensuring that she could see all he was doing so as to not come across as threatening - an impressive feat for someone of his imposing stature. He was treating her with respect, as he should, and also as though she was a wild animal ready to bolt at the first wrong move. She was, in a way, so it was a wise decision on his part.
When he unfolded the cloak it revealed a glass container of incredible design. As he lifted it up her gaze followed it, marvelling at the strange and beautiful creation. She only had to wonder for a moment what it was before he told her. Memories. The word was less familiar to her, but she understood it. Her gaze turned from the glass itself to what was contained inside of it, swirling like heavy fog. She quirked a brow and reached out, motioning first before taking it from his hands and turning it over delicately in her own. She had never seen something like this before. ”Memories… of what?”
[attr="class","gilles2"]The chief took the bottle from his hand, and in that moment Gilles felt something like static shock in the tips of his fingers. He had felt it before, as it was not completely unnatural for him to generate such a thing, but he had to wonder if it was only him who had felt it. The chief's focus on the bottle would almost prove it, though he could not be sure.
She curiously looked over the bottle, and he curiously looked over her, his interest doubly piqued now. He had seen some of her power in the form of the beast that had appeared before him several nights ago, and in the form of her abilities in Corporal Evard's memories... But being near her, it was like bells were tolling within his chest. He no longer wanted her allyship for the sake of his promise to Rielcia. He wanted it because she was immensely powerful, and Gilles desired surrounding himself with immensely powerful people.
She asked him a question as she continued her examination of the bottle, and it was clear she understood what he had meant. Communication had been easier than he, or Tristan could have anticipated, which was a happily unexpected boon. Particularly because Gilles, of all people, would not have been able to explain a thing as esoteric as memory.
In fact, he could not even attempt to answer her question.
Instead, he gestured to the ground and said, in his simple and measured tones: "We may sit?"
She didn't understand the bottle. Yes she understood what a memory was, but she didn't understand how this bottle could contain one. It must be magic of course, but she had never seen such a thing before. She wondered briefly, based on the appearance of it, what would happen if she opened it. Would the memories float away?
Gilles asked if they could sit, and her attention returned to him for a moment before she turned her gaze further away, scanning the area around them, into the downpour outside the circle of calm she had created. She didn't see anyone lurking in the distance, but of course that didn't mean there was no one there. She turned back to Gilles and nodded once, then sat down cross-legged in front of him, cradling the memory bottle in her hands. Gilles was the director of this encounter, always asking permission but ultimately the holder of all the information. Xanthe was curious enough that she didn't mind, and she found herself trusting him more than the average invader. Maybe it was because of the kinship she felt with him since the start, and maybe it was because she appreciated someone who showed her some damn respect. Either way, she wanted to see where this went.
[attr="class","gilles2"]Gilles knew himself lucky that the chief had such interest in what he could offer. He also knew of a slight anxiety, which brimmed at the bottom of his stomach and coiled up like thick smoke to remind him that he had one sole opportunity to achieve more than just her attention. He was not a nervous person, and this was not nervousness -- but it was a weight on his impressive shoulders.
Gilles waited until she had seated herself comfortably, and then positioned himself with several feet between them, enough space for her comfort, and so that he could perform his next task... Which he was somewhat concerned she may take worry with.
He took a short breath, pressing his hands to the ground between them, where his fingertips seemed to become conductors of a sort. They pulled the electricity from the soil - something he could only do here, in Atton - and letting it run through him. Before he did anything else, he looked to her once more and asked for permission, "A small fire? Nothing to harm."
Even seated, the man was a giant. He left ample space between them and she watched with interest as he placed his hands on the ground in front of him. Then, she could feel it, he began to draw electricity to himself from the very ground. She knew it, she knew there was a connection between them, and this was it. She wondered then if maybe he really was Attonja after all, or Attonja in a past life.
She quirked a brow when he asked her permission to start a fire. Again he was wise to ask for to do it without warning would have been a dangerous move. She trusted him probably more than she should, but it was a tenuous trust that could easily be broken. ”The storm is in you, too, Gilles. I see now. I do not fear your fire.”
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