The Duke towers over the man and is still a little confused. This man wanted the Duke to smile on him? What a weird request. But who was he to deny this man his prayer and he shows the person a wide toothy grin as he looks at the massive tower looking for a way in.
Once he found or made one he grabs the man and pushes him inside his voice taking on the tone of him Prophesying.

"Men like us need to make our own fortune. Go take what you need and i will have your back but wallow in the mud and i will not hear you."

Foers appears startled. "...Very good. That was a wise question... however, answering it is complicated, because of what The Duke is capable of knowing. Nonetheless, it shall be answered..." Foers appears to consider... "...The best answer has two parts: first, that madness is not a cloak to strength, but can instead be a mirror for it... and second, that true strength is not simply in brute force, even though sheer force is sometimes a part of life."

---

The man finds a rusty ladder, and begins to climb.

There are stairs, hand-winches, more ladders, and, eventually, a few elevators to ascend, but finally the man walks slowly through a door to where there are people... people who have never seen anyone so dirty. "Wh-- who are you?" asks a nurse.

The man gives her, and the man at her side, a look... and then he collapses.

The pair immediately checked his vital signs. "Fever. I'm amazed he walked in here under his own power."

"It's worse than you think," said her companion, "he's got no tags. He's an underdweller."

"Underdwellers even still exist? I thought they were just legends!"

"This man must be one-- he has no tags. And look at the state of his teeth, and his facial hair..."

"Those can be fixed... but are we authorized to treat him?"

"There's no law against it--"

"--Because no one ever thought an underdweller would walk into a clinic!"

"--Which means it's my call. And I say yes. Did you see the look in his eyes? Fortune has smiled on his man--" --and the doctor made a quick religious gesture.

In the weeks to come, the man would near death's door, but not actually open it. He recovered, was treated, and was altered to pass for a civilized human being. He educated himself, worked hard, invested his savings, and began his rise...

In thirty years, he traded a fleet of starships for a dose of longspice. His age fell away from him, and he started over.

In another thirty years, he had several fleets of ships, and became young a second time.

In 400 years, he was the richest man in his sector, and one of the most respected, the man who had sent expeditions into the city's foundations and proven the existence of underdwellers, and was solely responsible for raising them out of their ignorant squalor and misery.

In 900 more years, the empire began to crumble, and he realized that humankind itself was in danger of being lost. He began to conceive of a mighty bulwark against entropy, a safe haven for humankind...

He looked out at the stars. "Bona Fortuna," he called. "I have not called upon you in almost a thousand years, but I call upon you now. I have tried to spread my good fortune to those who needed it, as you granted it to me. I invite you-- what is your will? Should I go ahead with the building of this refuge that I have planned...? I cannot see far enough ahead to understand what may come of it... My intentions are good, but anything good can be corrupted, no matter what the intentions behind it..."

The Lady nodded, an took some moments to consider the advice of the bear.
Then, "And what would you do to protect him?"

"Ah, that is a wrong question. I am not truly his textile chaperone. I am something else. Perhaps you should be asking yourself what you would be willing to do to protect The Duke... and how you might best do so."
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:45, Tue 05 May 2020.

Looking at those who make their own fortune is a good thing to see and The Duke enjoys the good life the man leads especially as he shares what he has. When called upon this blessed client of his The Duke favors him with a visit again his massive bulk sitting on the mans desk as it creaks under his massive bulk. His dream self feels a resonance with the mans plan and he smiles as he plunders the cookie jar on the desk.

"I am born in a future where i was lucky enough to live in a structure build by a benefactor that wanted to save mankind. And survive they do but i know not if those above me are actually alive. They have forgotten about me and or what it is to be human. Does that mean you should not follow your heart my friend? Or not do good in fear of corruption?"

The duke shrugs and puts the empty cookie jar back on the desk.

"If the fear of corruption prevents you from doing good have you not been lost already?"

He pokes the man with his meaty finger leaving a smudge of crumbs on the mans chest where his heart is breathing heavily as if he has talked more then is normal for him and looks at the man expectantly.

The man weeps happily. "Beautiful Bona Fortuna..." ...All right, the man is definitely seeing what he wants to see... "I see the truth of your words..."

The man commissions work on his refuge... Miles wide and long, and to be made with the most expensive technologies...

And then, he is assassinated by a rival, beyond the means of science to revive.

His daughter shakes her head and refuses to clone him... she will carry on his great work herself.

And the work is important, for the mind of the structure must still be programmed, and programmed carefully.

Years later, the work is still going on. The daughter sighs, one day... "Father wanted this to be a refuge for humans, but he seemed to be all right with allowing non-humans refuge, too." She gazed upon the nearby statue of the goddess of fate and luck that he father had commissioned for his office. "...Isn't that contradictory, Bona Fortuna...?"

The Duke stands next to the woman looking at the beautiful lady. He knew that person did he not in a life where he was an outcast and not this being of incomprehensible power. What was life easy then. He helps himself to the expensvie port and sits down in the comfortable office chair looking at the daughter.

"What makes you happy my dear? Your fathers legacy is one of sharing good fortune with all that are in need. Do only humans deserve good fortune greedy as they are or can good fortune be shared by all that need it? The more souls call my name the less chance she will be forgotten by the dark future that awaits us all."

The woman nods. "I see. Humanity is more than a genetic structure. It's a perspective that we value, too. I'll program the refuge to allow non-humans in as long as it can be determined that they pose no danger to others. Thank you, Bona Fortuna."

The woman rushes from her father's office, now her office, and gives a speech to her programming team.

Hundreds of years later, the statue has been moved several times, and is now in a bunker deep underground. The woman does not come near it nearly as often as in the old days, but one day she comes again, looking much older than the last time. "Bona Fortuna," she says. "I am filled with doubts, greater than ever. The work of building the ziggurat moves slowly. We are constantly at war with others who think we are building a military base. Maybe we are, from their point of view. There are rumors of the rich pooling their resources to build a similar structure, but just for their own families. Is there a point to this? Can humanity survive? Can the planet? Can the sun? Should humanity be preserved, if all we do is fight amongst ourselves...?"

Now this was interesting. The Duke had been thinking he had been dreaming of his home and how it came to be. Was it maybe not that but a guide to their destination. And if this was a dream would he remember? There was only one way to find out.

"Human greed and egoism is nothing new under the sun now is it? Does that keep you from bringing hope into this world? Only if you make a shelter humanity might be fortunate enough to live long enough to see the sun die. And who knows at that time maybe fortune looks down on those people again if they do not forget. For the rich have already forgotten. I do not even sense them. Tell me whare do the greedy build and i will bring them some misfortune."

"No no, it is a good question.  It tells me much.    As you will not answer it, though, nor tell me what you would do to protect him,  I should ask a question in its place.

What are you, that you cannot or will not protect him?"

"Another wrong question, though it is much more understandable that it would seem otherwise. I am the zeitgeist of this spot, the weight of the long road through the fourth dimension, that winds on and on for so long. I am the psychic vestiges of time and events imprinted on this spot by psychic bombs and tears in the rules. I am the echoes of antiquity, the emotions of the antiquity that flap in the endless night. I am merely a recording of sentience from long ago, from every head that has ever slept in this place. I am thought and feeling, dream and fear imprinted into the stones beneath you and the energy around you."

"That was your third question."

---

"Yes... yes, until the sun dies... Or longer..." The woman looks up, tears in her eyes. "No, Bona Fortuna. I will not forget, as have others. I do not wish ill upon them. I will seek survival for all... You have taught me well..."

---

The Lady and The Duke awaken.

The moon is just rising. It is what passes, at the end of history, for morning.

"Well, that was ... interesting", The Lady hummed to herself, as she lay there slowly waking.
It wasn't every day that one met the spiritual incarnation of a location.
Argumentative little thing it was.
She smiled.

Sitting up, she began to prepare some breakfast for she and The Duke.

The Duke wakes to the smell of breakfast and groans as he works himself into an upright position and gives the lady a toothy grin.

"That was weird. I dreamt i was some Bona Fortuna but before i could find out where my temple was i woke up. So sad. That would be a great help for sure."

The Lady listened to her big dumb companion.   In his simplicity, she'd come to like the idiot.
And she wasn't surprised to hear that he'd had his own ... weird ... dreams.

And she was surprised at his vocabulary also:  not just its extent, but the choice of his words.
'Fortuna' ... The Lady had not gone by that calling since the world was young.

"Would you like a temple in your honour, little brother?" she asked.   "Would you like to have others adore you and admire you ... to worship you and beg your favour?"

The Duke shrugs more interested in the prepared breakfast then the weird dream really. But as the Lady asks her question he chews with a thoughtful look and then shakes his head.

"Nah. It was nice to have people like me for a change. But everyone wanted me to solve their problems. The Duke has plenty of problems don't need no more."

The Lady nodded.  “And one of those problems is finding the Cloister.
Let’s finish up here, and be on our way”.
The next leg of their expedition was a foot ...   oops, I mean ‘afoot’.

The Duke nods and finishes the food thanks the lady and parks his behind in the vehicle again ready for the lady to drive them to their destination.

The quad walker lopes across the barren ground... rocky, featureless...

Until... over three hours later... a feature comes into view.

A long strip of tall grass meanders down from a far rise to the east... terminating at a spot very near the walker's path...

The Lady slowed the walker as they approached the strange environmental strip.
"Do you trust your luck, Duke?  Do you trust in me?"

The walker came to a stop near enough that they could see the grassy strip from a safe distance, before agreeing to go nearer ... or give it a wide berth.

The Duke eyes the lady eyebrows up in a question as if he did not understand.

"Why should i not trust you? FOERS says you are a friend."

He then looks at the grass field.

"Think that we got to investigate?"

“The old Witch said to look for ‘a plant-man, called himself Juniper. Two legs, two arms, head with eyes, but wood, or as much like it as makes little difference. He came from the northeast, and he went back there. It was a long time ago, but if he's not alive anymore, his children-- or whatever he might have instead of children, might be, and they would likely know what he would know, because that's how it works’.

Wood and plants ... and that there is the strangest formation of ‘wood and plant’ I’be seen since we’ve headed northeast.
I am guessing that where there is plants and wood, there are plant and wood people”, The Lady said.

And so, she slowly piloted the Walker parallel to, but a safe distance from the grass stream, up towards the summit of yonder grassy hill.

The hill led to a rise, and then a pond, about 80 feet in diameter... but the trickle of water led farther uphill... slowly rising, upstream, off into the distance...

But at the pond, some strange animals or creatures were gathered, to drink... The arrival of the walker alarmed them... they were torn between fleeing from such a large arrival, and continuing to drink...

(For 1 xp, each of you may describe one strange animal or creature that was drinking at the pond until your arrival... None of them (so far) is a plant-person, though...)

The Lady sat in the drivers seat, looking out over the idillic (at least, in this ‘world’) scene before them.

She was particularly taken by the large, iridescent butterflies with the mandibles and exceptionally long tentacles that dangled from their belly’s like jellyfish of old.
She watched as they hovered and danced over the pond ... some having caught small prey in their tentacles ... winding said dinner up, and tearing it slowly apart with those mandibles faces.

She couldn’t help wondering how long these incredible creatures had taken to evolve to this point.

(Jellyflies described... The Lady gets 1 new xp.

Standing by to see if The Duke has one to add...)

The Duke eyes the land in all its unnatural glory. He would never admit it but a place this serene was scary for the creature made out of pure violence. There was a strange feline creature drinking at the pond its head almost fully in the water, It made him think of a little Aesop and he was just about to ask the Lady if she though he could go and pet it when one of the jellyflies hovers over the clearly unaware creature to end it. The Duke utters a disconcerted NO!! and starts to leap out of the ride when the water seems to bulge as the jellyfly grabs onto the feline.

Even before The Duke has completed the movement of leaping out and landing on the floor a massive hybrid of Crocodile and Hippo the size of a small van bursts from the water. The feline seemingly the tongue of the creature. As its massive yaws slam close around the yellyfly the beast retreats back into the water the only proof of the violent disturbance some bubbles rising to the surface by the second The Dukes Boots hit the ground.

"That is a bad place."

He exclaims with something of disbelief in his voice.