< 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 Cherry Milerand on Feb 11, 2017 20:53:27 GMT -7
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I'm a dangerous lil' teapot!
"It's quite imposing, I know," she replied, her tone serious as she kept the joke running. "So hard to make friends, honestly, because they just catch one look at these babies and go running for the hills! You're pretty brave, you know?"
She really enjoyed the way that Leigh was playing along. It was certainly an about-face from her apparent lack of humor earlier, and it was a hell of a lot more charming. Cherry giggled at her when she finally dropped the 'gun show' and instead struck a little pose that pointed off towards a building down the block. "But as much as I would love to keep showing off my stunning musculature, our ride is that-a-way. Can't go wavin' guns around in the streets, you know? So we oughta get to a more private venue, hehe."
Post by Leigh Haskell on Feb 14, 2017 12:29:50 GMT -7
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[attr="class","wavesundtext"] She nodded and gave Cherry a slightly more friendly than aggressive shove into the direction she was pointing, not having any problem with getting to the more private location. Also, getting out of the wind, getting out of Vieri, getting off the floating mass of rock, and back down to the ground where the sea was on the same plane as she was. Even if it was a the far-too-many-trees-who-needs-so-many-trees land of Niseca, it was better than the acrophobia inducing altitude of Vieri.
But as the two of them began to make their way closer to the docking ports, Leigh was reminded of why they hadn't used just such an area to make land in Vieri. The SSPB were here, just like they were everywhere else these days. Of course they'd be keeping eyes around docking ports. She considered for a moment that they'd never caught her before, so she'd be able to slip past unnoticed - and then remembered more than one flaw in that plan. She'd been arrested in Liesdro, and Mal had used them being pirates as a ruse. Her information may not have been passed along to the SSPB, but she was (at the very least) a wanted criminal. Beyond that... She was decently recognizable. Not many folks - particularly women - walked around with a hook instead of a hand.
"You know what," She started, slinking closer to a building as they walked, pretending not to notice the increase in guards as they got ever closer to the docks, "Just remembered I left something back at the bar. You tell me which dock we're at, and I'll meet you there... Be right quick."
Post by Cherry Milerand on Feb 25, 2017 20:20:34 GMT -7
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Hmmm...
Cherry watched Leigh's behavior with an intuitive sort of interest. The two hadn't known each other long, so obviously Leigh didn't realize yet that Cherry was not some typical unobservant airhead (even if Cherry had more or less said exactly that a short while ago). Although heck, even if Cherry wasn't particularly observant, Leigh was kidding herself if she thought her behavior wasn't pretty dang obvious. A slowed walk, clinging to the side of a building, and making an excuse to leave just as some guards come in sight? And Leigh had a hook hand and smelled like the sea. It was pretty sketch.
Luckily for Leigh, Cherry didn't particularly care if she was sketch. Heck, if Leigh was really that bad, she would have cut Cherry with the hook already, and probably wouldn't have bothered apologizing for her behavior. Clearly that meant she was a good egg on some level, and that's all that counted!
Cherry paused and turned to face Leigh, who seemed to be waiting for Cherry's go-ahead before outright excusing herself. Cherry looked at her with pursed lips, popping her hands onto her hips in a very teapot-y fashion, and 'hummmm'ed thoughtfully. After a moment of pause, she pointed towards a small, nearby alley. "Wait right here," she instructed. "Back in a jiff!"
She had more or less turned the table on Leigh, with her being the one promising to be right back now, but unlike Leigh, she gave the other woman no room to veto this decision. Cherry promptly turned around and bounced off, not waiting for Leigh's affirmative, and in less than a minute she found herself walking through the doors of the private practice offices of the docking port. A bored-looking secretary was sitting at a desk, thumbing through a copy of The Tablet when Cherry approached the desk.
"Hiiii. Is Martral available? I'm Cherry."
The secretary glanced up, then back down, this time at her appointment book. There were names written all over the pages, which magically appeared and disappeared to indicate which Conjurers were busy with other clients at the moment. Cherry could see Martral's name with a nice blank space next to it. Score!
"Yes, he's free. Office 24. Right through there."
The secretary went back to reading news, so Cherry stepped through the doors behind her desk and looked for the office in question. She already knew it'd be 24, of course - Martral had an office in at least three countries, with every door in each different branch leading to the same place: his office in Fiamont. For the sake of convenience, he made sure he always got office number 24, so that he wouldn't have to charm the number on the door to look different depending on which branch office he was in.
Clearly the other conjurers who did this line of business had the same thought process, as they all liked to use their own personal doors; as Cherry wandered down the hallway, she was quite sure she'd never seen so many clashing, mismatched doors than any time she was in a Conjuring office. Some were small, some were wide, some were red, some were checkered. It was a whimsical mess.
Finally she found Martral's door, an ornate red thing that looked positively fetching (it's what had her pick this guy as her conjuring guy to begin with, years ago), and she knocked once on it before simply letting herself in. Martral sat inside the office next to a small fire, puffing on a pipe and stroking a long, wizardly beard.
"You know, I could have you whisked off to the bottom of the sea for barging in here without waiting for my permission."
"Oh can it," she said, giggling. "You always say stuff like that, but you take copious sums of my money anyway."
"It's good money," he acknowledged. "Don't go complaining about the cost when you have the freedom to ask to be sent where you please whenever you wish. If you want cheap, go to the public sector conjuring offices, and adhere to their strict schedules."
"Oh, I'm not complaining," she replied, seating herself cozily across from him in a vacant armchair. This raised an eyebrow from the old man, who clearly understood that something was about to be asked of him; she wouldn't need to take a seat if she was just asking for the door home. "Actually, I was hoping you might want a little more of my money. Instead of giving me a door, do you think maybe I could just have a scroll? A scroll that can handle a plus one. See I'm not really done in Vieri, and I met someone, and I'm not sure when I'm gonna wanna come back, and I don't wanna bother you in the middle of the night..."
Martral's brow creased and he frowned. "You know I don't like doing scrolls. I like to know who I am transporting."
SIGH. Martral was a good conjurer, but he was also an old fuddy duddy. Lots of conjurers knew how criminals could use their scrolls (obtained by innocent parties) to move around easily, but most didn't really care that much. Martral did. He had a strict policy of meeting each and every person he would be transporting before doing so. Something told Cherry he wouldn't want to help Leigh if he met her.
She batted her eyes at him in an obvious way, such a way that was so obvious that it circled around to being endearing again, because he knew Cherry and knew she wasn't serious when she did it. "Pleeeeeeease? I know your policy, but come on, when have I ever asked you to do this? And haven't I always been suuuuuuper loyal? Never going to any other conjurers! Always paying you lots of money!"
And it's not like Cherry hadn't been tempted, either! Heck, she met The great Vanya last month, after all! But nope, she remained loyal. Martral grumbled low in his throat.
"You are truly an impetuous one," he said. With a sigh, he waved his hand, and a scroll did indeed appear. "Good for two people, one trip. Yourself and one other. I won't be doing this again."
"Thank you so much Martral!" she replied, taking it and giving the old man a kiss on the cheek. He waved her off.
"I'll send you an invoice for the cost. Not in the mood to put money away at the moment."
Cherry's happy expression switched to a slightly worried one as she looked at the old conjurer. He did seem grumpier than usual... "Hey, is everything okay with you?"
He raised a bushy brow at her, taking another puff of his pipe. "Well, since you've always been so loyal, as you put it, I might as well tell you. I believe I'll be going out of business shortly. Getting to be too old for all this, and I have more than enough to live on by now. Bit of a process, though. I'll have to notify everyone who uses me for storage services. There are quite a lot."
"Oh wow... including me," she noted. And here she was just thinking about how if she didn't have Martral, she'd have wanted to partner up with Vanya in a heartbeat. It had to be fate! "Well hey! When one chapter of your life closes, another begins!"
"Hah! Liable to be the final chapter, at my age."
"Oh you," Cherry replied, giving the man a playful (and very gentle) shove to the shoulder. "Well you just let me know when you need me to collect any of my stored things. I'll manage just fine at finding a new storage service. And if you need anything else, feel free to ask!"
At this, he finally cracked a smile. "You're a sweet girl, Cherry. Enjoy your evening with your friend."
Cherry nodded and excused herself then, returning to Vieri through Martral's door. She checked out with the secretary on her way out of the offices, watching the secretary magic her name off of the sign-in sheet, and in a matter of moments she was back out onto the streets of Vieri, walking towards the alley where she had left Leigh. Or at least, where she hoped Leigh was indeed waiting.
Thankfully, she was not disappointed, and Leigh was indeed waiting for her there. "Howdy doo!" she said, smiling as she got the woman's attention and waving a scroll around. "So your plan wouldn't have really worked because, you know, I was using private practice, not a public dock. But lucky you, I got us a scroll, so you don't gotta show your face over there!"
The way she spoke indicated that she had clearly recognized the fact that Leigh HAD a plan (and a reason for being unseen by the guards), but clearly Cherry wasn't going to comment on it directly. She sidled herself up to Leigh all cozy like, making sure that they were making physical contact as she opened the thing up. The words were written there, which would activate the spell as soon as they were read aloud. Cherry glanced up at the tall woman beside her, batting her eyes again (but this time more sincerely). "You ready to goooo?"
Tags: Leigh Haskell OOC Notes: Went longer than I thought, but I wanted to establish some lore-building about how professional conjurers work! Like yeah there's private private, which is like. Sia. Visit her in her home for her business. And then there's official private, which are in a proper office but still have their own practices and stuff. And then public, which is like a bus, lol. Schedules. Pre-set destinations. Groups transported all at the same time. Anyway I had fun.
Post by Leigh Haskell on Feb 26, 2017 11:56:35 GMT -7
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[attr="class","wavesundtext"] She reached out to grasp Cherry's wrist, to get the girl to stop and cool down for a second - but the little teapot was already steaming and skipping. Leigh could do nothing but sigh, and watch the girl run off, hair flouncing with each step. She leaned back against the wall, crossing her arms hook-over-hand to watch until Cherry disappeared into the crowd, and then thought of what her night had in store. At best, a good lay with potential recurrence factor. Middling might be a good lay with no repeats. Or maybe just a nice night where she could pretend she was the kind of person who drank wine and talked about fashion.
She snorted. Yeah, right.
At first, she considered that the worst option. Acting like a different person for one night, and not getting any pleasure out of it. But the more she thought, the more she considered how damn quick Cherry had been to run off towards the heavily guarded area of the air docks - she realized there was something far worse. It was more than likely that she'd been blinded by a pretty face (again), and Cherry was going to come back with a slew of guards. SSPB agents. A husband ready to bash her face in.
No matter how much she wanted to trust her little teapot - there was no way in Ephilroa she was gonna hang for it.
Pushing off of the wall with one foot, Leigh emerged from the alley, eyes scanning the crowd for anything that struck her as suspicious. Nothing yet... But Cherry had barely skipped away. Turning her back to the docks, Leigh eyed the market district. Busy. Loud. It would be easy to get lost in the throng, even when you stuck out the way that Leigh tended to do.
She took to the streets, slipping between people with ease. She kept her head down, and pulled her hood up as if protecting herself from the chilly winter winds. She was anonymous as quickly as she had been noticed, and kept an even pace as she made her way through the crowd. Cherry and her guards wouldn't find her now.
But someone else would.
Just as she passed a blacksmith hammering away at a sword, a burly hand met her shoulder and turned her about forcefully. Leigh spun and almost slammed her hook into the owner of the hand - but held back. A pushy merchant, her brain supplied, reinforcing her need to keep it quiet. The hand's owner didn't look much like a merchant, however. He was a merfolk, which was a strange sight in Vieri. He wasn't wearing SSPB uniform, however, so she still held back her strike. Instead, he wore some other, more unrecognizable sort of uniform. It wasn't military, but it was close. The fabric was dyed a dark grey, and the cut was thick and ready for winter. In fact, all of his looked seemed to do well at keeping him from the cold - which would be good for someone with wet skin like a merfolk. Jacket, gloves, long pants, large boots, a hat -- all that she could see was his face. The scaly look, a spatter of glowing dots on his forehead, and the almost pitch-black colour of his skin solved that he was a deepsea merfolk. Rare. And rarer still this far from the ocean.
A friend of Merlyn's?
"Leigh Anne Haskell?" The man wasn't speaking, but a slick back mouseling several feet below them was. Leigh didn't answer, but instead observed the other man, the beastfolk. He had striking blue eyes, and he was wearing a similar uniform to the brute. The two were of strange combination, and Leigh couldn't for the life of her imagine what else they could be than pirates. She relaxed a little, but kept her guard up, hook almost radiating with aprehension.
The mouseling held up a sheet of parchment as if comparing it to her, and when he decided it was accurate enough, he folded it up and placed it in his jacket. "Miss Haskell, we have been looking for you for quite some time. Meritt--" He waved his hand and the merfolk was quick to reach out and grasp Leigh's wrists - but Leigh was just as quick. She pulled her hands back swiftly, cutting Meritt's wrist with a slight gash and causing him to cry out. Heads turned, and the mouseling sighed before conjuring a ball of fire into his hand. He stepped towards Leigh, who was backed into the stall of the blacksmith. The man had stopped his work and was eyeing a finished blade only just out of his reach. A line of defense if Leigh were to go for him.
"Miss Haskell," The mouseling warned, his voice never raising, his demeanour calm as Meritt pouring a healing potion on his hand. The wound closed up quickly, and the merfolk sighed, going around the side of the stall and Leigh looked for an escape. Wall, blacksmith, Meritt, mouseling. The mouse continued, "We have no wish for a scene. You'll find it only makes things more complicated for us both. Please, come with us easily and we'll--"
The only way out was through.
Leigh hook found the bag of sand near her, and she threw it at the mouseling before he could send off his fireball (though he may have hesitated, not wished to harm the blacksmith's stall). The bag ripped open on Leigh's hook and caught the beastfolk with a flurry of sand, blinding him and putting out the fire in his hand. Leigh pushed past him and then dove through the crowd, pushing anyone who dared get in her way.
Meritt took pursuit, moving surprisingly fast on land. Leigh kept looking back, expecting the merfolk to stumble, slip, or otherwise suck at landwalking, but he showed no weakness. She zigged and zagged, not concerned with crashing through market stalls at first, but trying to keep herself less and less noticeable as she moved. As soon as she was out of sight of the merfolk, she'd want to be out of sight of citizens, too. Didn't need anyone trying to help apprehend her.
Spotting a weavery, she ducked towards it. She slipped through the curtains of tapestries, past a woven tale of Morrina, under an unfinished work about a boy with a split personality, and around a disgusting image of SSPB ships sinking pirate vessels, she eventually pressed herself into a corner. She kicked her feet up against the wall, hoping that the hand-raised thing would hold her weight as she held herself there. No feet under the tapestries. For all the merfolk might know, she disappeared.
Time passed slowly as she waited here. She wondered if Cherry had sent these men... But they weren't guards, they weren't SSPB, and their drab outfits seemed more like Leigh's style than Cherry's. No, this had to be something else. Were they from Kali's contact? Did he want his ship back? She supposed that the only two they might recognize would be Kali and herself. Maybe Phoenix. Whoever it was - there was no chance she was going to get found on.
Her breath caught her throat as she heard Meritt approach, as she saw him through the small gap in tapestries, as he paused like he'd heard her, seen her, sensed her... When he walked away, she let her shoulders relax a little. "If you see her, please pass on the information to Lam at the Greenwind Inn. You will be paid handsomely." With that, Meritt was gone, and Leigh let herself fully relax. Her core settled, and her feet touched the ground gently. She'd give it a ten-count... And then she was going to get out of Vieri.
Leigh got back to the alley Cherry had left her in before the girl managed to get back. For a moment, Leigh worried that Cherry had already come and gone, and for another she worried that Meritt and the mouseling (or guards, or SSPB) were indeed working with Cherry and she was about to have to run again... But all of that was cleansed as Cherry called out and waved happily. Leigh smirked, relieved and almost happy.
The girl wasn't stupid, and it was clear she knew that Leigh had been trying to avoid guards. She'd go along with Cherry going along with her, however - there was no need to bring it up. And also no need to talk about the two that had accosted her in the market.
Cherry pressed herself up against Leigh (alright, maybe this would be a best case scenario kind of day), and Leigh wrapped her arm around Cherry's waist. She didn't know if scrolls needed physical contact - but she'd used it as an excuse. "Hell yeah," She answered, "Fire away."
Post by Cherry Milerand on Mar 13, 2017 20:33:31 GMT -7
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Fly away from the land of wind!
She rather enjoyed the feeling of Leigh's arm snaking around her waist as she cozied up to her, though she noted it felt quite warm as well... a bit too warm, almost. If Cherry didn't know any better, she'd have thought that perhaps Leigh had been racing around hither and thither in Cherry's absence.
Well! Didn't matter. She was here still, and that's what counted. Cherry accepted Leigh's go-ahead with a happy nod and then proceeded to quickly read off the words printed on the scroll that Martral had given her.
"...And away we go," she added on to the end of the old-tongue incantation, just as a green swirl began to surround the two of them. Cherry always found it rather neat how different conjurers all seemed to employ slightly different methods to their spells. For Martral, it was a funnel of wind that cradled its passengers delicately and folded them into the air itself.
For an instant the two women might as well have been the wind itself, billowing through the sky and then, for the breadth of a blink, through the plane of Elsewhere where all elements could converge. Not that Cherry saw any of that - she simply felt the freedom of being the wind, which she personally found exhilarating, for a precious few seconds. Then, just as quickly as it began, the two became solid again, the breeze gently depositing them onto solid ground, and there before them was Cherry's back door.
Tags: Leigh Haskell OOC Notes: TBC in The Finer Fashion of Piracy
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