Hella Cute

There Are No Heroes [Revamp]

Yo, is there still room to join?

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Uh, hey guys, I might've bitten off a bit more than I could chew. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep up with multiple characters and drive a decent plot. So, I'm going to have to drop out, really sorry guys.

Totem

Oh, I thought that when you said I could catch up around midnight that I would be there 3-4 hours tops... Aight, lemme just snip that.

Totem

Aight, got mah post up.

Totem

"Yeah, and the man looks to him and says, that's no lion... it's a giraffe." One of the greener men of the company said, finishing his joke. He sat in utter silence as the men around his table drunk from their mugs simulataneously to hide their disappointment. Rodrick, a stout dwarf with a stereotypical, braided, red beard leaned in at the table and looked the boy dead in the eye, "I dun' get it," he said. Rhona sat on one of the men's shoulders, a tall elven fellow with a totally butchered name. She kicked her legs and cleared her throat, "A'ight, I got one - so, a roast duck walks into a tavern.... the barkeep turns to him and says-" "Yeah, we don't serve food here," the elf rolled his eyes, cutting her off. She leant over and pulled on his knife-ear, "No need to be fuckin' rude." "Ow, ow! Stop it!" Rhona smirked, "Nah, I don't think I will." That moment the door opened, a tall young man pushed open the door to the pub. He looked more knightly than the usual rabble that the White Guard usually kept in the pub. He beckoned to the group sitting around the table, "Come on, you drunks. You have the night patrol." Rhona let go of the elf's ears and pushed off of him, falling down towards the table before catching herself with her wings and making a last-second reversal. She hovered in the air and saluted sarcastically as the boys grumbled and made their way to the door. The knightly boy's eye twitched as he glanced at Rhona before leaving. Once they were gone, Rhona sighed, "Geez, what a pain. Orvil! Fetch me an ale, would y'?" "Aye," the barkeep nodded, setting out Rhona's thimble on her booth and filling it with her funnel, "'ere y' are." Rhona fluttered over to the bar and dropped down on the the bar, running to catch up with her flying speed, "Right, thank y'." She said, pulling the chair back and grabbing the thimble in her other hand. She leaned back in her chair as she downed the drink. "Ahhh~ ehe..." she smiled and let gravity pull her and the chair back up to the table. She slammed the thimble down on the booth and held it up, "Another, eh?" "Aye, aye," he chuckled, pouring her another thimble-full of ale. His eyes dotted up towards the door, watching Reau walk across the floor of the pub before she settled in beside Rhona's booth and ordering an ale with a gesture to Orvil. “’Ere y’ are, Reau. Good t’ see you,” the brew master says, sliding over a fresh draught. Reau Belleno nodded in thanks and looked down at Rhona. “Hey there, little pixy,” she said breezily. “Shall we drink together for a moment? My treat.” Rhona giggled, "Alright, as long as y'er buyin'." She smiled and picked up her thimble and rocked back and forth on her chair, "So, what's up, boss?" Reau reached into her coat pocket with a slender hand, then plinked a small stack of coppers onto the counter beside Rhona. As well as a tiny roll of paper, that was tightly wound into a tube about the length of Rhona's arm, bound with twine. “I have a favor to ask you,” she said in a quiet voice. “Just a little hush-hush errand." Rhona set the chair down on all fours and leaned in over her booth, "Y'?" "I need you to find Djonn and make sure he gets this message. He should be arriving at the Cossler’s any minute now, so if you hurry, you might catch up to them before midnight.” She takes a deep pull of her ale and wipes her mouth with her sleeve. “I’m asking you because you can slip out of here without being noticed and speed is of the essence. Do this thing for me and I’ll buy you a bottle of Montesillard brandy big enough to raise a family in.” Rhona whistles at the mention of Brandy, "Wow... alright, I'll get your love letter to Djonn." She smirks and looks around, waving to Orvil who walks over to the booth. Rhona unstraps and holds out a relatively large, empty glass vial, "Fill me up, I got some rounds to make." Orvil nodded and filled the vial with his brew. Rhona took it and fastened it to her belt alongside her various poisons. She picked up the roll of paper and hovered just above the surface of the counter, "Alrighty, and just so we're clear- I don't actually have to raise a family after I finish that bottle, right?" She smiled and fluttered off through a small hole in the rafters. Above the roof of the tavern she looked around, "Alright... the Cossler's is... this way right?" She flew over the road as dusk began to fall - and at no great speed - but a steady pace. The sun set quicker than she anticipated; now she was fluttering in darkness.

Totem

Hello, hello. It's good to be here. Just gonna drop this here.

Rhona Mor

Name

Rhona Mór

Description

Rhona stands seven-and-a-half inches tall, an average height for the fairyfolk of Verloren. She looks to be in her early twenties. Rhona has a wispy physique, with long appendages, a small waist and flat bosom. She has flaxen blond hair that, even braided, falls to her lower back; her hair contrasts against caramel-colored skin. Dark freckles dart across her nose from pointed ear to pointed ear. She wears relatively little clothing – typical of the fairyfolk, who value speed and aerial mobility – a white breast cloth, a pair of brown mid-thigh shorts, and a belt laden with vials of poison. Fixed to her hip is a lightweight rapier, little more than a three-inch needle.

Backstory

Brief Overview of the Fairyfolk

The fairyfolk once lived in hiding from the humanoid races of Verloren on account of their small size and fear of invoking the wrath of the giants. However, over the past two centuries, the fairyfolk have become significantly more pronounced and open about their existence - the reason being the discovery of totemic energy. Albeit late bloomers to the field of totemic magic, the fairy folk are skilled craftsmen and have put their craft to good use. Most prominent amongst fairyfolk totems are chokers made of cherry stems and spider silk which lowers their voices several octaves and into the audible range of other sentient races. Over the centuries the fairyfolk and the other sentient races have effectively broken the language barrier. The fairies, who were intrigued by the written languages, abandoned their old tongue for a more modern one. Fairy craftsmen were hired – on salaries of bread and wine – by jewelers and tailors to make use of their attention to detail. Soon, fairy-embroidered dresses and fairy-engraved jewelry became hot commodities amongst the nobility. However, fairyfolk also excelled in another aspect of modern life – subterfuge. Fairy spies could easily hide themselves within a rival lord’s midst, fairy assassins made their mark using expensive and potent poisons that the fairyfolk have perfected over millennia to kill large creatures invading their lands. Not all fairies readily embraced metropolitan life, though. Some of the fairyfolk stayed behind in their ancient groves, where advances in totemic magic have helped to level the playing field between them and the giant races. They live out in the open, cultivating orchards of fruit trees and leading simple lives. Although they look down on the fairyfolk who have left for civilized life, they maintain steady trade relations with the city-folk, supplying potent poisons and totems in exchange for raw materials and forged weapons.

Rhona hails from a line of fairy craftsmen who made their living in smithies, detailing swords for noblemen. From a young age, Rhona was taught how to work the metal into the design she wanted. Ten years passed and Rhona yearned to get away from the hot, stuffy smithy – looking for a less mundane life than detailing metal for the benefit of some wealthy human. Eventually, she left. Jobs for city-dwelling fairies are few and far between. She found herself in the employ of a minor noble who kept her as a curiosity for his first infantile son. There, she taught herself to read in the common tongue and watched as the boy grew to eight years old. It was around this time that the Eruben War broke out. The boy’s father marched with his small contingency of men across the field of battle. They were mercilessly slaughtered. When news had arrived that the young boy had become lord, rival lords pounced on the opportunity; the young lord died from a sudden illness a month later. With the house crumbled and dissolved into nearby fiefdoms, Rhona was on her own again. When the war ended, mercenary companies began to prop up like nobody’s business, filled with ranks of ex-soldiers. Finally, an opportunity had presented itself. This was the chance for Rhona to finally live the life of adventure she always wanted. She joined a small scouting company, the Red Flag. While she was with the company she developed ties with local fairy glades, securing a pretty steady supply of potent fairy poison. However, as time passed, the company fell on hard times and salvation came with the White Guard, when it absorbed the Red Flags a few years ago.

Goals and Fears

Above all, Rhona fears leading a mundane life. She wants to be the author of her own life and spin a tale worth telling, not to be worked to death like the craftsmen of the city or live in seclusion like the grove fairies. She strives to stand as tall as any man, not in height but in glory, to have her feats rival those of her giant colleagues and to make a name for herself in the annals of history. In essence, Rhona wants to be a hero.

Mastery

Rhona’s area of expertise are the arts of stealth. Scouting, sneaking and assassination are all things she does best. She may not be much help in the open-field, but she can dart across a battlefield more easily than any man. Her primary weapon is a rapier that she coats with highly potent fairyfolk poisons, the rapier pricks like a needle but the poison eventually makes itself known.

Equipment

Rhona wears simple clothes – a white breast cloth, a brown pair of mid-thigh shorts and a belt containing various vials of poison. Fairy poison is expensive, due to its potency and relative difficulty to obtain. However, for Rhona to use a weaker poison would be futile, as she can only carry a few CCs of poison at any given time. She has a cherry stem and spider silk choker, a typical totem amongst city fairies, as well as a rapier with a pattern etched into the hilt – another totem.

Personality

Rhona is a mischievous lass; even though she stands less than a tenth of her comrades’ height she thoroughly enjoys teasing them. She’s also a bit of a drunk when she’s off-duty. Although friendly, Rhona doesn’t let people get too close to her, because in this line of work there’s no promise for tomorrow.

Totems

Fairy Choker: A choker made of cherry stem wrapped in spider silk, the fairy choker is the foremost totem used by fairyfolk. Finding a fairy in the cities without a collar is similar to finding one that is completely mute. It is their way of communicating with the larger races. Typically, a fairy’s vocal range is too high pitched for other humanoids to hear. The choker lowers the pitch of the fairy’s voice and amplifies it to slightly-below-average talking volume. Sting: An inscription on the base of Rhona’s rapier’s blade that is inlaid with a gold alloy. The totem allows her rapier’s blade to keep it's shape better, allowing greater piercing power. The blade also reforms itself if it bends over a period of a few hours, depending on the severity of the bend.

Corrected & Connected

OH HEY Kiku was born and raised in the greater Tokyo area, so we're going on 2 years

Corrected & Connected

It's the final stretch. LETS GO GENKAI MEET THAT DEADLINE

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Inb4 the British invented Coke and it tastes like shit cause British.

Precipice of War - We Write Under The Sign Of The Goat

Jharkhand, India Gaya-Calcutta Line Tch. Clink. Tch. Clink. Tch. Clink. A team of workers cut away at the undergrowth of vast, untamed Jharkhand territory to clear the way for a railroad line to connect Calcutta on the eastern banks of India to Gaya, and by extension, Sukkur in Pakistan. Their bare backs tense and glisten as they swing their machetes, their axes, their picks and their hammers to the silent beat of a layman’s labor. Behind them a group of men, armed with large-caliber rifles and wearing camouflage slacks and Indian army berets, anxiously scan the tree line for slivers of movement. The Jharkhand is an untamed wilderness, home to the regal and ferocious Bengal tiger and the mountainous and powerful Indian elephant, and the slightest lapse in their vigil could bring the construction of the railroad to a grinding halt. It is midday, in the later part of the summer season. The temperature soars to an excess of one-hundred-and-twenty degrees fahrenheit. The sun’s rays scorch the backs of the laborers who lay blisteringly hot steel track behind the felling team with heavy sledgehammers. A foreman watches over them - an army colonel, six feet tall and dark - he rides a small stream carriage over the freshly laid track at a crawling pace behind the laborers, with a train laden with rations of food and munitions for the work crew. He yawns and looks to his aide: a young boy, maybe nine or ten years old with short, curly, unkempt black hair and relatively light skin; he is shirtless, like the majority of the day-laborers, and his stomach is flat and his arms are skinny, but his legs are muscly and his feet are dark and callused. “Hey, Joseph," the Colonel beckoned to the boy, "Run to the advance crew and tell them to come back. It's lunchtime." The boy smiled and nodded excitedly, "Yessir!" Then he took off, the boy's bare feet smacked against the hard-packed red clay of the Jharkhand. He ducked and weaved between swinging sledgehammers and hoisted steel rails, between the fit young men who moved the rail and the hearty middle aged men who hammered them in place. A voice bellowed, "Timber!" up ahead. A tall tree creaked and groaned as it fell to the ground, kicking up lose dirt with a thud. The cloud of dust clung to Joseph as he leapt over the tree "Hey, kid, watch it!" the lumberjack yelled after him. Joseph turned around and laughed, "Sorry!" He ran through the treeline, his feet smashed twigs and leaves into the soil. Up ahead, the crew was busy hacking away at the underbrush with dull machetes as the soldiers kept a careful eye on the treeline. "Hey! Hey!" Joseph waved at the crew, "Come on! It's time for lunch!" A young man, maybe seventeen years old stood up and slid his machete into a leather sheath on his waist. He held his arm outstretched, held it in the elbow of his other arm, and twisted about his waist. He could feel his spine crack and he groaned as he dropped his arms and rolled his head. The man turned around as the boy Joseph ran up to him. He smiled and ruffled Joseph's dirty black hair. "John! Stop it!" Joseph whined. John laughed and started walking through the forest he had cleared, holding his hands behind his head - Joseph. The more one watched them, the more familial the pair looked. They had the same curly black hair, the same light skin, and the same lithe build (despite John having much more defined arms and abdominals). The pair were unmistakably brothers. John had scars up and down his back "How much longer?" Joseph asked. "What do you mean? You just ran it." "That's not what I meant," Joseph pouted. John laughed, "I know," he sighed, "We probably won't finish before the rainy season." "Oh..." Joseph looked down at his feet, "What will we do then?" "I dunno, take the train back to Calcutta I guess." Joseph nods solemnly, "I hope we finish before then." "Yeah, me too." John looks down at him, pats his back, and gives him a reassuring smile. "It'll be alright." --- Bombay Adm. Banister's Residence "Oh no! Captain! We're sinking! Ah!" Liam Banister laughed as he slowly pulled the toy boat beneath the surface of the water. His daughter, three years old, clapped her hands and giggled, "I sunk daddy's ship!" "You sure did, Christina," he chuckled, "you'd make a fine captain someday." "You think so?" Liam smiled as he lathered up his hands with a flowery-scented shampoo. "The very best," he said as he began to run his hands through her long blonde hair. She smiled wide and they laughed together. "Alright, cover your eyes." Christina pressed her hands tightly over her eyes. Liam scooped up water in his cupped hands and poured it over her head to wash out the lather. "And we're done," he said as he stood up, water dripping from his bathing shorts. He held a hand out to Christina, "Come along then. Let's get you dried off." She nodded and pulled herself up with his help, he grabbed her under the arms and hoisted her over the edge of the bathtub. She picked up two towels from a cabinet as he opened the drain to let the water out. She held one out to him and he smiled, "Thank you, dear." She beamed, "Mhm!" He laughed and wiped her down with the towel before wrapping her up in it, "There you go, now go on and let Anita dress you. I won't be long." She nodded and turned around before scurrying off down the hall. Liam chuckled to himself as she left and strode to the large mirror the hung over his washbasin. He turned the faucet and looked at himself in the mirror. He stroked his graying, curly, captain's beard and ran his hand over his thinning scalp. "Getting old, aren't I?" He laughed to himself and covered up with a white bathrobe. Before making his way to his bedroom and changing into a crimson red smoking jacket, black trousers, and black leather loafers. Before leaving, the old admiral pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and pulled out an ornately carved box. He opened it up and pulled out a smoking pipe, made out of carved ivory and inlaid with gold, as well as a tin of pipe tobacco. He sat on the porch of his sea-side estate, not far from the busy port city of Bombay, rocking in his chair and smoking his pipe as he watched the tide of the Arabian sea go in and out. His little girl sat at his side, on the ground, coloring in a book of blank pages with wax crayons of all hues. He flipped his pipe over and let the ash fall on a plate at his side before laying his head back on the chair and closing his eyes for a well-needed and well-deserved mid-day nap. --- Former Tribal Areas, Pakistan Unknown Village Takka, takka, takka, takka, takka, takka, takka... Bullets whizzed overhead, creating little puffs of dust where they connect with the dirt behind a group of Indian soldiers. They were pinned down by machine gunfire coming from a village on a rocky outcrop. The village was occupied by tribal Pakistani rebels opposed to their ancestral lands coming under Federal rule. A unit of ten Indian soldiers was deployed to the region to put down the resistance. The two sides exchanged volleys of gunfire for several hours, with the Indian soldiers gaining no ground. On a nearby hill, however, an Indian marksman took aim. He lined up his sights with the machine gunner's chest and let out a long, deep breath before firing. Miss. He readjusted and fired. Miss. Again. Bullseye. The machinegunner was sent spiraling backwards and with the suppression lifted, the soldiers rushed the village. Later that evening, around a campfire, the soldiers reveled in their victory and drunk to their health. The deployment's NCO pulled their marksman aside, "That was some fine shooting, Lance Corporal Singh." "It could've been better." "Bah! Don't put yourself down, kid. You're good. I got a telegram from General Jones, he wants to reassign you to the first brigade." "In Delhi?" Singh asked, astonished. "Yep, says he could use a fresh sniper." "Well when do I leave?" he asked, excitedly. "What're anxious to leave us, boy?" the NCO let out a hearty chuckle, Singh laughed awkwardly. "Kidding. You leave tomorrow morning at dawn. A truck will take you straight to the capital. You're going places." "Thank you." Singh smiled and nodded his head. "Dismissed."