Luce Fontescu

Lady Luce Fontescu (a.k.a. The Breaker)

"Lady Fontescu?" At that, the tavern's noise quieted, as all eyes turned on the guardswoman. 
The other woman at the bar sighed and pushed her mug away. "I'll clear my tab later." She turned to the guard. "Luce Fontescu, Pier 22 dock manager, the hero of the sunken Albatross, savior of the House of Maurisi, and whatever other titles you lot wanted to push onto me. At your service, if you would avoid naming me 'Lady'." She tilted her head forward. "Am I what you were expecting?" 
"Lily Durand of the Capital Guard, and I expected this in part." Lily shook her head. "It's well known that you grew tired of the 'hero' pageantry, but I'm only here to deliver news, not fawn over an imagined saint. I have tidings from Justicar-General Sophia III."
"Good! Then take a seat." Luce patted the barstool next to her. "Two more porters. And if a dockworker offers you a porter, guardswoman, you had best accept."
Lily sighed. "I'll have some, but I'm still on duty." The mug came back brown and frothy, and she took a sip. Earthy, warm, and smooth, the perfect drink after a hard day's labor. Luce had already downed a third.
"Haa! Alright. What's so important that I had to be filled in, then, Durand?" Luce folded her hands under her chin. "Some other gala where I'm to be paraded, or other noble foolishness?"
"No. Ruck Masters was captured by a Mercenary team last week, attempting to board a ship bound for the Stagonids. We've caught him." Lily gave a small smile to Luce's sigh of relief. "Expect a summons by a Magistrate for his trial once he is returned to the Capital."
"No need for there to be a trial. Just give him to us. The Travailiers can take care of this business quietly." Luce gave a hearty laugh at Lily's expression. "A laugh, guardswoman. In truth, what happens to him is of little concern to me."
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Why would that be? He put you and the lives of those children in danger, and they would have all died had it not been for your heroics. Surely there's some justice to be had here."
The dockworker shook her head. "True enough in isolation. But he himself will be unlikely to commit such a crime again, and there will be more like him. And as long as the common folk of Etoile remember that we're all held to a higher calling, they'll never succeed." She finished her drink. "I'm no educated ponce or fancy lady, no matter what people call me, but I know at least one thing. Before Etoile, the old kings and queens sent the peasants to slaughter each other while they bathed in wine and ate the finest cheeses. In those times, we were little more than animals, eating and rutting and doing whatever it took to survive ourselves."
Luce put a thumb to her own chest. "But now? We're Etoilean. All of us. And that means that we're all capable of doing more than we ever thought we could do. Every generation of Etoile lives better than the last, and every generation of Etoilean must be held to a higher standard. That's the real truth behind Progress, not the fancy titles and made-up stories of the nobility. The Principality has no need of heroes."
She sighed again. "Clearly I haven't had enough, otherwise I wouldn't have started ranting. Apologies. Let the Justicar-General know that, despite all of what I've just said, I'd still be willing to take five minutes alone with Mr. Masters in a room with a steel prod."

Physical Description

General Physical Condition

Lady Fontescu is, like most dockworkers, strongly built and fit. Also like most dockworkers, she suffers from minor back pain due to years of hauling and toil on the piers.

Apparel & Accessories

Other than the woolen cap that all dockworkers wear, Fontescu wears the clothing of an ordinary working burgher, simple machine-spun linens and heavy cotton breeches. The couturier-fitted outfit she wore to her ennoblement, a daring outfit reminiscent of the heroic man-at-arms, is carefully folded and tucked away in her bedside trunk.

Mental characteristics

Personal history

Luce Fontescu is a native of the Etoile Capital City, a dockworker at the piers of the Grand Canal. A member of the Travailiers, she was an ordinary laborer in the capital until the event that made her a household name across the Principality of Etoile, early in Second Season 723.
The Progress of the Principality is, unfortunately, an endeavour that leaves some behind. The evolution of society seems to discomfit some individuals, who, for lack of a better term, exhibit anti-social tendencies - a general anger and malaise, sometimes borne out of personal failings, sometimes out of disagreement with the path of society, or sometimes, as Lord Ortan put it, 'plain bloody-mindedness'. The advent of Magic has created more instances of alienation in society, and one such instance resulted in the attempted mass murder of a large number of children by a certain individual, his name ordered proscribed by the Principality.
On that day, a secondary school group was touring the waterfront docks on the western side of the Grand Canal. One student in the group was the daughter of the Maurisi family, a family of wealthy warehouse magnates, with Lord Maurisi himself being a high profile wizard of significant public stature. The elder Maurisi had apparently emerged the victor in a protracted business dispute, with the counterparty held for significant damages to the tune of about three million Principality Trade Florin. Rather than pay, the counterparty had simply vanished, and their assets were seized by the state.
Fontescu had been 'volunteered' into serving as escort and docent for the student group for the day. While the students were touring the trading carrack Albatross belowdecks, the ship's flywheel was clutched in and the Albatross pulled away from its pier. Not long after clearing the pier, the ship caught fire - victim of sabotage and arson, its single lifeboat jammed from release and unusable, and both hatches to the deck locked as the saboteur dived overboard.
Fontescu's quick thinking prevented a major tragedy. Seizing the initiative, she entered the burning flywheel drive room and destabilized the wheel housing, causing a catastrophic rupture of the drive system and ripping a massive hole in the ship's stern. Although the ship began to sink, there was now an escape route; Fontescu guided students one by one underwater out of the burning ship and out onto the surface of the Canal, where other ships had arrived to take on survivors. Most notably, she made one last dive into the almost-completely-submerged wreck to see if there were any last students left, before returning to safety.
While ennobled and granted the title of 'Lady' Fontescu for her heroism that day, a bylaw of the Travailiers prohibits nobles from membership. Though she was immediately granted exemption, Fontescu refuses to use the title out of respect for her fellows in the union.

Education

After leaving the standard Etoile education track at thirteen, Fontescu apprenticed for six years at the Canal Docks, and was granted journeyman status at twenty.

Employment

Luce Fontescu is a dockworker at Pier 22 of the Grand Canal in the Etoile Capital City, and is represented by the Travailiers in trade. While journal reports tended to focus on what was perceived to be an unusual mismatch of job and gender, a report from the Harbormaster's office revealed that a full third of all dockworkers were women, and the male-domination of the field to be merely perception.

_{Luce Fontescu https://www.heroforge.com/load_share%3D248000/}

Current Location

Etoile Capital City

Year of Birth

691 M 34 Years old

Current Residence

Etoile Capital City

Gender

Female

Eyes

Grey

Hair

White

Skin Tone/Pigmentation

Warm brown

Height

5'6"

Weight

145lb

Aligned Organization

Travailiers