[hider=Franca Mintz]

[center][h3]Franca Mintz[/h3]
[hider=Picture][IMG]http://i67.tinypic.com/1448d90.jpg[/IMG][/hider]
Age: 20 | Sex: F[/center]

[color=f7941d]Appearance: [/color]
Franca is wiry and small, explosive; the impression one gets is of a bullet. She has the look of someone who's gone through good times and bad, and had to scrape by all the way through. Right now she's on one of her good times, so she has the bloom of someone with money in her pocket and breakfast in her stomach, but the somewhat gaunt lines of her cheeks tell that hasn't always been the case. Though fit and lithe in a street urchin's way, Franca hopes that will change soon, and it will if the pay and eating remains good.


[color=f7941d]Flare:[/color] 
[b]Scry[/b] - Franca's Flare is scrying of the remotely sensing kind. Generally, this requires Franca to at least see the object or person to be scried, which then gives Franca an accurate sense of where it is, in terms of direction and distance. Fulfilling certain conditions, however, allows Franca to scry despite having a tenuous connection or to scry with greater accuracy. For example, to locate someone that Franca has never seen before, some of that person's hair or personal trinket might allow Franca a general sense of what direction that person is in. To pinpoint a location for someone she has never seen, she would require something that was once very attached to that person, like a personal diary or limb. Furthermore, given a map, Franca can point out a scried location on that map with a greater level of accuracy than she could otherwise, as long as she has been to that location before. The scrying is also easier if Franca has previously met or touched the target before, with greater duration making the scrying proportionately easier. Scrying with the time and safety needed to focus is best, but Franca can manage it while rushed or otherwise engaged by consuming a greater amount of Adamant. The scrying is easier as the distance closes. Finally, Franca's scrying gives no information about what state the scried target is in, nor can her scrying track a moving target without continuously consuming the required Adamant. 


The amount of Adamant required for Franca's scrying varies. To scry a person or thing she has never seen and closely pinpoint the location, given something that was once very attached to the target and the time to focus, requires Franca to consume a whole one-hour dose for a scry that might only last a few minutes. To scry a target she has been able to look at for ten minutes to pinpoint a general distance and direction would require about a tenth of that dose. To scry a personal possession or a companion that she has known for some time would require just a few licks, or a little more if she wanted to, say, pinpoint a building the target is in on a map; to continuously scry such a target would take a small lump of Adamant held in the lower lip. Any Adamant consumed over this amount is left over for Franca's secondary Flare. 

[color=f7941d]History:[/color] Franca is a Dilei brat, one who has always toughed it out on the city's streets. Her parents were landless laborers, her father a dockworker and her mother a clotheswasher. As a child she assisted both parents, helping them make just enough to lease a roof over their heads. Franca loved them, really. They were straightforward folk and unsympathetic towards a child's nonsense, as parents are. But they provided, protected, and let Franca be as much of a child as they could. She grieved when her parents passed, her father in a dock accident and her mother from consumption some time after, working herself to death to try and make enough to live. In a sense, these were blameless deaths, but she resented that they had happened, and the poverty that came with it.

Franca couldn't linger on their deaths for long, though. She was ten at that time and able to work, and she did. Initially Franca attempted to keep her mother's cleaning work, but that was always meager and unsure, so in time she was everything from beggar to petty thief to house servant, though she was particularly unsuited for that last one. But for the longest stretch of time she was a courier, a valuable if precarious occupation in a town where commerce was more and more the dominant way of life. She delivered packages and mail through the winding streets of Dilei and, therefore, money into the merchants' pockets. 

Over time, Franca made relationships with the other urban poor. She had to, to survive. Alone, a bout of sickness or even just not having work for a long enough time could be fatal. With others, things could be easier, if not easy. Certainly, there were some along the way that could only look out for themselves, but Franca learned early on to disassociate from them. Eventually, she became particularly attached to a family of three, orphan kids like herself, and became something like an unofficial big sister to them.

Still, despite these relationships, the work was always lacking. When Highprinces turn to trade for their wealth, money and commerce is king, and the steady movement of people from the country to the towns of commerce meant that the competition for steady jobs was fierce. 

It was during a particularly long stretch of joblessness that Franca came across one of the guild musters for new Powder Mages, this one held by the Vale Craft Guild. She had heard the stories about Adamant use, how it burned you from the inside if you didn't have the spark, how you could die, and even if you didn't end up dead you'd be knotted up enough that you might as well be if you didn't have someone looking after you, and Franca didn't. That had so far kept her away. But at that point Franca was willing to have poison if she could have bread after, so she took the diluted Adamant. Though nothing seemed to happen, she curiously she didn't heave bile onto the ground. The Vale Craft Guild was good enough to take that as proof that she had some Flare and kept her around until she discovered she had a knack for finding something or someone that was lost. Having since had the time to test out the limits of her ability, the Vale Craft Guild's higher ups have finally given her clearance to accept some jobs. 

[color=f7941d]Personality:[/color] Franca lives her life by her gut instinct. While she has had to toughen up considerably since her parents' passing, Franca is determined to survive on her own terms. Though she's been in her fair share of street scraps, she's been crafty enough to get out of more, preferring a live-and-let-live mentality. She had an informal quid pro quo with some of the other urchins and she wouldn't have made it through the bad stretches without it. She has a particularly soft spot for those younger than her, and she's been known to go without so a kid wouldn't have to.

Still, Franca's experiences have given her a set of bad quirks. She's quick to judge others as friends or enemies, and she stubbornly holds onto first impressions. Further, while she has a friendly manner, this tends to come off as irreverence, and it often really is. Lastly, she remains bitter over her parents' passing and the circumstances that brought about. 
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