Name: Tobias (Toby) Roberts

Gender: Male

Race/Species: Perfectly Human

Age: 27

Appearance: Toby is the kind of guy that, at a casual glance, looks like a perfectly unassuming, reasonably handsome young man. A second glance, however, throws him deep into uncanny valley territory. His face is oblong, with perfectly-spaced features and broadly unblemished skin which is always completely clean shaven. The initial attraction will come from a fortunate jawline, strong eyebrows, general athleticism, and deep blue eyes, but, although his face is almost devoid of any point of reference to give it away, there is something slightly off about its lines of symmetry that, at closer inspection, cause him to look a little ... doll-like.

This is not helped by his general physical presentation; his blonde hair is neatly parted on the side; his mouth is always fixed in a gentle smile; he even stands with a strong posture that looks stiff and fake. Even his clothes tend to be blandly inoffensive, opting for plain trousers, sensible shoes, smart shirts and jumpers in boring colours, and a simple tie when necessary. More jocular occasions may call for a tie with a cartoon animal on it.

Personality: As a person, Toby is alarmingly wholesome in lifestyle and outlook. He is a vegetarian and eats only healthy foods; he is always smiling and saying positive things. He’s that guy. He is quietly chirpy, loyal, and friendly – generally great with children, the elderly, and stupid or distressed people, but frequently grates on actual adults. Because of his ridiculously right-on attitude to life and seeming ineptitude for any cruelty or unpleasantness, he has developed a reputation for having no sense of humour, which isn’t fair. He has an excellent sense of humour, but only for things like mild cartoon slapstick or word-play. You know, nice things.

As if you wouldn’t already run a mile from him if he came to a barbecue with an acoustic guitar, he is, of course, devoutly religious. He rejects labels and consciously does not belong to any denomination, but is ultimately Christian, in the sense that he believes that the son of God died on the cross for mankind’s sins. He believes in the concept of sin and believes in a personal God that intentionally challenges his creations, thereby giving them a unique purpose in life to which they are uniquely appointed. His own is not to spread the word (though, if asked, Toby’s outlook on life is certainly no secret) but rather to be the steward of mankind, defending it from the challenges of hitherto unknown forces, which he does not automatically prejudge as sinful, but instead try to understand.

He is not actively judgemental, because he always comes from the position of forgiveness being the best option – but forgiveness, of course, presumes wrong-doing, which, to identify, he must judge.

Powers, Traits, and Abilities:

• Hard-working All-Rounder: give Toby a task, and he will doggedly pursue it. He doesn’t have a real strength, but he doesn’t have any major weak-spots either, so with his breezy competence and general determination, he can be relied on to do any non-specialised task. The moment he joined PHI, he basically read the archives, and has the best all-round knowledge. His only weak spot is combat, though he has basic firearms training, so can still provide cover if absolutely necessary.
• Good-in-a-crisis Playmaker: when the going gets tough, the tough sometimes need a cup of cocoa and a bit of squidgy goodwill, which Toby brings in spades. He is brave without being foolhardy, generally plays it safe, doesn’t ever lose his cool, and can support teammates both pastorally and practically on most issues.
• Unconventional First Aid Expert: on his travels, Toby has seen many things and many cultures from the context of being a missionary medic, and it’s not just America that has a selection of weird and wonderful paranormal creatures and phenomena. What this means is that Toby has had to apply not just standard First-Aid and other simple medical procedures, but also improvise or learn unconventional medicine for, ahem, unconventional afflictions. If one of the team gets injured and they don’t require surgery, Toby can probably fix it. Technically, some of his remedies may be regarded as ‘magical’, in the sense that they are not conventional medicine, but he has no innate magical powers and he considers them a science rather than a supernatural gift, and he does not do anything that anybody else with the know-how couldn’t.

Background:

The office was cool and calm. It was well air-conditioned. It was nice; Toby felt the breeze from the gently-whirring machine wash over him, a brief relief from the humidity of, well, everywhere else. He sat down when indicated to do so, adjusting the vents of his suit jacket so they fell properly over the plush leather chair. The suit was the best he had; it had fit him when he had come out here, but over the course of the years, he had lost a little weight and apparently grown very slightly taller: his trouser cuffs gently brushed his ankles, and he looked a little swamped in the oversized jacket. It didn’t help that the heat had generated little sweat-patches where his collar touched his neck. Still, most people around here didn’t have suits, or the need for them. Or air-conditioning, for that matter. Most people had to do without. It was always worth remembering that.

“Would you like a glass of water?”

“Thank you,” Toby gratefully received the glass, which he noticed contained both ice and a lemon. It was very refreshing, but he took only a sip.

“Now,” The woman poured her own water and set the jug on the table before sitting down. There were a few documents neatly arranged in front of her. She did not give off many signals, and, frankly, he had no idea why he had been asked to come to the hotel, “Could you tell me about some of your work?”

“My work?”

“What you do. Here.”

“I help people. They don’t have the same medical knowledge here that we take for granted at home,” He had been dragged away from his job to talk about his job. What on earth was the point? “Even things like clean water. It’s not just a case of turning on a tap out here.”

She wasn’t really listening. This wasn’t what she had been wanting to hear. She took a large sip of her drink and topped it up.

“And how do you find the people?”

“They’re just like anybody else. They have hopes, dreams, desires. Kids that have never been to school want to grow up to be marine biologists. And they’re not perfect, because nobody is; sometimes people steal – steal valuable medical supplies that they don’t know what to do with. It’s desperate out here and, if they know what they’re doing, they’re driven to it.”

“Do you ever find them... strange?”

“Strange how?”

“Well, for example, do these,” The woman pushed a few photos across the table to him. He took a close look. They were medical photos, pictures of people’s skin, each picture dominated by an angry red lesion with an almost glowing, purplish tinge at the centre. They were horribly familiar, “Ring any bells?”

“Yes. I don’t know what they’re called medically, but there was an outbreak of them in the village I was with about seven months ago. They called them Thorns.”

“What happened?”

“They just sort of... turned up. We don’t know where from. We’d been with that village for a while, so there were basic hygiene practices and such, but suddenly they turned up. They started in one family and spread to the next and the next until everybody had them.”

“Everybody?”

“Well, except us. The Thorns didn’t seem to be ‘interested’ in us. It was almost like they were targeting the village itself.”

“Are they harmful?” Asked the woman, leaning forward.

“The lesions grow and become more painful,” Toby’s voice was suddenly matter-of-fact, rather than his usual unassumingly conversational tone, “The infection risk becomes huge but you can deal with that with antibiotics. But the damage they do can be permanent. Limbs lost permanently. But there’s a cure.”

“Yes?” The woman leaned in even further.

“It’s honey.”

There was a pause. The woman leaned back. She didn’t say anything. There wasn’t a flicker of emotion across her face.

“Really, it’s honey. Dip your littlest finger in honey, trace the circumference of the lesion. It’s not instant, but it’ll be smaller overnight. And you keep doing it until it’s gone. It has to be your pinkie, though.”

“How does it work?”

“Honestly, I don’t know. A witch-doctor had a dream about honey before the Thorns came. I didn’t know what else to try after a few weeks. And it worked.”

“And it miraculously worked?”

Toby smiled a little smile that bordered on a knowing grin, “You could say that.”

“And you just believed him? This witch doctor?”

“He’s a good man. I trust him.”

The woman removed the photographs and looked him straight in the eyes, “What if I told you that our doctors have no idea what these are or how they work? What if I told you that all of the sources we have indicate that these can only be described as ‘magical’ in origin?”

“Isn’t everything magical until you understand it?”

The woman twitched slightly, “What about Curses? Voodoo? Goddamn vampires?”

“We didn’t discover the platypus until recently. Should we really rule things out just because we haven’t seen them yet?”

“You wouldn’t be surprised if they were real, though, would you?”

“I don’t think so, no.”