Name:Lucille "Morphling" Barlow
Age:20
Brand:Body
Weapon & Rune (if they have one):A pair of bracers, each engraved with stone runes. Most commonly used to create swords, shields and other weapons, and infrequently to coat fists in stone. A moderately advanced semi-auto blowback-type sidearm pistol. Knows how to use a Wickborough Sweeper (tommy gun) if she needs to. Also pet amalgamate cat.
Faction:The White Tooth Men
Personality:Light-hearted and playful, Lucy often comes off as young and naive. Her year working for the White Tooth Men has given her enough lessons, however, that when times get tough, she becomes intense, focused and sometimes even frighteningly savage. In normal life, however, she never takes anything too seriously, and enjoys hamming it up with stereotypical mafioso behaviors and making fun of "edgy" people.
Background:Born to a quiet fishing family in Livenia, Lucy's early life was quite boring. Never a big fan of going out on the boats to catch fish, she spent a lot of time with books, reading about fantastical tales of powerful casters, and their grand adventures in distant countries. When the age of 16 came and went without a brand appearing on her, Lucy sadly resigned herself to a mediocre, meaningless life among simple fishers.
You could imagine her joy, then, when at the age of 18, she woke up in the middle of the night to find a symbol slowly burning its way onto her forearm. Despite her uncontainable excitement, however, her parents would not consent to their little baby girl setting off on her own to the strange, dangerous city of New Wickborough. Not willing to give up, Lucy spent the next year pestering her parents, while secretly learning as much as she could about the city and planning her escape. The day before her 19th birthday, she used her newly acquired powers to leave like a bandit in the night, setting off on the fairy to the country of Kokotha. After making her way to the capitol, she wandered around for a while, just taking in the sights, before making her way to The Grapevine, a place she had heard was the go-to place for casters wanting to have a good time, which was, in fact, the precise thing she did want.
A series of meet-and-greets later, she was "invited" (in the way that it's not really optional) into one of the backrooms. One of the recruiters for the White Tooth Men had caught the scent of
potential, and offered Lucy a job. Seeing the chance to become one of the great swashbuckling casters she had idolized as a kid, she very quickly agreed. For the first while, there was a lot of learning involved. Learning who the White Tooth Men were and what they did, learning how to harness and properly use the brand she had been gifted with, learning the way of things around New Wickborough, and probably most importantly, learning how to survive in the hectic, ever-changing city. Showing great enthusiasm and impressive magical ability, she slowly rose from the lower-end grunt jobs to actually going out on missions. She now owns a small flat in the city, and has earned a bit of a name for herself amongst the White Tooth Men. That name being “Morphling”, a codename earned amongst the mafia due to the preferred use her body rune, shaping her body and limbs at will.
Other:Lucy is fascinated by the stories she's read of Epitania, and the tribes that live there. From these tales, she has developed the unorthodox view that Amalgamates aren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be, and has a grim fascination with them. This doesn't mean she is ignorant to the inherent danger present in over-using magic, however.
A couple months after she moved to New Wickborough, she was taking a late stroll through the city, admiring the sights, and decided to take a peek into a dark alley, her curiosity trumping her still underdeveloped common sense. As should be of little surprise, she was jumped by a group of rough-looking men holding knives. Surprised and outnumbered, it wasn't long before things were looking really bad for Lucy. In a moment of pure panic, she called upon the power of her rune in a way she never had before, too panicked to care what magics manifested, so long as they allowed her to not die in this dark alley. A confusing whirlwind of action later and she found herself looking from a slightly higher vantage point than she was used to, out of more eyes than she knew how to use, upon a grisly scene. Blood everywhere, broken bones and viscera laid out on the ground. Catching a glimpse of herself in a nearby puddle, she would most likely have vomited if her biology would still allow it. There was too much of everything; eyes, mouths, arms, legs, even a tiny, malformed second head. The only thought that prevented her from going into full-blown panic was the lessons she remembered from her magic teacher from the White Tooth Men. In that moment of clarity, she realized how close she was to becoming an amalgamate. Deep breaths, thinking exercises, drawing back her powers and making sure not to panic, she eventually returned to normal a good 5 minutes later. After that, she spent another good half-hour just sitting there in her ruined clothes, curled up in a foetal position and crying. Despite the impact it had on her, she has never told anyone about this event, worrying what other people might think of her if she revealed how close to the edge she had come.
Lucy found her pet cat, Sebastian, as a street cat living in New Wickbrough, and recognized its abilities as soon as she first saw him. Through their shared body rune, and compatible personalities, the two became fast friends. A couple of months after the event in the dark alley, Seb went missing one night. Concerned for his safety, Lucy went out to search for him at some of his frequent haunts. Late into the night she came across a sadly familiar scene. It was almost identical to that fateful alley encounter, with two main differences. It was smaller in scale, and Seb had not been as successful in controlling his magics. Looking sadly upon her now-deformed pet, Lucy decided to try and make the best of a bad situation. She had been secretly practicing Manipulation magic for a while now, and through a combination of her limited knowledge and her previous bond with the cat, was able to gain control over the cat-turned-amalgamate. It took a while, but Lucy managed to learn to love Seb like she did before, even in his new form. Needless to say, her success in controlling an amalgamate, even one so small, and even her close brush with transformation herself, has only served to whet her interest in the strange half-being-half-magic monstrosities, and the tales of the Tribes of Epitania that control and use them.
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