Sometimes, real friendships do develop in the Occult Underground.

Novacaine, Transgender Epideromancer

Note: There are actually three fleshworkers in North America that use the alias Novacaine — one in the New England Area, one who patrols British Columbia and Washington State, and this one in the Midwest. They are all completely unrelated except by their choice of alias.

Kevin Reiter’s childhood wasn’t exactly the happiest of times, which fits with the magick school he was eventually taught. It’s actually pretty common for Epideromancers to grow up with a very masochistic view of the world, thinking that their very existence, not to mention the affection and care of others, can only be gained and sustained by sacrifice. This is often triggered when a sibling is treated better, because of some automatic judgement on the part of the caretakers (it’s not unheard of for even decent and loving parents to be harsher on the child that reminds them of their own flaws), and that’s what happened to Kevin when his sister was born.

To his two year old mind, the only difference between himself and his sister was that she was a girl and he was not, which got fixated in his mind. (Not that Sheena Reiter’s childhood was so hot either, but she didn’t manifest any of the sadomasochistic personality problems that eventually turned her brother into an adept.) Kevin became fixated with the idea of becoming female.

His first fumbling attempts to resemble the other sex were punished so severely he never tried it again. The desires were repressed, and the two conflicting drives — acceptance through femininity versus an aversion to getting the shit kicked out of him again — teamed up to wear down his mind and spirit. After about fifteen years of that, (not to mention the apparently endless torment that his classmates put him through, children being more attuned to deviances than even the most paranoid right-wing homophobe is) he just walked out the door and started hitching. Luckily, he wasn’t completely without applicable skills; Kevin Reiter was a top notch cook. While it was easy to get a job at any greasy spoon with a help wanted sign in the window, it was harder to leave; the manager never wanted to let him go.

Six years on the road taught him some important lessons on human nature, not all of them pleasant. He also dodged certain death twice, both times involving wild animals. Eventually he made his way to Garden City, Kansas, and had his third big scrape with death, this time because of somebody’s bad brakes. This somebody was an Epideromancer and M.D. going by the alias Horace Walters at the time. Fearing negative attention and a potential lawsuit, “Doc” Walters used his magick to stop the internal bleeding and other critical wounds. As luck would have it, Kevin was not unconscious, but dazed and in shock; he felt something not normal happen to his body.

In the hospital, he tried to confront Doc about it several times, but never got anywhere. Eventually, Doc decided that the young man’s persistence might be useful, and came clean. As soon as Kevin was released, he and Doc worked something out; Kevin would handle all the minor details of Doc’s house and business, cooking and cleaning and such. In return, Doc would foot the medical bills and teach Kevin Epideromancy.

This worked for six months, right up until Doc was whacked by a TNI hit squad. Before that happened, though, Kevin was a great student, and managed to “get it” after only two months. During this time, he had a reputation-making encounter with Spike Weiler, the Wheel Spiker (a Kleptomancer specializing in carjackings); Doc’s water heater exploded, and Kevin met Lyle “Widget” Mitchell, a handyman-janitor hybrid hired to replace the heater; and Kevin managed to build up enough power to change his sex to female, fulfilling a lifelong obsession.

In the aftermath of Doc’s assassination, Kevin — now Kaylie — Reiter started working closer with Mitchell, and the two of them would usually stop by the bar Saturday nights to get drunk and bitch about life in general.

Name: Kevin Reiter/ Kaylie Reiter

Personality: Since Doc’s death, Kaylie has been more and more depressed. Other than that, she’s very Taurus.

Obsession: (Epideromancy) Acceptance. Now that she’s gotten the sex right, she’s working on making herself as attractive as possible.

Wound Points: 65

Rage Passion: Strangely enough, Kaylie gets set off by Feminists and Women’s Lib types.

Fear Passion: (Violence) Exposure. Her father beat the crap out of her as a kid for following her impulses, and now she’s convinced that anyone who finds out she was once a man will gouge out her eyes and worse.

Noble Passion: Kaylie loves dogs and will put herself in considerable danger, or even violate taboo, to protect one.

Body 65 (Iron Pumping Girl)
General Athletics 40%, Scrap Fighter 40%, Hot Stuff 35%

Speed 60 (Smooth)
Dodge 50%, Drive 0%, Initiative 45%

Mind 55 (Good Student)
General Education 15%, Notice 40%, Kiss The Cook 45%, First Aid 25%

Soul 60 (Conflicted)
Charm 20%, Lie 40%, Magick: Epideromancy 40%

-Madness Meters-

Violence: 0H/2F
Unnatural: 1H/1F
Helplessness: 0H/1F
Isolation: 1H/0F
Self: 4H/1F

Possessions: Kaylie owns a moped, rents a shabby apartment on the outskirts of town, and has some assorted clothing, all of it either female or asexual. She charges up using a claw hammer (+3 for being heavy, +3 for being penetrating if the Claw side is used). For minor charges, she’ll just hammer her foot and toes, for significant charges she’ll strike an arm, leg, or part of her torso, and with more force. (The bruises she gains as a result have led her coworkers at Teddy’s Bar and Grill to suspect she has an abusive boyfriend.) She typically has three minor charges and one significant charge on hand at any given time.

Widget, Nonconformist Mechanomancer

Lyle Mitchell’s childhood, while not actually unpleasant, was confusing as all get out for him. His parents were very different people, and raised him in very different ways at the same time. One was the carrot, one was the stick, and since they could never agree on anything, Lyle never had any consistent reinforcement to act one particular way or another. Growing up in a crazy environment, it comes as no surprise that he grew up crazy.

He was able to find peace in a self created world of Legos, Tinkertoys, and Erector sets, though he was further confused by the mirth of his classmates regarding the name “Erector”. The mixed signals he got from every direction frustrated him, and by the time he started middle school he was letting his school performance drop off while spiraling into depression.

He was taken to a shrink who put two and two together, and got twenty-two. Lyle’s paranoia at not understanding others, frustration at the same, obsession with building blocks and time, and mounting depression were all lumped together into one diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. He was institutionalized and put on anti-psychotics and anti-depressants.

There was no improvement; indeed, no possibility of improvement, since the treatments he received were intended for psychological problems he didn’t have. After a few months of more of the same, his parents finally pulled him out. The damage had been done, though; while he had learned how to hide his madness, the madness itself had thrived on the diet of incorrectly prescribed drugs and psychological shock of being severed from what little stability existed in his life. Especially thanks to the anti-psychotics, it was easy to totally re-interpret time.

The result was a near psychopath who acted almost normal, and could make machines that should be possible. A rare self-taught Mechanomancer. He was able to fake semi-normality for a while, but with his dedication to clockworking taking up more and more of his free time (pun not intended), it didn’t last long. After graduating from high school, Lyle Mitchell ran off to the University of Kansas. Working his way through as a janitor and sometimes handyman, he got his first taste of a stable, non-pathological living environment… which went a long way towards putting out the fire of righteous anger that made him want to kill his family. (And one must wonder what kind of childhood could make dorm life seem healthy by comparison.)

After gaining two associate degrees and finishing a few correspondence courses in auto mechanics and locksmithing, Lyle headed westward to Garden City and got a job as custodian of a warehouse; his small, unobtrusive cleaning machines get a lot of the work done for him, so he can spend the time reading. About a month after he arrived, Lyle was injured badly in a forklift accident and went to Doc Walters, working out an agreement where he’d help fix things up around Doc’s house in echange for the medical help, since he lacked health insurance of any sort. This was how he met Kevin/Kaylie.

Name: Lyle Mitchell

Personality: Sagitarius. Lyle is a pretty easy-going guy. He’s stopped trying to understand people for the most part, and just takes it for granted that human beings are prone to doing really stupid (and sometimes hilarious) stuff. If it wasn’t for his drive to build things, he’d have no drive at all.

Obsession: (Mechanomancy) Making a whole that is more than the sum of the parts.

Wound Points: 55

Rage Passion: People who doubt or attack his technical skills.

Fear Passion: (Isolation) Lyle does not want to end up locked up and drugged up again. No way.

Noble Passion: Lyle will often fix things up for people for free, out of the goodness of his heart… or boredom. He doesn’t charge them for it, which is what counts.

Body 55 (Broom Pusher)
General Athletics 30%, Mop-Fu 35%, Get Back Up 40%

Speed 60 (Steady Hands)
Dodge 35%, Drive 30%, Initiative 30%, Shotgun 30%

Mind 65 (Fiendishly Clever)
General Education 40%, Notice 25%, Automotive Mechanics 35%, Locksmithing 35%

Soul 60 (Strangely Detached)
Charm 15%, Lie 35%, Magick: Mechanomancy 50%

-Madness Meters

Violence: 1H/1F
Unnatural: 2H/1F
Helplessness: 1H/1F
Isolation: 0H/1F
Self: 0H/0F

Possessions: Lyle owns an extremely run down farm outside the city limits. The ground is incapable pf supporting life and all the buildings would collapse if someone sneezed on them. Where Lyle actually lives is in an old school bus buried underground as a storm shelter. The bus has been equipped with decent lighting, fresh air vents, hot and cold running water, and a crude septic system.

Lyle drives a very old, very dinged up Volkswagen Beetle, and is typically only “armed” with hand tools. (Screwdrivers are pentrating weapons, while hammers and wrenches are heavy weapons.)

Clockworks: Lyle is a minor adept, but an industrious one. His car has a clockwork fuel vaporizer that gives him close to seventy miles per gallon, and two vicious metal spiders under the seats that will attack anyone besides him who gets in the car. Finally, the car has an auto-pilot of sorts which keeps the vehicle following the road if Lyle has to take his hands off the wheel. There are three cleaning machines made to look like common objects that clean the warehouse he works at, which clean only late at night when few people are around. His home is protected by a clockwork wasp that attacks people with pepper spray. Lastly, Lyle has a pocket watch which keeps perfect time; it serves no other purpose and is the first clockwork he successfully built.

Two Heads are Better Than One

Widget and Novacaine aren’t really a team; they’re better known for what they’ve accomplished alone. Well, Novacaine is. They hang out together because they enjoy each other’s company mostly, plus the psychological compatibility of the two. Novacaine likes Widget because he’s not judgemental of her sex change, and Widget likes Novacaine because she seems just as confused about people as he feels and misery loves company. Not that they haven’t had some heated arguements, of course.

A part of what cemented their friendship, however, was the death of Doc Walters. Even on days when they disagree on everything else, they still have common ground in that they hate The New Inquisition.

Typically, they get along just fine. They’ve even started working on a plan to mix magicks, using Novacaine’s powers to install Mechanomantic “steamware” into somebody’s body, just to see if it can be done. Of course, this is a long way off, but they’re always on the lookout for potential test subjects.

What You Hear

TNI got some of Doc Walter’s notes and contact information when they killed him, and they started looking for Novacaine. She disappeared into the woodwork with a new face and fingerprints, so they went after Widget instead; he managed to kill four or five agents in a half-assed fighting retreat. Nobody knows where either mage is now, but there are rumors that Novacaine has shown herself, hitching her way southeast.