Lampwick

BACKSTORY :

Giovanni Malpelo lived at the Monad Charitable House from an early age with his twin brother Romeo. The two brothers had to be separated from their parents after the first cases of petrification disease, which led to the couple's death. In fear that the two children would live on the streets, Krat Social Services took them to the safety of the Rose Estate. The twins encountered difficulty adjusting given the reddish coloring of their hair, which at the time led them to be associated with the devil. For years, they were always together keeping each other company even in the saddest moments and at times when the whole orphanage seemed to find an excuse to cause conflict with them. In fact, one day while the orphans were enjoying their lunch break, a young boy with his little gang began to annoy Romeo and Giovanni, reminding them how unwelcome they were. Romeo, who was the more fearless of the two, began to argue heatedly with the bully leading the other to start a fight. Fists and kicks flew around the room, while the other children and teenagers encouraged the fistfight by encircling the two young men. Giovanni, frightened by the situation, tried hard to separate the two, failing at every attempt. The bully took a glass bottle from a nearby table, which he smashed in half with an attempt to attack Romeo.Giovanni prostrated himself to his brother, catching the bottle smear on his left eye. This caused a very deep scar on Giovanni's eye that fortunately did not make him blind. The more the years passed, the more the two brothers thought of putting an escape plan in place to flee the charity house. If they were to be mistreated in the place where no one, not even the teachers did anything to protect and help them, it was tantamount to leaving by attempting to escape. And so they did. For months, Romeo and Giovanni set to work, orchestrating and hiding their plans from everything and everyone. The two, determined by this decision, allowed nothing and no one to stop them, even when they caught the fever from too much stress and holed up in the remotest places of the Rose Estate in order to discuss their ideas undisturbed and heatedly. However, one day a new child joined the orphanage : the son of the famous inventor Giuseppe Geppetto, Carlo Geppetto. Carlo who had been brought there, given his father's little presence in his life and his total inability to take care of his son because of too much work on puppets, also had problems with settling in. However, this difficulty of his was because of his father's notoriety, which made Romeo curious. Romeo was the first among the twins to come forward, cheering up a sad Carlo who did nothing but cry because of the lack of affection given to him by his father. Giovanni did not see Carlo as a good influence on his brother. Many times, he would reprimand his twin, telling him that it was not a good idea to socialize with a child like him and that they should concentrate on the plan.  Unconsciously, Giovanni began to act like the same bullies who had done nothing but torment him for years.

More months passed. Romeo showed up less and less to discussions with his brother to such an extent that Giovanni had to finalize the plan himself and then explain it to his brother the day before the escape. Romeo heaved a great sigh and with great shame, admitted to his brother that he no longer felt like escaping the Rose Estate. Giovanni, shocked by this revelation asked him why, and the other replied that in Carlo he had found a great friend and that in the months spent relating to each other, they discovered that becoming Stalkers was in the best interest of both of them. Staying at the Rose Estate and studying there was the right solution for Romeo and that Giovanni should do the same for their sake as well. In addition, Romeo added that he did not feel like leaving Carlo alone again by presenting past personal examples. From there, a very heated discussion started, in which Giovanni admitted that he felt very disappointed and that he had repeatedly tried to pull him away from Carlo for the purpose of getting them to separate and run away together, respecting what they had so hard idealized and worked for in the past years. Romeo wanted no more of his brother's tantrums, deciding to spend the night in the room where Carlo resided. The next day, the twins did not speak to each other and sat on opposite sides of the lunch room so that they could not meet their own eyes. 

When night fell, Giovanni put his plan into action while Romeo slept blissfully in his bed. From that day on, the two brothers never saw each other again. With the escape a success, Giovanni began by running through the streets of Krat, illuminated by a full and shining moon, almost as if it wanted to congratulate the young boy on his successful venture. During his life on the streets, he faced many hardships such as earning food and finding a stable place to sleep, things that at the orphanage were given to him as a matter of course and that he had taken for granted all this time. Giovanni began to relate to small gangs of children on the streets, finding that his only way to survive was through petty theft and odd jobs for said gangs from time to time. It was difficult to gain their trust, yet he managed to earn a place to sleep and food in one of the street children's hideouts, thus feeling that he finally belonged to something and someone. As Giovanni's notoriety grew, word of his presence among the Krat streets grew in the small gang. He was given many names including : The Red, the Red Demon, the One-Eyed ( because of the still vivid scar on his left eye ) and even a name that sounded familiar to him : Lampwick. Hearing that nickname reminded him how even at the Rose Estate his brother Romeo had been coined that name because of his build was as slender as his and his hair was just as red. Giovanni, seized with melancholy, did not think two seconds about making Lucignolo his permanent alias. Sure, Krat was not immense and the young redhead could have returned to visit his brother whenever he wanted. However, his sense of pride was stronger than him and he still felt resentment toward Romeo for turning his back on him. Giovanni-or rather, Lampwick-had chosen the life of the streets while Romeo the life of a Stalker. Despite the slight dislike he felt toward him, Lampwick never looked back and continued on his way.

Years went by, and the Monad Charitable Home had long since stopped searching for Romeo's lost twin brother by giving him up for dead for good. Cases of the petrifying disease had increased by leaps and bounds, and all of Krat had begun with heavy measuring methods on quarantine. Romeo now a man in his early twenties, had begun his training with Carlo to become Stalkers way a few years ago. Of course, he too lived on resentment for his brother, sometimes brooding over how he could have abandoned his own flesh and blood without even leaving a letter or saying goodbye before leaving. Obviously, he would not let him, Romeo would convince Giovanni to stay and join the Stalkers with him. Evidently, however, fate had two distinct and clear goals in store for the twins. The redhead, or rather, the blond, had for years begun to dye his hair a golden blond, as if it were his most desperate attempt to break the bond with his now-never-vanished twin. Romeo and Lampwick lived with mixed feelings for each other and had never come to a definitive answer. But of one thing they were certain : they had abandoned each other. In spite of everything, Carlo had remained loyal to him, almost taking his brother's place in some cases and others... well their bond turned out to be much more than a simple friendship. They loved each other and there is nothing to add to that, but unfortunately, once again, fate seemed to have it in for Romeo in a very personal way : Carlo died of the petrification disease shortly after Romeo fell ill and had volunteered for a search by the Alchemists in an attempt, according to them, for a cure. The Alchemists had gained a lot of power over Krat thanks to Simon Manus who was trying with all his might to appropriate every little drop of ergo to put into action his plan to transform himself into a God. ( Obviously that plan had not been publicly revealed but for plot matters I must specify it. ) Lampwick, now also an adult, during all the turmoil, expanded his horizons with business by going so far as to run errands for the Alchemists themselves as a bodyguard. During this momentary career he was entrusted with many nobles of Krat including the famous singer and actress Adelina, with whom Lampwick had a dispassionate affair before she married. A no less important client was Bianca Colombo, a girl daughter of one of the city's most prominent counts : Adalberto Colombo. Adalberto, given too many commitments at work, hired Lampwick to protect his daughter in his absence. Eventually the two parted when Bianca embarked on the academy and met a couple of years later with Lampwick who also did odd jobs under the woman's command, bringing her puppet pieces from the Krat dump for her experiments. Eventually also took over the figure of a mysterious Paracelsus, a man very close to Bianca in their work whom Lampwick always feared a form of suspicion of him. But it mattered little since the man did not have to converse with him during work and their meetings were more than rare. Unfortunately, with time, Lampwick became ill with the disease that sent one of his legs into full gangrene. Desperately, the man tried hard to get a cure from the Alchemists, but they denied him of any cure unless he offered himself as an experiment for the cure himself. Since he was infected, his antibodies could work for them in their research. Lucignolo refused in disgust and terror, trying to get the cure from Bianca herself. Bianca replied that she knew nothing about it since the study of a cure for the petrifying disease was not her field. So Lampwick took it personally, believing that everyone was doing it on purpose to make him die. Between the disease sending him out of his mind, the fear of dying and that of finding himself under experimentation by the alchemists, he decided the obvious thing to do : runaway.

However, Paracelsus had other plans for him. The young man took Lampwick with him, offering him tea in the hope that the two could have a conversation about the red man's physical situation. Paracelsus told him the legend of the tree with the golden coins and its healing properties and how Lampwick would have to go in search of it if he really wanted to survive. All the while, the man felt the same feeling of despondency in the presence of the man with almost turquoise hair. Paracelsus, however, despite telling him about the legendary tree did not intend for Lampwick to leave that room. The tea offered was poisoned, and Lampwick had drunk far too little of it for the poison to kill him. Paracelsus thought the redhead had seen too much of the behind-the-scenes alchemists and decided to get rid of him in the simplest and most trivial way. He was afraid that Lampwick might leak not only of the work his colleagues were doing without the knowledge of civilians but also the information of a possible cure. As long as alchemists had the power to draw lots as to who deserved to live or not the petrification disease would be in their favor on any kind of corpse and experiment for the alchemical process that would make them join God if not become one.

Lampwick, as he lost consciousness, heard the man's last words in his ear "I know you're a tough cookie, and this poison may not take you out, but at the end of the day, hope is always the last to die. So now hear me well : if I find out that you are still alive, infecting Krat with your painful existence, it won't take me long to send you to finish what I started. So pray to die tonight."

Lampwick closed his eyes as ordered by Paracelsus. He realized that in the end it was for the best, with the disease around he would not have a future with any hope of life anyway. For a second, he was reminded of Romeo for years repressed in his mind. If he had stayed at the Rose Estate, maybe-maybe-they could have been happy and Lampwick would not have found himself dying on the floor of a mad alchemist.

Hours passed before Lucignolo could regain his senses. When he awoke, a warm and pleasant warmth enveloped his face. All he remembered were the words of Paracelsus that made him shudder at the very thought and snap to sit on what appeared to be a surgeon's table. Instinctively, he tried to run for safety but fell to the ground realizing that one of his legs was gone and that it had been replaced by a legion steel leg. The infection had almost reached his knee and whoever had amputated his leg had done him what was most likely a favor. The situation was confusing, Lampwick was confused, not understanding whether screaming would solve the problem or just cause more trouble. Using his last mental strength to get back on his feet he tried to escape by furiously picking up what he felt belonged to him. To his pleasant surprise, he found what appeared to be the doctor who had saved him, dead by suicide on an armchair. The man had left a note revealing that he had been hired by an anonymous sender to save his life and finish his when his mission was accomplished, without adding anything else.

As Lampwick left the building, he realized that he was now alone. Just as he did as a child leaving The Monad charity House of Charity, he began to run under the same full moon.

Personality :

Lampwick's personality is that of a person who can make himself both loved and hated by everyone. He relies on sarcasm and good intentions to keep his positive mood. He wastes no time in making known his main tastes in alchol and smoking or women but rest assured that he will never talk about his past because of his habit of being only a temporary client and not a friend to talk to. He lives with the complete brazenness of doing whatever he wants without thinking what may afflict others ( which is why Polendina punishes him by whipping him with a fly swatter when he walks around the hotel shirtless. ) 

He has no demeanor when it comes to drinking. Lampwick drinks anything that might be of alcoholic origin, in fact he can commonly be seen drinking sitting in front of the reception desk with a bottle of whiskey while trying to extract conversation topics from Polendina or in Geppetto's office resting on one of his couches.

Likes : Alcohol, cigars, little chit chats, pat Springs little head, playing cards ( especially black jack ) and no doubt sexual activities.

Dislikes : The Alchemist, questions about his past unless is not him to info dump you somethig, stay at the hotel for too long unless is for drinking, frenzied puppets and having to deal with his own thoughts.