Kerri Shawlite: The Gunsmith

"You're a— You're funny. I like you."

A gunsmith of Macideira Town, Tosenza, Kerri Shawlite would be commisioned to build a new rifle for Sven Fernsby. Later, she would hire both him and the steel man Heavy to escort her to Yilva City. (This article contains major spoilers for Almost Like Love)
A humble artisan from a humble township, Kerri was a xoti woman who desired little more than to spend her days working at her trade and raising her twenty children with her husband. However, such was not the case as the actions of Marlon Sterbok would force her to depart for Yilva City on the other side of Aelayeron.

APPEARANCE

When Kerri was eleven years old she had reached a height of one-hundred and fifty centimeters. Given the large size of her parents, she understandably had the expectation of eventually growing to a similar degree. Yet fate would play the first of many cruel tricks upon the young girl as she would stretch no further. To compensate, Kerri would tie her cloudy-gray hair into a sizeable bun vertical to her head. She'd claim this choice of style was to keep her hair out of her face, which wasn't completely false at least.
Gunsmithing since before she lost her first tooth, Kerri dressed practically and without regard for visual flair. She wore a leather apron, breeches, and short-sleeved shirt nearly every day of her life; something pointed out by her youngest daughter Marlene.

Namesake/Leitmotif: "I Saw The Light" by Todd Rundgren

Species

Humanity

Age

44

Eyes

Squinty

Hair

White and stringy

Height

150cm/4'11

"Mom, we're getting you a nice clothes for your birthday. I know you don't have any."
"Is— Is that— that so? How do you f-figure?"
"Gracie told me. She says we eat too much so you don't have money for clothes. That's why you wear the same shirt all the time."

PERSONALITY

If a single word could describe Kerri, it'd be "prickly." Whether it was to those disrupting her peaceful life in Macideira, the physical world around her, or even her family, there was a certain coarseness to the way she interacted with everything. Though, by the testament of her husband Rundgren and their children, this was nothing more than superficial; Kerri griping at the weather held no more meaning than someone else pointing out it was stormy. Overall, she was genuinely happy and wanted for very little.
When it came to business, Mrs. Shawlite was the driving force behind her family's affairs. Not only responsible for the family trade as its current master, but also a sharp negotiator to clients and partners. The Shawlite family's reputation was by no means legendary, but their name did have a somewhat infamous tinge to it for any who knew of the firearm known as "Devil's Bite."

"Took him forty days and forty nights; real back-breaking work. But eventually he was done. Man made his masterpiece: a gun said to kill anything it hit. Man, beast, even a god if you could believe it. Grandfather Shawlite wasn't offered anything; nobody asked him to make it. That thing came out of him. He locked it away until someone somehow got ahold of it. Lotta bad stuff happened after that.
It was an evil, evil gun."
— Sven Fernsby

If one was looking for proof that Kerri wasn't all thorns, they'd find it in her children. By the time she was forty, Kerri had twenty children in total with her husband Rundgren. The Shawlites were by far the largest family in Macideira and the reason the town school needed expansion. Although one might assume that the sheer number of children were why the Shawlite parents hardly held a dime between them, it was actually an issue mainly caused by the hefty mortage upon their land; a debt made to the oldest man in town, Marlon Sterbok.
One immediately notable quallity of Kerri came from her speech impediment. From her first words and well into the rest of her life, she had difficulty in getting her thoughts out as words. This would take the form of Kerri repeating a word several times before finishing her sentence, often foregoing the previous statement entirely. Despite how she may have presented it, unfortunately the disability would always bother her, even if only a little.

HISTORY & NOTABLE RELATIONSHIPS

Kerri had been born in 1821, at a time when Macideira was only just expanding from a small lumber mill. Her father was the resident gunsmith and her mother ran the general goods portion of the family business. Life went on as usual until the day Mr. Todd Shawlite took on a young worker by the name of Rundgren: an orphan who rolled into town who refused to say anything about himself, divulging neither where he'd come from or why he chose to travel to the middle of the wilderness in Tosenza. Regardless, Rundgren proved to be a good worker and didn't mind taking food and shelter in lieu of any money.
Meanwhile, Kerri was fourteen years old and already adept at the entirety of the gunsmithing process, able to do everything from catching wild ghost jellies to metalwork and even engraving runes into a firearm to allow it to conduct magic. However, this skill wasn't born entirely out of instruction with Todd Shawlite, but of his daughter's drive to do better, bordering on obssesive. However, the determination of youth often goes hand-in-hand with inattention, and one day Kerri would make a mistake which cost Rundgren his right arm.
Yet through it all, fate would decide that this event was exactly what was needed to get Kerri and her parents' helper to truly engage with one-another. Before long, two children living under the same roof would grow into young adults and find a connection. By the time Kerri had been deemed a master gunsmith at nineteen, she'd been married for over a year.

Almost Like Love

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She hoisted her fishing rod and a mesh of string used as a bag over her shoulders, careful not to shake the jars within. Her books likened ghost jellies to some exotic sea life, but Kerri only had the comparison of their namesakes, down to the little wails they made when stressed. As if to emphasize her point, a few of the glasses clinked and a chorus of groaning followed.

"Shush, you," she scolded. The jellies whined more than Marlene any time the girl brought home something to keep. Whether it was a rabbit or an old tire, nearly every week some "new friend" was found. Kerri's youngest was more of a hassle than her nineteen other children combined.

For the majority of her adult life, Kerri spent her years patiently working at her trade towards the goal of owning her family's property. This would change in 1865 as two peculiar travelers entered her establishment: a man wearing an army jacket and a steel man wearing pink. At the same time, an unusual summons from Marlon Sterbok her mortgager, arrived to request a dinner at the end of the week.
After Rundgren failed to return from his meeting with Mr. Sterbok, Kerri would turn to her new acquaintances, as it wasn't the first time someone went missing upon visiting the manor looming above Macideira and the town police weren't likely to find anything worthwhile. This intuition would prove correct as Heavy immediately set Marlon into enough of a panic to try and murder both the steel man and Kerri, revealing the man's ability to turn anything into stone. After a short battle, Rundgren's petrified remains were found out in the garden behind Sterbok Manor, though a small consolation came in Heavy's ability to restore Rundgren to a complete statue, if not cure his condition. With that, Kerri had little choice but to travel and find someone who could fix her husband; coincidentally being the same place Heavy and Sven were also headed towards.
Upon arriving at Yilva City, Kerri was informed it'd take a disheartening amount of money to purchase the ingredients for a cure to Rundgren's condition. Nevertheless, she didn't falter and got to work straight away, informing her children their mother would be working away for about a year. Kerri acquired a small apartment and would begin employment after the city calmed down from Lady Suitalk's visit out from atop the High Wall.
However, fate had once more decided to pull on Kerri's thread. On the day the All-Mother graced the citizens of Yilva with her presence, the outlaw High Voltage Varrick revealed himself as hijacking the train Rusiko and Mickey were taking across town in a plan to assassinate Lady Suitalk. Moving quickly, Kerri along with Sven and Heavy would race through the streets after the runaway railcar, eventually having Kerri herself take the wheel after her friends jumped in the path of the train. Thankfully, they succeeded and put a stop to Varrick's schemes.

Notable Relationships

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The Shawlite Family: Whether it was due to being an only child, having few friends growing up, or plain boredom, Kerri and Rundgren had twenty children and likely would've had more if not for the events of 1865. Nearly all parts of their marriage had Mrs. Shawlite expecting a child, which she and her husband were quite proud of. Whether it was her oldest son Cole looking almost exactly like his father, the middle child Gracie being fond of plants, or her youngest Marlene being unafraid of nearly everything, Kerri and Rundgren had smething to praise about every one of their children.

"The sweet baby sat there with [Kerri], going on and on about why we needed a dog, my wife nodding and smiling the whole time."
"Yeah?"
"She looked Marlene right in the eye and said 'no.' I felt bad but had to look away; didn't want either of them to see me laughing."

The Sterboks: For as long as she could remember, Kerri's father would visit Marlon Sterbok once a year for dinner and to discuss the matter of payment towards the Shawlite property. Kerri would do the same after Todd's passing, and for twenty years make her way towards finally owning a small portion of Macideira. Although made uneasy by the unofficial lord of the township, Kerri nonetheless paid respect to him and always did her best to acquiesce to the occasional odd meeting between the Sterboks and the Shawlites.
As for Marlon's late wife, Manamee, Kerri found her unsettling in the same out-of-touch fashion of Mr. Sterbok, but didn't make much note of it. When Mrs. Sterbok passed, although most in the town attended the funeral, Kerri and Rundgren were among the handful to actually show up at Manamee's burial.

"I hold power over you; I take away your agency, the very thing that separates us from animals and plants. And it's through this power, through my choice, that determines whether or not you suffer. That is what I find good."
— Marlon Sterbok

by Nincho | Ayonerra

The Yilva City Rollers: Kerri found her friends gathered on the trip to Yilva City and their subsequent adventures together to be the most excitement she'd ever had in her forty-four years alive. From the revelation that her mortgager held supernatural powers to saving hundreds of lives from the machinations of High Voltage Varrick, 1865 was quite a busy year for Mrs. Shawlite. Although it pained her to leave home for as far and long as she did, her friends made Kerri's trip that much easier.

"It— It was— They're some of my fondest mem-memories."

ABILITIES & EQUIPMENT

Paurcite Hammer: The most expensive item in her possession, Kerri's hammer allowed her to channel magic and made the process of engraving runes into metal a trivial matter. With the tool alone, the work her forefathers spent hours at took her only minutes.
Enchanted Ribbon: A gift from her mother, Kerri's ribbon held the small charm of keeping insects away from her. If one was to examine it closely, they'd see a part of the miracle "Lucy's Walk" on it, denoting when the biblical figure wandered into the major deity Enri one fateful day.