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Sora's Shadowblog

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XyraFhoan

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« on: <09-20-14/1517:36> »
Hoi chummers! I normally just lurk around here but I decided I might as well share what I've been working on since July. My runner's recounting her life as both a runner and someone who might just pass off as an ordinary civvy of the 6th World. It's written more like a journal and the narrator might be more than a little biased.

So I present to you all Dark Skies, the Shadowblog of Sora.

And here's a little snippet from her very first run with the two chummers she'd come back to again and again.

Quote
This morning I got a message from Delivery. Sounded urgent. Rumour has it something was going down at the nearby Stuffer Shack. He was light on details but very adamant I should follow up. Except he couldn’t even be there. I mean, don’t be such a piece of drek about “urgent” jobs and bail on me, ne?

I think about all the times I’ve run into John and [Galena] over the months. We’ve never run together even though the three of us cross paths all the time at the Shokudo. But I know all three of us do runs, so it dawns on me, what if we team up to work together? Delivery wouldn’t have passed the news along if it were going to be a hard job. He just said it needed to be followed up on tonight. I sent a message John and [Galena]’s way. I said I’d be at the Stuffer Shack in the wee hours of the morning if they wanted to follow up. I guess I expected I was going to run alone, but…

It’s January and raining but I slip into my most comfortable attire: my blue tunic and shorts. The rain might sting the bare skin a little but the coating on the jacket holds up well enough to the inclement weather. It’s not cold enough to bother me. I lean up against the trash bins outside the Stuffer Shack, hooded and goggled up. It’s around… I want to say 3 AM? I fit in just fine.

[Galena] shows up after all. I wave and we chat. She doesn’t know what’s going on, and neither do I. All I have is the word of my chummer. So we just shoot the breeze outside for a bit and then I see him. I can’t believe that he actually came. Maybe John’s got a place for me in his heart after all?

"So what’s the job?" he asks as he rolls up on his Suzuki Mirage. It’s so slick. Its finish has a sheen that you just don’t see from your everyday ganger. I realize how far John parks from any other vehicle. I guess he doesn’t want his bike dinged up by any hopped-up loser. Tonight he’s got a katana strapped to his side and is looking pretty beastly.

I reply honestly, “Dunno. Heard about it from my deliveries guy.”

I clear my throat and my face is all red when I try to make my feelings known, “B-but it sure is nice to see each other again, right?”

John kinda grunts and heads towards the doors of the Stuffer Shack. I think I heard his stomach grumble a bit. He growls, “I don’t have time to fuck around. Let’s just go in.”

I just agree for the sake of it. Was hoping he’d be like “Oh Sora, I waited all day to see you!” or even just a “Yeah”… I mean, that’d be kind of out of character though…

Galena’s snickering from my rejection breaks me out of my day (night?) dreams and we just head into the store too.

It’s the Stuffer Shack. What can I say? And it’s late at night, too, so all the crazies are out. The cashier is flirting with his shorty girlfriend, talking about hair cream or something. Some punk couple dressed in couples with a zipper-to-fabric ratio of 10:1 are making out, sneaking cans of cat food into their bag… oh, and there’s a mother with a screaming baby. Nothing here is out of the ordinary. I wonder what the hell Delivery was going on about, then.

John gives his orders, “Just go mill around. See if you can’t find something.”

He goes off towards the refrigerators, probably to look for something to nuke. Galena, of course, heads to get a cup of soykaf. Even though I just want to follow John around… like, badly, I kinda briefly peruse the simsense cabinet to see the new releases. There’s some Neil the Ork Barbarian knockoff, but it promises action “just for adults”. So it’s a porn version of Neil.

I… am kind of tempted, but the girl on the cover has cantelope-sized boobs, obviously implants, exploding out from a chain bikini. It looks extraordinarily stupid. And then I realize I’m nitpicking a series about an overly muscled ork who smashes stuff. Uh… I pass on the sims, and go to stare at the microwaves or something and pretend like I’ll actually eat here.

And that’s when I feel all my muscles tense up. Every one of my nerves is directed at the front entrance. An explosion, a car bomb, rips through the wall, shattering the glass and tipping over the first two aisles of products. Everyone’s screaming, but instinctively I drown it out and pinpoint… three people… obviously gangers from the drawn guns and the drek wardrobe… one guy’s obviously the boss, the other his right-hand man, and one of them’s a shaman if his dumb tattoos and feathers are anything to go by…

If I wasn’t clear about how much I hate magicians, I leap into action, literally leaping over one of the aisles and fly at the shaman, foot-first. I connect with his face and we both crash into the floor. Shammy’s two chummers look stunned. They said something about handing over a baby I guess. I wasn’t listening.

Of course, that got the attention of the two thugs, but also John and [Galena]. John’s got his Predator drawn and [Galena]’s hiding off somewhere, I don’t know where. With a warning remark, John takes a shot at one of the gangers but his bullet wizzes just shy of the mark. So while one ganger’s trying to pull me off of his shammy chum, the other’s firing back at John. I see clouds of Cheez-Puffz (tm) flying everywhere. Yum?

By now I’ve got this shaman pummeled into oblivion and I get up to engage this other guy who’s coming at me. A little too slow, apparently, because he manages to land a fist right to my gut. I stagger slightly, because shit, that hurt. Another bullet wizzes by from the cashier side. Pretty sure that was [Galena], but she’s not the best shot.

John breaks from his cover and I see him fast approaching the ganger I’m not tussling with right now, Predator in his left hand, katana drawn in the right.

"I warned you, motherfucker."

Blam. One bullet, applied directly to the ganger’s face. He falls to the ground with a thud. Now that has the boss man’s attention.

Suddenly, the lights plunge into the darkness. Well, now I know what [Galena] is up to. Boss mook look even more confused at this point, and unlike the three of us, doesn’t look like he can see in the dark. This guy’s jacket is pretty tough though, as John’s katana glances off an armored sleeve and I try my best to punch him out. Eventually I manage to catch this guy right in the throat with a well-timed kick and he’s out like a light.

"Looks like we found our mark," I remark, gripping my stomach. When I think about how I wasn’t promised any payment, I sigh. Not again. I strip the guns and armor off the gangers begrudgingly while John inspects the bystanders.

The elf chick with a baby starts chatting up John. I overhear “husband” and feel a bit of relief. Maybe we will be getting paid after all. John holsters his gun and sheathes his blade. I just drop my fists. Yeah. Not that cool, I guess. [Galena] comes out of the back room of the Stuffer Shack and tells us to peel out of there. CC footage is gone. We hustle on out and I find out we’ve got no money yet, but John’s got a new contact for us… He’ll tell us in a few days. I nod and split on foot, [Galena] jogs off to find her truck she parked so far away, and John mounts his Mirage.

This could be the start of something good after all.

/Signing off -Sora

Horsemen

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« Reply #1 on: <09-28-14/0228:18> »
This brings back some nostalgia!   ;D
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firebug

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« Reply #2 on: <09-28-14/0817:02> »
I always enjoy these kind of things.  Is she augmented?  I admit the picture on the blog says "adept" but that also says she hates magicians (which would be uncommon for an adept, but not impossible).

She should run with my character some time.  :D
I'm Madpath Moth on reddit (and other sites).  Feel free to PM me errata questions!
Jeeze.  It would almost sound stupid until you realize we're talking about an immortal elf clown sword fighting a dragon ghost in a mall.

XyraFhoan

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« Reply #3 on: <09-29-14/0153:14> »
This brings back some nostalgia!   ;D

Food Fight's a good time, and that was the moment where I decided, "Okay, she has something against other Awakened." And it just gets better the more I get to run.

I always enjoy these kind of things.  Is she augmented?  I admit the picture on the blog says "adept" but that also says she hates magicians (which would be uncommon for an adept, but not impossible).

She should run with my character some time.  :D

Sora's an adept. She isn't too fond of magicians after getting burned (almost literally) by one, though. It's worse if they're an elf, too, though she manages to keep her cool so long as they don't try something first.

I hope if you want to run with her, you bring along a face... having Sora talk to people only ends tragically.

Horsemen

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« Reply #4 on: <09-30-14/0041:44> »
Do you have her stats posted somewhere?
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XyraFhoan

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« Reply #5 on: <09-30-14/0246:20> »
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/33988813/Sora.pdf

This was the very first character I made without any feedback, hence the interesting assortment of skills. Her negative qualities have actually been fleshed out more compared to what I jotted down, her code of honour has her extremely protective of the people she considers family to the point of impulsive fighting while making her extremely uncomfortable with using any sort of implement while fighting. No weapons whatsoever. She also has a lot of sympathy for other families too. Her social stress is not only being caught up in crowds, but also trying to shield her parents from her runner lifestyle. Because of her lack of charisma, it ends up being near complete shutdown for Sora when trying to deal with people, even moreso than usual. We kind of house ruled that Astral Chameleon raised the assensing threshold for detecting Sora as an adept.

XyraFhoan

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« Reply #6 on: <12-25-14/0204:02> »
I have many updates to the blog since I last mentioned anything, but I thought I'd also include some of my non-canon holiday sketches featured outside the blog's scope. Merry Christmas, chummers!




XyraFhoan

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« Reply #7 on: <01-01-15/1845:40> »
I added some more holiday themed art but my computer happened to die. Disappointing but hey, it was an excuse to break out the ancient supplies collecting dust in my room. Happy New Year!

The rough sketch:



The clean-up and colouring job (sorry, no scanner for now...):



Edit: One last run at this...

« Last Edit: <01-02-15/0239:22> by XyraFhoan »

Namikaze

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« Reply #8 on: <01-02-15/1051:33> »
Very nice!  The final product looks great!
Feel free to keep any karma you earned illicitly, it's on us.

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XyraFhoan

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« Reply #9 on: <01-02-15/2320:47> »
Thanks! I do a lot of Shadowrun art actually; I probably spam the tumblr tag a little much sometimes.

Here's a couple pictures I did for our group.

















...Whew. That's not all of it even, but those are my favourites.

Jayde Moon

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« Reply #10 on: <02-05-15/1743:52> »
So here's the big question... do you do commissions?!?
That's just like... your opinion, man.

firebug

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« Reply #11 on: <02-05-15/2202:46> »
Hahaha.  That last one is hilarious.  These are all quite good.  Very impressive!
I'm Madpath Moth on reddit (and other sites).  Feel free to PM me errata questions!
Jeeze.  It would almost sound stupid until you realize we're talking about an immortal elf clown sword fighting a dragon ghost in a mall.

XyraFhoan

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« Reply #12 on: <02-06-15/0326:11> »
So here's the big question... do you do commissions?!?

Technically yes, I do take commissions! But I've got a waitlist right now and on semi-hiatus until I get my new workstation all set up after my old computer gave up the ghost. It should be back to normal soon... maybe. Probably. At this point I'm just waiting on a chair that doesn't make my back feel like drek in 5 minutes flat and tracking down serial codes for software *grumble grumble* reinstalling everything is a pain.

I have a couple more arts of some NPC Awakened of the Wuxing tradition. Eventually I'll have one of every meta included.





And a human poser oni with horns removed. At least he's made something of himself by serving as a Johnson for a one-off I ran.