I am the Stormcrow, harbinger of misfortune, witness to the unravelling of fate, agent of the Choir…would you like me to go on? I can play you the perfect melodramatic sound track to go along with my tale, a spot of Carmina Burana perhaps? Ok, ok, I’ll answer your questions seriously for your listeners…

I am a young woman, my real name isn’t important so you can call me Maria, I’ve always liked that name. I guess I’m on the slightly taller side of average for a human, physically fit but otherwise not particularly remarkable. I’ve been told I carry myself like a dancer and I’m happy enough with the compliment.

I was born and raised, or perhaps that should be evolved, in the Stillwater community on the edge of the ‘plex. My brothers and sisters and I were part of their great transhuman experiment, bred to be faster and fitter, better… I’m sure to most people that would be a weird environment but for us it was just the norm. They weren’t corp so had some humanity about them, but we were destined for their Cleric program, or at least those that developed in the right way were, so in hindsight it was a mix between the monastic and the cultish…

I’m twenty three, so I was just eighteen when everything fell apart, still an apprentice so to speak, certainly not a full blown Cleric. There are other stories out there about the demise of the Stillwater community, and I don’t want to dredge that all up again, suffice it to say I was a witness. I fled from there to a sister community and two years later that too was destroyed, and then I returned to Seattle just in time to witness yet another catastrophe…are you beginning to see why I earned my title?

Family? Well they were all my family as I don’t have biological parents in the traditional sense. We were close in a way that is probably not natural, living on top of one another in the tower. But it made us strong, and was our weakness when it was all taken away. Not everyone is dead of course, the community scattered to the winds and I’m still in touch with a few. I’ve even worked with a couple of them while delivering the Choir’s messages. My own family? No, I don’t know if I even could, but my lifestyle certainly doesn’t suit that at the moment. I don’t want to open myself up for that pain again, even if loss is supposed to build character.

Anyway, that was my life, it is all quite different now. When it all came crashing down I was lost, I spent two or three weeks dodging the street predators and looking for a safe place to hide. And then the Choir found me…no, they aren’t singers, I don’t know why they call themselves that and I probably wouldn’t tell you if I did know. They picked me and gave me a task, a purpose, and incidentally a safe place to belong again.

Politics and religion? Jedi of course, that’s how the old joke goes doesn’t it? Seriously, I’ve got a religion of sorts…I was born into a cult after all. No, that didn’t sour me to religion, I still have faith in what Stillwater wanted to achieve. Transhumanism, the betterment of our natural state through a blending of technology and magic, high ideals right? Politics, not so much, I’ve seen where delving into that pit can get people.

WIP…

So, my contacts? Well I know lots of people, part of my job is delivering the word of the Choir and that often involves helping someone out in some way. Most are grateful, some aren’t of course, but I try and stay in touch with those that are.

Silk [C4, L3] Infobroker
Silk is my contact with the Choir, in fact the only real evidence I’ve got that they even exists comes from her word…but rightly or wrongly I trust her. She found me when I was at my lowest and gave me a purpose again, even if I don’t always understand that purpose. Trust is a rare and fragile thing and I’m continually surprised it hasn’t been dashed, but then I suppose if it ever is to fail then the fall will be all the greater for that.

She was trusted by the Stillwater community, enough to become one of their guardians, and now that she has changed her role to that of the spider gathering her secrets in the gloom she is no less bright a figure in my life.

Marcus [C2, L1] Student Tech Wiz
A fellow exile from Stillwater he reluctantly tolerates my company on the rare occasions when I need to talk about the past, the fact that he shares my guilty pleasure of old school scifi films bridges some of the gaps in our pseudo relationship. He has his fingers dipped into the grey market tech field and occasionally dabbles in low grade SINs which I occasionally have had a need for.

Festivale [C3, L4] Rocker, Runner, Lover
I freely admit that I got swept up in Festivale’s wake from the moment I met her, I can’t even remember why the Choir sent me to meet her in the first place. She’s a Phoenix mysad and her flame burns incandescent when she’s performing, and dims to a pale shadow when she’s not. She has invaluable insight into the Seattle music scene and the wider media world to a lesser degree.

Watcher [C3, L3] Urban Anthropologist
Alex shares some of my pain at seeing loved ones torn away. He was studying the Fre∑dom tribe when they were attacked at their home on the edge of Redmond, spent the next three years in a coma and awoke to find his wife was dead, son missing and daughter is Silk’s protégé runner. He also found that he too was an adept which at such a late stage in his life was certainly something that he is still struggling to come to terms with. His years of study have given him real knowledge of the way Seattle functions, or doesn’t, from the corporate halls of power to the gangers in the barrens, but with particular focus on the lower strata of society…

Hopper [C4, L2] Smuggler & Coyote
Kit&Kat [C3, L4] Couriers
Feather [C4, L1] Fixer
Seeker [C4, L1] Bounty Hunter
Cannon [C3, L1] Weapons & Tech