Here's to the things we've seen and been... [OOC post: Sokora's Background]
For those who wish to read a more sizeable background for the wayward elf, you can find it here. The following is merely a brief description of the backstory.
Samuel Algers was born on the Night of Rage, Feb. 20, 2039 - a point where the strife between human and metahuman communities boiled over. That auspicious beginning, especially for a boy born to a human woman - Alicia Hayes - and an elven father, Yoric Algers - would be a shaping ground for the rest of his life. Hospital bills, made all the more ruinous by the massive hospital overload, would force his hitherto-fortunate parents into a community where the telltale screechof ambulances were rarely more than a block away.
At the age of 3, Samuel and his parents were taken in for the initial group of SIN cards - an identification act which would lead to a great deal of barely-visible stress between his folks, at least after a fight that they would remember for the rest of their lives. At five, his parents enrolled him in a public school, one which - due to the mixture of families within Denver - was predominantly human, with a small smattering of metahumans. Excelling was not in the cards, as the teachers treated him with barely-concealed contempt; his own classmates took rather a lot of joy, too, in dealing with the 'uppity elf'. Thankfully, he found his own crowd in a mixture of outcasts, including a Troll, a Dwarf, and a Human girl, all of whom took great delight at thumbing their noses at the establishment, and at the inherent racism within society around them.
At ten years old, Samuel's father was murdered along a city road, left in his car, following a suspicious set of circumstances indeed - there was talk of his work for various groups, of a mistress, and of drugs, the lattermost of which the older elf had clearly never been a part of. Left on the car were a few kanji, the mark of a group of Yakuza. Samuel's mother hadn't been earning much at the best of times, and with the death of his father, they were forced to move into a yet more slum-infested part of town - though Samuel did, as one last favor from his friends, learn the truth about that demise...
Schooling continued apace, on the internet when times went tough - and he worked to support his continually run-down mother, a promise never forgotten. Once Samuel reached his maturity, at the age of 17, he took what little he'd saved and purchased a small runabout to get him from place to place - and found two jobs, neither requiring much in the way of advanced education. The first was a job driving for DocWagon, an independent medical practice which had long since become the provider of care - and the second was at a seedy bar called the Rapscallion. From the first, he sparked an interest in emergency medical care, spending much of his free time learning the ins and outs of the human body; from the second, he began to learn more than a bit about the shadows of Denver, and the people who went about their business there.
Eventually, Samuel decided he'd had enough. It was too easy for an elf to slip off the grid after a couple of years of nothing more than stagnation; at the age of 22, he pinged his old friends, and found two of them thriving in ways he hadn't expected. They gave him one last favor, with the knowledge that he'd pay them right back when the time came; a substantial part of his funds went to his mother, and most of the rest went to a set of cybernetic alterations, ones which he knew he wouldn't get far without. His co-workers in DocWagon were happy to see him off for the last favor required to make the surgery just a bit cheaper, and his old Human friend had become something of a hacker, allowing him to slip away unnoticed - and, for himself, he took the name 'Sokora', an alias much like any other.
The next four years were a whirlwind of motion. After finding a Shadowrunning group that desperately needed a Face, someone who knew the streets and could read them properly, they took to a variety of jobs, here and there. He was careful, always, to keep his distrust for the Yakuza hidden away, knowing that he might get his revenge in time, and as time went on, he amassed that collection of contacts and associates that a proper 'runner needs to keep going. His interest in the medical field continued, as well as did a beginning interest in very large and very small machinery - cars, and pistols.
Finally, though, the lifestyle he'd chosen caught up with him, as a job turned absolutely rotten. He'd finally caught up to the Yakuza boss who'd killed his father, and exacted his revenge in a very blunt manner... but the boss had, previously, gotten ahold of an artifact which could not remain within the Denver area safely. It attracted the attention of a dozen different groups, every one of which would kill to get their hands upon it - and then it attracted that of Ghostwalker, the Great Dragon who had charged himself with looking over Denver. The course of action was, simply put, clear... and after dropping the item safely in Ghostwalker's talons, the team of Shadowrunners split to the corners of the world, the elf choosing to find his way to the 'frontier' town of Seattle.
A year working for the local police force, there, along with a new vehicle to replace his sadly-trashed RV, were Sokora's only requests of the dragon, and - following a desk job with a few momentary insights into some knotty cases - the elf took off, using what he'd saved up from that and previous jobs to pick up a bar in the middle of the city. There, in the 'Sixfold Path', he found himself once again serving drinks to 'runners, though now, he gave them the occasional tip, and steered things in the right direction, a 'runner gone... mostly clean. Well, until now.
Samuel Algers was born on the Night of Rage, Feb. 20, 2039 - a point where the strife between human and metahuman communities boiled over. That auspicious beginning, especially for a boy born to a human woman - Alicia Hayes - and an elven father, Yoric Algers - would be a shaping ground for the rest of his life. Hospital bills, made all the more ruinous by the massive hospital overload, would force his hitherto-fortunate parents into a community where the telltale screechof ambulances were rarely more than a block away.
At the age of 3, Samuel and his parents were taken in for the initial group of SIN cards - an identification act which would lead to a great deal of barely-visible stress between his folks, at least after a fight that they would remember for the rest of their lives. At five, his parents enrolled him in a public school, one which - due to the mixture of families within Denver - was predominantly human, with a small smattering of metahumans. Excelling was not in the cards, as the teachers treated him with barely-concealed contempt; his own classmates took rather a lot of joy, too, in dealing with the 'uppity elf'. Thankfully, he found his own crowd in a mixture of outcasts, including a Troll, a Dwarf, and a Human girl, all of whom took great delight at thumbing their noses at the establishment, and at the inherent racism within society around them.
At ten years old, Samuel's father was murdered along a city road, left in his car, following a suspicious set of circumstances indeed - there was talk of his work for various groups, of a mistress, and of drugs, the lattermost of which the older elf had clearly never been a part of. Left on the car were a few kanji, the mark of a group of Yakuza. Samuel's mother hadn't been earning much at the best of times, and with the death of his father, they were forced to move into a yet more slum-infested part of town - though Samuel did, as one last favor from his friends, learn the truth about that demise...
Schooling continued apace, on the internet when times went tough - and he worked to support his continually run-down mother, a promise never forgotten. Once Samuel reached his maturity, at the age of 17, he took what little he'd saved and purchased a small runabout to get him from place to place - and found two jobs, neither requiring much in the way of advanced education. The first was a job driving for DocWagon, an independent medical practice which had long since become the provider of care - and the second was at a seedy bar called the Rapscallion. From the first, he sparked an interest in emergency medical care, spending much of his free time learning the ins and outs of the human body; from the second, he began to learn more than a bit about the shadows of Denver, and the people who went about their business there.
Eventually, Samuel decided he'd had enough. It was too easy for an elf to slip off the grid after a couple of years of nothing more than stagnation; at the age of 22, he pinged his old friends, and found two of them thriving in ways he hadn't expected. They gave him one last favor, with the knowledge that he'd pay them right back when the time came; a substantial part of his funds went to his mother, and most of the rest went to a set of cybernetic alterations, ones which he knew he wouldn't get far without. His co-workers in DocWagon were happy to see him off for the last favor required to make the surgery just a bit cheaper, and his old Human friend had become something of a hacker, allowing him to slip away unnoticed - and, for himself, he took the name 'Sokora', an alias much like any other.
The next four years were a whirlwind of motion. After finding a Shadowrunning group that desperately needed a Face, someone who knew the streets and could read them properly, they took to a variety of jobs, here and there. He was careful, always, to keep his distrust for the Yakuza hidden away, knowing that he might get his revenge in time, and as time went on, he amassed that collection of contacts and associates that a proper 'runner needs to keep going. His interest in the medical field continued, as well as did a beginning interest in very large and very small machinery - cars, and pistols.
Finally, though, the lifestyle he'd chosen caught up with him, as a job turned absolutely rotten. He'd finally caught up to the Yakuza boss who'd killed his father, and exacted his revenge in a very blunt manner... but the boss had, previously, gotten ahold of an artifact which could not remain within the Denver area safely. It attracted the attention of a dozen different groups, every one of which would kill to get their hands upon it - and then it attracted that of Ghostwalker, the Great Dragon who had charged himself with looking over Denver. The course of action was, simply put, clear... and after dropping the item safely in Ghostwalker's talons, the team of Shadowrunners split to the corners of the world, the elf choosing to find his way to the 'frontier' town of Seattle.
A year working for the local police force, there, along with a new vehicle to replace his sadly-trashed RV, were Sokora's only requests of the dragon, and - following a desk job with a few momentary insights into some knotty cases - the elf took off, using what he'd saved up from that and previous jobs to pick up a bar in the middle of the city. There, in the 'Sixfold Path', he found himself once again serving drinks to 'runners, though now, he gave them the occasional tip, and steered things in the right direction, a 'runner gone... mostly clean. Well, until now.