“You understand the mission then?” La’Dasha said to the grate under her feet as she sat on the bench.
“I do,” came the terse reply. La’Dasha had never met the man she knew as Faelian, though she had made use of his services for years. So far he had been undeniably successful. However, her requests had typically been much simpler than this one. She sincerely wished she could have just ordered a straightforward assassination, but that wasn’t the plan. Her operative would need to have a good grasp on the complexities. But she trusted no one more than Faelian.
However, that wasn’t saying much. She wasn’t even sure what race he was, though he was clearly not a khajiit or argonian. She only knew he got the job done where others had failed her. And this was going to be an expensive operation, though expenses didn’t bother the Dominion. A good thing too. The long range weapon she had left in the drop off location was priceless.
“Where?” came the hoarse voice from below her.
“Crypt. Name of Shelley. Key is in the urn on the left of the door. And Faelian…”
“Yeah?”
“I’m going to be following this one closely. It’s important.”
“Got it. When do you expect her in the city?”
“Two days from now.”
“I’ll contact you when it’s over.”
“No need. I’ll know when it’s over.”
There were no footfalls, but she sensed the man had gone anyway. It wasn’t like her to worry, but she was worried now. This was way too complex, and too many people were involved. Important people. If she failed this, she would die. It was as simple as that. Number 5 didn’t have to make the threat. She’d carried out similar orders on other high ranking members herself.
She needed a drink. She crossed the road to a bar. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light within and she sat at the bar and ordered her usual. It came to her – clear, cold and strong. She downed it with a single gulp and ordered another.
“This seat taken?” came a voice beside her. She looked to see a man. Big man.
She thought about it for a moment, then decided she needed the distraction. “There is now,” she replied noncommittally.
“You new in town? I haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Pretty new. Just came in yesterday. Business.”
“Ah,” he said, and she wondered how long he was going to take to get to the point. But it was all part of the game. She had to wait.
“Say, wanna guide? I know all the hot spots in town. This place, it’s alright, but it’s dead.”
“You like cats?” she asked, touching his thigh. She felt the muscles flex underneath her claws.
“I like everybody,” he said.
“Do you?” She looked him up and down. Slowly. “How much do you weigh, stud?”
“Oh! Like what you see? Couple hundred.”
“Mmm. And how big are you?”
“Big enough for a cat.”
“Are you? Well, this one does like to sample the local meat when in town. Want to skip the hot spots and make our own?”
This was the turning point. A lot of men she met would balk at this point. She didn’t mind. It was all part of the game. Some would be turned off by her boldness, and those were the ones that got away. “Go home to your wife,” she would tell them in her mind. “Go kiss your kids, stud. Be smart.”
“Sure, pussy. Where are you staying.”
Externally she smiled and told him her hotel and room number. Internally she sighed. The mean intelligence of the male population of Tamriel would slightly increase tonight. There was that. She was a force for evolution.
“Give me 20 minutes,” she said, standing up and downing her second drink. “The door will be open, stud.”
She saw the lecherousness in his eyes when she turned back at the door, watching her tail make motions in the air. “20 minutes.”
“I’ll be there,” he said, smiling a smile that told her all she needed to know. He would be.
**********************************************
Ra’Jirra stepped down from the wagon behind a family of fellow khajiits into the full majesty of Rihad. It stank. The odor of thousands of different people, all crammed together in such a small space and under such high heat, would yield nothing else. Along with that wafted the aroma of a thousand different street vendors, all selling their possibly-still-edible wares. It combined to give a stench that reached to the sky.
She’d been here before. She had hoped to not be again.
Her contact was named Serosh, a rather bland looking Redguard she had met once before briefly, but she had done her research on him during her trip to Rihad using the folio Em had given her before she left. Not a top agent, but reliable and committed. However, he was a family man, and that was dangerous.
He hailed them a taxi, a premium affair. The Orsimer pedalling it was pleasantly quiet and didn’t reek too badly.
“Where am I staying?”
“The Pendant. Best lodgings in town. They’ve a premier casino and bar if you’re interested. I’ve got you the penthouse suite.”
“Nice! You know my tastes,” she smiled as he offered her a cocktail. She spat out the feathers though. She preferred them plucked first.
“Indeed. But it’s not just for your vanity, Raj. They’re the only hotel that excels in privacy. We’ll talk there.”
Ra’Jirra saluted him and began gnawing on the cocktail as she watched the riffraff of Rihad go by outside. The driver was impressive in his speed and mobility. She lay her head back and enjoyed the meager breeze and occasional respite from the atmosphere of the place. At moments she might almost think…
Suddenly an explosion rocked the small cart. She spun around to look out of the small window behind her. Smoke was rising from a storefront behind them, but the Orsimer was dutifully speeding past. She saw blood and heard screaming.
“What’s that all about?”
“Local disturbance. The usual thing. Massive poor population, small rich population and practically no middle class. The place is ripe for revolution, but the government keeps a pretty firm hand.”
“So that was a revolutionary bomb?”
Serosh shrugged. “Or counterrevolutionary. Who knows? Doesn’t make much difference really, does it?”
“Not to those people bleeding on the street.”
They pulled past the gates leading to The Pendant. Armed guards were in evidence. Lots of them. She watched as the gates clanked into place firmly behind her.
“Are they locked out, or am I locked in?” she asked Sarosh as he took her hand to help her out of the taxi.
He handed the driver something gold and the driver bit it before pocketing it. “Yes,” he replied with a smile, and two large Redguards came to see to her luggage while she strolled into the hotel. The doors opened at her approach, and she wondered for a moment if there might be magic involved, until she saw the ropes which obviously led to a couple of menial laborers stationed to give them a pull at the proper time.
Inside the air temperature dropped at least 20 degrees.
“Whoa! What’s this?” she asked the her friend.
“They call it Air Ice. They have a big tub of ice on each floor with a fan that blows it into the rooms. Nice, eh?”
“I’ll say! Almost makes me think I could live here!”
“Better watch that, cat. Some of us do, you know.”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Let’s get you to your room,” he said.
They walked into a small box surrounded by a gated door which he closed. He turned a knob to indicate her floor number, and the box began to rise smoothly. She never did see the laborers that accomplished that little miracle, but she had no doubt they were there.
Serosh handed her the key and she opened the door. The room was huge and immaculate. She even let out a squeal when she saw the bath. It was enormous and open, with a commanding view through thick glass doors that led to a balcony beyond.
“Serosh, you’re not into cats are you?”
“Sorry Raj, no. Not me. Happily married man.”
“Good! You stay there, I’m taking a damned bath!”
“You do that. Sweaty fur isn’t exactly the most delightful perfume, I’m afraid.”
“Don’t I know it!”
She opened a spigot and water began to flow. She had no idea how that worked, but she was sure somebody’s muscles were involved. The water temperature was perfect.
“I’ve left a dossier on the table,” she heard from the next room as she got undressed. “Burn it when you’re done.”
Ra’Jirra lowered herself slowly into the warm water and let the tub fill slowly over her as bit-by-bit parts of her were submerged. She nearly cried with pleasure. “Aaaaaahh!”
“Long trip?” came the voice from the other room.
“Too long. I think I just want to stay in here all night. So, how long are you good for tonight? When do you need to go home?”
“I’m good as long as you’d like. I sent my family away. I don’t like them to be around during an operation.”
“Smart thinking.”
*************************************************
Reblogging the second chapter from bdfanfic blog. I feel like with it being a crossover and involving Ra’Jirra, it’s pushing it to file it under bdprequel. But I’m about to post the 7th chapter over there, so if you want to read it, here’s the link to the archive. It’s adult but not porn, pretty much like the Bond movies.
I deleted my prior post because I made it when butthurt and that’s always a bad idea. Instead I’ll repost properly. Months ago Kazerad was doing a stream and he was sort of randomly doodling something. He said it looked like somebody holding a bat.
I suggested – well, Mae from Night in the Woods might be appropriate! And I think as he was drawing it, as a joke I mentioned that Gregg might be a good catcher. So he drew this:
(If you’ve not played NitW – shame on you. But Gregg has a scene where he puts cups on his ears. Kaz came up with the gloves on his ears. Nice!)
So I was looking for something to color and decided to do this one. One thing I decided right off though was that I wanted to “ink” it. That is, redraw all the major lines and work off of that rather than the sketch. Watched a video or two and then did this:
The point being that by doing so I don’t have to try to clean up the reference and ‘scratchy’ stuff. That took longer than you might expect, but it did give me a good base to start from. Flats of course….
I’m on a discord and I posted it at that point just to see what they thought. Pocky asked if I was going to do her bright yellow mouth. I’m like, “What?” “Yeah, her mouth is bright yellow.” Now this I had to see:
Oh! The LINES are bright yellow. Because she’s so dark. I even lightened her up a bit anyway. But… Hmm… What would that look like? It would look like this!
Hey! That’s not that bad! And provides at least a slighly more ‘canon’ look to her So yeah, we’ll do that? I did one background but realized after I’d done it that the angle was wrong. It made Gregg look like a little tiny guy rather than the perspective thing. So I redid it and came up with this (eventually!)
The yellow blocks are supposed to look like chairs. Yeah, well… So shadows, highlights and some gloss later, I got this finally:
The eyes though… I dunno. I felt like they really needed black pupils, so i added those in my final cut. Also I realized I couldn’t post it on Kaz’ Prequel fanart booru because there’s nothing Prequel about it. So in addition to the black pupils, I also added Katia and QW as spectators. I will be the first to admit it wasn’t hard to do.
So that’s it right? Not so fast. The image was removed from the Booru as not related to Prequel enough. I wasn’t pissed at the moderator, but I was pissed. I complained long and loud to some friends. (and the Tumblr post.) I updated everywhere I had posted to leave out K&QW. If it’s not Prequel enough for the Booru, I reasoned, I’m not going to go giving free ‘advertising’ either. And I railed about how some that were accepted took less effort than mine! And I got this idea bout drawing a terrible Katia on blue-lined note paper in ink, taking a picture of it in bad lighting and posting it to the Booru, making sure I spent less time on it that I had inserting QW and Katia into mine.
But eventually I calmed down. I don’t get butthurt a lot, but I do occasionally. I came up with a better plan. I’m going to write an essay, tited “The Problem of Moderation”. I have some experience in the topic. The point is honestly to get Kaz to at least reconsider the policies there. But it’s his show, I’m just in the audience. But maybe if I present my case reasonably and calmly, he might at least consider it.
So that’s the whole story. And I want to emphasize again that I NEVER was mad at the Mod who deleted it. I was mad at the policy itself. And the essay will explain why. Being a mod is a thankless, no-win job No one should be angry at the moderator for doing that job.
Kazerad’s Skyrim character is named Kira Fang-Fister. She specializes in the knockout punch. Last night he was playing while on a stream and he got to that scene where you release Odahviing and he asks if you want to see the world as a Dragon does.
Suddenly this commission came to me. I desperately flailed about, but no artist in sight. Then, FurNut dropped in! I snagged him into doing it. This one really should be seen in high res though. After I post it, I think I’ll try and link to the full size version.
And Katia is along for the ride (honestly because without her it doesn’t belong o the Fanart Booru! – but also because it’s always funny to make a cat cry.)
Also this time FurNut send me the layered .psd so it was a lot easier to work with to add my colors and shade to it. Here’s the original sketch from FurNut (without the caption)
Some flat colors in place…
Getting there. Some shading in place…
More shading and highlighting…
And finally, the punchline…
Oops! Those were supposed to be holes! Darn it I’ve been coloring Adine so long they looked like wing freckles! Correction here:
If you see a link below this line, that’s the link to the full size version. (well, even it’s not FULL size. This puppys is 6000px wide on my pc!) But close enough.
I’ve been sitting on this one for probably 6 months. Never felt like I could do it the way I wanted to. Still could use cleanup a bit, but I feel like I’ve progressed far enough to post it anyway – and thus I’m probably done with it now.
Kaz drew it a long time ago – I don’t think it was even my commission. But I wanted to do a good latex-y looking bodysuit. I didn’t even use the Multiply layers when I started this! (Trust me, that’s an archaic way to do things!)
That is the question. Yesterday I felt like doing yet another color job, and I came across this sketch by Kazerad as a commission for Rick2Tails. I didn’t ask Rick if I could color it, but I feel like I know him well enough to know he’d be fine with it – and Kaz is certainly fine with it.
Now first, let me go off on a rant about coloring scanned sketches. Don’t. That’s my rant. I’m not ragging on Kaz here at all, but dammit it’s hard to get rid of all those extra lines! On the good side, you get so MANY lines to choose from – it’s kinda of a Roll-Your-Own sketch. Don’t like the curve of her thigh? Choose a different line! I mean, look at those intertwined tails! Quill magically has two different end-tails! 🙂 But that’s my problem. If I really wanna color a pencil sketch, there’s an hours worth of cleanup work to even get started!
But I really like this one because I honestly think it’s the only Kazerad drawing of a HAPPY Quill-Weave in existence. And, let’s face it, there’s some pretty seriously implied shipping going on here between Quill and Katia. Granted they’re about to go down on the Titanic but still…
Okay, but here’s the real question. A while back I did that sunbathing Quill and put lots of shiny highlighting on her. I liked it. A lot. So then even when I did the Pilgrim one I kept the shiny highlilghts.
Now, I’m afraid I’ve probably taken it too far. And that’s the Q. I know from past experience that my Tumblr readers don’t talk back much. That’s okay. I’ll post this elsewhere too. But I’m honestly wondering if I’m taking the shiny too far. (And breast emphasis – I already know that. But that’s something I’ll just have to live with.)
So, here it is – without the shiny. This is not finished – I made sure to keep all clothing colors change-able as I’m not convinced I like those either. And the water is horrible. But BESIDES that, is this better without shiny highlights:
Or with the shiny bits:
Of course, I’m leaning towards ‘with’ but that may well be just me. If I’m overdoing it, I would actually like to know!
Yes, I know it’s been done before – there’s just too many similarities to resist a Prequel/Night in the Woods crossover. I recently bought and played NitW and really liked it. I think Kazerad sort of mentioned that it’s kinda an overdone crossover when I asked for a Katia/QW Night in the Woods at one of his streams recently. But I knew Kaz would come up with a unique spin on it. And he did. Never underestimate the power of Kazerad when he’s drinking at a bar!
If you’ve not played Night in the Woods, you may not get the reference. There’s a dream sequence where Mae (protagonist anthropomorphic cat) meets an apparent god. A rather impersonal, unfeeling, uncaring god who shows her the nightmare creatures that live beyond the stars. All very Lovecraftian.
Here’s a shot of that scene from the game:
So leave it to Kaz to substitute Mae for QW (well, really Dodger who may or may not be Quill Weave in a younger form) and the Cat God for Katia. Clever actually!
So of course I had to color it.
I’m pretty pleased with the outcome. One kinda odd thing though. There’s some details that are faint but show up just fine on my laptop monitor, but don’t show up on my desktop. Oh well. It still looks pretty good IMHO. Just the barest of yellow hints at the edges. Glowing eyes. Yup, pretty successful color job if I do say so myself, even if there’s not really a heck of a lot of coloring really to do.
Got a couple more Kaz-drawn coloring jobs I’m working on too, though neither are especially noteworthy honestly. But I sure did like this one!
A while back in the Angels With Scaly Wings days I commissioned Kaz to draw Katia riding Bryce. This is the resulting drawing.
Naturally I had to color it. It’s what I do, right? Here’s the sketch a bit cleaned up with flat colors…
And then with shading, highlights and a Skyrim background screenshot motion-blurred.
I probably should have left well enough alone… but… if you’ve never played Angels with Scaly Wings (and I highly suggest you don’t honestly – I didn’t. I just watched Kaz play it on some streams.) there’s at least one, maybe a couple of scenes where a conveniently placed bottle prevents viewing of any potentially offensive parts of Bryce. And thus the similarly-conveniently placed bottle here. (In fact, it probably is worse WITH the bottle since it is… large.)
But no, I had to go and wreak havok by making some of the bottles a bit more transparent than intended. Don’t worry, it’s a silhouette at best. But still, no mere bottle is going to suppress the manly manliness of Bryce!
Yeah, you’ve really got to WANT to see the difference to see the difference. Good luck with that. I’m out!
bdprequel 
