#15 Born in These Streets

The story so far: if you're tuning in now for the first time, you're in a lot of trouble.

We're playing a fool-punching shadowrunner who saved the Antumbra nightclub in Seattle from sabotage, then got hired by the Antumbra financiers to investigate Aztechnology in San Francisco.

A lone troll killed the Aztech boss and stole our data. We tracked him down to the necropolis of Colma, and fought off his allies from 'Norton's Army'.

"Norton" turned out to be either a reincarnation of Emperor Joshua Norton from the 1800s or a crazy old man who thought he was. The troll (Shavarus) had been using Norton to gather followers in a scorched earth campaign against the metahuman-hating Imperial Japanese invader Saito, and any civilians standing in his way.

We convinced Norton to fire him, fought our way out and chased him to the docks where he revealed his evil plan.

With the elves of Tir Tairngire, Shavarus has entered a mad bid to destroy San Francisco's water supply and force the conqueror out, ostensibly at the cost of an incalculable number of lives. Repelled by this plan, we put the troll to flight, returned to our base one last time, hired Hailey, and now we're back on the road to put an end to this madness.

First thing we need to do - spend the eight karma we got last time. Yep, that's a thing.

Coming to the end of module two and we're pretty well defined - tanky, punchy and with enough Charisma to give us two etiquettes. We split our 8 karma and pump both Close Combat and Unarmed to 4. We would've needed a Close Combat of 5 to use that one brass knuckles upgrade, but I'm okay with where we are, because apparently, an Unarmed of 4 lets us do a Roundhouse Kick. I don't think there's an actual Roundhouse Kick animation but better to have it than not, I guess.

We return to the Mission District. Last time we were here, we joined Hailey's elven friend and kicked some Marine tail alongside his gang buddies. This time, it's just the two of us.

Sketchy enough in the day, it's worse at night. Lacking options, we retrace our steps to the parking lot. Aaand the combat music starts.

Itching for revenge, the marines have taken cover in the parking lot, waiting for us.

That's his excuse and he's sticking to it.

Hailey scores first blood and battle is joined.

Our guy shuts her up...

...and Hailey's drones gang up on her partner.

Somewhat panicked, the last three run out into the open, sacrificing their precious cover to close the distance on 1nv4d3r.

Two to go. One of them runs completely out of cover, far to the left, but that just makes it easier to finish them both off.

Fools got punched. And not a scratch on us. Worth noting that not only was their aim obstructed by cover, but our heavy armour deflected at least four shots.

All that parking lot drama and we couldn't even steal a car to make the journey easier.

We head around the block, and just when we think we're past it, get ambushed again.

Following traditional Shadowrun wisdom, we 'geek' the mage first.

...shadowslang has not aged well since the '80s.

We punch her buddy on the way there though.

Elf, meet fist!

We nearly punch her head clean off.

Hailey's drones finish off the injured pair, one at a time.

A single reinforcement comes from the cordoned street we just passed. but goes down like the rest. Not a scratch on us, save a single shotgun blast that heals after combat.

We round the block, heading further right - and this alley looks like a good ambush spot, doesn't it?

Of COURSE we have to go through it.

Yea though I walk through the alley of death...

As usual, our enemies wait til we're most of the way through, then ambush. Ritual huh?

They start out behind us...

1nv4d3r takes cover beside Hailey's sniper drone. Hailey herself hangs back.

Sniper drone snipes a mage.

Our guy gets shot, but knocks an enemy out of cover so the bomber can finish him. Sniper drone takes out a third, and when the rifleman runs in to attack 1nv4d3r, he goes down too.

The mage runs out and pings our guy, and he takes his revenge with pleasure.

After all that, we're still in combat mode, implying another ambush ahead. Hailey repairs her damaged doc drone.

Coming to the end of the alley. We play leapfrog with boxes and benches, expecting another attack.

The minute 1nv4d3r leaves cover, four guys spring out from the road and blast away at him with spells and bullets. This time it's Tir troops, because of course it is. Four encounters by three separate factions in this one zone. As for our actual injuries, yikes. 9 health left out of 55, and he's stunned.

Hailey manages to heal him for 25 health, but the onslaught continues knocking him back down to nine. We just manage to use our Premium Medkit.

That reckless mage is the first to die. 1nv4d3r hits their back-line with a vengeance, soaking up a shotgun blast but still going strong.

Oh, I'm sorry, did you need that cover spot? Too bad.

Their mage stuns our fool-puncher, but gets two drones in his face for his trouble. The medic patches us up and the sniper helps us finish the mage off.

Bringing Hailey turned out to be a better idea than we expected.

More than ready.