#16 Deck the Planet

The story so far: if you're tuning in now for the first time, I feel bad for you, son.

We're playing as 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 named Shavarus killed the Aztech boss and stole our data. We tracked him down to the necropolis of Colma, and the hideout of '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. Shavarus had been using Norton to gather followers for a scorched earth strike against the metahuman-hating Imperial Japanese invader, Saito.

We convinced Norton to fire him, fought our way out and chased him to the docks where he revealed his evil plan to, with the elves of Tir Tairngire, destroy San Francisco's water supply and force Saito out, killing innumerable poor people in the process.

We said hell no and chased him away. With our friend and hire Hailey, we're now breaking into his base in hopes of stopping the madness.

"A porn studio." We're becoming part of history guys!

Uh. Hi.

Remember Amelia's "contacts"? The people who would be "happy to kill a troll"? Here they are - two of Saito's Marines.

What the HELL, Amelia?

His reply is non-committal. I guess these guys are 'honour bound' to help us, but if they turn on us, I think we have the advantage.

An electronic billboard in our first room helpfully informs me that 'the way is purity, mixture leads to death'. I'm assuming that although the original thing is from Dragonfall's Humanis chapter (think neo-Nazis for humans, even more relevant now than they were in 2012), this is meant to be a chilling foretaste of Shavarus' full philosophy.

We have our own way forward, thank you.

No one knows we're here yet. I take two whole turns to arrange everyone - and Hailey's drones - by the door and stick Hailey herself in a corner.

It's a long run, but 1nv4d3r manages to clobber a mage at the far end of the room.

The Lieutenant takes their medic out with a strategic double-tap...

His ally, Takahashi is a mage and so I throw a fireball at the soldier at the end and -

Ouch.

Then I follow it up with the mage basic attack - a powerbolt - which misses.

Different kind of ouch.

Have we had a mage in the party yet? I don't think so.

Mages are the offensive, academic counterpart to shamans. Shamans invoke spirits, make bargains with entities natural and unnatural. Mages study the secrets of the universe and bend its powers to their will. Even their stats are different: Charisma for shamans, Willpower for mages. They're the most generic fantasy class in the game, but Shadowrun's mages don't seem to have the armour restriction or physical combat challenges of, say, a D&D wizard or sorcerer. Like their other caster counterparts, their biggest caution is cyberware - that essence score needs to be preserved.

Mage spells tend to do direct damage, affect the movement, stats and attacks of enemies or buff allies. High end mage spells can cause massive area of effect or single-target damage, control the minds of enemies or render them immobile.

The Shadowrun Returns series has a strange relationship with mages -- none of your permanent non-hireling companions are pure mages. At most you get shamans who dip into support mage. The class makes for a good main in each game. They aren't quite street samurai for versatility, but they compare.

Out come Hailey's drones - and we grenade Takahashi's target to smithereens.

Drone número dos tries sniping the enemy mage but uh - not good enough.

Two guys left. One takes cover, barely dings our fool-puncher. The bleeding mage panics...

...and tries to strip his armour down. But cover means nothing to our fool-punching.

Another win for SWEET EXPLODEY JUSTICE.

The other drone and Arai take down the last enemy.

Thanks Hailey. So we can probably use her to deck in and steal their supplies.

We ARE the emergency.

We do some mundane looting before decking. We get two Advanced Medkits and two grenades. Grenades are strange things - useful if your combat character needs AoE, but given my preference for mages when available - and the fact that you need to train a skill to use a consumable item - I rarely use them.

It's your cue, college girl.

Hailey's gear has improved since last she decked for us.

The top-left gives us the medicine cabinet. So what's in the other doors?

Attacking one IC brings us immediate reinforcements.

We take the first two down in one turn...

...get the third one and take our supplies in the next turn.

Back at the hub, we take the left path.

Hailey is overqualified for this. Again, two ICs go down in two rounds, and the Sentry goes down in the third, exploding into a green ball of discarded bits.

Not knowing what the Bridge Security Override at the end is, we decide that anything that disables security in our way is a good thing.

We take the south path this time, and...

...this is getting old. The sentry chooses to buff accuracy on the far away IC.

For its crimes, we explode the sentry and its nearby friend.

We slap a damage over time ability on the far sentry and reposition.

They fall before our onslaught.

I want to reiterate that I don't remember what any of this does. One more to go.

Well, by now we know the dri-

Instead of being greeted by 'the drill', we're greeted by a Black IC that takes a potshot at Hailey's avatar the moment she appears.

We defeat it handily and run right over to hack the camera --

Ouch.

That black IC was hiding right there. Usually you have to defeat all IC to get access to your hack but this was a clever trick. Even so, we utterly waste it and jack out.

Having taken damage only that one time, Hailey is as good as new. The cupboard had some Jazz, some Kamakaze and two more Advanced Medkits. We took the Jazz. I don't usually use the drugs in this game but we do have an upcoming boss fight.

Whatever this next room is, it looks like a combination dilapidated hospital and abandoned research facility. Maybe magical, maybe technological, maybe both.

The next room? Definitely looks like a ritual chamber.

We're most of the way through when -

Suddenly, ghouls. Freakin' ghouls. At least we know what the security door was for.

Haley plugs in and sends a drone south to shatter the sinister, glowing crystal on a pedestal.

Our guy punches a fool-ghoul and shatters another.

The team clears the room effortlessly. Looking at the camera, we see a lot more ghouls in the room we just passed through, with all the beds. But with the security door open, we're clear to move forward.

Those ghouls are officially someone else's problem now. Forward takes us to - and through - a mysterious passageway.

...and face-first into a bunch of Tir operatives.

They start out with the grenade launcher and nearly kill our mage in the first round.

Haley's doc drone heals him back, and we focus fire on the heavy gunner in front, leaving their mage in the middle and their captain behind. The mage takes cover nearby, and our fool-puncher punches the captain out of her position.

The captain goes down in a hail of bullets and fire while the enemy mage stares blankly.

After being mortared almost to death, she panics and tries to blast our ork lead point blank.

She hits harder...

...but he hits last.

We're crossing the bridge without event...

...I suspect there was some kind of security trap we disabled in the Matrix earlier.

Instead, we get another kind of trap.

Confession of love? CONFESSION OF LOVE?

rekt

I almost wish I'd brought Dalmin so I could insult him but this is better.

This is Antumbra! You want to romance teammates go play Mass Effect! (or the sequel campaigns)

It never would've worked out.

As we reach the end of the corridor, the world fades around us as we transition to a new zone. This is it.

The lair of the monster.