#35 The Last Deep Breath

Greetings again, brave readers. We're about to enter the last phase of cirion's Antumbra Saga campaign as 1nv4d3r, our mighty fool-punching ork shadowrunner (FPOS for short).

Previously, on Before the Shadow:

Our FPOS:

• saved the people and holdings of Antumbra, a Seattle nightclub run by music artist and producer Kali on behalf of megacorp Mitsuhama.

• Mitsuhama then hired the FPOS to investigate the Aztechnology corporation in San Francisco. A thief-assassin killed an Aztech executive and stole the data we wanted.

• We met and befriended Norton IX, the (disputed) absolute ruler of California, who was hiding out in a graveyard in Colma.

• We found the thief - a troll extremist named Shavarus, who teamed up with the elves of Tir Tairngire against the city's oppressive ruler, Saito.

• We stopped him but spared his life so that he could reverse his original plan to destroy the city's water supply.

This module started with our FPOS on the run from unwanted publicity. Kali recruited him to gather allies and supplies and protect Northern California from an impending invasion by Tir Tairngire and their megacorp allies.

We last went to Colma in hopes of recruiting Norton's army to our cause. A mystery woman gave us some vague portents before we entered the graveyard, finding members of the Army held hostage by z̶o̶m̶b̶i̶e̶s̶ ghouls. After freeing them, we entered the crypts to save the soldiers' children.

We fought gargoyles and even more ghouls, solved a puzzle involving coloured lights, and found Tophet - that furious fire elemental who's followed us around since the first module - trying to break in the door and torch the children.

It was - probably the hardest fight since the second module - but we managed to crack his impressive defenses and reunite with our old friend Orion, who was protecting the children. It was heartwarming, minus his usual gushing about the coming metahuman revolution.

So here we are, back at base, for the last time.

Warning - this is going to be a very short update.

As usual, the game starts us off in the little room in front, so we can't see how our base has changed. But right now I have bigger problems.

...it seems I never actually finished that one People's University side-mission?

Um. Whoops. Not sure how that happened. Anyway, I have 2000 nuyen more and 7 fresh karma points to spend. They go straight into Body.

Our medical supplies look - well - decent. Let's check on our metahuman resources though -

Amazing. I thought we'd just break even, honestly. Keep up the good work, Tomas.

Seline is next.

This is better than I usually do in this campaign. And that's without the PU's support!

Next stop: our favourite complainer, Horatio. We sell out some inventory junk and extra medkits and pay for our FPOS's last cybersurgery upgrade.

Now he's even tougher.

We also buy a set of shuriken and a ghillie suit. With spikes. Because... uh.. Shadowrun.

Most of our friends have said all they need to already, but we do get an option to ask Norton about his Army.

We bid him farewell and move on. At least we did some good down there but man, it would be nice to get some help.

Onward to the console - and - wait a sec -

...

Two karma, huh. I mean, extra supplies? Sure, we'll take it. Feeling somewhat pranked, we call Kali.

Best. Grassroots defense initiative. Ever.

That last part is a little disturbing. In the end, we've helped Mitsuhama and its allies a great deal. And they're all part of the same system that produced Saito.

Oh well. I guess there's nothing left to do here.

Game, I have literally two nuyen left. I think I've done all I can.

We're taken straight to the character select screen. I haven't actually done it before, and this is my last chance, so I'll take a moment to show off cirion's custom mercenaries and their descriptions.

Note the troll rigger, shaman and decker, because cirion is an equal opportunity employer. We pick Hailey, Norton and Dorbi as our team and ready ourselves.

Yes. Yes we are. But not today. Next time - war!