Part 62: Going Software

Part 62 - Going Software





NEW MUSIC:



(Guess it's the better of the two ambient Memories, though not exactly the longest or smoothest loop even by the standards of these themes chopped off of larger tracks.)










A straightforward plan, a soft target, no Johnson involved to conveniently leave out critical information, what more could a runner hope for? Well payment, sure, this is more of an investment towards the main course, but it's pleasant to do some plain dishonest shadowrunning work without a dozen strings attached.

Let's get things underway, starting from finding this service door.



All quiet in the hallway. This isn't some military bunker or top secret research facility so being spotted shouldn't be the end of the world, though clashing with security is something we'd rather avoid even though it's not strictly required. A triggered alarm is just one of those things which actively makes everyone's day worse regardless of which side of the law they stand on.



Oop. Speaking of...



At least it's not a guard. What to do about this guy though?



Stealth isn't really our forte, unless you count every witness being dead as a technical success on that front. We're pretty good at flapping our gums though, so maybe we can simply convince him we're supposed to be here. Surely nobody who was really up to no good would be so stupidly brazen as to just stroll up to an employee and say hello.

Let's just approach him.





It's like a CYOA book over here already, or an RPG of some sort. Let's just keep it cool, wait for him to turn around. Confidence is key here.





Whoa now, somebody's feeling twitchy. Come now, we're not carrying any visible weapons and we're even wearing a suit, we couldn't look more like a wagesl-, er, an esteemed employee of this fine company if we tried. Which we didn't, proper disguises just never seem to fit in our budget.

(Charisma 4) Sorry to've startled you! My name's Julie. I'm the new contractor. Just wanted to stop by and say hello.

Oh! Well. Hello, then. I'm Klaus.

[He glances at his PDA.]

Good God, I could've clocked out an hour ago. Well, pleasure meeting you, Julie... and good night.

G'night, Klaus.



Well that was easy. Herr Klaus strolls out of the building none the wiser of our intentions, and we even pick up a free Karma point for cleanly avoiding an alarm. There's a door off-screen behind where he was working, but we should probably join with our team before wandering around too much.



We do take a quick peek at the room behind us though, which reveals a security checkpoint watched by a pair of combat drones. Kind of nostalgic, even though they're clearly no Prime and Jade Rabbit.



Even the drones seem a little on edge in this place. We got that fake ID from Paul but it doesn't seem to be good enough to fool these tin buckets. Just as well for the time being though since that's not where our team is.



Continuing down the hallway, we see a meeting room through a window and another door behind it. Maybe something to check later, for now we'll head on towards the service door which should be right through here.



Very good, the storage room at the back is as empty as a wageslave's hopes for the future. Let's get that door open.



That's step one complete. Now we at the very least have the firepower to brute force this thing should shit end up hitting the fan.



And apparently some higher power is already preparing to take aim with a wad of fresh produce as immediately after we get our crew members inside, a nearby door opens and an employee enters the room.



Oh, excuse me! You startled me there.



Who are you, exactly? And how did you get into this building?

Unfortunately our pet project of training cybernetically enhanced moles to dig entrance tunnels for us is still at the concept stage, so for now we remain stuck using doors. But that's probably not the answer you're looking for.

(Corporate) We're new... they just brought us on as QA testers for the Ares project.

Oh! Well, welcome aboard... from what I've heard about QA testing, I don't envy you. The guys back in the server room will appreciate your presence, I'm sure.

Oh, I'm sure that we'll make quite an impression.



Thanks! What was your name, by the way? I'd love to tell Management how helpful you've been.

Oh! I'm Jessie. Jessie Sanders.

[She waves at you.]

Pleasure meeting you! I'm sure I'll catch you around.



We're so slick we could probably get into politics and start committing some real crimes, but we'll make do with another point of Karma. Let's accept Jessie's invitation and check the door she came in through.



There's clearly nobody here, either Mandy got hit by sudden stomach cramps and had to bolt or the janitor's been wearing inadequate protection around chemical fumes. There is the meeting room door we saw through the window earlier, a couple of locked doors and a jack-in point though.

Now we could have Blitz use that last one to open the Executive Door leading to the server room, but that'd require fighting through some cybersecurity which is always a wearisome affair so we'll leave that as a Plan B. Instead we backtrack to the room where Klaus was working and investigate the door that was past him.



Behind it we find a small personal office with all kinds of things to look at. Let's give our eyeballs a workout.









Nothing of any obvious value so far.



You're the only one who can redeem this room and deliver it from mediocrity, desk. Don't let auntie Rosa down now.









Oh? Got something to hide?





Breaking things is definitely fun, but sadly we literally cannot do it as it requires 5 Strength and this is one of those times where we're arbitrarily incapable of just having Eiger do it for us.





That sure was the least useful Intelligence check in a while too seeing as the terminal's the only other thing we can interact with anyway.





Unlike with Eiger and the desk we could just have Blitz crack this thing, but let's see if we can't figure this out ourselves first in case he sets the building on fire somehow. First, we need to figure out the correct username for which we're helpfully provided a list of choices.



Obvious enough, seeing we already know this desk belongs to a Steven Williams. No clue if there are some kind of references in these names aside from the obvious one for Mr./Mrs. Johnson. Next is a 4-digit passcode.



This one's easy enough to guess as well, after all it was literally circled several times on the wall right there. That girl's birthday was June 29th so it should be "0629", though it's a little weird that he'd write the month before the day like some UCAS heathen. Maybe it was for extra security, lord knows these companies and their reliance on 4-digit passkeys and single-word passwords could use some of that.



Magic, diplomacy, computers, we're practically a full team of specialists all on our own.









Very nice, this should hopefully get us past those electronic watchdogs in the other room and spare us the trouble of having to hack open that Executive Door.



Hopefully they don't have the capacity to be suspicious of our meteoric rise through the company ranks.





Don't mind if we do.



...And we get to take about two steps into the room before being spotted by some actual guards. Rats.



Oh this guy's definitely a rookie, nobody maintains that level of passion for security work for long before the ennui inevitably seeps into their soul and erodes it from within. We could probably fool him with the badge we stole, but it could get awkward if he examines it too closely in his protective zeal. Let's see if we can't simply talk our way through this as well.

(Security) I don't have a company ID. I was sent here by Knight Errant Dispatch to check on the status of the patch.

Dispatch?

[The guard sounds both confused and frightened.]

Look, it's my first day, but... the Captain didn't say anything about--

I don't question Dispatch, son. They say jump, I jump.

But I--

Look, you wanna step out of my way? We need to jack in to that console behind you and verify that the patch is ready for release.

[After a long pause, he stammers out a response.]

Yeah... yeah, okay. You go ahead and do what you need to do. But don't leave this room, you hear? I want to keep an eye on you.

Don't worry, we won't.



And so we've made it to the belly of the beast and convinced everyone we totally have the owner's permission to take a sharp stick to its innards. There's that Executive Door we saw from the other side earlier, alongside two other doors.



The northern one leads to the drone control center, but seeing as the only drones we've seen are perfectly chill with us we don't seem to have much business there.



No label on this one. Maybe those guys won't notice if we...



Look, I really need to get through here. Would you mind...?

I can't help you, ma'am. You're cleared to be in this room, but only under direct supervision, and we can't leave our posts to escort you into the other room.

[He sounds uncertain - and suspicious.]

You just stay in this room, all right? Check your software from where you're at and leave, or I'll have to call this in to Central.

If he does that we're busted for sure. It was just idle curiosity anyway, if Blitz can access the file through the Matrix here then we have everything we need already.

Ease down. I'll do what I need to do from here.



Alright Blitz, don't fuck this up for us. Gotta say though, there's something extra satisfying about committing crimes right under the watchful eye of those whose job is preventing them. If only we could always live in such mutual harmony.








Short ways into his cyberjourney Blitz finds himself harassed by some White ICs, because every pleasant picnic needs its mosquitoes to put a damper on the experience.



They're not a major threat against the power of friendship of course, even if the friends in question are digital fabrications and one of them only really exists to explode violently.



Much like with actual mosquitoes though, you can swat them all day but new ones will just keep appearing to annoy you.



Out of the way now, Matrix combat continues to not be very interesting so let's just get this over with as fast as we can. Which is less fast than anyone'd like because these things seem weirdly durable today, taking a whole bunch of hits before going down.



Ah come on, three waves of IC in the first room? We did such an admirable job avoiding having to kill anyone in the real world too.



Another few rounds of bits blowing bits into bits later, Blitz first heads through the area's southern pathway.



On the other side is a data node and, you guessed it, more IC. This habit of forced combat even when taking a non-combat approach is at least one of the things Hong Kong improved upon somewhat.



As before fighting them off is more tedious than difficult, though the Exploder ESP does fall victim to their shots before getting to go out with a proper bang. Oh well, that thing only has 50 IP and all IC attack it pretty much exclusively regardless of distance or hit chances, so it was there largely as bait anyway.





Been a while since we last got our hands on some paydata. We also earn yet another point of Karma for some reason, they just really like drip-feeding that stuff in this mission.



Backtracking to the previous room and taking the northern gateway leads to today's target... and more IC, this time two melee and one charging Sparky.



As a side note, while we've been skipping all the actual fights against the IC in the LP itself because it's really not interesting, it was mentioned earlier that the IC here seem strangely hard to kill.



The reason for that is that all the basic melee and ranged IC in this mission sport a flat 80 boost to their IP. The extra fun part is that Blitz deals exactly 75 damage per hit with most of his attacks, so a boost of 80 is just enough to make every IC take two extra hits from him to go down. And with a common base of 150 IP at this level they often survive with exactly 5 points which is just plain rude.

But, Blitz perseveres, slowly grinds through this final batch, and clears his way to the node.



Except approaching the node from either side actually spawns one last IC to block his way. Why?! A single IC isn't even a threat, it just makes this take very slightly longer! Screw whichever designer was feeling extra dickish the day they were tasked to put this Matrix bit together.



Get out of here.



With the final pesky obstacle out of the way, Blitz reaches the node for real this time.



And with remarkably little fanfare he erases the data or whatever it was he did, and we are finished here. All that's left is to escape.



And seeing as we never triggered an alarm, we "escape" simply by waltzing out the service door right past building security. Not exactly a flashy movie finish, but you can definitely appreciate the occasional low-key ending in this line of work.










We get additional 4 Karma for finishing the run for a total of 7, not bad for a night's work indeed. We're just making a quick stop here before moving on to the main course though.



As soon as you're finished resupplying, I'd recommend heading directly to the Jewühl District.

Jewühl District?

A commercial district shared by a variety of competing corporate interests. Aztechnology controls the largest share of the district, including the major utilities that serve it. You will find the facility that you'll be raiding there.

Got it.

Once you arrive, I'll do my best to keep you appraised of Knight Errant's movements. Finding a quiet way into the facility will be your job... without eyes on the ground, I'm afraid that I won't be of much help.



So in other words there's a "no party deaths" -clause for this one. Hasn't really been an issue so far anyway, especially in this age of auto-triggered Trauma Kits things have already gone pretty far south by the time someone goes down and nobody manages to revive them on time.

No medevac for this run. Got it.



...She recorded us having a conversation about razing down an Aztechnology building? Lady better be real goddamn sure that won't end up in the wrong hands, which in this case encompasses practically all the hands imaginable.

What does that mean for me?

If our client is to be believed, you will have the necessary access to open the door. The rest of your team, however, will not. When you reach that door, I'd recommend grouping up. Only you can open it, and there's no saying what you'll find on the other side.

Frau Müller didn't tell you?

Unfortunately, no. Since your meeting, her messages have been... erratic. In truth, I'm not sure that she knows. But she was very clear about one thing: you're going to have to get past that door to reach the generators.

I'm not crazy about all of these new details coming in. She should have briefed me about all of this earlier.

Agreed. Our "Frau Müller" is clearly out of her depth. That said, we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. We desperately need the money she's paying for this job, and we've already committed ourselves by attacking OTK.

Despite her lack of professionalism, we need to press forward, and that means that you're going to need to get past that door. Go now, Rosa. We need to strike while the iron is hot.

I'm on it.



Just a quick stop in the shadowy lands before we get going again.





Post and make money, ain't that the dream.



Alright, let's do this thing.



Crew's the same as before. Bringing a decker is outright mandatory this time though let's face it, you kind of want a decker in practically every run anyway.



Not only is this looking to be the biggest job we've done to date, if all goes smoothly it will also be our last one before we can finally pay Alice what she's asking for. If all doesn't go smoothly, well, then you can cut that sentence off at "our last one" because whether we're caught in an exploding building or by the azzies themselves, our remains won't have enough intact bones left for Firewing to use as a toothpick.









We'll have a little more in-depth of an Extras sections than usual, partly since the run itself was so simple and also to show off the fact that they managed to stuff a lot of dialogue and interaction into a pair of portraitless NPCs.



First of all, just to quickly cover the loud way of doing things, if you at any point trigger an alarm or don't have a decker with you, your only option is to manually destroy the servers located behind that one door we weren't allowed through while facing several waves of enemies.



This is also where the drone control room has relevance as an enemy rigger will attempt to use the console within to send additional drones into the fight. A friendly rigger can also make use of it to have the two drones next to the physical servers destroy them, to destroy hostile drones themselves by overloading the system, or to turn the drones against the guards, in increasing order of Drone Control difficulty. Once the servers are destroyed escaping the building will finish the mission as before, just with a lot more harassment from security.

Now on to alternate dialogue and other choices which weren't covered, and we have a couple of serious heavyweights with us today. We'll start with Klaus.



If instead of approaching him or trying to sneak up on him, we simply ignore him and keep going:



Nothing happens, though he also doesn't go anywhere so the supervisor ID remains out of reach until he's dealt with. Launching ourselves at him in an attempt to take him out is an option pretty much at every stage, but let's cover the stealth approach a.k.a. Hitman: The Text Adventure here first, starting from trying to sneak up behind him:



This is more or less the same situation as if we had approached him normally. If in response we turn and run:



This locks us out of the room and turns the place hostile from the get-go which is not exactly optimal. If we're sneaking (as opposed to having approached him) we can instead take a Quickness 4 option to duck and hide behind the nearest desk:



Now we can continue sneaking toward the wageslave:



Here we have three more choices. With Close Combat 4 we can choke him unconscious:





As a sidenote this is one of the approaches which allows us to take his lab coat and use it as a disguise for later.

Instead of choking him, we can also break his neck (which interestingly does not have a stat or skill requirement):



Finally, we can tap him on the shoulder:



[Offer him your hand to help him up.] Sorry to startle you! I'm new here, and I just wanted to introduce myself.



You're going to give somebody a heart attack, sneaking around like that! Not the best way to make a first impression.

[He rubs his knee with a scowl.]

All right, new lady. What's your name?

Julie. I'm a contractor.

Look. I've been here for 36 hours, and I was supposed to clock out 45 minutes ago. Do you need something from me? Because if you don't, I'm out of here.

Nothing that can't wait until morning. Go get some rest. You look like you could use it.



Now we can simply let him go like before, but let's instead of show off the less subtle method which as mentioned one can go for more or less at any point. We launch ourselves at him as he turns his back.



Again with Close Combat 4 we can try to knock him unconscious:



Or alternatively attempt to wrestle him to the ground:



Something to note is that this approach does not allow for taking his lab coat (nor does it award Karma), presumably because of the blood.

Now interestingly there are two more choices here and they're somewhat unusual in that instead of skills, they require certain mage spells. We can cast the AP-draining Stunbolt:


Or the damage-dealing Manabolt (not to be confused with the Mage base weapon Powerbolt):



Alright, now we're finally done tormenting poor Klaus. The only thing left to cover about him is a slightly different variation of the the Charisma 4 choice we took after having approached him normally:



Now let's move on to Jessie the janitor. There are basically two main paths with her, one where we have Klaus' lab coat and one where we don't. We'll start from the former which was the case in the update proper.


Now attacking her is an option, but that just immediately triggers an alarm. We used the Corporate etiquette to easily sway her before, but there are two other choices as well of which each branch a bit before eventually merging. Here's the first:


Three choices here, of which #1 and #2 lead to the same outcome:


Two options here. #1:


An alarm and snark from the narration, ouch. #2:


Three choices from here (which is going to be something of a pattern), though all with the same result:


And that finishes the conversation with no alarm and a Karma point in the bag just like before. Now let's go back a couple of steps and take the third option which is a little more convincing:


Three choices here, of which #1 just leads to her reaching for the alarm again:


#2 is a Charisma check:


Another successful conclusion. #3 goes on for a bit longer:


Here's a neat thing about this choice: It works (and leads to the "she lets her guard down" conclusion from above) immediately if, and only if, you're doing the mission solo:


Otherwise it doesn't fly quite as easily:


Three choices, again, of which #1 leads to her reaching for the alarm, again:


#2 and #3 both work better:


Lastly we hop back to the beginning of the conversation but instead of lying about being the dev lead's dorm buddy, we go for a different lie:


#1 is the obligatory alarm panel pick:


Weak. #2 works and pretty much jumps to the end of this conversation:


#3 is a more involved path:


And three choices again. How do we get to the alarm panel this time you ask? #1:


The other two lead to the same successful conclusion we've covered already, just from slightly different angles:

#2:


#3:


And both lead to


Phew. Okay, one more thing to cover with her, the path where we took Klaus out and are wearing his lab coat. Again, this path would skip some steps were we doing this solo.





Three choices (plus attacking her) again. #1 and #2 both jump ahead to the part where she'll ask about our teammates:



#3 takes a longer way there:


Three choices, two of which work right away. #1:


#2:


#3 is more involved:


Three choices as is tradition, except this time both #1 and #2 lead to alarmpanelville:


Only #3 avoids that:


One last set of three choices, two of which end the conversation:


And third which fucks it up at the last second:



And that's it for the chatty janitor. Almost there! The last person to cover is the server room guard and he fortunately has much less to say because we're running out of space here. He also doesn't care about either our disguise or our party size.


We used the Security etiquette to fool him but there are two other options (plus attacking him right away). We can simply show the ID we stole which does indeed work somehow:


Or else:


And to wrap up this record long Extras section, trying to insist on entering the server room despite the guard's threats: