Part 17: Smuggled on Your Shoulder
Part 17 - Smuggled on Your Shoulder
NEW MUSIC:
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(Not my favorite ambient track, it makes my ears feel weird after a while. Also the loop's pretty awkward which seems like a recurring theme with Powell's tracks.)





There are worse ways to spend a night for sure.

Doesn't exactly seem like the party center of Berlin, the only things that stand out is a lone food cart and a piece of ancient technology known as a "phone booth".

Nothing much has changed with our group either besides the skills they learned a couple missions back, though Blitz now has control of his drone. Max is more useful than what his owner's low skills would indicate, being a B-class attack drone which also comes equipped with a powerful taser for when you want to get kinky on the move.

To satiate our late-night munchies, we start by striking up a conversation with the kiosk owner.





One day we'll meet our end during a run, not from a bullet but from an especially poor choice of cheap street food.



We could ask for our money back, but maybe this lesson was worth 5 nuyen.



See, you can't always lose in Russian Street Food Roulette and therefore there's no reason to stop playing. That's just math.

[The vendor pauses a moment, then steeples her pudgy fingers.]






We don't have anyone to call, but we were told to keep an eye out for these things some time ago.
[Searching the dead-drop, you find a package with the telltale markings of the Schockwellenreiter.]

Sounds like easy and consequence-free money. Well, consequence-free to us in any case.

More objectives to throw on the pile.

The road leading towards our meeting point appears to be blocked by a dwarf and his large troll buddy.



[He gestures at himself.]

Incidentally he calls dwarves "pals" and orcs/trolls "troggs" (to which his troll friend hastily adds that he didn't mean anything with it.)




[He gestures to the troll standing behind him.]

If only every guard we came across was as cooperative. But I guess someone has to keep the local morgues in business.

A short walk later we find the people we've been looking for.


[He glances at the PDA on his wrist, then looks back up at you. When he speaks again, his voice is sharp and humorless.]

Leave the dry snarking to qualified professionals will ya





*** One brief fade to black later... ***


[He cranes his neck around to look you in the eye.]

Need muscle as in "a tree has fallen on the road" or as in "we've driven into an ambush"?

Guess there aren't that many trees around here anyway.


[Maxim licks his lips, his eyes scanning over the gangers' hastily assembled roadblock.]

I love these dumb gang names.

[Her face twists into an ugly smile.]





Decision time! We can help Maxim's smugglers fight off the gangers, try and negotiate with them or go full WILD CARD MOTHERFUCKERS and start gunning down everyone present, presumably ensuring nobody sane will ever hire us again.
We'll come back to that last one later, for now let's try boring ol' talking first.


[Maxim wheels around to face you, his face a mask of fury. His voice explodes out in a harsh whisper.]

It takes the Gang etiquette or 3 Willpower to stare Maxim down.

[Maxim stares at you, bristling, but he holds his tongue. After a few seconds, he nods.]


[Maxim steps back, leaving you to negotiate with the Rammbock leader. The ganger boss stands there, hands on her hips, awaiting your response.]
Another decision time! We can simply pay the 1,000 nuyen from our pocket or bring it down to 750 with Charisma 4. Picking neither leads to this beautifully eloquent response:
quote:
...I've got nothin'.
Well, then, why the hell are you wasting our time? Fall back in line and get ready to fight. You *can* do that, can't you?

[There is a brief pause, then the Rammbock boss yells out a response.]


Ultimately Dietrich was right though - this is indeed a waste of time and we only chose to talk so that I could show off what happens. 750 is as low as you can go, and hell if we're going to pay that kind of money especially now that we have a competent team at our back.



NEW MUSIC:
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(The in-game version of this track sounds really muddy for some reason, so I put this together from the soundtrack version instead. Which was probably not worth the effort in hindsight, but it lets me pretend like my standards for this LP are higher than they actually are.)

Things explode into action immediately with the smugglers and the gangers exchanging spells and gunfire to no significant effect. Our claim of catching them off-guard being our plan all along was purely to save face, both sides get to act before us regardless.

In addition to the blockade ahead of us a pair of gangers pop up behind the convoy, in theory putting us in a rather disadvantageous position.

Here's what we're looking at, 3 gangers and a pair of sentry guns in front and the flanker duo at the back. There's also a set of ley lines in the small walled-off area to the north which aren't very useful in this situation, but if you turn this into a 3-way fight by making an enemy of Maxim and his smugglers, retreating there right away is likely the wisest course of action to avoid being caught in the crossfire.
Between the sentry guns and our bad position even going up against just the gangers could make for a nasty fight, but luckily the Rammbocks decided that surrounding their own positions with no less than 4 explosive barrels with their leader right in the middle was a sound tactical decision.

And so Eiger fires what is most likely to be the single most devastating bullet in the course of this adventure, instantly blasting the loudmouthed boss lady into bits and heavily damaging both sentry guns and the two gangers in the process.

With the turrets cleaned up the situation quickly becomes much more manageable.

While the rest of the team is handling things up front, Blitz sends his drone to help out the smuggler dealing with our two flanker friends. Max is no Prime but it provides pretty reliable damage and acts as a good distraction.

On the following turn two more gangers, a Conjurer and a Thug, make their fashionably late entrance from the northeast building. Maybe they were busy making out in there or something.

Maxim welcomes the newcomers with his rifle. The smugglers mostly act as meat shields but they do also get a few good shots in.

The Max without the -im on the other hand demonstrates its zapping capabilities. While its 2 AP cost makes it a little hard to use, it can knock people out pretty reliably. And let's face it, tasering bad guys is always funny in every video game.

We finish what Maxim started, taking out the Conjurer before he gets to do anything.


More bodies hit the floor as Eiger and Blitz bring down two of the five remaining gangers, one over at the front and another next to our position.

Now very much in the clean-up phase of this fight, we bring down the mage...

...and Dietrich hurls a knife right through the heart of the stunned Thug. Throwing knife kills are rare but always satisfying.

The last remaining ganger makes herself a bit of a nuisance by taking cover behind a truck to the north, but Dietrich flushes her out and Eiger promptly pops her in the head from halfway across the map. Sniper rifles, the best kind of outdoor fun.
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We get 2 karma for fighting off the ambush, and 1 extra thanks to Maxim surviving the fight. If he goes down you'll instead deal with a random faceless smuggler from this point forward.



[Maxim pauses for a moment before continuing.]

Ammo. How quaint.




No sense in turning back now. We get back on the road, and another *** fade to black *** later we arrive at the compound.


Let's hope this is the right address, wouldn't want these murder chemicals to end up in the hands of someone irresponsible.

[The smugglers finish unloading the last of the crates, then take up positions around the van. Minutes pass. Nobody comes to meet you.]







They say that about a lot of places we tend to come back out from.





Before we head in, we can take a look at the label on the delivered crates.

They must've extracted this from my ex heyyyooooo

Nobody either greets us or tries to stop us as we make our way through the courtyard and towards the entrance. Awful lot of places to take cover behind here though...

They don't even have anyone watching the door, this is just getting discourteous. Or maybe they're throwing us a surprise party!
Guess we'll just have to let ourselves in and find out.