Part 51: Traipsing Through Twilight Town
Part 51 - Traipsing Through Twilight Town
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Right, time to meet Eiger's contact and then go for a second trip to the bright and pleasant Schattennest to find this Engineer fellow. Why do we always end up making return trips to the worst parts of town?
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We find Eiger and the man waiting at the back of Der Weinkeller.
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[He spears a hunk of pie with his fork, crams it into his mouth, and starts to chew. A moment later, he shrugs.]
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Right, those masters of ambush who didn't quite grasp the idea that the explosive barrels should probably be placed next to the other guys. Not exactly shaking in our boots here.
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[Eiger exhales heavily.]
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But enough about your sex life.
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[He pauses for a moment, playing with his fork.]
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The idea of move-by-wire bodyware is to essentially induce a permanent state of spastic cramping, the rapid movement of which is then harnessed into controllable form via implanted systems, resulting in the body being in a state of constant readiness which makes for lightning fast and perfectly smooth reaction speed at the cost of long-term discomfort and strain on the body and brain.
The procedure is major and irreversible, so when you disable the "controllable" part...
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Let's hope this goes better than the last time we were told that after being handed a mysterious package. Or at least involves fewer asshole mages, one of us is plenty enough.
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No sense in wasting any time, let's get this done.
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Before we take off, we give Eiger the grenade launcher and a shotgun that's better than her own. We murdered a bunch of AG Chemie security guards to get that thing, so in a way we owe them to ensure that the cycle of mindless bloodshed continue ever on.
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NEW MUSIC:
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(A nice and moody mix of melancholy and military. Still a shame we never got a personal theme for Dietrich...)
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Place is looking very yellow in the twilight, something mentioned in the description were this our first foray into this neighborhood. It's kinda weird to see since we don't often get out and about when it's not already dark out.
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[Eiger wrinkles her nose.]
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Today's objectives are as simple as they come, find the bad guy and make sure Eiger survives her own personal mission. A reasonable thing to ask.
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We also have Bannik's toy occupying one of our precious inventory slots. Feels like getting close enough to zap a guy armed with hardwired spidey senses with this tiny-ass thing would be actively more difficult than catching him via conventional means though...
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The kiez gate is watched by a dwarf and his ogre buddy.
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If this looks familiar, it's because we've been through here before. At least these guys are dedicated to their jobs, good to see it.
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Had we done this mission before the Humanis run he'd say the exact same things, just the other way around.
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Our previous meeting spot with the smugglers is now a dead end with nothing to see beyond a single box. Might as well take a look and hope there isn't a snake in there or something.
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Eh, we're willing to stoop pretty low but stealing pennies from the homeless is a little too pathetic even for us. Mage life has been pretty inexpensive so we have a decent chunk of savings anyway.
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This time we'll take a previously blocked off road and follow it to the northeast.
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The homeless are one thing but don't for a moment think we're even remotely above plundering garbage piles, those piss-sparkly treasure chests of the modern world. This particular expedition nets us some Bliss.
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As we emerge from the alleyway we spot a couple of rough-looking characters keeping a look out.
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There's no diplomatic solution to be had here and approaching the gangers only leads to an entirely pointless fight against three Rammbocks, so as per Eiger's suggestion we simply go around the building instead.
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Beyond we find a dilapitated parking lot turned equally dilapitated market area of some sort.
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No one here looks like an armed ruffian, so we take this chance to see if the locals know anything useful.
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Our nose isn't any happier being stuck in this place, but despite their mutual displeasure our nasal cavity and the gangers will just have to deal for now.
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Kami? No, wait, just a resemblance.
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With Street etiquette we could promise to mess up the Rammbock and avoid this minor contribution to the local economy, but it's no big loss.
[The woman leans in for a whisper.]
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Well, it's all about those small steps after all.
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Finding the warehouse doesn't take long, especially since this is the kinda place where you're more likely to bump into metal blades than grass ones. Cool graffiti too, if a bit out of place.
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Unfortunately our progress is stymied by the standard 4-digit lock with no visible clues to the correct sequence, and we don't have the Decking 5 to let us bypass it either.
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[She examines the heavy door, scowling.]
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Dang it Ebby, where are we gonna find a propane salesman in this dump? And yeah, blowing the doors in would probably mildly alarm the guy we're supposed to get into tickling distance of before he Eddy Gordos himself through the ceiling window or whatever.
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Only other thing worth looking at here is a lone motorcycle outside of the warehouse, but it holds neither propane nor keycodes for us.
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Actually though, finding a propane tank is as easy as heading back a bit past the market area and repossessing one from a resident, but we'll leave that as a last resort.
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Let's instead check if by any chance our local cookware informant can help us with the more quiet approach.
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Figures. Street etiquette is an option again but wouldn't actually work this time. Threatening her with Strength 5 is another but we'll cover that in the Extras section.
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Urgh, we've probably done entire minor jobs for less money than that. We really need to learn this decking thing one of these days, bet computers are easier to deal with than people.
But if catching this guy is as important as Eiger claims, an explosive entry is probably too risky. Fine.
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Not sure what she's so worried about when the worst bandit in town is clearly right here.
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Still, her costly information does prove to be accurate, and a couple of guesses later we have our way in.
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Doubt we'll be getting a warm welcome waltzing into the gang hideout even though we left the door intact, but hopefully we'll at least have the chance to get a little closer to our target before he notices. At least for once it's a small warehouse instead of some multi-store corporate building or another. Maybe for once we'll be done and out quickly.
-- EXTRAS --
Not much here again, a brief exchange with Eiger if going for the bomb approach:
quote:
All right, fearless leader. There isn't anything subtle about what we're about to do, and I mean that. They're gonna hear this explosion back in the Kreuzbasar.
That means that when this thing goes off, it's go-time. We need to get to the Engineer before he slips away... if we lose him, we won't find him again.
I'm ready. Do it.
And trying to intimidate the door code out of the informant:
quote:
Five hundred. No less. I've gotta make a living, you know.
(Strength 5) I'm going to make your life very painful if you don't tell me that code. Now.
Stop playing, lady. Give me the code.
Welp, so much for that.