Part 5: Chapter V: Penumbra District

After a plethora of runs, it's time to upgrade my deck, also off-screen I lost my attack program to a Tar Pit. Tar Pit's basically eat your programs and laugh at you. So I headed back to Microtronics to get the next deck, which happens to be a bit beefier





I also replaced my attack program, levelling it to level 4, and bought a Sleaze program on the off chance mask fails, or gets eaten by a tar pit. After that I went back into the Matrix to get more money.

Here are the stats on my new Deck. The most important thing is the 500 storage, this is great, because space won't be an issue. What will be an issue?



Yeah, that, but it's still pretty good, because five was 4 more then we were getting the last few times we did runs.



After a few more runs, we run back and start to pick up more upgrades. Things like Deck Response



Masking And Sensors, now I know that I said Sensors were crap, but I learned recently that Sensors can help you succeed when doing functions like Transfer Data. With this in mind, I would be remiss if I avoided a way to boost my skills even further.



On my way back to my favorite Terminal, I hit a random encounter

(A)









Welp. Got my ass handed to me, oh well... At least I saved that old man, back to the Terminal I guess.

In between the terminal and the door, I get hit with another random encounter.





I guess Joshua feels like he's better then common criminals now? I don't know man, you're the one who kills every random civillian he sees.



I head to the hospital to get a couple pieces of Cyberware that are cheap in Seattle, when I find something interesting. It's the girl from our Brother's death box.



(A)







This is just a clue for something later in the game, anyways now that we've talked to her we'll be getting discounts here. Now there are other places that can be slightly cheaper then Downtown Seattle, but I've finally got it to where I'm basically rolling in the creds. I get about 4 or 5k a run, and it only takes me a few minutes to do it. Now to make Joshua on par with a street sam.



After Getting roided the fuck out, I'm now really really strong, it's pretty expensive but I'm rollin' in it right now, I've ignored muscle implants though, because I'm planning to hire other people who can do all that punching stuff better. Eventually, I earn the extra 26k. Funnily enough right as I leave the clinic, a familiar face appears.





Nope, still not tough enough to do that. I go back to my Terminal to get more money, so that I can hire a couple of Friends, and get them roided out as well.

I'm about to head to the Penumbra District, when I'm stopped by a man.





(A)



Oh eat a dick asshole.





Anyways onto



1) To/from Downtown

2) Fuchi Industrial Electronics: One of the lower level Corps

3) Mutsuhama Computer Technologies: One of the Mid Level Corps

4) Abandoned Building

5) Lone Star: Generally try to stay away from here, it's an unhappy place, for unhappy people

6) The Big Rhino: Where we are going to hire one of our Buddies

7) Abandoned Building

8) Abandoned Building

9) Wylie's Gala Inn: Rest for 50 nuyen

10) Eye-fivers

11) Club Penumbra: After we get 4 reputation, this is the second place we go to hire one of our buddies.



Oh and who might this green fella be?





Yes, we will shoot all the people Winston.



For only 3 Grand, he'll be your friend for life. He'll let you steal his gun, get horrible essence damaging surgery on him, or even just leave him for dead.I'm more then happy to pay this small fee to have a troll at my side. (Winston is the only character who can have a higher BOD and STR score then you. Which makes him the best at punching people. Anytime we don't want him punching people, we'll just give him back his shotgun.)

(B)





Winston already has the best weapon in the game, but we're going to "borrow" it so he uses his fists, which quite frankly hurt more. If we are ever out numbered or something, we can always give it back to him.



He also has no Cyberware, making him a blank slate for us .



I buy Winston some Spurs to up his melee damage



Some Smart Eyes so he can see invisible enemies



3 levels of Dermal Plating



and finally 4 levels of Muscle Replacements, Winston is now more machine then man. (In the shadowrun rule book, if you have less then 1.0 Essence, you're essentially an emotionless cyborg, the only spark of humanity you have is your free will. Everything else is cold and calculating.)



Good God, do these guys ever stop beating on that old man?



Muuuuch better. Now we're really cooking with gas. We're still not ready to start doing crazy High-level runs yet, I still want to take my Deck up a little bit more, and we still need to hire a mage / buy some gear.

Anyways, that's about it for now, just a Recap on what I got for Winston.





Also, How crazy his stats are now. The number before the c is his base stat, and the number after the c is his total with the included Cyberware.