Part 14: Crusader Queens

Part 14 - Crusader Queens










I like to think our drones are equipped with tiny robot hands they use to climb up ladders.



Null sweat. I figured you could use the backup.

Yeah, you never know what sort of firepower to expect in one of these BTL squats.

From my experience the answer to that tends to be "level-appropriate".



What, no rescue missions or having to looking all over the city or anything? Did we slip into a fever dream somewhere between last time and now? Are we gonna wake up at Stevie J's and realize we've been in a BTL all along?

Good job. Thanks.

[She looks at you, her scarred face soft.] Least I can do.



Right behind you babe. Let's do this.

Paco does his best to occasionally interject with random comments lest everyone forgets that he's still around.





Coyote is sporting a new and considerably less bloody look and a new arm, which is literally the cheapest 1000 nuyen one available at Dr. Castle's. So much for lasers or gatling guns.



On the other hand (not literally) her R&R and operation have done her body good, mostly. Her Charisma and Close Combat have both gone down by one and her Unarmed skill is now completely gone, but in exchange she has gotten +1 Armor, Ranged Combat and Dodge in addition to +2 Throwing Weapons, Pistols, Shotguns and BioTech. All her losses are insignificant so overall she's far more capable than before.



This time she also has the Ares Predator she had bought in addition to the shotgun she grabbed after her rescue. Paco's loadout remains the same as before, though his stats have increased slightly as well with his Armor going from 0 to 3 being the most significant improvement.



Let's chat with the doorman.



[She leans in, whispers in your ear.] This guy's a clocker - trades work time for chips. Part salesman, part lookout. Probably has a signal device for the guys inside.

You wanna go on a ride?

There's a handful of questions we can throw his way.

You sell BTLs, right?

[He grins a lopsided grin.] Oh yeah, chummer. Oh yeah. Better-Than-Life. Definitely better. Dreamchips. Mindbenders. SimStim. Simsense without peak limits. High-octane intensity.

What kind of rides can I go on?

Hope we're tall enough to enter them all.



[Coyote's eyes are hard, her pupils tight little pinpricks of hate.]

You do snuff too, don't you?

[The clocker looks around. More nervous now.]

Maybe yeah. Maybe. For the right price. You can feel it. What it's like to die. What it's like to kill.

But can I feel what it's like... to be loved?

Well, probably. Bet that's a pretty popular one even.

How does this place operate? How do I get in?

That's the best part. The best part! It's a lab - they test the new stuff here. The hottest drek. You can place a special order an' they'll make it happen. You buy a pass card from the guy at the door. It'll get you in an' out anytime you want. Then you can buy a beetle and slot right there. Our guys guard you while you're chipping. Safest way, chummer. Safest way.

Don't you think you're hurting people selling them this drek?



I usually go for diplomatic choices over violent ones, but that's just too tempting.



More like BTL Clocked

Despite our Strength being on the level where the most impressive display of physical prowess we could hope for is successfully swatting a fly, this guy goes down like a sack of potatoes in one hit.



Proceeding inside, we see the second door guy down the hall. Let's talk to the worried-looking woman to our left first, though. Maybe she knows something.



You sound like you know from experience.



...to record. [Tears stream down her face.]

For some reason I'm slowly starting to get the distinct feeling that this BTL business might be pretty uncool.

Do you have a pass card to get in there?

No. But Jamal has... my son's card. Took it off his... took it off him when his brain fried. Jamal's down the hall. Don't know if he'll give it up but that's between you and him.

What kind of guards do they have on this place?

[She looks around, frightened. Whispers.] They're serious. This place is backed by the Yakuza.

Japanese mafia. Oh man.

Yes thank you Paco, don't know where we'd be without your contributions.

How many and what kind of firepower?

There's a guy on the door - Charlie - he sells the passes to get in. He's not tough. Blind in one eye. There's another five or so wandering around. Two of 'em are bad news - covered in magic symbols. Mean.



Coyote continues having the best attitude, though her risk assessment skills seem questionable considering how things ended up for her last time.

Any chipheads inside the lab?

Yep. All day. All night. And they can be dangerous too. Once someone's chipped, they can send 'em any program they want. Make 'em do whatever. Turn 'em into whores. Killers. Anything.

We're looking for a kid named Gino. Know him?

Who doesn't? He's here all the time. Gino's a clocker - trades his time for chips - like their little errand boy. I saw him go in there this morning. Hasn't come out, so I imagine he's riding a dreamchip.

That's all we can get outta her, so we head down the hallway.



Jamal is hanging out in the small room to the side and it's possible to buy a door pass from him at a discount, but since we won't need him for that and he has nothing else to say we can safely ignore him. We'll talk to Charlie here instead.



Charisma check of 4.

I want to take a look around first. If the selection's good, we'll give you 200‎¥‎ on our way out.

[His good eye twitches as he thinks.] Yeah, sure that math works for me. See you on the way out.

Our other alternatives were paying 150 (100 to Jamal) for a pass, intimidating Charlie with a Strength check of 4 or sucker punching him in his blind eye which, while funny, just deals 4 AP damage to him and immediately raises a ruckus.



Couple more armed guys on the other side of the door, they would've joined in on the fight had we gone in with violence.



As the man said, past the room is a small bridge and past that, a large doorway...



...leading to an even larger room populated by a whole buncha people.



[The shotgun-wielding thug squeaks in panic.]

It's the crew that took out Stevie J's place. I told you it was only a matter of time!

Yay, we're becoming famous! Can't wait until someone orders a hit on us, that's when you know you've really made it.



Amazon, don't attack any of the chip-heads! They don't know what they're doing, and you could hurt Gino.

No civilian casualties. Got it.

I have a concussion grenade. Better than fragging the tweakers if they get caught in the middle.







So yeah, there's a twist to this fight in the form of unarmed but berserked civilians, 3 of them in total. While their punches aren't particularly dangerous, stray grenades and such will quickly turn them into mincemeat. Not letting them die is merely an optional objective though.

The Yakuza decker controlling them is at the computer towards the back of the room. While he won't be fighting back due to being busy playing the puppet master, he does have a relatively hefty 40 health which combined with the distance can make it tricky to bring him down fast. That being said, there's a potentially easier method available to us.



You'll notice a pair of new icons to the left and top-left. These signify jack-in points deckers equipped with a cyberdeck can use to access the Matrix, which can be done even during battles. The one closer to us is only guarded by a single unarmed BTL operator, so let's see if we can make use of it.



The first turn is spent getting into position, with everyone getting into cover on the left side of the room near the aforementioned jack-in point.

I don't know if "jack-in point" is the official term but I've nothing better so we'll go with that.



The BTL operator gets a free shot at us since the movement ate everyone's AP, but her punches are barely noticeable. As a random fact, unarmed base damage is equal to the character's Strength.



The security guy nearby goes for a shotgun blast on Coyote, but misses. The mind-controlled civilians appear confused by our maneuver and mostly shuffle around where they were.



Jacking into the Matrix requires 1 AP and renders the character unable to act for the duration. It also disables all drones since our consciousness is busy elsewhere.



Before entering, we can adjust our programs and ESPs. Nothing new here.



The jack-in process takes one turn, and in the meantime Paco draws a few gallons of first blood with a double crit on the pesky operator. I don't remember if I've mentioned it but SMGs always fire two shots even without abilities.



Coyote shows off the shotgun's AP-damaging Kneecap ability that Sam never got around to using. Both her and Paco spend the rest of the turn taking shots at the guy but he doesn't go down yet, though his retaliation attempt afterwards fails as well.



One of the chipheads tries to beat up the inactive Murphy. No cyberbullying!



Another good reason to head for the left side of the room at the start is this pair whose outfits make me think we interrupted their LARP session or something. One of them is a shaman and they run in from one of the rooms to the right, so if we had hunkered down at the doorway we might now be flanked with the people we're trying to save in the middle of everything.




(Poor Matrix doesn't even get a unique theme, though this is the first time the (kinda lame) combat portion of the track plays as well.)




Welcome to cyberspace! It's... not super different from the real world, to be honest. The mechanics remain largely the same except with different values and abilities compared to real combat, and there's also an alarm state which ticks up over time and brings a real mess on your head should it ever hit maximum. It's usually not a huge concern though.

We start from the top left and our goal is to the bottom right, guarded by the red avatar of the Yakuza decker.



As we approach him, while sticking to cybercover of course, two White ICs pop up nearby. These Intrusion Countermeasures are what we'll be fighting most of the time while in the Matrix, and they come in different varieties which fight in different ways. White ICs have melee attacks and 100 IP (health) which makes them only a minor threat most of the time. For reference, the enemy decker has 150 and we have 175 IP, but our offensive power is also far higher than these things'.



Demonstration of Blaster, our AoE damage program. Blaster is probably the most useful of the programs as it's quite accurate and you're usually fighting several enemies in relatively close quarters, but it does require one turn to recharge. Programs deal flat damage, and 50 is enough to knock the ICs to half health right off the bat.



Our cyberdeck gives us 3 AP to work with, so we finish the other IC off with Killer which is a high-damage attack Program that targets a single enemy and is usable once per turn.



Another advantage to having the player character be your decker is that they'll easily get very good at it. We handily beat both the remaining IC and the decker on the next turn without even a cyberscratch on our cyberskin which opens up our goal.

It's worth mentioning that for every turn that passes in the real world, three turns take place in the Matrix. The actual fight has not progressed during this time.



The exact effect of reaching the goal in the Matrix varies depending on the situation. In this case the three choices we get are identical to the three we would've gotten had we first offed the Yakuza decker in the real world and then interacted with the computer next to him. Doing it this way is almost certainly faster and safer however, as only two "real" turns have passed so far and we didn't need to charge through the room to get it done.







Ending the Puppet BTLs forcibly causes all the controlled civilians to take minor damage, the Decking check leaves them unharmed.



We're still outnumbered IRL, but the security guy is almost dead and while the decker is still standing, the dump shock he suffered due to being forcibly ejected from the Matrix by Amazon caused him to take heavy damage to both his HP and AP.





Paco lightly scratches the wounded punk to death while Coyote goes for the Mage next to him. She misses her other shot and fails to finish him off, though.





Mages



Grenades

If you're going to lose a civilian in this fight, it's most likely to this.



The katana shaman does shaman things and conjures up an air spirit...



...but now Amazon and thus her drones are back in business and Hello World's concussion grenade crits and stuns her. This causes her buddy to immediately vanish into thin (thinner?) air as well.



Not that it really matters because Murphy and Paco murder her with bullets the very same turn. What Paco lacks in plot relevance he makes up for with a very impressive K/D ratio.



The enemy turn is fairly uneventful aside from the mage showing off his barrel-merging trick in the corner.



Coyote puts her new and improved shotgun skills to good use, sending the enemy decker to the great database in the sky. Having run out of ammo, she follows it up with a pistol shot at the mage.



Paco seals the deal after. You can't truly say you love someone until you've shot at least one person together.



The drone duo wrap things up by taking out the grenade-happy bodyguard with some lucky hits.



After the smoke clears, we find Gino in the back of the room. We also get a Karma point for saving everyone else. Yay?



Wha? - what... the hell. Who slotted me out? Who fragging slotted me out?

[Coyote is shaking. She looks horrified.]

Gino, it's me. It's Carla.



Gino, no.

Coyote, be careful.



Back off! Just back the hell off!

Well this situation sure got volatile quickly. There are a couple of different ways this scenario can play out depending entirely on what we say.

Take it easy, Gino. We're backing off.

[He presses his hands to the sides of his head, his finger still on the trigger. Squints.] What the hell is wrong with you people?

We're trying to help you.



There are drugs that can help you, Gino. We can go slow.

[He looks at Coyote. Looks at you.] We'll... we'll... go slow.





Maybe sometimes things do work out in the end. Sometimes.

Let's get the hell outta here. See you next time.




Extra

When Gino is freaking out, you're given a set of three different dialogue choices, and another three if you tell him you'll back off the first time around. The only way to get the good ending to this quest is to pick the exact ones we did. Both times the other two choices basically boil down to asking him to either drop the gun or sternly telling him to face reality.

Going for the former:

Back off! Just back the hell off!

Drop the gun, Gino.



Gino, no!

Gino takes a shot at Coyote but misses, and Coyote shoots him.

I'm sorry, Carla. I'm so, so sorry.

[Coyote looks to you, tears in her eyes.]

He was beyond help, Coyote. I'm sorry, but he's at rest now.

Yep, nothing we coulda done at all. It was all doomed from the start, that's just how life is sometimes.



Every. Mother-fragging. One.



Here's what would've happened if we had tried to be stern:

You're brain-burnt, kid. You've got to get off the chips. Now.

[He presses his hands to the sides of his head, his finger still on the trigger. Squints.] I... no. I gotta slot back in. Get away from this drek.

We get a different set of three choices here, but the outcome is the same regardless.

Look at yourself, Gino. It isn't better than life. It's sucking your life. You're wasting away.

No. What? Wasting? I...

[He looks around at the squalor of the room, then glimpses his own reflection in the machinery.]





From there the conversation is identical to before. Minus us telling Coyote she had no choice but to shoot him, obviously.