Part 12: Meeting the Locals Continued

Part 12 - Meeting the Locals Continued







Good evening Coyote, Dr. Castle, severed arm.



Wait, which one of you is the doctor?

Thanks for helping me out back there.

Looked like you could use a hand.

Ouch! Bad joke right now. [She looks down at her mangled arm.]

Okay folks, I'm going to have to ask you to sit in the waiting area. Watch some trivid or something. This young lady and I have work to do.

Mrs. Kubota never said what kind of cyber-arm she'd pay for.

I want something badass. Got one with a laser inside?

Or how about a gatling gun, I know one guy.

You'll take what I give you, lady. Now, let's have a look at your face...

Leave it.

Excuse me?

Coyote...

I earned this face. By being stupid. I'm gonna keep it. End story.




An indeterminate amount of time passes






Nice arm.

Thanks. Mrs. Kubota will have me working it off for the rest of my life.

We could buy a new cyberarm for like, a thousand nuyen. You might want to consider asking for a raise.

[She notices your expression.]

You look like you've got something on your mind.

I have some questions.

[She flashes you a puzzled look.] What kind of questions?

About Sam Watts.

Sam Watts? What about him?

He's dead.

Holy drek. Sam. I can't say I'm surprised. He was on a downward spiral for a long time. What can I tell you?

Not really sure either, but let's poke around and see if something relevant comes up.

Tell me about Sam. I hear you liked him.

I did. He made me laugh. No one else seemed to like Sam's jokes, but I did.

No accounting for taste. Sam made some bad jokes.

If the dictionary entry for hypocrisy doesn't have our picture in it, the world really has gone to hell.

Not when he was sober. He was chill. And funny. I guess I knew him the best of everyone here. Sorry he's gone.

You served him the night he died. What do you remember about that night?

It was a pretty average night. Regular crowd, as I remember. Sam was drinking with a guy named Armitage.

Jake Armitage?

Yeah, you know him?

Met him. He's a charmer too.



Mr. Kluwe wasn't around - can't remember why - so she asked Jake to do the honors. Jake dragged him out the back, into the alley, and that's the last time I saw Sam.

Yeah, things got pretty serious for him after that.

Wait, did I use that one already

You said he got loud. Do you remember what he was saying?

[She thinks.] Standard Sam drek. How he grew up rich and didn't deserve this. How he hated his mother. How he loved his mother. It was pretty pathetic stuff.

Did he have any enemies?

[She thinks again.] Enemies? That's hard to say. Sam partied hard and when he did, he ran his mouth off pretty good. Got his ass kicked on more than one occasion. But no, I don't think he had any enemies. At least none that I'm aware of.

Where did he live?

On the streets, mostly. He'd occasionally convince someone to let him flop on their couch but he'd always overstay his welcome and get kicked out after a few days. Sometimes, I'd sneak him down here so he could crash in one of the bunks. He used one the night before I saw him last.

Sounds like something worth checking out, just in case.

Exactly how bad was his drinking?

If it was just the drinking, it would have been bad. But Sam wasn't the monogamous type. He dabbled in everything. Booze... chips... drugs - he loved the Nitro - whatever he could get his hands on. It wasn't always like that but once he got sick, he started using more and more stuff to try and forget about it.

Sam was sick?



Well, his liver problems are definitely gone now that the liver took the problems with it.

Did he say how he got better?

He said his mom helped him out. Never said how, though.

Thanks, Coyote.



What do you need, babe?

I need you to talk to Mr. Delilah for me about the Royale run, he is usually upstairs. Tell him I didn't get the gems. Maybe I can take another run at it when I recover.

Oh, right, the gems. Yeah, it's really too bad we never found them. Something in my inventory uh I mean heart tells me you probably shouldn't bother going for them again though.

I will.

Talking to Delilah is an optional objective, the primary one being investigating Sam's bunk.



But let's introduce ourselves to the good doctor properly first.





Man, I wish I had my personal shoulder imp too. Just look at the cute lil' fella.

And I suppose you were the one who patched her up. Impressive work.

Thank you. It's a shame she wouldn't let me repair her face, though.

[She notes you eyeballing the facilities.]

I can tell you're surprised to find a full-service medbay under a dive bar in a slum. Don't be. This is a shadowrunner bar, after all. For a purveyor of cyberware and trauma kits, there is no better place to set up a practice. I patch runners up, install and maintain their cyberware, and provide medical supplies for their runs. I may not be as mobile as Doc Wagon, but I'm the next best thing. So, can I help you with anything?

DocWagon is the world's largest medical service corporation. Amongst other things they offer service contracts, with the top tier Super Platinum service coming with all kinds of benefits including but not limited to your personal biomonitor and 5, that's right, 5 free resusciations per year for the low low annual price of ¥100,000!

I'd make some scathing quip about American healthcare but let's face it, those guys have it bad enough already.

Castle also offers a small tutorial on revival items. They revive people.

I see shamanic fetishes. You a shaman too?

While modern medical technology makes surgery less disruptive than it used to be, it's still an ordeal for both the body and the spirit, requiring extensive recuperation to properly heal. I am trained in the ways of the spirit world as well as the scientific world. I do my best to heal the whole patient.

What's that on your shoulder?

This little guy supports the healing rituals I perform on my patients after surgery, dramatically reducing their recovery time. Not standard procedure, of course, but the results speak for themselves.


Castle is the final vendor down here, and like she said she offers both medical goods and cyberware.



While she doesn't offer Medkits beyond basic ones, she does have all Trauma Kit tiers available from the start. A little expensive for us right now, though.



The section has some cool but pricey stuff. That said none of the currently available cyberware is really worth buying for us who don't spend much time in the frontlines.

We head back upstairs to find Mr. Delilah.







We spot him in the back room near an enthusiastic lady enraptured by elf butt.



Mr. Delilah? We have business to discuss.

What business? I got no business with you.

We're with Coyote. She's indisposed at the moment.

[At the mention of Coyote, he finally gives you his full attention.] Why didn't you say so? Coyote is late and my client is getting anxious. Where is she?

Downstairs, trying on a new arm. Your run went south for her.

No kidding? Hrm. Well, whatever. She's tough. She'll pull through. So, who're you two?

This is Coyote's boyfriend, Paco. I'm Amazon.

What is this, a romance trid? I don't give a crap about boyfriends. Where're the stones?

We have three choices here - Either giving him all the gems, pocketing the best gem before giving him the rest, or pocketing a strange rune-covered pebble before giving him the rest.

He'll see through it if we try the latter two however, getting downright pissed if we keep the pebble, so we might as well give a trustworthy first impression by handing them all over.



That's the one.

[He pockets it.]

Okay, you done good. But you're late. And Coyote knows that in this case, late equals no payment. But, I'm feeling magnaminous tonight so you guys can keep the rest of the gems as your reward.

Not gonna argue with that one.

Deal.



Looks like you impressed him. I know a fence for those gems. Van Graas. Follow me.

The in-game text actually has Paco call him "Van Gaas" which is mildly funny.

We walk over to the ever-occupied dwarf.



There is an optional Charisma check of 3 here which makes zero difference in anything except the next couple of lines.

I can see you're a busy man.

[He nods his head.] That's right. And...?

So, I wouldn't bother you if I hadn't come into possession of these rare stones.

[You have his attention.] Rare stones, huh? Let's see these rare stones.



Here we actually have four different choices, with the first one being simply accepting the money. Alternatively with a Charisma check of 5 we could increase the price to 1500, and with a Strength check of 6 we could strong-arm him into paying 1800.

The fourth option requires the Academic etiquette which just so happens to be one of the two we have.

Did the software in your HUD appraise the value of the stones?

[He looks amused.] Could be.

We both know the International Gemological Institute will set the price far higher than your offer.

It'll take time for you to get top nuyen for it. Let's call it two thousand.

You got a deal.

This is arguably the most beneficial etiquette usage in the entire campaign as an extra thousand is quite big this early on and the two other options both pay worse and have high requirements.

Done. Gimme your credstick.

+2000 nuyen, of which Coyote will see zero because she never asks and we can't bring it up with her. Real shame.


It's time to get this plot moving again, so we head back downstairs to see if Sam's bunk will reveal its secrets.







You can see our item stash next to the bunk, we can use it to store any extra stuff we have. Any items found during missions which don't fit into our inventory will transfer there automatically. It'll also repair our broken drones.

Searching through the bed, we eventually find an old photograph.



Cute. We flip it around to see if there's anything on the back.



So, this Jessica person who sent that note to him was his twin sister. Are both his sister and mother somehow relevant to this whole thing?

We pocket the photo and go see if Coyote knows anything, making sure not to mention anything about any valuable stones or monetary rewards.



You know someone named Jessica?

[Her brow furrows.] No. Why?

That's the name of Sam's sister.

Jessica Watts... yeah! He mentioned her once. It didn't sound like they got along that well.

I'm starting to think there was literally nobody outside of Coyote he did get along with.

Suddenly!



Officer Aguirre, what a pleasure to hear from you.

Yeah, yeah. We're buddies. Let's go dancing soon. Listen, the Ripper got another one. The victim worked at the NTSB investigation facility down on the docks. You owe me for this.

Again? Gotta hand it to this murderer, they're not in the habit of wasting time.

Put it on my tab. You there now?

Yeah, but better get here quick - before McKlusky arrives.

[The image on your PDA dissolves as the call ends.]

Another Ripper murder? Where?

The docks. I've got to go.



Thanks, I appreciate the help.

There's nothing left to do here, so we're off right away.



Hopefully betrayals and ambushes have gone out of vogue since our last visit. Wouldn't hold my breath though.



Official art: The Seamstresses Union Bar