Part 16: Warehouse Warfare

Part 16 - Warehouse Warfare










We're back to the exact same place as on our earlier trip here, on the streets outside the docks. Bigger crew this time though.

In case you've forgotten, we're here to chat with some plane crash victims to see if they know anything about the serial killer we're chasing.



A bunch of mercs have locked down the area. I don't think they're here for us, though. My guess is there's something worth a bit of coin in that warehouse.

Any chance we can sneak past?

Probably not. They've been doing regular patrols around the perimeter, and the front door looks like it's locked.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, the reason we could recruit people for this mission wasn't for the extra company and emotional support. In fact, this'll be the most combat-heavy mission yet.

Let's take a quick look at our lucky participants.





Shannon is obviously a shaman, and a surprisingly strong one at that. Going purely by numbers she's statistically superior even to Amazon, though with a somewhat less efficient Karma spread.






Unfortunately her talents are somewhat wasted on a set of equipment for which "serviceable" is about the highest praise one can muster. Fichetti Security 500 is the weakest pistol in the game and Manabolt 1 is pretty much the same for magical attacks. Her saving grace is the Haste 1 spell which is very handy due to extra AP being the most powerful combat effect in the game.



She's also carrying a Basic Medkit and a pair of nature elemental fetishes. These are consumable items which allow for the summoning of a spirit without having to find a summoning spot in the environment, such as the puddle Sangoma used to conjure up Typhoon way back when. While their single use nature is a bit of a pain if your player character is a shaman, they're quite nice on companions like Shannon who automatically replenish their supplies between missions.





This particular fetish summons a wooden avian creature with a coked-up expression, humanoid limbs, four wings and a row of faces circling around its back called a Primeval. Probably throws killer parties.





Gallowglass is a mage whose stats are downright depressing compared to Shannon. To be fair most of the left side is of little use to a pure mage but even still, Ms. Half-Sky has more skill points under Charisma alone than this slacker does in total.








What he lacks in the skill department he somewhat makes up for with a basic but versatile set of spells. Powerbolt isn't much of a weapon and Armor 1 is a waste of AP, but a healing spell and an accuracy buff are pretty much all he needs to contribute. Since he seemingly blew his entire budget on his magical selection, he carries no items.





Hidden Fancy is a very solid street samurai who can both take and dish out damage like a champ. She has all the important bases covered and as a nice bonus, enough strength to toss grenades from Seattle to Vancouver.




The AK-97 is the same bottom-tier rifle we've seen plenty of times before, but look at that beauty of a shotgun! The Mossberg CMDT is a monster at this part of the game with +4 damage and twice the ammo capacity compared to the Benelli Raffaello from one tier below it. For reference, no weapon in the entire game deals more than 16 damage per shot with the exception of the three shotguns above the CMDT. Make no mistake, it's this thing that's going to be the star of today's show.

She also carries a Basic Medkit and a couple of grenades, whatever.



And in case you were wondering, this is where Amazon is at right now. Drone Combat 6 is where drones really start to shine so we've mostly been working towards that, though we're still 18 Karma away (6 IN -> 6 Drone Control -> 6 Drone Combat). The +1 Intelligence we get from our extremely cool outfit sadly doesn't count for this purpose.



There are no hookers or bums to chat with this time, so we head straight for the busted gate. Seems like they've left a doorman to greet us, how polite.



This guy doesn't look like one of the hired mercenaries.

Hey! Are you even listening? Get outta here!

Another opportunity to use our Shadowrunner etiquette.

Really, guy? They aren't paying you enough. Especially not once Lone Star sends a response team.

Frag, I knew she was lying. Told me they jammed all the Lone Star channels. Dammit. I'm out.

You're a veritable human lie detector, buddy. If you can't talk your way through him then you'll just have to put bullets through him instead, which is only marginally more troublesome. Very marginally.

Had we had it, we could've also used Corporate etiquette here like so:




Heading inside, we spot a couple of security guards on the ground. Must've slipped and hit their heads pretty bad, wet pavement is no joke.



Oh, right.

(Also I adjusted my screenshot settings a bit so all red text should be much more readable from now on. Progress!)







Like Shannon said, there's no avoiding this fight as they carry the key we need to get inside the warehouse. We're up against four mercenaries here, though only three are visible. Shannon and Amazon take cover while Gallowglass prepares Hidden Fancy for the bloodbath to come.



Shannon begins with an 8 damage Manabolt at the first merc, and Hidden Fancy teaches him why you always put at least 3 points into Body. She uses her second AP to blast the troll next to him for the same amount of damage, but he lives for now.



In an excellent demonstration of the flight or fight response, the third merc immediately bolts off to the opposite direction while the troll stands his ground. Perhaps due to his shaky hands, he fails to land a single shot.





If this game had modern 3D graphics, this is the moment you'd be able to visibly see all hope flee from the eyes of our enemies.





While running away was definitely the smarter plan, it's also one that only works if you can run faster than the other person.



In a laudable and extremely suicidal gesture, the heretofore unseen mercenary shaman tries to cover the fleeing man's escape with his body and an air spirit which rudely zaps Murphy with lightning.



Standing in the way of a shotgun-wielding gas masked killer orc empowered by magic works out for him exactly as well as you'd expect.



And his noble sacrifice is ultimately in vain anyway as HF puts an end to the remaining mercenary's desperate flight at the pier. Maybe he was hoping to escape with the chopper like Jake back in the day.



And that's that, four people dead in the blink of an eye. Hidden Fancy never even needed to stop to reload because killing everyone only took her 7 shots in total. Good times.



We receive 4 Karma and snatch the warehouse key from the merc's corpse.



Our job's only halfway done, still plenty of blood left to spill tonight.









No rest for the wicked and all that as it's straight into another fight, this time against a team of shadowrunners.



Gallowglass and Shannon spend their initial turn re-boosting Hidden Fancy while Amazon repairs Murphy who got zapped earlier.





Already on it Shannon, please keep up.



Three more runners remain in the room. HF switches to her lame rifle due to the distance but since every shot seems to be a critical hit it's still decently effective.



The man takes cover behind a table and returns fire, but trying to bring HF down with the bottom-tier pistol is an exercise in futility.



Another runner bursts into the room from the door to the right, the machete adept from the bottom left advances and the guy behind the plane does nothing. Maybe he's hoping we haven't noticed him, but you can't escape the all-seeing eye of the isometric view.



The newcomer troll has a very respectable 50 HP so she actually eats quite a few bullets before going down, but in the end all succumb to the shotgun.



Murphy shows off its smoke grenades, though I forgot they deal minor damage upon detonation as well. For as long as the smokescreen persists it applies a flat -15% to all hit chances into, out of and through the smoke for both allies and enemies. Smoke is a bit tricky to use well but it does occasionally come in handy.



A second rifle hit puts the pistol man to the ground for good.



On the next turn Murphy cleans up the adept who almost managed to reach someone and accomplish something, but ultimately failed miserably at both. The other ork remains motionless behind the plane.



And now he'll never have to move away from his spot again. Glad Hidden Fancy and her gun are on our side, that crit was big enough to one-shot Amazon from full health.



We're still not done though, the rest of the group alongside their very angry leader are chilling in the next room.



As a friendly tip from your fellow runners, trying to act all tough and intimidating works a lot better if you can actually hit something.



Yet another adept makes his appearance from the southern room, seemingly gunning for Murphy. Bringing this many people and hiring a mercenary team on top seems like a bit of an overkill for a simple data retrieval job from an old warehouse.



In an uncharacteristically poor showing, Hidden Fancy manages to land nothing but Weak shots on the runner leader, forcing Murphy to finish the job afterwards.





More for the sake of showing it off than for any practical reason, Shannon uses the nearby junk pile to summon Primeval's fucked up trash uncle, Pestilence.



In addition to being able to spit acid and reduce AP with its normal attacks, Pestilence has access to Confusion which is just a hilarious dick move all around.



Murphy takes a hit for the greater good. The shotgun ability to hit adjacent characters from range isn't always a blessing, but it doesn't really matter at this point.



Amazon, who is still standing over at the warehouse entrance two rooms away, uses her drone duo to finally put a proper end to this lengthy battle.







Shannon turns into a primary objective marker and runs off into the back room.





But first we loot the leader's corpse, completing the optional objective of finding out what the runners were after and netting us some extra paydata.



Time to do what we came here to do, and no extra hoops to jump through this time either. Let's have a chat with some dead people!



Dead children as it turns out.

We are the innocents who have perished in the flames... choking on smoke... as we fell from the sky, crying for our mothers. You bring anchors to your world... which was once home to us... and we will use them to testify.

Geez. Well at least they seem cooperative, so we show the spirit one of the items we picked up during our last visit.

We no longer see the world of flesh, Seeker. Only the essence and auras of living things. Words, though... words may echo through the veil, and sometimes... sometimes we may hear them.



Great, there's some super evil spirit messing up corpses for some reason. Not exactly our area of expertise, but hopefully our tried and true tactic of shooting it with robots will work should we ever cross paths.

Let's show them another one of the items.





So we're looking for an evil elf wizard and a dumb cybered up troll, the latter of whom we've heard of before. I guess that narrows it down a bit, though you're just as likely to bump into three of each in the bus on your way to work.

The elf... his essence remains in this place. Where the man died. Something has been left behind. A small part of him, perhaps.

Better not be something gross.

This information is all we need to move on, but we did pick up two additional items we can show the spirit. The third one gives you a hilariously spoilery flashback which directly gives away the perpetrator's identity and indirectly reveals another major aspect of the killings, so for the sake of keeping you in suspense for a tiny bit longer I'm going to skip directly to the fourth item.



Well, glad we could brighten up someone's day at least.

May I depart, Seeker? I wish the rest I have long waited for.

Yes. Go now and rest, spirit. Thank you.

And with that, they vanish. You could try and tell the spirit to stay, but it doesn't take it well and disappears afterwards anyway. No sense in angering any more ghosts than we absolutely need to.



You all right?

[She takes a series of controlled breaths, only shuddering with the first few.]

No, but I will be. I... I don't want that for him. Not what those poor souls have endured. My brother deserves to be free.

He will be, once we find his killer.

That's how it works, right? It's not like we've ever met the guy or know a single thing about spirits for that matter.

Yes. The elf and the troll. We have to find that piece of the elf the spirits spoke of. It's our best hope of stopping this.



We backtrack to where the corpse had been earlier to see what we can find.



Killing people from a distance simply by using someone's blood? Pff, as if, nobody'd ever try something that crazy.

Also, +8 Karma

Can you track him with that?

I can, given enough time. But I'm still feeling quite drained, I'll need to rest before I can try anything so involved. When I'm able, I'll commune with Bear, consult the spirits, and do what must be done. But in the meantime, you might take some portion of the sample to pursue a more... conventional avenue of attack.

I have some friends who might be able to help.

Good. Let me know if you learn anything about this elf and troll pair.



Glad to have such motivated workers under our wing.

I'll see what I can do.



Time to get out of this haunted place and let Lone Star clean up the dozen or so corpses we left behind. I'm sure they're used to it.