Part 69: XIII - The Price of a Mile
Alright, so going by the feedback I've gotten on the last update, it seems that the way to go forward that makes most people happy is to keep the narrative for the things happening in the game, while I additionally bring some commentary on the particular changes the mod makes and what I think of them. With that in mind, here's some stuff on the things we saw in the Giovanni mansion, since I don't want to edit it into the previous update retroactively:
- When Victoria arrived at the Giovanni mansion, she started out stuck in the floor because I don't fucking know, and I had to noclip out. That did not leave a good first impression, really, especially given there were barely any changes to the actual map (if any, I can't actually recall having noticed any).
- The fact that the only Giovanni-specific change for the mansion is that you can tell the doorman to let you in frustrates me a lot more than it should, because it makes no sense whatsoever, given that you go right back to impersonating one of the Rosselinis once you enter. It's clear this will be reworked further down the line (although mod development has somewhat stalled and is showing signs of the "don't exactly hold your breath for further updates" mood that often hits projects like these), so why make this one minor change and then just call it a day? It would have made more sense if you still had to impersonate somebody as a Giovanni, since Giovanni or not, you're not part of Bruno's clique (at least not knowingly), so obviously you'd need an invitation to get in.
- The additional skeletons strewn throughout the mansion. WHY? It makes no sense - both from a storyline perspective (as I described in character in the last update) and from a game design perspective, since all you're doing is dicking over stealth players that require these passages to get around in the mansion, what with Bruno busting out the doors the moment combat is engaged within the mansion.
- Speaking of Bruno, I'm still baffled at him turning into a fucking hammer-swinging knight, complete with an escort of armored knights while every other guard in the mansion remains unchanged. It sure made the fight more challenging, I can tell you that much. Of course, this segment would also not be complete without a questionable design choice, and in this case, it's his magic. The "lock player into place" spell is just annoying - I guess it could get hairy if multiple enemies are bearing down on you, but that should rarely be the case. The real problem is the teleportation spell, since as I could very much tell, teleportation without prevention of clipping into walls very quickly leads to problems. And of course, that means I had to bust out the noclip again. Twice in an update, not a very good sign.
- The Giovanni book we found in the mansion, had Victoria not been too stupid to read it, would have given us another dot in Necromancy. Would have been useful, and I would probably have preferred it over what Pisha gave me for it. Oh well.
- The hockey mask gives one point to Bashing and Lethal Soak in exchange for another Appearance hit, very useful. The mace is a shitty melee weapon that only shines because it gives bonus damage against skeletons, but so would have a sledgehammer or the like.
- The skeleton knight boss in the crypt was a really annoying bastard, mostly because he just negates damage most of the time. I couldn't tell if he was supposed to be blocking with his shield or something, but a lot of the attacks just straight up didn't faze him. Actually, scratch that, I just went over the footage again, he doesn't have a shield, he's dual wielding maces. He could cast some sort of magic that was some kind of force emanating from him that dealt a bit of damage, but it didn't correspond with the times he was invulnerable and the times he wasn't, so it seems to me that he's just randomly impervious to damage at times. That's one way to make a boss harder - not that he was a challenge, since his melee attacks didn't actually hurt Victoria and the magic just did some minimal damage.
- Bloodlines Antitribu Fun Fact of the Day: Misti, the stripper from Vesuvius we added to our ever growing list of members in Victoria's Legion, is trans. And by that I mean that she has a dick and that's the only thing that is mentioned about that (since she doesn't have any new dialogue or anything). I had no idea until I read a topic about this on the RavaFX forums, and I went into the game to check, and lo and behold,
there was indeed a dick there. (holy fuck that texturing) I have no idea what to say about that beyond "this is a thing that exists in this mod, and I feel it is significant enough to bear pointing out", and I have no interest in attempting to decipher the developers' motives regarding this change. I am however quite confused, because I definitely recall very intently staring at Misti's crotch when I first found her at Vesuvius as to determine whether the pantyhose she wore constituted enough coverage to not require blackboxing her (the result of that investigation being "fuck it, I'll just not show her from the neck down, problem solved"), and if I had seen a dick, I would have most definitely pointed that out. Hm, guess we'll just move on to the update proper. Narrative in italics, separate commentary in regular text.
Chapter 28: The Revolution Sweeps The Hunters and The Sabbat
Part of me wants to say that this is the point where the situation starts getting somewhat out of hand. Part of me realizes that I had just spent the last few hours wiping out an entire local Giovanni chapter, including their leader, and destroying a supposed alliance between LaCroix and Ming-Xiao, which, if it did exist (to this day, I'm not entirely sure who exactly was lying regarding that, and anybody I could ask is very probably dead), must have sent somebody flying into a tizzy. Things have already gotten out of hand, and probably have been out of hand for a while before that. But this is where my personal situation started getting really crazy, not just the surrounding situations I was causing through my righteous crusade for the salvation of Los Angeles.
LaCroix was of course overjoyed that I brought him his sarcophagus - or at least feigning joy as hard as he could, which, to his credit, was pretty impressively hard. Of course, inside, he was clearly steaming, be it over me breaking up his alliance with the Kuei-jin that he wanted to keep a secret from me at all costs (which of course meant he denied it as vehemently as possible) or over me still not being dead and continually being a thorn in his side, defying his authoritarian rule simply by existing despite his intent to have me killed.
Furthermore, he was so "proud" of me that he gave me permission to sire a childe. I had to laugh internally when he said that - was he not aware that the Legion was growing in number for quite some time now, and included several Kindred that might as well have been my childer? Was this just another attempt at appeasing me while he continues to send me through death trap after death trap, figuring he'll deal with the childe once I'm dead? Joke's on him, I would have continued that regardless, since putting my master plan into action required him to open the sarcophagus. However, not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I thanked him profusely for this opportunity and promised not to waste this gift of his.
I'll get into siring once we actually pick who we sire - spoilers, by the time I made the decision, I thought I had only one choice, so there wasn't exactly a lot of picking going on - but for now, I'd just like to point out the lack of a period at the end of that sentence. Also, the two voice lines for LaCroix granting this right are definitely the same voice, though I'm not entirely sure of their source - I guess it's just some unused stuff floating around in the game files.
Beckett was at our little get-together as well, since LaCroix wouldn't know his Assyrians from his Hittites if his unlife was hanging in the balance. Beckett didn't tell us anything I didn't know already - the sarcophagus being of Assyrian origin and being locked with a particular mechanism that required a special key to open, obviously because what was in it (or at least what was supposed to be in it) was the remains of Messerach, an old Assyrian king whose achievements are shrouded in mystery, and whatever it was that made these achievements possible led them to wanting to lock that corpse up good and tight. Of course, Messerach is nothing but a shriveled corpse that wouldn't have needed this kind of precaution, but it's there anyway. That wasn't news to me.
What was news to me was that Professor Johansen had been abducted by the Society of Leopold during the time I spent hunting for the sarcophagus, and he was the one I was going to have to seek out to "learn" about the way the key worked. That, and I had actually lost track of the key after I used it to set up the master plan - I kind of figured it would have stayed with the sarcophagus, but apparently somebody had beaten me to the punch and separated the two, and Johansen was as good a place as any to start, since the trip through the museum didn't yield any insight. In hindsight, I probably could have saved myself a lot of time if I hadn't tried to cover up my plan as much as possible by just letting the sarcophagus get out there and then having to retrieve it, though it did a great job of masking my involvement.
So now it was going to be my task to retrieve him - alone, of course, can't bring along any help, that would be terrible. I'm still not entirely sure if this was just another setup by LaCroix or just things going his way by chance, with me once again heading into even more hostile territory than the last time in what is once again assuredly a suicide mission. But of course, I was on a righteous quest and would not be deterred so easily. I was getting that professor and dealing a blow to the Society while I was at it, since weakening their local cell could only mean good things for the local Kindred.
However, before setting off for the Society's hideout, I had some other business to take care of. First and foremost, I brought the book I found in the Giovanni mansion to Pisha. She acted like it was some major tome that I had brought her, but I read the book, it wasn't anything mindblowing, at least not to somebody that knows a thing or two about necromancy like I do. But as long as she was happy, I wasn't going to complain.
Though I certainly felt like complaining about the reward she gave me. She claimed that she gave me a Key of Alamut, a very rare artifact that grants great resilience. In practice, while I could feel that enemy blows seemed to not hit as hard as they used to, I also felt like I couldn't take as much abuse as I could before holding it. I'm still not sure whether or not this thing is a net gain or a net loss, and I'm pretty sure it's some sort of knock-off and not actually an Assamite artifact. I'll have to have Beckett take a look at it some day, he'd probably be interested in it.
Yeah, I don't get this thing. It's an artifact that increases your Soak ratings, which increases your defense, but has a drawback of reducing Wits, which reduces your defense. I don't get the developers' insistence that every artifact that gives you a bonus also has to give you a drawback - these things are supposed to be fucking rewards, not situational items that sometimes come in handy and sometimes harm you. What a strange design choice.
And then there was the matter of choosing my childe-to-be. To me, the question was easy to answer: It had to be Heather, the first amongst many to join the Legion, the first one I saved from the hell that Los Angeles was. She would be the posterchild for the Righteous Revolution - somebody stuck in the dead-end that was LaCroix's Los Angeles, rescued from near death and given a purpose in unlife, joining the ranks of the Kindred as one of many, equal amongst all. She was all too eager to truly join the Legion as a fully-fledged member that could go out and fight for the downtrodden Kindred of the city, and I gladly obliged her.
This was the point where the footage from last time ran out. Just want to point that out, because it explains what will happen once we get to the Society's hideout. Now, let's talk about siring. Siring is really rather simple. You pick your target from a few pre-chosen potential childer (of which we have two, Heather and Yukie), tell them you want to sire them, spend a few dialogue lines "convincing" them (pretty sure they won't say no), bite them (just a bit, which of course goes against the way the Embrace actually works, which is completely draining the target of blood and then giving it some of your own blood, because these fuckers can't get ANYTHING right), they fall over, some black smoke comes out, and then they stand up again...
...having become a bit pastier.
The childe's stats also get boosted. Here's Heather before the Embrace...
...and here she is after it. You'll note a large increase in a lot of skills and the disciplines being added. If we want her to improve more, I'm pretty sure I'd have to invest my own experience points, which is out of the question, I still need to boost Victoria's Necromancy further. Now, why did I not Embrace Yukie instead? Well...
...this is why. You might notice her in the middle of that clusterfuck. I did not. I thought she had simply vanished and didn't think further about it because the companion system is broken to shit. However, for the sake of reference, I also Embraced Yukie after coming back from the Society hideout.
So once again, it's bite...
...fall down...
...and vampire! Now to check the sta-
Wait, a loading screen? What's going on now?
We then cut to the sheriff executing a male Giovanni, and apparently a male Nosferatu is next.
And apprently that was Victoria. YOU HAD ONE JOB, YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKERS, AND YOU FUCKED IT UP. If you can poll the character's clan, then I'm pretty sure you can poll the character's gender, too! So that's what happens when you Embrace for a second time - a non-standard game over.
Anyway, after reloading an earlier save, I Embraced Yukie and checked the stats. Not quite as impressive, especially when you consider that the big defensive boost largely comes from the better gear I've gotten since I took the picture of Hunter Yukie's stats (back in Chinatown when we first gained her as an ally) - remember that gear transfers over between characters when you possess them. Suffice it to say that I will be sticking with Heather as my childe, because changing would mean going through the Society of Leopold again, and even with noclip and godmode, I don't want to fucking see that place ever again.
Another side thing - we can convince Bertram to come along with us. This is largely pointless for us at this point, and he REALLY doesn't fit the Legion's style, so I just tell him to stay where he is.
However, while Heather was very eager to join me on the next mission, this was something I was going to have to do alone. Hunters are not to be trifled with, and I couldn't bear the thought of losing her this early - a fear that would be justified once I made my way through their complex. I would need some incredible firepower to make it through there with my unlife intact, and Mercurio would provide. With a pocket flamethrower and a Dragon's Breath shotgun in my arsenal, LaCroix's goons and the Society's hunters would have to think twice before messing with the Savior of LA.
Oh yes.
Now this is what I'm talking about. When fire gets involved, things get very fun, and giving me more fire to play with is never a bad thing. Now, the flamethrower might have been nerfed a bit (more on that later), but the Dragon's Breath (and by the way, it's Dragon'S Breath, not Dragon Breath, nitwits) got bolstered a bit and is now actually a viable weapon against small groups. Also, here's the shot of the ammo for the Dragon's Breath:
Did they just copy that off a website or something? I don't believe so, because they misspelt "Massachusetts". The spell checker exists for a reason, guys! I fucked up spelling Massachusetts too, but nobody would have known if I didn't mention it because I used a spell checker!
Now, I distinctly remember arriving at the Society compound, but to be quite honest, I can't remember what exactly happened there. All I remember is fire. Lots and lots of fire. Beyond that, my next recollection was having left the compound on a boat. However, I have it on good authority that whatever happened in there, it left the Society devastated.
And this is where I'll have to cut in for a bit. Now, remember what I said about only having footage up to a certain point? I only had that much when I asked about continuing the narrative. I didn't know what was in store for me, and just how much it would piss me off. I'm not wrapping this into a narrative, because the repeated deaths are instrumental in showing just how pissed off this shit got me, so the narrative is on hold (a shame, I wanted to go into Victoria wishing she could have a hideout half as badass as the one the Society has - that cave system is rad as hell and would have been a lot better for holding all the members of the Legion compared to us stuffing a dozen people into an apartment), we're back into "Let's Get Pissed At Dying A Lot And Curse The Names Of The Mod Creators, by TheMcD". Here's looking at you, MartianAgitator - if the next segments (Hallowbrook Hotel, Ming-Xiao's temple and Venture Towers) turn out as bad as this, and I have every reason to believe they will, you'll get your wish of straight commentary after all, at least for the parts that matter the most, the parts where the mod makes changes that get me pissed. I love how this LP is just me stumbling through this mod, being surprised by the twists and turns at every opportunity, and it even nosells my attempt to shift gears into a different style all like "nah, here, have some pain in the fucking ass combat again for you to bitch at".
We start off with this laser thing. Surprisingly enough, it does not instantly kill you, just deals some damage over time. Not even that much, to be honest. Kind of surprised - I was prepared for this thing to just murder me. Not to mention, you can safely crouchwalk under it!
Now, I don't have any hard numbers, but it feels like there's more guards here than before. Even if there aren't, they're packing more heat than the vanilla guards, and we all know that when guns get involved in Antitribu Mod, things get rough very fast.
Also, for some reason, they blocked off one side with rocks. This essentially makes sneaking a pointless endeavor and forces me into combat. Great, because we haven't had enough of that shit. So, the gameplan so far seems to be:
1) Retreat behind laser
2) Summon zombies
3) Fire a shot in the air to attract enemies
4) Hope for the best
Let's put that into action, then.
Now that Victoria's got Necromancy 4, her summoning also brings in this ghostly lady that deals a lot more damage and is actually mobile compared to the zombies, which might as well be stationary for all the good moving is going to bring them. Now, to fire the shot.
Melee enemies are moving in and getting beaten up by our new friend, but she's taking heavy damage and fairly quickly goes down from focused fire.
The laser plan was smart in theory, but it turns out that the damage dealt to enemies is pretty much pittance. The zombies don't exactly fare much better in holding them back, either, so it's time to bring out the guns.
What follows is some cleanup with the AK-47, followed by some very careful and slow sniping with the revolver. It's hardly efficient, but it gets the job done without too much counter fire - though I am taking constant damage because the AI's aim is ridiculously good, and Blood Heal can only do so much.
This process of luring goes on for a while - after the melee enemies are dealt with, the ones with guns start coming out, though the ones on the roof are still an issue.
With that in mind, let's move up a bit and see if we can't get a good shot in with the sniper rifle...
...what is that?
WHAT THE FUCK. So yeah, remember that grenade launcher I loved so much? The one that kills bosses like crazy? Well, guess what? Some regular enemies get that one too now. And guess what? Yep, they're just as pinpoint accurate with it as they are with other guns, while I need to get right up in somebody's face to deal any real damage. This essentially turns the grenade launcher from a very powerful but risky option to an instagib gun. So yeah... welcome to hell!
The plan this time around involves very carefully sneaking to the front door, out of the line of sight of the crazy guy with the grenade launcher and the legendary aiming skills.
The plan immediately goes tits up when going in through the front door means being instantly thrown into combat with about four other guys, one of which was carrying a grenade launcher but thankfully swapped it out for a melee weapon because I was right in his face.
Though that doesn't mean fire wasn't involved. Oh god, no. Fire is always involved. Thankfully, it's only a Dragon's Breath, which only hurts a good bit and isn't instakill.
The situation doesn't immediately go south, and some good usage of cover and the AK-47 dispatches the group that was bearing down on Victoria, and we have ourselves a bit of a breather while we attempt to work out the next step of the plan.
The next step involves taking care of this gu-
OH SWEET JESUS
So yeah, surprise, Dragon's Breath essentially turns into a firewall if fired along a corridor. And it hurts like a son of a bitch.
After some time to heal (and suck down some blood packs, which I've noticed I have way too little of), we can take down this guy with the sniper rifle, and while not without taking another face-full of phosphor and fire, at least it doesn't hurt that much this time. And that means we've cleared out this area and can explore! Wooooooooo!
Huh, hang on, this door here won't open, looks like there's something blocking it from the inside, what could that be? Well, it's a good thing the door opens from the other side the next time we try to open it.
...what? It's an RC car. What's that doing he-
BITCH ASS FUCK ASS MOTHERFUCKING CUNT SHITS. Jesus CHRIST, somebody give a raise to the hunter that worked that out - RC cars with fucking bombs strapped to them. Why the fuck does this exist? Just to torment me? What have I done to deserve this? Well, this is going to take some finagling to deal with. First of all, a change in plans - let's try going in through the back door. There's no more guards around the back of the building, thankfully. Though there is another RC car with a bomb...
...that can blow your shit up real good.
The back door entrance seems a lot better to begin with, since it doesn't start in combat and should theoretically mean we can get plan things out a bit better.
First, the bombs. The modders put in one particularly nasty trick here - the password, while still three letters, is somewhat randomly generated. I have no idea how exactly they did it, but one time, the password was "rod", and another time it was "wod". The password to disable the bombs is different from the one to change the heat signature, too. Note: The reason I went in alone was because of the bombs. There was no way I was trusting the companion AI to not run headlong into that shit. The praying guy is easily enough dealt with through application of flamethrower.
Now, the back room full of people. Let's try firing the Dragon's Breath down there and hoping it hits the explosives somehow.
Well, that didn't work, and the guy with the grenade launcher apparently had something to say about what we did, judging by the fireball that's currently in my face and will lead to death about a split second later.
The next attempt is looking better. We managed to lure the guy with the grenade launcher out and he's now burning to death.
Wait... why didn't you burn to death?
SHIT. So there's a bit of a surprise - the flamethrower is no longer a one-shot kill, it just deals a fair bit of damage. It not being a one-shot kill against regular enemies is actually a pretty big strike against it, given that it's expensive, eats ammo like a motherfucker and has a reload time of two yonks.
After that, I decide to try the front door a couple times. Every time it's the same story - dead before I can do anything. The grenade launcher guy has his sights trained right on you and fires the moment he can - the first time was simply a random fluke that I could not reproduce.
And then the back door attempts start ending with the grenade launcher guy coming into the room and one-shotting me the moment I hit his line of sight, which is the moment he hits my line of sight. He can one-shot, I can't. Do the math.
Eventually, and I do mean eventually, I get a lucky break that leads to the grenade launcher guy not getting aggroed by the combat in the back room, which allows me to sneak up on him, set him on fire, then gun him down while he's burning. I make damn sure to quicksave after that, because I'm not doing that shit again.
The next point on the agenda is dealing with the RC car. I try shooting it.
It doesn't work. I try shooting it a lot, it doesn't work. From what I can tell, I can't destroy this thing, at least not in such a way that doesn't leave me open to getting blown up. So I guess I'm not entering that room, then! That room can go fuck itself, let's check the other ones.
The one noteworthy new thing is this computer, which I presumed controls the new security stuff the mod added. Victoria can't hack it with her 7 Hacking, so we'll be going through this part without what this can do. However, here's what the things do:
- "exp bots" (password: autobot) allows you to explode the RC car. When I did this, it almost killed me because the explosion set off the bomb next to the room I was in. FUCKING BRILLIANT DESIGN, GUYS. By the way, the room that the RC car was guarding? Only contained vendor trash. More fucking money we can't use because we have so much already.
- "pulse gun" (password: impulse) disables an electro zapper thing that we'll see later.
- "code" (password: bullseye) does nothing. It's supposed to give you a code for the shooting range where you fight Bach (which now has a keypad next to the entrance), but I guess that's not done yet.
With that floor done, it's time for the upper one - I have it on good authority that there's a guy with a grenade launcher in there, so the situation is kind of tricky. However, I figure that this is the one chance the grenade has for redemption. I can throw it around a corner and hide from the blast, the enemies have nowhere to run, and they're tightly clustered. If this doesn't work, then the grenades are utterly worthless.
The grenade flies into the room, I duck behind the wall, it explodes...
...and nobody died, not even the guy I directly threw it at. FUCK those grenades.
The room is cleared out thanks to one particular quirk of the grenade launcher - if you line it up juuuuust right, you can have it blocked by a wooden pole.
Of course, once it comes to actually taking that guy out, hitting him becomes a bit more tricky when the main thing keeping you from not dying is not having a line of sight to him. Still, eventually, thanks to a bit of spraying, he gets taken out.
And I was actually able to feed on the last guy in an encounter again! It's not as easy as it sounds, when pretty much any enemy can easily put you in mortal danger - at least any ranged enemy, and you'll have taken the melee ones out before you get to the ranged ones since they're the ones that run right into your face first. It particularly comes in handy because I only brought three non-Elder Vitae blood packs, one blue, two normal. That's going to take some rationing.
There's nothing interesting here, either - just this weapon, which actually is better than anything we've found so far, but any melee weapon in this mod is bad because it involves getting up close against enemies wielding AK-47s and grenade launchers that can tear you to bits pretty much instantly.
The resistance down in the cellar is a bit less rough, just three guys, one of them a melee guy and none of them having fire available...
...though once again I got surprised by an RC car that I didn't notice before it blew me the fuck up...
...but the biggest problem is this - the pulse gun. I just call it the electro zapper, because that's what it is, really.
Now, this thing is blocking the way to the cave system, and no amount of shooting it is going to solve that problem. As far as I can tell, the only option here is to either disable it through the computer (which Victoria can't), or tank the damage. I'm not counting out the possibility that there are other solutions, but I didn't notice anything, and Victoria has Inspection 9, so if there was something to be noticed, she should have been able to see it.
So tanking it it is, and we're off to the cave system.
Things don't exactly get better here, either. We start things off with two guys down at the bottom. My plan is to take one of them out, then sneak down, use Command, and eat up the second one.
However, because I have a revolver and they have Dragon's Breath shotguns and M4 rifles, this does not end well.
Another attempt, using the sniper rifle this time, goes better - if still not exactly great, since that one guy can just send a firewall in my general direction and it'll cause massive damage - and I can at least replenish the damage I took in that fight.
Nearby, there's a safe that contains one copy of the cell key (of which there are three for some reason), a much-appreciated blue blood pack and some useless morphine (I've recently worked out that the purpose of it is to give to your human companions for them to get extra damage resistance - i.E. the fucking shit is useless).
Further down the cave system, we get some time to test out the Dragon's Breath. From what I can tell from playing around with it, it's not exactly useful against humans, except against very small groups, either one or two, since with those, you can stunlock them sufficiently enough to kill them without getting any return fire, which has value. However, against larger groups, it's probably best to stay away. Haven't tested it against vampires yet, it might be more useful against them if it has bonus damage (the vanilla one didn't).
And yes, as you may have suspected, Ash has been captured and requires rescuing. And as you might suspect, rescuing him here and having him "leave" means nothing, he's still at the apartment waiting for orders. We don't even get any reward for rescuing him, no XP, nothing. This sucks.
Also, in the cell next door is this switch that we can flip. I have absolutely no idea what it does, but it's marked with the Inspection sparkle, so it must be important, right?
Now, this is where things get really hairy. The enemy density has been upped in this area, so that means sneaking is no longer really an option, at least not for Victoria.
Of course, I only notice this once it's too late and I have to fucking leg it back to the hallways with a hail of bullets making chase.
What follows is a very long and drawn out fight involving a whole bunch of long-distance shots, hiding behind walls, and taking breaks to use Blood Heal a lot.
Once the horde thins out, I attempt to take advantage of one guy that ended up behind the boxes, but it turns out that I probably should have noticed that the guy was wearing a helmet and therefore wasn't the best target for feeding, so I just shot him dead.
And it's a good thing that only one guy was left that was aggroed, because he sent Victoria into a frenzy, but it actually worked out as he couldn't deal with her and instead got sucked dry, which was what I wanted to do anyway! Hooray for efficiency!
And to finish things off, the wonderful double standard. I try to go Doom on this guy's ass by blowing up the explosives next to him...
...and he takes a grand total of one point of damage. Fucking shit. He gets gunned down by the AK-47 instead, which is a much more consistent method of killing.
We finally make it to the shooting range where Bach hangs out, and here's the keypad that the "code" thing at the computer earlier was alluding to. No idea what to put in, but we don't actually need to enter a code to enter the doors, so eh.
So now, it's time for the confrontation with Bach. Also, here's a shot of how Victoria looks now with her hockey mask.
Bach has a few problems. First, he now has an M4 rifle instead of a sniper rifle, but still pretty much peerless aim with it, so his firing capacity just went way up.
It's hard to tell, but this is him hitting with some magic shit that deals big damage despite me being in cover. He's very aggressive with magic/True Faith - if you're trying to take a passive approach, he'll just cast shit over and over and whittle your health down, so that's not an option. This leaves only one other option:
Running around like a nut with a flamethrower.
Of course, when doing so, you should probably pay attention to the grenade traps, which almost killed me here.
Also, it turns out that the flamethrower isn't that great either (if the fact that it doesn't instakill regular enemies wasn't enough of a tip-off), and the grenade launcher is still the weapon of choice. Bach goes down without much of a fight once that thing starts putting on the hurt.
And to cap things off, he gets the last laugh as the second grenade trap blows Victoria head-first into the ceiling. Still not dead, though, and that's all that counts.
And finally, Johansen is dealt with...
...a thrilling escape is made...
...and we're back at Venture Towers.
Well, that sure was a lot to go through for just one small area, and I have the sneaking suspicion things aren't exactly going to be going better in the future. At least there's nothing stopping me from bringing some companions along next time, though, and we'll be seeing just what they did to the Hallowbrook Hotel then.