Let's Play Shadowrun (Genesis) Part 7: PLOT ADVANCEMENT

Back to Part 6: RUNNIN' IN THE SHADOWS

The Invisibility spell. This thing will be your friend on corp runs. Just cast it right after you walk through the front door, and re-cast it often.

But it won't fool hellhounds, wendigos, ghouls, security cameras, or metahumans... So it does have some serious limitations.

One way of getting into cyberspace is to run permutations to get you into a random system. It's cool, and is what you'll do for most early on free-lance runs in the game.

Or, if that's not what you want to do, you can get a passcode from a Mr. Johnson and run it. Important passcodes will be permanently stored on your deck. They are Club Penumbra, Gates Undersound, Seattle General Hospital, Ares, Lone Star, Renraku, Aztechnology, Mitsuhama, Fuchi... And two bonus passcodes, one being ITO's system and another secret one we'll run across later.

Here is where you load your initial programs and can check your deck stats or current matrix run info. In a perfect world, all you need is Attack, Masking, Sleaze, and something that won't be sadly missed when eaten by tar-pits -- something like Analyze.

You can attack your way past a node by destroying the IC, use masking/deception to fool it into thinking you should be there, or you can sleaze by it (basically "go around").

See that? That is a tar pit. It will eat your active program entirely and it will be GONE. Permanently. So yeah, 8 levels of attack or deception? It can go poof in one fell swoop. So tread very, very carefully in the matrix.

Sleaze. It's a good program; use it. Make sure to upgrade your evasion, body, and masking to increase the effectiveness of your programs (those levels go to 12, while program levels go to 8).

Enjoy Deception. This string of 0s and 1s is meaningless... But the program is effective against everything except Barriers and Black Ice. And it looks pretty cool.

Beware of the trace and burn program that will dump you from the matrix.

If you see a Black Ice, you better believe it is protecting something important. Whereas other ICE that attack you are just attacking your matrix persona... if you get attacked by a Black Ice -- it attacks the user directly. Hence why you can see Joshua's face in the bottom left corner as we go up against this guy.

From the CPU you can go to any node on the system, as well as cancel any system alerts. Let me just say that the CPU and Confidential Data datastore on the Ares system are probably the two hardest nodes to crack in the entire game. If you can get into them; you should be free and clear (and able to garner yourself loads of datafile cash).

I'm starting to collect a lot of datafiles that are relevant to later events. And the one that has a few letters from a larger passcode? It's a "secret game side quest". But it's worth it, IMO.

Ugh, you again!?

This secret passcode is hidden in 5 different systems. You need to get the datafile from Ares, Aztechnology, Mitsuhama, Fuchi, and Renraku to get the end passcode to get into the secret system.

An AmerIndian is being held at Mitsuhama? Hmmm... I'm sure the nature of this will become more apparent shortly, as it already seems relevant to information Boris gave us earlier.

I bought the 80,000 nuyen power focus from Agira Tetsumi. Holy shit did it boost my magics fucking hardcore. Great for casting Invisibility

Swipe a couple of datafiles from Renraku's system. Beware, doing a run against the Renraku building itself is nigh-suicide early on.

Just in case you were curious of what Firebolt looked like in action.

Crispy.

The Frag Grenade is Renraku's attempt at counter-culture. It's like a... Modern Day Hot Topic.

Which probably explains why this elf here looks like a walking, talking stereotype...

The amazing thing? You could probably beat the entire game without ever getting a secret datafile. But good luck making money for nothin' without prying into the matrix.

So the secret corporation passcode was called "Chernobyl"... This seems not so subtle.

Congrats, you managed to thwart the megacorps and net yourself 50,000 nuyen and a message that breaks the fourth wall! And you managed to root around in the UCAS Government system with impunity because they couldn't manage any decent defenses to their matrix system.

Time to visit the Passport Lodge on Council Island. We need to go through them to get into the Salish-Shidhe lands...

Sure, I'll pay. I'm a law abiding citizen, after all.

Wait a second... What is this nonsense!?

You can pay somebody like 2000 nuyen to delete your Lone Star record, but don't bother (passports are time consuming and pesky, anyway). There's an easier way to get into the Salish-Shidhe lands, and money is cheap.

You cannot believe how handy contacts are in this game. And I'm about to prove that to you.

Yes, I am in need of being dropped into the council woods, so that I may frolic in a leafy glade.

Oh, and while I'm at it, I'll take a pair of them Smart Goggles.

[Editor's Note: Thank Space Ghost: Coast to Coast for that one.]

And now we've been dropped off in the Salish-Shidhe wilderness, and only a few thousand nuyen lighter...

I wonder what it looks like.

How quaint. Everything about this area was going smoothly until random packs of hellhounds and wendigos came out of nowhere to ruin my day.

Well, this sure looks like the place...

That's right; keep that sweet information coming.

Sounds like this is a cheap way for me to be tooled out by you to do your dirty work because you won't buck up and go find him yourself. Also, this Aragorn? Did he get his hand on an ancient copy of "The works of J.R.R. Tolkien"?

I hope this isn't the start of an annoying pattern of me having to do stupid and menial tasks for people just to get them to talk to me or help me...

Continue to Part 8: TAKING ONE FOR THE TEAM