Let's Play Shadowrun (SNES) Part 8: WHERE'S THE RAT MAN?

Back to Part 7: TAKE IT ON THE RUN, BABY

I went back and hired Kitsune, now that my Charisma is leveled up to 6. Trust me, you want to take her with you to the Rat Shaman.

Ah, finally, we found it. This gate was always locked before, and it turns out there was no key. Your spirit guide magically opens it for you. Isn't that special?

Make sure to murder all of these rats. They're annoying if you don't, are practically free karma, and they don't reappear after they die.

Just let me say that summon spirit is possibly the most badass spell in a game, ever. Even more brutal than powerball. You can literally maul your enemies with a flying fox that growls like a dog.

Also, looks a bit like the Firefox fox, doesn't it?

See him? That's the Rat Shaman.

Spread your team out because he throws powerballs at you and casts freeze occasionally, which makes him highly annoying to contend with. Though if you've hulked up a bit and brought some heavily firepower laden runners with you, he shouldn't be much of a challenge.

Okay, so apparently the Rat Shaman was actually being controlled by some sort of entity known as "The Jesster Spirit". All things aside, this guy looks like the most badass Jester I've ever seen. Black and gray makes a good checkered pattern, especially when you call your enemy a "fleshbag".

Kitsune will automatically start talking to you if you brought her along and offers to stay with you permanently (provided she doesn't die, of course). This is pretty much the pinnacle of awesome. And with the maximum level of negotiation, she would've cost around only 2,400 nuyen!

Now, take that 3,000 nuyen and get thee to a nunnery!

Errr... The nearest working vidphone.

...Wow, how not subtle of him. This sounds highly dangerous.

Great, they're going to leave the gate open at the Dark Blade club. Sounds good... Except there was some mention about one of them being a vampire.

In fact, this guy on the phone looks a little pale, and like he's standing in a darkroom when it is broad daylight outside... And those cat eyes...

This won't end well.

Yes, I'm sure an illegal gun store does a great business behind an always locked gate.

Even though I'm amazed that this guy is still in business, I have no qualms about trying out his hardware.

Look at the badass guns of the future, kids. There is some sweet equipment here. Also, there's some excellent body armors - the full body suit being the king of the crop. We'll want a full bodysuit and the Enfield AS-7 before all is said and done. With them Jake is a literal one man army. However, now is not the time (as they are out of stock on said items, and buying too many mid-tier items is a waste of precious nuyen).

Also, interesting point of note, the Bulletproof Vest never becomes available. A mere programming bug or was it intentional? The world may never know.

Ah, the Defiance T-250 Shotgun... Pretty much the only gun I bother buying on my way to getting the Enfield AS-7 and Full Bodysuit towards endgame. Make sure to raise your Strength to 4 so you can equip this beast.

I waited until now to purchase this because it's 12,000 to buy the defiance T-250 here, as opposed to 15,000 earlier with that idiot that likes to set his hair on fire.

Also, if you ever want to sell off your old junk, the business man back in the first area will take your trade-ins, and I'm pretty sure the two gun shop owners will too. Of course, depending on the item, you may be better off to use it to gear up another one of your own shadowrunners.

Okay, so NOW our spirit guide actually thinks that we are worthy? Thanks for the overwhelming vote of confidence, chief.

So either he previously thought we were unworthy or sent us out to die and we just happened to get lucky... I'm starting to feel a bit used, here. And the Cortex Bomb was pretty much the icing on that cake.

I cannot get over how weird our dog sensei's sprite is... On the upside, we got new magics, due to our fervent pixel hunting, and now the challenges for gaining new spells will become even more difficult to figure out, due to vague clues (or, in some cases, what I would consider no clues).

But at any rate, I like Powerball. Giant fiery death is always awesome. Though Freeze sounds pretty pimp, too.

Dog really is man's best friend. If said man is a homicidal maniac hellbent on revenge, anyway.

Now that we've gotten all of that out of the way, let's get back to the Dark Blade club, shall we?

I don't often drink blood, but when I do, I am stereotypical as sin about it.

Tell the doorman (Johan, the guy you talked to on the vidphone) you're the Magic Fetish guy, and he'll send you to this room on the left to talk to Vladimir -- you know, that guy that is pictured here talking to us and then soon thereafter running through a solid wall...

So, while you talk to Vladimir (and before his great escape), he asks for the magic fetish. You give it to him, and he tells you the name of The Jester Spirit, and where to find him (Nirwanda and Bremerton -- which to me are pretty meaningless at this point, which is par for the course in this game).

But he's a vampire, so as usual, he is NOT to be trusted - just like that old indian guy told us. Because he's evil and all that good lore. On the up side, however, he probably doesn't sparkle in the sunlight... So this isn't a total loss.

Oooh, do I spy some computers in need of hacking!?

Am in ur computerz, lootin ur monies.

Am also eatin all ur dataz, lol.

Wait a second... He lied to us! That rat bastard!

And today... Murder was on the menu.

At any rate, one of our dead party guests left behind a mesh jacket that you can pick up. Though you cannot sell it anywhere, so it must be defective or cursed or obviously taken off a corpse... But you can wear it and love it.

Just make sure to hand off your Leather Jacket to Kitsune. She'll always have it, even if she dies and you re-hire her. It's the only item in the game you can give to her that she can use in terms of armor, thanks to her measly 1 strength, and it will keep her alive just that much more.

Excellent, finally I run across a key!

I bet it opens... A gate!

Excellent, our key opened up a gate that led to a room full of... Coffins and ghouls! Ack!

I realize that we are attending to somewhat pressing matters with this Vladimir fellow, but there is always time to take out of our busy schedule to farm some karma.

Take pride that even in the future, karma-whoring is still a thing.

This spot is, IMO, the best karma farming spot in the entire game. Forget the Gold Naga (yeah, yeah, we'll get to that...), this one is the real McCoy. Just hire Norbert, Frogtongue, and Anders, then set yourself behind this lower coffin. Then just let them blast all of these ghouls into oblivion. Powerball and Summon Spirit are also extremely effective here, as are large firearms accompanied with a large score in firearms (or aforementioned runners who also pack sufficient weaponry).

So I wandered into Wastelands, and in the upper left corner behind the stairs, I run into this guy who wants to sell me ice (though you have to quiz the bartender first, who tells you that their ice machine is on the fritz, or some such smalltalk nonsense, so you can pick up the keyword "ice"). The only problem is that he wants to know where to ship it... And none of my keywords seem to answer his question to his liking...

Ah, there we go. We pay a visit to this strange guy on the docks who conveniently gives us the "docks" keyword so we can tell the ice man in Wastelands where to ship his goods.

Also, beware of the ambush when you go to talk to the boatman at this point in time, and be sure to pick up the explosives that a dead orc leaves behind. You're going to need them very soon.

There we go... A quick visit to the talisman shop, and I just dropped 9,000 nuyen on potion bottles...

Wait a second, 2,500 nuyen for a pointed stick? I feel like I am being ripped off royally here. I think my spirit guide is in cahoots with the talisman guy here, and they're running some sort of racket or scam for money.

But, it seems like when going up against a vampire, a sharp wooden stake would fit the ticket.

Well, first off, our ice man delivers his goods and they wind up having melted by the time we got here... But, we got the treasure of mermaid scales left behind! Yeah, because this makes complete sense, I know.

But don't worry, things are about to get a lot weirded.

Interesting. We go into the warehouse at the far end of the docs, and there is a girl there, who when you talk to her claims to be Sassie. You remember her, right? That two timing harlot girlfriend you used to have but threw out all of your shit at the first sign of an imperial cruiser (-- I mean premature rumors of your death, sorry). But, why would she be HERE?

...Oh, it wasn't really Sassie, it was A GIANT OCTOPUS. So either this is The Watchmen, or I what is this I don't even.

And when you kill it, you get a pool of ink... Though I think an octopus tentacle would make more sense, whereas ink would follow if we had just shot a squid to death, but I digress. So scoop it up with your fancy new black potion bottle you paid good money for (6,000 nuyen). And pick up the pittance of money it dropped (2,000 nuyen).

On the upside, that octopus sprite was badass.

Awesome, we now have the Freeze Spell, which is actually quite handy. Though, what we really want, is the summon spell. So let the next round of the scavenger hunt begin.

And while we're off letting our ADHD run our lives, we may as well stop by the fountain from the beginning of the game and collect some water in one of the other potion bottles we picked up.

And the final stop on our little excursion is to hit up the Jagged Nails club. Specifically, we need to quiz one of the bartenders about "Vampires" so that he'll tell us about the "Strobes" keyword. Then we use that keyword to con the other bartender into giving us the bar's old strobes so that we can have a surprise party with ol' Vlad.

Finally, we return to the Dark Blade crypt, and go to the far end so we can pay Vladimir a visit. Get ready to show this crusty old miserable bag of bones how we do stuff Downtown.

Walk up to Vladimir, and use your strobes. He'll be blinded and try to run in place. Then, get up close and personal, and threaten him by using the stake. He proceeds to freak out.

Now, use the stake on him again, and you'll finally start to get some results!

This time he'll be forthcoming that the real name of The Jester Spirit is Laughlyn. Which is a terrible name, so no wonder he hides it... Though it sort of reminds me of that one episode of Angel where they used name magic in an attempt to wreck an all powerful being.

Now it is decision time... If you choose to, you can try to stake Vladimir a third time, and you will manage to finish the job. And to the victor go the spoils -- a sweet 5,000 nuyen well deserved.

Just call me Buffy.

[Editor's Note: Don't worry, Vlad... We'll be back...]

With that beatdown and all the necessary legwork completed, time to stop off and get some rest. Because we're going to need all the help we can get for the next part of our journey, so we can square off against this strange Jester Spirit creature.

Though I still have no idea where this Bremerton place is...

Continue to Part 9: THE JESTER SPIRIT