Planet Alcatraz - Part 10: Everyone's here, except for Hartman (who'll show up in the sequel)

A brief introduction of Cadet Demon

Powerful and fierce-looking physique. Despite his frightening appearance, Demon's quite a nice fellow - of course, only compared to his sociopathic comrades. Recognized master of jokes on hurricanes, nuclear weapons, etc - the soul of the team. Judicious and restrained, even when under influence of alcohol. Avid collector of dried ears - human and otherwise. According to him, ears are more entertaining than coins or stamps and, unlike those, ears are always completely unique. He sometimes looks at his friends' ears with such curiosity that make many feel uncomfortable.

Demon's very proud to be part of an elite military unit. Favorite proverb and motto - "We Guard !!!" In fact, many people are predicting a quick military career ahead for Demon.

On combat missions, if allowed, he always takes a machine gun - one which requires a lot of physical strength to carry and use. To others, this type of gun is too heavy and uncomfortable to single-handedly carry and use. Demon, who possesses nearly inhuman strength, can effortlessly bring it into the battlefield and use it to great effects.

Now, for the (sort of) great escape

Right next to Colonel Ho's office is the holding cell (I won't comment about how ridiculous that kind of setup is), where Demon's being kept. Boar needs to get inside and talk to his buddy, see if he's got anything useful to say.
Boar: Hopefully he won't ignore me like Sullen and Kruger.
Outside the holding cells, a Sergeant Ritz is striking a pose. Let's talk to him.

Being an Aryan officer must be tough. Even 100 coin counts. I kinda feel bad for him. We also learn that Demon is quite the trouble maker, just like his buddies.

Despite the ban, Boar doesn't have to give up any of his weapon. But he's stuck in cutscene mode all the while, so no harm done. Also, I don't usually pay much attention to the "open lock" animation, but looking at it from this angle, that animation seems somewhat... suggestive.

Here's Demon. He seems chattier than his two other team mates, not even bothering with the "undercover" bullcrap.

Too bad they don't play the "hug each other through the bars" animation.

Boar: Voldermar? Are you sure you're not reading too much Harry Potter and get confused?

So, I gotta find this monk guy and bring him to Stoneguard. When in doubt, hover your mouse on the map until you see the next quest you're trying to do. It works well here.

And here too, save me the trouble of running through the city looking for a monk.

Here he is, monk Voldemar. He has pale white skin and no nose, only two vertical slits where it should be. Yes, seriously. You'll see.

He berates Boar for interrupting his meditation. And he's standing in one of the busiest place of Northern City. I hate this guy already.

The translator seems to find "Seven gods of kung fu" funny, for some reason.
Back to Sergeant Ritz, with Monk Voldemar. Sensing we're desperate to see Demon, the guy ups the entrance fee. Asshole.

Again with that "open lock" animation!

When the characters are naked and under certain lighting conditions, you can notice their heads seem to be seperated from their bodies like Demon here.

From the front, it looks pretty normal.

This monk's weird salute animation is weird.

I shudder to think what kind of "material filth" Demon has on him now, considering he's nearly naked.

It's... not what it looks like!

Then everything happens quickly. Demon kicks monk Voldermar in the groin, then spins him around and snaps his neck. The whole thing stays out of frame, presumably to hide the low quality animation.

He then puts on Voldermar's robe, then call the guards.

When Ritz gets in, this happens.

Seriously, after the punch, the guy just stands there for a solid second before collapsing.
Demon: I'm sorry, "bro." So many idiots around... Ha-ha.

Despite the holding cell being right next to colonel Ho's office, no one else comes to investigate the fuss. Boar and Demon calmly walk out of the building and reunite with the remaining team mates.

If you can recall, Hartman is supposed to be the group's leader/instructor, since the landing pod crashed, he's disappeared and no one's heard of him.
Demon continues with the mandatory optional quests that need to be completed before we can go on with the story, i.e bring back the "Alarm Clocks" to Legba Jr.

Unlike Sullen and Kruger, Demon only unlocks 3 mandatory encounters. That's because the first one's been cut due to its rather sensitive content (which we'll hopefully explore when I get around to playing the Russian version in an uncertain future).

Now for a quick look at our guys' stats. Demon is 3 levels below Boar.

His skills are pretty much the same (good at Heavy Weapon, Imperial Weapon, Thrown Weapon and Melee). His strength is only 1 point higher than Sullen and Kruger's (7 point), which makes the manual's remark about him having "nearly inhuman strength" rather weird.

Also, Kruger now has enough skill points to increase his Repair to 100. There doesn't seem to be any upper limit on skill levels, but there is no item in the game with complexity greater than 100.

At the market, as Boar has gained a few levels, some new items, such as the telescopic sight here, become available. It increases accuracy and critical chance for Rifle. Kruger's gonna love this.

For a temporary storage place, there's this house right next to Blacky's office at the Market District.

Let's try out the Scope. Here's the bullet spread without the scope.

... and here it is with the scope on. That's a huge improvement. At medium range he will (hopefully) not miss any headshots.
Finally, we head to the Warehouse district to meet a gunsmith that will improve Kruger's Sniper rifle. The beggars are still bitter about Boar stealing Frying Pan's Flashlight earlier. They rush our guys and, needless to say, it didn't end well for them.

Man, this guy's really packed for a beggar isn't he?

Boar talks to Master Spark, near the trader.

For some reason, each gunsmith are only specialized in modifying at most 3 guns. In Master Spark's case, he can only modify "Heavy Pipe" rifle, "Slaughter" and "Vampire" assault rifles.
And here's Kruger's Heavy Pipe Rifle post-modification. Its range is increased by 2 meters, minimum and maximum damage increased by 15%. Most importantly, the reliability is now 100%, meaning the weapon will never misfire. Ever. Awesome!

That's it for part 10 (sorry about the short update). In the next part, our group of heroes will take a break from the story quests and start cleaning up the optional encounters.