aka: What happens after the bad guys stop shooting you. First you shoot them back, then you ask questions of whoever's left standing. And maybe in the middle of all this, you discover that your boss's high horse... isn't all that high after all.
[The gunfight at the Hammer has just ended.]
Georges the GM: "There are bodies sprawled everywhere, some dead and some wounded, Sissy is reloading her shotgun... and the canned music is still playing."
[The life of a bartender in the main mercenary hangout in town.]
Georges the GM: "Sissy is cleaning peanut shells and shell casings off the counter."
Mads: "Does this usually happen?"
Sissy: "It's Wednesday night, so... yup."
[Given that Virgil seemed to be a little... better than your average human, we figure we should take a DNA sample. But the question is how?]
Georges the GM: "You could just grab a limb, let it leak into a jar... and then you have a blood sample."
[It's not a sure thing that the fighting's over yet, so we take the SMGs off the guys we just killed.]
Torgath: *gives one to Mads* "You ever use one of these before?"
Mads: *expertly goes through the process of checking it out*
Joe: "Just like the video games."
Torgath: *reaches over and flicks the safety*
[We need some way to identify the guys we just killed for future reference.]
Julie: "I take pictures of all of them, and also of their tattoos."
Brock: "That's much better than what I was thinking."
Georges the GM: "You're just flaying everyone you meet!"
[Virgil's body is pretty much a hunk of hamburger at this point.]
Lukas: "That was messy... messier... than I would have thought."
[While Lyta and Lukas take the bodies out back and Torgath finds us a getaway vehicle, Mads is left to put what's left of Virgil's body into garbage bags.]
Mads: *succeeds on his will save to not freak out*
Ariel: "He's been successfully desensitized by video games."
[We find the black hats' car, the engine still warm, with a bunch of munitions in the trunk.]
Brock: "We bring the assault rifles into the cab, because a day like today..."
[Lukas calls up Hotel Bravo to tell the Doc that he's bringing over Virgil's body. Sadly, he gets no higher than an underling.]
Woman: (on phone) "You have some sort of time-sensitive package for the Doc?"
Lukas: "That's right."
Woman: "Anything else you want to tell me?"
Lukas: "...It's biological."
[When we arrive at Hotel Bravo, we are confronted by two Gears and many people with guns. And a fairly unimpressed Josephina.]
Josephina: *takes the garbage bag*
Lukas: "Look, lady, we had to improvise."
Josephina: *spits* "You guys are classy."
[Billy Croyden, meanwhile, has tracked Virgil's guys back to their main base, a reclamation plant near the heaps. We discuss what we might do to them.]
Mads: "Is there any way we can disable the alarm?"
Lyta: "No. The alarm is them shouting, 'There are people in here fucking killing us!'"
[We get a schematic of the plant.]
Billy Croyden: "These are the fuel tanks for the furnaces."
Lukas: "What kind of fuel?"
Billy Croyden: "Presumably something flammable."
[We finalize our plan... such as it is.]
Billy Croyden: "As far as I can tell, the plan is: box them in and let us kill them."
Lukas: "And we'll be killing the ones who try to run."
Billy Croyden: (deadpan) "I love this plan. I'm excited to be a part of it."
[Billy and Torgath slip into the plant via a roof access and kill their first targets with surgical precision. However, when moving to the next group, Torgath darts one target in an area that will almost be certainly be seen by others.]
Brock: "How's their notice? It's not a combat skill."
Ariel: "Things may be about to go to hell."
[Lukas had very clear instructions for Mads. Clear, useful instructions. It's a shame Mads doesn't seem to be following them.]
Georges the GM: "What are you doing?"
Joe: "I'm hanging around outside, waiting."
Brock: "Mads is covering the door."
Georges the GM: "Really? That's not what he just told me."
[Lukas' instructions, specifically, were: cover the door, try to avoid shooting people if possible, but do it if you have to.]
Georges the GM: "Someone pokes their head out the door."
Joe: "I blast him to hell."
Julie: "...So he's totally not listening to Lukas."
[Mads shoots but fails to do anything except tip the target off. Inevitably, the target shoots back.]
Georges the GM: "Mads, dodge. You don't have that skill."
Julie: "You will definitely want to spend some xp."
Brock: "First step: grow some legs."
[Mads fails to dodge.]
Joe: "What did they use?"
Georges the GM: "Assault rifle."
Brock: "...How does your mother feel about gunshot wounds?"
[Joe asks an important question, with a less-than-satisfactory answer.]
Joe: "Where's the wound?"
Brock: "In your front."
[In fact, Mads is deep-wounded in the leg. You'd think, given that he's a cripple, this wouldn't slow him down too much, but sadly this is not the case, as the nerve endings are all intact.]
Julie: "What's the use of not having legs if you can still feel them?"
Brock: "Your legs are failing to be usefully useless."
[Mads' plan for the immediate future.]
Brock: "Just lie there and bleed."
[Our plan for Mads in the longer-term future.]
Brock: "We're gonna give him so much armor it won't matter what the MOS is."
[Sadly, the whole 'get Mads into turtleshell armor' plan isn't going to help for right this moment.]
Mads: *fails his will save*
Georges the GM: "You're panicking, Mads."
Brock: "Seems reasonable. You've been shot. And you're in a wheelchair."
[Inside, meanwhile, Torgath is doing a truly masterful job of killing all the enemy hostiles.]
Torgath: *shoots someone full of bullets*
Ariel: "He got defenestrated."
Julie: "Actually, fenestrated. He became a window."
[Lyta has come near the front door, taken out one guy, and is waiting to see if the coast is clear before she enters. Inside, Torgath (surprisingly) misses one of the targets, so that the bullets hit the wall behind him.]
Georges the GM: (to Julie) "You hear a ricochet."
Julie: "I press myself up against the wall. I assume someone's shooting at me."
Georges the GM: "That's perfectly reasonable."
[Lukas leaves Mads outside with a grenade, while he goes inside to help mop up the remaining hostiles.]
Lukas: "If someone comes on you, throw the grenade. Try not to blow yourself up."
[We have killed everyone inside, save one that Lyta knocked out. Sadly, we now have two team members who have taken some pretty bad wounds.]
Lukas: "We need a surgeon."
Lyta: "...We know a surgeon."
Lukas: "Chambers is a trauma surgeon."
Lyta: "What do you think a gunshot wound is?!"
[We take Magnus to the Meredine clinic. He calls Consuela to let her know he won't be home for a while.]
Consuela: "Mr. Magnus, are you smoking the dope?"
Ariel: (as Mads) "Yes, but don't tell Mom. I'll bring you some."
[Joe reflects on the fight.]
Joe: "This is pretty epic. I fired my first gun and got my first gunshot wound."
Georges the GM: "And learned valuable lessons about dodge, wearing armor, and being in tactical communication."
[Billy has a different opinion from Joe.]
Billy Croyden: "I can't believe the kid wasn't wearing any armor."
Lukas: "We didn't have any in his size."
[Back with the more experienced members of the group, we have two mooks to question.]
Billy Croyden: "What's your interrogation technique?"
Lukas: "Ask them questions, threaten to kill them."
[Billy and Lukas decide to do good-cop/bad-cop.]
Billy Croyden: "I'll be the good cop."
Lukas: "Maybe I should be the good cop."
Billy Croyden: "...Maybe that'll be best."
[The first mook, a keffer whose name turns out to be Sasha, is uncooperative.]
Sasha: "I cannot help you."
Lukas: "I think you want to help me. Do you know what the Gallows Pool is?"
[Sasha tries to plead innocence.]
Sasha: "I no do crime."
Lukas: "You may be able to tell that to civil authorities in other cities, but this is Khayr ad-Din. Everyone's doing crime."
[Lukas sets up Sasha for Billy's bad-cop part of the duo.]
Lukas: "There are some people in the other room. Their methods are more... invasive."
[Billy comes in and places a white-sand round on top of Sasha's arm, so that the white sand starts to eat into his flesh.]
Billy Croyden: "Don't be distracted by the smell. It's just your skin burning."
[Sasha becomes more cooperative, but sadly no more knowledgeable.]
Sasha: "Other guys knows more."
Lukas: "What other guy?"
Sasha: "...Other guy you have!"
[It turns out that we haven't killed all of Virgil's guys. A keffer named Captain Frobisher left with four guys and some makeshift claymore mines.]
Billy Croyden: "Five motivated guys with explosives, that's all it takes to do some damage."
Lukas: (deadpan) "Tell me about it."
[It seems the way Virgil found us after the train job was by asking around about small-group teams that could do the sort of thing we did. The list isn't terribly long.]
Brock: "You know what sucks about being good at what we do? Being famous."
[Virgil's team on the train was hired by Kinross, the head Kolson guy in Port Arthur. But Kinross didn't hire people himself, he left that to an information broker from Swanscombe. A guy who matches the description of Jimmy Croyden pretty well, actually.]
Brock: "Jimmy's either got completely different ethics from me... or exactly the same ethics."
[Lukas tries to talk Billy into convincing Jimmy to take the money from the Borodin Package and stop pursuing the Quicksilver.]
Lukas: "Do you want Chambers to be your friend and have a quarter-million dinar, or an enemy and have maybe nothing?"
So that's it for now. Next week, further scheming and plotting, and maybe (just maybe) some healing. And buying Mads some armor, because he definitely needs it.
Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game
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