Friday, March 8, 2013

Wordslingin'

Talk, talk, talk, that's all we do. Oh, and argue. And, very occasionally, investigate a woman who may be trying to kill us or may be trying to hire us. It's a toss-up, really.

[Lukas and Torgath come back around to the topic of why Torgath has been in contact with Dawn.]
Ariel: "I told you all sorts of stuff."
Brock: "Why don't you remind me of what you think you told me?"

[Ah, Dawn, woman of many pseudonyms. It's hard to keep track sometimes.]
Torgath: "Someone who looks a lot like Dawn but isn't Dawn wants to meet us tomorrow."

[Lukas grills Torgath about Dawn.]
Lukas: "Is there anything else you're not telling us?"
Torgath: "I don't remember. Probably?"

[Torgath is not helping his case.]
Lukas: "We've been very careful about people who try to shoot at us."
Torgath: "In fairness, she didn't try to shoot us, she succeeded in shooting us."

[Afterwards, Lyta has her own confession to make to Lukas: that she's been in contact with Alain Vulpei, who wants to meet with her a few days hence.]
Lyta: "I don't think he should come to Khayr ad-Din with Dawn in town."
Lukas: "Maybe the problem will solve itself?"

[Poor Lukas: his siblings are betraying him left and right.]
Lukas: "Todd is entertaining illicit relations with a Northern agent and you with a Southern one."
Lyta: "Yeah, but Vulpei didn't try to shoot you."
Lukas: "He would have, if he'd had a gun."

[Poor Lyta, no one takes her seriously.]
Lyta: "He says he fell in love."
Lukas: "With you?"
Lyta: "Yeah."
Ariel: "Don't sound so surprised."

[Lukas tries to impress the appropriate level of caution and paranoia on Lyta. It doesn't work quite as well as he's hoped.]
Lukas: "Loving people like him..."
Lyta: "Out of curiosity, what other kind of people do we meet in the troubleshooter, assault, mercenary business?!"

[Lukas just wants Lyta to be happy. Within certain confines.]
Lukas: "Why can't you make normal friends?"
Lyta: "Like your friends?"
Lukas: "I don't have friends. I have contacts."

[Lukas expands upon his main point.]
Lukas: "Why am I explaining this to you? This is what I do! You are not developing contacts, you're infatuated with enemy agents!"

[We get to the crux of the matter.]
Lukas: "He's a Southerner. Southerners are the bad guys in the trideos."
Lyta: "They're also the passionate lovers!"
Lukas: "Is that what you want?"
Lyta: "..."

[Lukas tries to mollify his sister. It doesn't work as well as he'd hoped.]
Lukas: "Lyta, I know it's hard. And lonely."
Lyta: "Do you? 'Cause you don't seem to be that lonely."

[The accusatory conversations done for the moment, Lukas and Lyta hand off their CEF prisoner Sasha to the Spider's men. It goes off, surprisingly, without a hitch.]
Julie: "That went well. We didn't get shot."
Georges the GM: "That didn't go at all the way I planned."

[Lukas goes out on a date with Karin Hassan, who is naturally worried about him.]
Karin Hassan: "You've been keeping away from detonations?"
Lukas: "Nope, no detonations."
Georges the GM: "Which is a lie -- there were two grenades that went off just this morning."
Brock: "Those don't count."

[Ah, young lovers. What could they talk about?]
Julie: "The corpse was dropped off today, just before siesta."
Georges the GM: "...So, that's a topic of conversation."

[Karin brings up the topic of Virgil's corpse, which Lukas dropped off earlier that day.]
Karin: "Usually the weird conversations don't involve me. Today's weird conversation involved me. Because it involved you."
Julie: (to Brock) "And now things that involve you, involve her. Look what you're doing to the poor girl."

[Karin's trying to make sure that Lukas is staying out of trouble. Which, of course, he isn't.]
Karin Hassan: "And the biological entity wasn't a threat before it...?"
Lukas: "No. Not in the biological threat sense."
Karin Hassan: "But what about the sense of being a threatening biological entity?"

[Karin and Lukas decide where to eat dinner.]
Karin Hassan: "Are you feeling apologetic? I don't see flowers, but are you planning on spending a lot on me?"

[Lukas tries to explain to Karin that his life isn't nearly as hazardous as she thinks.]
Lukas: "I have to say, I have been to a few places in the Badlands where I haven't had any confrontations at all."
Karin Hassan: "Like what?"
Ariel: "Do you tell her about the place where Pinky got in a fist-fight with an ostrich?"

[Lukas does, indeed, tell the story about Pinky and the ostrich.]
Lukas: "I did not start that fight. I blame it entirely on the ostrich."
Karin Hassan: "I thought you were telling me about places where you didn't get into fights."
Lukas: "...I wasn't involved. I was a bystander."

[Karin, meanwhile, tells Lukas about her childhood on Caravan Alpha, i.e. the plot of the old game and our old characters. Whom we have had someone different encounters with in this campaign.]
Georges the GM: "It's weird to hear about Kain in the light of a 14-year-old girl who saw him as a father-figure, when you only know him as the embodiment of Nicosa Renault's awesome, dark, masterful power... as Batman."

[To impress the girl, Lukas shows Karin our Jaguar Gears.]
Karin Hassan: (impressed) "Jaguars! Wow, this must have cost you a... Did it cost you anything?"
Lukas: "...There was a significant amount of effort involved."

[Lukas and Karin spend the rest of the night racing Gears.]
Ariel: "So you spend your nights with Minnie naked, but your nights with Karin not only clothed but in Gears?"
Julie: "Karin probably got more out of it than Minnie."

[Meanwhile, Lyta is at the Lucky Shot casino, where she is introduced to Solitaire, aka Antoni Mor, who is absolutely no longer associated with the Desert Wolves.]
Georges the GM: "Solitaire. He's a wolf pack of one."

[The introduction was made by Miss Julie, who now goes off to be hostess to other casino patrons.]
Ariel: "She's not gonna introduce Lyta to anyone else?"
Julie: "Lyta just got tickets to watch the duels with Antoni Mor's pit crew. What more do you want?!"

[Meanwhile, Torgath exchanges poetry with Billy Croyden.]
Georges the GM: "It's an excerpt from 'A Season in Hell.'"
Brock: "Only a season? Wuss."

[Lukas has some late-night drinks with Jimmy Croyden.]
Lukas: (immediately upon meeting) "You're a right bastard."
Jimmy Croyden: "Hello to you too."

[Lukas tries to convince Jimmy to get out while the getting is good. Jimmy turns our own taglines against us.]
Lukas: "I suggested to Billy that you cut your losses and get out while you can."
Jimmy Croyden: "Thus far, I have no losses."
Lukas: "Yet."
Jimmy Croyden: "Why would I get out? I'm winning!"

[Lukas fills Jimmy in on a few of the pertinent events of the day.]
Lukas: "Mads is down."
Jimmy Croyden: "But not out? It's hard to find people so terribly qualified and so terribly cheap."

[Lukas needles Jimmy on the knowledge we got from Sasha, i.e. that Jimmy was probably helping to recruit people for the terrorist team on the train job.]
Lukas: "You didn't sell that information to anyone in Port Arthur?"
Jimmy Croyden: "I didn't sell it to anyone in Port Arthur."
Georges the GM: "You think he's telling the truth."
Julie: "'Cause he rolled boxcars and you didn't."

[The next day, Our Heroes (tm) prepare to meet Dawn.]
Lyta: "Is this gonna go horribly wrong?"
Torgath: "Of course not! It'll be fine!"
Lyta: "..."

[Dawn is escorted in by Karin Hassan, who reminds us of the casino's code of conduct, then leaves.]
Dawn: "I told Chambers' people that I was dealing with difficult contractors and I feared for my safety."
Lukas: "Wise."
Dawn: "And I wanted to ensure there were local security on hand to..."
Lukas: "To detain us after you're dead?"

[Dawn of the many names explains that she's working for the NGIS, in collaboration with SRID, to root out collaborators, whom it seems very likely we're involved with. Lukas is still not giving anything away.]
Dawn: "Clearly I'm not going to appeal to your sense of patriotism."
Lukas: "No."

[Torgath lets slip several pieces of moderately important information in the course of talking with Dawn. Lukas forbids him from talking to her anymore.]
Dawn: "You can make him stop talking to me, but I don't think there is a way you can make me stop talking to him."
Lukas: (evenly) "There is one way."
Dawn: "I think it is a bad idea to threaten me."
Lukas: "No, if I was gonna threaten you, I'd say, 'If you keep talking to the Doc, I'll shoot you.'"
Dawn: "Thank goodness it hasn't come to that."

[Dawn has figured out that we were the other team on the train, though she thinks we were a backup team working for Tatsugoro.]
Dawn: (to Lyta) "Very impressive. I wish I had a parachute."
Julie: "Lyta would be more annoyed if she hadn't already assumed Dawn knew."

[The topic of conversation comes around to Mr. Smith, whom we are also known to have dealt with.]
Torgath: "Oh, he's not our friend. He tried to kill us a couple of times."
Dawn: "Oh, did he?"
Torgath: "Should I not have said that?"
Lukas: "...Just stop talking."

[Dawn has a file on us and our known associates.]
Torgath: "I don't think talking to a bunch of mean people means you're associated with them."

[Dawn wants to hire us to find out what was in the package on the train and why it's so valuable. Lukas is unconvinced that we can work with her.]
Torgath: "I think if you have the same enemy, you can work with someone, and it'll all work out."
Lukas: "I don't care what you think."

[Torgath storms out and Lyta follows him, leaving Lukas alone at the table in the Lucky Shot.]
Georges the GM: "What are you gonna do?"
Brock: "Pay the fuckin' bill, I guess."
Georges the GM: "And then?"
Brock: "Sit around and be frustrated."

[Outside, Lyta catches sight of some people who are probably going to try to kill Dawn. Torgath hasn't noticed yet.]
Julie: "See, the thing is that Lyta has no problem with watching her die."

[Torgath doesn't notice the men following Dawn into an alley, but he does see Lyta looking intently in that direction. He decides to go check it out.]
Torgath: "This could be a great secret mission!"
Lyta: "You had a secret mission yesterday! How many secret missions do you need?!"

[As Torgath goes off to investigate the suspicious-looking men, Lyta and Lukas have a quick tête-à-tête to discuss what's going on and what they're going to do about it.]
Lukas: "You would like her to die."
Lyta: "Well, yes."
Lukas: "I would also kind of like her to die, because it would solve my problems."
Georges the GM: "Though it wouldn't be as elegant as having Vulpei and Dawn go at each other."

[By the time Torgath arrives to investigate, Dawn has slipped into a building, so he still doesn't know who the men are chasing. Lyta and Lukas discuss the possibility of just leaving and never telling Torgath what happened.]
Ariel: "Lyta's bad at lying."
Julie: "Yeah, but Torgath's even worse at detecting lies."

[While Lyta and Lukas were talking, Torgath got a call from Karin Hassan. So when the siblings reconvene...]
Torgath: "She said about not mixing business and pleasure."
Lukas: "Who said?"
Torgath: "Karin."
Lukas: "Don't talk to Karin."
Torgath: "Can I talk to anyone?"
Lukas: "No."


And that's it for this week. Next week, we witness some men try to kill Dawn, and may or may not interfere. After that, the grand fundraiser gala! In which things will almost certainly go horribly wrong! Huzzah!





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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