Friday, April 12, 2013

Wordslingin'

So close, and yet so far! Instead of wining and dining at the gala fundraiser like we'd hoped, this week saw Our Heroes (tm) crawling through underground tunnels to meet with an excessively dangerous arms dealer. Because that's way more exciting than benefit dinner speeches, right?


[Just when everything seemed to be going so smoothly...]
Georges the GM: "You receive a message from Bill Pearce that the NGIS agent has escaped."
Brock: "Well, there goes that other plan out the window."

[Bill reiterates that he didn't actually learn that much from Dawn before she escaped anyway.]
Bill Pearce: "If you get her back, we can talk."
Lukas: "You gonna have a better place to hold her?"
Bill Pearce: "I'll certainly be more careful."

[Lukas has to break the news to Torgath.]
Lukas: "She's loose. Do you know how to get in touch with her?"
Torgath: (unconvincingly) "...No."

[Torgath reluctantly stops his stakeout.]
Ariel: "I take another half-hour and then come back."
Julie: "Nothing happens, because it's the wrong building."
Ariel: (sarcastically) "Yeah, I appreciate you telling me that."
Brock: "Just like we appreciate you jumping out the window during siesta."

[Meanwhile, Mads is having a heart-to-heart with his au pair, Consuela.]
Consuela: "What do you know about your friends, Mr. Magnus?"
Mads: "Apparently not enough."
Consuela: "This is true."

[Consuela has found out some stuff about us at the Hammer.]
Consuela: "They have done robberies, they have done personal security, they have done jobs that are high profile but that people talk about in hushed tones."
Julie: "See, they did tell her we're badass!"

[Mads is still learning the depths of how much he did not know about Consuela.]
Mads: "How did you find out about this?"
Consuela: "I have friends. I was not always your au pair."
Brock: "Before that, she was a nun. Her source is God."

[Mads is not as concerned about us as Consuela is.]
Mads: "They worst they can do is..."
Consuela: "Kill you? Throw you in a vat of acid? After they take advantage of you?"

[Consuela cares about her charge. Perhaps too much.]
Consuela: "If you disappear, I will have them killed. They are known."
Mads: "That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me."
Consuela: "...Drink your juice."

[Meanwhile, it's the day of the fundraiser gala.]
Lukas: "Wake up, sleepyhead! We need to get you clothes!"
Torgath: "Don't I already have clothes?"
Lukas: "New clothes! More clothes!"

[Lyta, meanwhile, is trying to follow up on her whole 'look sexy' plan. Which does not mesh with the fact that we have a morning meeting with an arms dealer.]
Ariel: "The fact that you're turning down an opportunity to possibly punch people in order to get your hair cut says a lot."

[The problem with wearing an evening gown is that you really can't wear flak underneath it. Unless it's a flak bustier you're having shipped in from Prince Gable. Expensive but worth it.]
Lukas: "See? Money. It's good to have it."

[We work out the stat details of Lyta's flak bustier.]
Georges the GM: "Light flak is 15 armor, but this is only a bustier, so 10."
Julie: "Ten is better than zero."

[Lukas and Torgath also get suited up.]
Georges the GM: "What color is your old-timey suit?"
Ariel: "Brown."
Georges the GM: "So, informal? This is a black-tie affair."
Brock: "But black tie in the future might be brown."

[Our breakfast meeting is with a woman named Evenlyn Hammel at the Continental Hotel.]
Brock: "Wait a second. 'Continental'? That makes no sense on Terra Nova."
Georges the GM: "It's a whimsical name. You're right -- it makes no sense on a planet with no continents."

[We get our first glimpse of Evelyn Hammel.]
Georges the GM: "When you walk in, she's working on a bowl of cawfee."
Julie: "Lyta likes her already."

[Hammel has something of a movie starlet, Broadway air about her.]
Lukas: "Well, we have been put in touch with you, Ms. Hammel, because--"
Evelyn Hammel: "Because I'm fabulous and I can get everybody everything they need. I know. Cut to the chase."

[Negotiations begin.]
Lukas: "I work for an art collector. He's looking for cluster bombs. We need at least a dozen."
Evelyn Hammel: "Setting up a whole exhibit, then?"
Lukas: "You might say he wants to make a statement."

[Evelyn Hammel notices that Lukas is doing most of the talking.]
Evelyn Hammel: "Your compatriots haven't said much. If this is an intimidation..."
Torgath: "I don't do very much talking. I... I read, though. Lots of books. They're really interesting."
Evelyn Hammel: "Maybe you should go back to the strong, silent type. Suits you much better."
Lyta: "..."
Evenlyn Hammel: "Quite right, dahling."

[Evelyn Hammel admits that she cannot provide cluster bombs, but suggests she can put us in touch with someone who can for a somewhat exorbitant introduction fee. Lukas, who doesn't feel like bankrolling it himself, calls Bill Pearce.]
Lukas: "She's asking for an introduction fee of 10-15 thousand."
Bill Pearce: "That's quite an introduction fee."
Lukas: "Well, we are asking her to sell us cluster bombs."

[While Lukas calls Bill, Evelyn spends a bit of time with Torgath and Lyta.]
Evelyn Hammel: "Oh, I don't read. Life's far too short to read other people's stories. I prefer to make my own."
Torgath: "Oh! Is it good? Can I read it?"
Evelyn Hammel: "...My life's fabulous, dahling."

[After some negotiation, Evelyn Hammel gives us the name of the arms dealer, Tumit Gustafson. Bill Pearce is interested in bankrolling the introduction.]
Lukas: "Mr. Gustafson's reputation has piqued my employer's interest."
Evelyn Hammel: "I should expect so! He's an absolute agent of chaos!"

[Torgath tries to determine if Hammel is sending us to our deaths.]
Ariel: "No threat or danger in her voice as far as I can tell?"
Georges the GM: "Well, no threat or danger to her."

[Lukas finds out more information on Gustafson from Bill Pearce.]
Bill Pearce: "He's... Well, I don't mean to be dramatic, but I think the word qualifies... He's infamous."

[We prepare for our meeting with Gustafson, deep in the smugglers' catacombs beneath the city.]
Lyta: "I don't like this."
Lukas: "What's not to like? The fact that we're going in blind, deep underground, to meet a guy with no known affiliations but who may be in league with our enemies?"
Lyta: "Yeah, pretty much all of that."
Torgath: "It sounds exciting!"

[Meanwhile, Mads is working on the drones that will allow him to remotely come with us on missions.]
Consuela: "Mr. Magnus, where did you get these remote-operated drones?"
Mads: "From my friends."
Consuela: "And what do you intend to do with these drones?"
Mads: "I'm not going to tell you yet."

[Consuela examines the drones.]
Consuela: "I strongly recommend you put in an override and maybe a script to recognize your control. And you should include an auto-destruct feature and a tracking beacon, in case someone should attempt to steal it."
Julie: "I like her. Why isn't she working for us?"
Brock: "She is. She just doesn't know it yet."

[We descend into the tunnels of the smugglers' catacombs.]
Lyta: "We're gonna be alone down there, and we don't know how many people he's bringing. What if he wants to kill us?"
Lukas: "No one kills buyers."
Lyta: "Unless they suspect we're not really buyers."
Lukas: "Of course we are. Haven't you always wanted a cluster bomb?"

[We finally reach the appointed meeting spot, an abandoned hotel basement with narrow tunnels leading off it.]
Lyta: "I don't like this. If they block off the tunnel behind us, I don't know how to get out."
Lukas: "We'd die."
Lyta: "I'd like to avoid that."

[As we're waiting for Gustafson, we encounter a half-dozen feral dawgs and about a dozen only-slightly-less-feral people. We take cover amidst some ceiling pipes.]
Ariel: "I start ventilating them."
Brock: "They have axes. What are you doing?"

[Torgath starts shooting the tunnel rats.]
Brock: "I just said this might be a test, and you're going to shoot and murder with guns people with sticks who have literally done nothing to you but run at you. That's your natural reaction here?"
Ariel: "Of all the questionable things we've done, I don't think this is the worst."

[More of the same.]
Brock: "You need to make a distinction between books and the real world."
Ariel: "That would be the first time he's done that."

[Lyta tries to regain control of the situation.]
Lyta: "I guess it's too late to say we don't want to hurt them?"

[Torgath kills two and injures another before the rest flee.]
Lyta: "You just shot people in cold blood who did nothing to you!"
Joe: "And in cold blood, Torgath does not care."

[After the tunnel rats leave, Lukas tries to call Torgath to account.]
Lukas: "You wanna explain that, doc?"
Torgath: "What?"
Lukas: "The part where you opened fire on unarmed refugees?"

[Torgath tries to draw the equivalence to other things we've done.]
Torgath: "We caused the deaths of several hundred people in tunnels underground."
Lukas: "They were convicted, hardened criminals!"

[As we're arguing with Torgath, the true subject of our meeting approaches.]
Georges the GM: "You hear the sound of someone approaching down the tunnel."
Ariel: "I put my gun away."
Lukas: "Oh, now you put the gun away."

[Lukas starts negotiating with Gustafson.]
Tumit Gustafson: "What is your time frame for delivery?"
Lukas: "Sooner is better than later."
Tumit Gustafson: "Typically. But I deal in specifics."

[There's a lot of talking about specifics, including some massive bombs designed for sub-orbital deployment. Sadly, we still don't know anything about the Death Watch.]
Georges the GM: "So far, things are going swimmingly if you want to buy weapons of mass destruction, but that's not what you're after."

[Lukas realizes we're not getting anywhere in relation to our primary mission. After a little encouragement, he finally reveals that we're looking for information.]
Tumit Gustafson: "I can provide this for you, Mr. Quinn. In exchange, you will owe me a favor."
Lukas: "Favor is a very nebulous term. What sort of favor?"
Tumit Gustafson: "At a time of my choosing, I will call upon you to do a task of my choosing."
Lukas: "I'm not sure that narrows it down."

[Lukas tries to ensure that Gustafson won't have us commit acts of mass destruction.]
Tumit Gustafson: "I only have your reputation to go on. Including your most recent testimonial." *looks pointedly at dead tunnel rats* "I think I have a good idea of what you will and will not do."
Lukas: (to Torgath) "Good one, jackass."

[We conclude our negotiation with Gustafson without getting shot. We find out that the Death Watch squad are working as members of AGN Construction, which is obviously useful information to someone like Bill Pearce.]
Lukas: "You busy?"
Bill Pearce: "Well..."
Lukas: "Let me put it this way: you're not busy."

[We prepare to meet Bill Pearce and thence to attack the Death Watch squad. And it's always nice to have a fourth member.]
Luaks: (to Mads) "Bring your flying suit. And your guns. And my drones. And schematics."
Lyta: "And Consuela."

[We meet with Bill Pearce to let him know what happened at the meeting.]
Lukas: "First off, it was extraordinarily expensive. On the plus side, I got you a fuel-air high-energy concussive bomb."
Bill Pearce: "...Always nice to have one of those."

[As we leave the meeting with Bill and prepare to raid the Death Watch squad, whose office is conveniently across the street, there's an explosion in the distance.]
Mads: "What the hell is that?!"
Lukas: "Why don't you get on the Internet and find out?"
Julie: "I'm looking around. With my eyes."

[Bill asks us to wait on raiding the Death Watch until we find out what the explosion was.]
Lukas: "You want us to wait? Why?"
Bill Pearce: "Do you know what's going on?"
Lukas: "Does it matter?"

[We raid the AGN Construction office across the street.]
Georges the GM: "Beautiful deployment. No one's there."

[We reflect on why the Death Watch might no longer be where we expect them.]
Lyta: "You think Gustafson tipped them off?"
Lukas: "Good question. He didn't say he wouldn't."

[Turns out that the explosion was on the superconductors of the gamma maglev and may have exploded prematurely. There were six bodies found, at least two of them with CEF tattoos.]
Lukas: "It sure would be nice if this problem solved itself."

[It is now squarely in siesta, and there's still plenty to do.]
Bill Pearce: "Some people may need to get some rack time, but today may not be the day for it."

[The AGN Construction office was right near where Dawn tried to escape when the Kolsons were chasing her. How very convenient.]
Lukas: (pointedly to Bill Pearce) "You know what would be really handy? If we had the NGIS agent in custody somewhere. If we'd handed her over to someone for safekeeping so we could question her. That'd be great."


That's it for now. Next time: the fundraiser! For real! And maybe all our deaths! Huzzah!



Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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