Wordslingin'

Back on track! In yesterday's game, we rediscovered the trail to Krak Bhakir... only to find out that, unsurprisingly, this rabbit hole is deeper than we'd initially suspected.


[Georges the GM picks up from where we left off last time.]
Georges the GM: (to Ariel) "You were knocked out, but gently. Not enough to impede your healing."
Brock: "Not permanently."

[We go down for breakfast at our B&B.]
Georges the GM: "It's an excellent spread. Fresh-squeezed juice, piping hot lemon scones with preserves, a salad of just-picked fruit, granola pancakes that are both fluffy and crunchy..."
Ariel: "Wow, that sounds like a really good breakfast."
Julie: "We should totally stay there, if it wasn't 4,000 years in the future."

[Unexpectedly joining us for breakfast is Benelice, Riley Markus' associate.]
Benelice: "Why are you looking for Bhakir?"
Lukas: "Because we don't know where he is."

[Benelice is unwilling to help us until she knows where we stand.]
Benelice: "Is he an enemy or an ally?"
Lukas: "He's a person of interest."
Benelice: "That wasn't one of the two options."
Torgath: "Hypothetically, which of the two options would lead to you helping us?"

[Belelice leaves until such a time as she knows where we stand with regards to Bhakir. Torgath, unsurprisingly, follows her. And, unsurprisingly, he is found out.]
Ariel: "That's a 4 on my sneak, unless I'm silently killing her."
Julie: "Please don't -- she's our only lead."

[Torgath wants to know Benelice's association with Bhakir, so he asks her outright.]
Benelice: "You are not 'finding out,' you are asking."
Torgath: "That's the fastest way to find out."
Benelice: "Then you are wise."
Torgath: "Thank you."
Benelice: "But not very smart."

[Benelice takes her leave of Torgath.]
Benelice: "Do you wish to follow me?"
Torgath: "Yes. Can I?"
Benelice: "Certainly. Would you like me to tell you where I'm going?"
Torgath: "That would certainly make following you easier."

[The results of Torgath's conversation with Benelice.]
Georges the GM: "Lukas gets a text message three minutes after Torgath walks out the door."
Brock: "At least he's not unconscious."

[Benelice has set herself up in the Gropius' caravansary. We try to find an excuse to go visit her.]
Lukas: "What other supplies are we short on?"
Fennec: "That depends on what we're trying to do."

[More of the same.]
Lukas: "Based on what you know of our equipment, what do we need?"
Zac: "Have you shown me your equipment yet?"
Brock: "...No."

[Of course, the supply run is only a distraction.]
Zac: "But buying stuff isn't the main reason he's sending me to the caravansary."
Brock: "In fact, it's close to the bottom."

[Lukas lays out his requirements for Fennec.]
Lukas: "I need a truck with a full monitoring suite, something we can use to track and follow Bhakir. I want it armor-plated in case we get into any trouble. And it has to not look like a tank when you're done. It has to look like an ordinary truck."
Fennec: "And you want it to fly, right?"
Georges the GM: "And run on banana peels."

[Further on the topic of the truck Lukas wants Fennec to construct.]
Fennec: "Well, what's our ETA on this?"
Lukas: "Obviously, I need you to do it today."
Fennec: "What's my budget?"
Lukas: "...We have some money."
Georges the GM: "Keep receipts."

[Georges the GM sums up Lukas' requirements.]
Georges the GM: "Huh. What he wants is like a news van. Too bad it's almost impossible to find those sorts of things here."

[Fennec is a little overwhelmed by Lukas' request.]
Lukas: "My expectation isn't that you'll delivery exactly this."
Fennec: "I gathered. I've seen how you roll."

[First order of business for the day: renew our tourist visas. The Lassander siblings all have real papers, albeit under assumed names. Fennec's, on the other hand, are forged.]
Julie: "Fennec's fake papers are still fake."
Zac: "I need to update these! Give me an evening in..."

[Next up: try to figure out how to get Benelice to give us information on Bhakir.]
Zac: "We don't know if Benelice is from here either?"
Brock: "We don't know anything about her."

[We arrive at the caravansary and do some preliminary scouting of Benelice. She seems to be working with a crew of about three longrunners, drawn from all over Terra Nova.]
Georges the GM: "They seem to be speaking..."
Brock: "Common?"
Georges the GM: "Yeah."

[Torgath makes initial contact with Benelice.]
Benelice: "I can understand why Riley likes you."
Torgath: "I thought he hated me."
Benelice: "You infuriate him, but he likes that."

[Torgath must decide how much to tell Benelice about our intentions towards Bhakir.]
Ariel: "I wouldn't mind telling her, but I'm under the pall of Lukas."

[Torgath decides to be his usual uninformative self.]
Ariel: "I've learned I can't lie, so I try not to say anything that means anything."

[Lukas puts in a call to Bill Pearce, just to see if he's found out anything that can help us.]
Bill Pearce: "You know, officially the Humanist Alliance doesn't webble people... yet."
Lukas: "Officially."

[Given that we've already had experience with someone webbled, Bill Pearce wants to know how we found out about Bhakir.]
Lukas: "Oh. We just stumbled onto this guy."
Bill Pearce: "You're right -- you can't take five steps without stumbling onto a global conspiracy."

[Meanwhile, Lyta and Fennec scout out Benelice's caravan.]
Zac: "I'm trying to hide in plain sight by being conspicuously annoying."

[We decide what angle we're going to play with Benelice, given that we still don't know how she's associated with Bhakir.]
Brock: "What we're looking for is information to determine how to profit for ourselves."
Julie: "Yeah, that sounds like us."

[Lukas plays the 'how we can best profit' angle. Benelice reveals that she has a deep hatred for Bhakir and will not help anyone who could potentially help him.]
Lukas: "So you would prefer to see him disadvantaged?"
Benelice: "If you're trying to negotiate with me, it will not work. I will not hire you to disadvantage him."
Lukas: "But I know someone who will hire me to disadvantage him."

[Benelice is not one to be a pushover.]
Benelice: "Perhaps you are used to dealing with... people like Riley."

[We rapidly try to backpedal so that Benelice will help us.]
Benelice: "I thought you were looking for the most profitable way to interact with Bhakir."
Fennec: "Well, you need to be alive to spend your profit."

[Brock makes the extremely reasonable point that we don't actually know that Benelice hates Bhakir, only that she's told us she does.]
Brock: "We don't know what she has behind the doors of her truck. For all we know, she has Bhakir in the back of her truck."

[As usual, Lukas has done most of the talking, though Torgath and Fennec have put in a few words.]
Benelice: (to Lyta) "Are you as bad a liar as he is?" *points to Torgath*
Lyta: "I'm a horrible liar."

[Lukas decides to give Benelice some information in good faith, i.e. that Bhakir was transporting humans into the Humanist Alliance.]
Lukas: "Who would be receiving a crate full of people?"
Benelice: "I'm not an expert on the Humanist Alliance, but..."

[Benelice, in turn, reveals that Bhakir is running an operation out of Pele, in southern Gropius.]
Lukas: "We will use that information wisely. Or recklessly. One of the two."

[The conversation starts to wind down.]
Benelice: "You are not a trustworthy man."
Lukas: "That's true."
Benelice: "But a man surrounded by people who can't lie must be trustworthy."

[Benelice has given us all the information she intends to.]
Benelice: "If I can help to do any harm to Bhakir, let me know."
Lukas: "What do you have in the way of small arms?"

[Lukas tries to rent some surveillance equipment from Benelice.]
Lukas: "You said a thousand dinar a day? That's your discount rate for enemies of your enemies?"

[Lukas haggles Benelice down to 800 dinar a day.]
Lukas: "You did say to ask if there was anything you could do to help."
Benelice: "You asked, I'm providing... at a cost."

[The haggling finally winds down.]
Brock: "I should add a haggling specialization in 'getting what I want.'"

[The deal is struck.]
Georges the GM: "So you guys have a fair amount of surveillance equipment."
Brock: "And a truck. Almost like I foretold this would happen."

[As we're taking our leave of Benelice...]
Georges the GM: "Anything else you want from Benelice? She told you where he is, she told you who he's working for..."
Fennec: "Know where we can get a van?"

[Lukas calls Okran Radsley, our employer, to update him on what we know.]
Okran Radsley: "Is this one of those 'I've got good news and I've got bad news' kind of calls?"
Lukas: "No, it's an 'I've got good news and expenses' call."
Okran Radsley: "So, 'I've got good news and bad news.'"

[Lukas asks Radsley to cover our expenses.]
Radsley: "How much do you need daily?"
Lukas: "Two grand."
Radsley: "Two grand?!"
Ariel: "Bald-faced lie?"
Brock: "No, if we have it, we'll spend it."

[Lukas asks Radsley for some further information based on things we've found out.]
Lukas: "We've heard tell that Bhakir works for a guy called 'The Comptroller.' And I figure anyone with a name like that is the sort of guy you would know."

[Radsley doesn't give Lukas much more information.]
Okran Radsley: "You're making friends really quick."
Lukas: "You're not making it any easier."
Okran Radsley: "I just gave you 10,000 dinar."

[Radsley reveals that he, too, would like to work for The Comptroller.]
Lukas: "So, just to be clear, you want to work for the guy Bhakir works for, moving webbled humans."

[Radsley only wants to be involved in smuggling, not webbled humans. We agree to keep working for him. So, the first step is to find Bhakir.]
Julie: "What is Pele known for?"
Georges the GM: "Crime!"

[We still don't have our uber-truck.]
Fennec: "You gave me this list..."
Lukas: "And what have you accomplished on this list?"
Fennec: "I had tea."

[We prepare to start surveillance on Bhakir.]
Zac: "I'll try to get our mobile command centre up to His Majesty's requirements."

[There's one small kink in the mobile command centre...]
Georges the GM: "Each of the 16 burroughs if foot-traffic only."
Zac: "I'm beginning to think this whole 'truck' plan was ill-conceived. Now, whose plan was that...?"

[Fennec still doesn't have the truck ready.]
Julie: "Zac, thank you. For once, Brock is berating someone who isn't me."
Zac: "I don't think he's berating me. I see someone trying desperately not to fall into his own quicksand."

[We make our way to Pele.]
Georges the GM: "Pele is as close to seedy as the Humanist Alliance gets."

[Pele is quite close to the MILICIA base, which means there are a lot of off-duty MILICIA-men involved in activities of dubious legality.]
Georges the GM: "If one had brass balls, one could certainly do business amidst all that."

[We contemplate some of the illicit activities going on in Pele.]
Georges the GM: "Yeah, if someone had a Hermes uplink, they could definitely run some sort of illicit betting den on underground Gear duelling."
Ariel: "Maybe we should get into that if no one else is!"

[We each take our individual beats.]
Brock: "I'll spend the evening working the strip clubs."
Ariel: "Ha! 'Working' the strip clubs..."

[Torgath, being injured, is back at the hotel doing research for us.]
Georges the GM: "It looks like Bhakir had been involved in some sort of lap-dance club that's since been shut down."
Ariel: "Anything they tell me about, I research."
Brock: "I'm pretty sure you're not allowed to google porn here."

[Torgath has his priorities.]
Torgath: "While you're in the red-light district, could you pick up a sexy nurse to go with my good nurse?"

[Fennec believes she may have sighted Bhakir for a brief moment.]
Ariel: "Do you need to take a picture?"
Zac: "I want to confirm it's him."
Ariel: "There's only one giant guy in a fez."

[Lukas is disappointed that Fennec lost her target.]
Lukas: "So let me get this straight: you had eyes-on the gigantic guy and you lost him?! If this wasn't just a replay of the time you had eyes-on the gigantic shipping crate and then lost that, I'd say that was impossible!"

[We're having a hard time keeping track of Bhakir.]
Ariel: "Here's the plan: we need to put a tracker in his fez."

[Fennec hears Bhakir speak for the first time.]
Zac: "He has a ridiculously squeaky voice?"
Julie: "He really does."

[Bhakir has left a bottle with a glass merchant in some sort of a dead drop.]
Lukas: "Fennec, do you think you could steal the bottle?"
Fennec: "..."
Lukas: "This is what you do!"
Fennec: "Well, not quite..."

[While Fennec is prevaricating, the issue becomes moot.]
Fennec: "So, the bad news is that somebody bought the bottle. The good news is I can ID that person."

[The woman who bought the bottle is Theresa Vendar, a socialite Benelice had mentioned in connection to Bhakir.]
Brock: "So we confirmed the link to the woman we already knew he had a link to."

[It turns out that Theresa Vendar will be hosting a party for the Olympic sponsors in about three days.]
Torgath: "Oh, another party..."
Fennec: "You guys go to a lot of parties?"
Lyta: "Yes, and they always end badly."

[If we're going to have a party...]
Lyta: "Time to pull out the flak corset!"
Fennec: "You have a flak corset?!"
Lyta: "That was the same reaction as the last person who found out I had a flak corset."

[We continue our investigation in Pele. It turns out that the next day, Theresa Vendar brings a different bottle back to the same glass merchant. Lukas tries to buy it. The shopkeeper does not want to sell it to him.]
Shopkeeper: "It hasn't been cleaned yet. I can't in good conscious sell that one."
Lukas: "Oh. Well, give it to me, then."

[Eventually Lukas buys another bottle instead of the bottle of interest.]
Lukas: "I want you to know that I'll give you a bad Yelp review."
Shopkeeper: "...As you should, citizen. I never should have put this out."

[Bhakir comes and buys the bottle. Lyta and Fennec follow him back to his speakeasy, where they see him bring it down into the cellar.]
Brock: "How sneaky are you?"
Zac: "Reasonably."
Brock: "That's not exceptionally."

[The plan is to have Fennec sneak into the cellar and steal the bottle while Lyta distracts the bartender.]
Brock: "You don't have to seduce him -- just take off your shirt. I guarantee that will not fail."

[In the end, we succeed in stealing the bottle, which we suspect has micro-etching along the bottom rim.]
Georges the GM: "Fennec tinkers together--"
Zac: "A light refractor?"


That's it for now! Next week, it's time to party! This can only mean one thing: disaster!




Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game