Wordslingin'

The trial of the century! Or, at the very least, of the cycle. Old actions come back to haunt us, with perhaps fewer consequences than we might have expected.

[Georges the GM starts off the session.]
Georges the GM: “You guys have…”
Brock: “Escaped from jail! Yay!”

[We have our first breakfast in a Humanist jail.]
Zac: “Gourmet coffee! Ahhh…”
Brock: “In an edible cup. That’s the breakfast part. They’re efficient in the Humanist Alliance.”
Georges the GM: “Drink quickly before it dissolves.”

[We are brought to the courtroom. Georges the GM has a bit of difficulty describing the décor.]
Zac: “Like an understated ‘60s living room…”

[There are no lawyers per se. The case is being presented by Detective Gorash, and we will be defending ourselves.]
Brock: “Do we have access to the facts of the case?”
Georges the GM: “It’s assumed you have all the facts, being the perpetrators of the crime.”

[Detective Gorash reads out a long list of charges.]
Brock: “Thankfully murder isn’t on the list.”
Zac: (sarcasticly) “Gee, aren’t we lucky.”

[The Honorable Batanel Dakany is presiding over the court.]
Batanel Dakany: “Do you understand the nature of this proceeding?”
Brock: “Do I see any value in saying no?”

[Detective Gorash calls Torgath to the stand as the first Potential Deviant Personality to be questioned.]
Ariel: “What am I told specifically not to say?”
Brock: “Anything.”

[We start simply. Sorta.]
Detective Gorash: “For the purposes of identification, would you please tell me when you were born.”
Toragath: “…I don’t remember?”
Detective Gorash: “Well, very few people remember the time of their birth. But surely someone has told you when it happened.”

[Torgath is questioned by Detective Gorash.]
Ariel: “I don’t have any theatrics.”
Brock: “No time like the present – when failing could get you the mind probes.”

[Gorash has put together that Torgath was in the Alliance before our ‘official’ entry date, under his Badlands alias.]
Georges the GM: “I’m using your aliases interchangeably, as you guys have.”
Brock: “Plus, I must remind you that ‘Doc Grim’ isn’t your real name.”
Ariel: “Wait, what?”

[Torgath uses his usual ‘talk in book anecdotes until his questioner is confused’ tactic on Detective Gorash.]
Zac: “I think of all of us, Torgath would most benefit from the treatment for deviancy.”

[Detective Gorash has found evidence of more than just our TDI job.]
Detective Gorash: “Ms. St. Clair claims you threatened serious bodily harm with a knife.”
Torgath: “That sounds really mean!”

[More of Torgath’s usual conversational techniques.]
Detective Gorash: “So, just to be clear, you deny all of this—“
Torgath: “I did?”
Detective Gorash: “—and your only defense is you have an evil twin.”

[Next up: Fennec.]
Detective Gorash: “You met the rest of the PDPs in Oxford two seasons ago?”
Fennec: “Yeah, that seems right.”
Detective Gorash: “Really? Because according to my records, you only entered the Alliance on 27 Winter.”

[We remind the players of some useful facts.]
Zac: “How did I enter?”
Brock: “Illegally.”
Zac: “In that case, let me backpedal…”

[Detective Gorash tries to poke holes in our story.]
Detective Gorash: “You’ve truly developed a wonderful facility with Intralingua in the six weeks you’ve been here.”

[More of the same.]
Detective Gorash: “Typically they hire a fourth member with technical skills.”
Lukas: “Unsubstantiated.”
Detective Gorash: “Sorry, Your Honor. I was talking to myself.”

[Fennec defends her role on the team.]
Fennec: “Anyone will tell you Marybeth Kolbec knows how to fix machines.”
Torgath: “Marybeth Kolbec knows how to fix machines!”

[Detective Gorash pulls up footage of the TDI job.]
Detective Gorash: “In this frame, you disappear behind Mr. Jax.”
Fennec: “Well, that’s because he’s always in the way!”

[Detective Gorash also shows footage from the story that Zac and I co-wrote back in September.]
Detective Gorash: “It’s dark, but the voice recognition patterns match yours, and I think you’ll find this red hair is quite distinctive.”
Zac: (to Julie) “This was your idea!”

[Fennec tries to weasel her way out of the footage just played.]
Fennec: “Ain’t train tunnels public spaces?”
Detective Gorash: “Perhaps you can see the signs here, ‘Authorized access only. No biological entities.’”

[Fennec and Torgath are getting increasingly upset – real or feigned – at Detective Gorash referring to our ‘deivancy.’]
Batanel Dakany: “In order to assuage your delicate Badlands sensibilities, please replace ‘deviancy’ in your mind with ‘crime.’”
Fennec: “Well, that makes a lot more sense than ‘lizardfucker’!”

[Fennec steps down from the witness box.]
Ariel: “If they know everything we did, why don’t they just execute us?”
Julie: “That is the question.”

[Next up: Lyta. Detective Gorash opens with a shot of her doing kuritra/B’ti running through Oxford.]
Detective Gorash: “I have to admit I’m a bit of a fan.”
Zac: “It’s all up-skirt shots of you climbing.”

[Detective Gorash tries to show that trouble follows us everywhere.]
Detective Gorash: “The average number of calls for the VDSS in Oxford is 1.5 per cycle. In the season that you were there, there were three calls for them.”
Lyta: “Wow, we chose the wrong time to visit Oxford!”

[Detective Gorash notes that Theresa Vendar has accused us of being the ones who kidnapped her.]
Lukas: “It seems like she has an incentive to…”
Batanel Dakany: “To be better? Of course.”
Lukas: “To find an answer to please the POP.”

[Detective Gorash has evidence that Lyta entered the Alliance as a child using her real name. Lukas tries to explain that she has officially changed her name in the intervening cycles.]
Batanel Dakany: “Very well. Simply provide the official documents that register her name change, and they will be duly entered.”
Brock: “I give the name of a Badlands town I know was destroyed during the war.”

[Next up: Lukas.]
Detective Gorash: “On 36 Spring, a ‘be on the lookout’ was issued for someone roughly matching your description.”
Lukas: “Tall, well-dressed, devilishly good-looking?”

[Lukas is better at this game than the rest of us.]
Detective Gorash: “What do you know about WestEx?”
Lukas: “It has six letters in it? Starts with W, ends with X?”

[The PCs react to the footage that Detective Gorash has been showing.]
Ariel: “75% of the footage is us fighting terrorists.”
Zac: “Doing their job for them!”

[More of the same.]
Zac: “Technically superheroes are deviants.”

[Lukas is good at shifting blame.]
Detective Gorash: “Remember, this is your last chance to change your story.”
Lukas: “Really, Detective? I thought this was your last chance to string together a coherent narrative.”

[Lukas tries to weasel out of the ‘false ID’ charge.]
Lukas: “There’s nothing at Border Patrol that says you need to report if you entered the country previously under a different name.”
Batanel Dakany: *boggles*

[Last line of defense…]
Lukas: “Your Honor, the facts that I stipulated to…”
Batanel Dakany: “That you eventually stipulated to.”

[We are escorted from the courtroom. Instead of being taken back to our cells, we are brought to a subbasement and left alone.]
Georges the GM: “The guards leave. The door shuts behind them.”
Brock: “Wait for it…”

[We find ourselves in a room with Radsley, Miranada Winters, and a woman we have never met before but whom the players can assume from the blog is Lorelei Nanda .]
Fennec: (to Radsley) “D’ja have your hearing?”
Okran Radsley: “Well…”
Lukas: “Let me guess: ‘exceptional circumstances’?”

[We realize we never got Nanda’s name.]
Lukas: “So… who are you?”
Lorelei Nanda: “I am the person who can do you favors. Or do you harm.”

[Nanda reveals that it was Mentor, the central computer system in Oxford, that put out the BOLO on us.]
Zac: “This is the mole that got us arrested, not the one that nearly got us killed. Keep ‘em straight.”

[Nanda reveals that we have two choices: go back to our sentencing, or work for her.]
Fennec: “Well, getting out of this one is gonna look real good on our CV.”

[Lorelei Nanda passes out pictures of people we care about.]
Lukas: “So that’s the stick. Let’s talk carrot. Incentivize me to come back.”

[We talk about the job.]
Lukas: “We do this, you facilitate…”
Lorelei Nanda: “I allow you to continue your lucrative enterprise with Mr. Radsley.”

[Nanda has arranged for us to get out of the Alliance and back to the Badlands.]
Lorelei Nanda: “The vehicle should be able to get out past the Emirati border.”
Lukas: *shudders*

[The session wraps up.]
Brock: “Who the fuck is she?”
Zac: “You really wanna shoot her in the face, don’t you?”





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game