Friday, November 21, 2014

Wordslingin'

Back on Plot Train A. This week, we returned to everyone’s favorite GREL-infested hellhole, Port Arthur! You know what that means: life’s about to get interesting!

[Having given up on taking out Mark Kim, at least for the short term, we make new plans.]
Brock: “…Well, back to our alpha objective.”

[A few loose ends need to be tied up first.]
Ariel: “What did we do with the hostage?”
Georges the GM: “That’s what I want to know.”

[We take a moment to remember not-entirely-lost friends.]
Ariel: “Ti’s a mind-controlled zombie.”
Julie: “He was a mind-controlled zombie even before the Bear got to him.”
Brock: “He believes in the future!”

[We head over to Tashkent, where the Gamma Maglev has spur lines on one side to Port Arthur and on the other to Wounded Knee.]
Georges the GM: “The Wounded Knee spur is owned by a consortium… It’s owned by the mob.”
Julie: “Which one?”
Georges the GM: “All of them.”

[More on the Wounded Knee spur.]
Zac: “Is there any chance of being extorted?”
Georges the GM: “If you’re going to Wounded Knee, buying a ticket is tantamount to being extorted.”

[We arrive in Tashkent.]
Georges the GM: “The Shady Café lives up to its name in more ways than one.”

[Miranda Winters meets us. She is not alone.]
Georges the GM: “She’s accompanied by two umbrellamen.”
Brock: “Again?!”
Georges the GM: “Yeah.”
Brock: “We should whoop those guys, just to learn her.”

[Miranda Winters and her private security…]
Georges the GM: “One umbrellaman walks in and scans the place. His eyes do not rest on you.”
Brock: “That’s because he’s horrible at his job.”

[Miranda Winters joins us at our table.]
Miranda Winters: “Is there table service?”
Lukas: “I don’t think you want to eat here.”

[We do not eat. We do, on the other hand, drink.]
Georges the GM: “She orders a round for the table, and you can all suffer politely.”

[We catch Ms. Winters up on the status of the job so far.]
Miranda Winters: “No problems so far with the shipment?”
Lukas: “No shipment-related problems.”

[Back to our normal modus operandi: lying.]
Miranda Winters: “Have you operated in Port Arthur extensively?”
Lukas: “No.”

[Miranda Winters tells us that once we get to Port Arthur, we should contact an information broker who owns a bar in the GREL Quarter.]
Torgath: “Is it Minnie?”
Miranda Winters: “Yes.”
Ariel: “I don’t say that. If Torgath says anything, we’re in trouble.”

[We arrive in Port Arthur.]
Lyta: “We have to go through the GREL Quarter, don’t we?”
Torgath: “It’ll be fine.”
Lyta: “’Fun’ isn’t the word I’d use.”
Torgath: “I said ‘fine.’”
Lyta: “That’s also not the word I’d use.”

[More of the same.]
Georges the GM: “You remember Port Arthur is not an open-carry city.”
Brock: “Concealed-carry it is.”

[Lukas gives Fennec some helpful advice on dealing with GRELs.]
Lukas: “You can’t look ‘em in the eye – they take that as a challenge.”
Zac: “How much is he bullshitting me?”
Georges the GM: “Wait, I wanna hear the whole speech.”

[More of the same.]
Lukas: “The Morganas you have to look in the eye. Otherwise they’ll run around behind you and stab you in the back.”

[And yet more.]
Lukas: “Isaacs are basically harmless, and if you see a Jan, just turn around and head the other way.”

[Once in Port Arthur, we visit our employee Perry.]
Perry: “Hey, boss.”
Lukas: “Hi, Perry.”
Fennec: “…That’s exactly the sort of warm reception I expected.”

[Lukas orders Perry to make coffee for us.]
Perry: “So, three cups of coffee?”
Lukas: “Unless you want one.”
Perry: “Gee, thanks!”

[More with Perry.]
Lukas: “We just came by to pick up some business cards.”
Perry: (writing) “Business… cards…”
Lukas: “Do we have business cards?”
Perry: “…No. But I made a note of it.”

[We explain our relationship with Perry to Zac.]
Brock: “We inherited Perry because we killed his boss.”
Ariel: “And he was too entertaining to get rid of.”

[In the interim since we were last here, we had Perry recruit one of his business school classmates to work for us.]
Fennec: “How do you think he scalped the top student in his business class to work for us?”
Lukas: “I assume he gave her a lot of our money.”

[Once we’re done with Perry, Fennec gets a little more education about Port Arthur.]
Zac: “What do GRELs do when they’re off-duty?”
Brock: “They sit and… Mostly they just sit.”

[Lyta catches Fennec up. Sorta.]
Lyta: “You should know we’re not popular here.”
Fennec: “So, I’m guilty by association?”
Lyta: “Yeah.”
Fennec: “So nothing’s changed.”

[We head into the GREL Quarter to visit Minnie. Lyta is on edge, as she always is.]
Fennec: “Calm down. They’re not here to hurt us.”
Lyta: “That’s exactly what they’re here for.”

[We reach Minnie’s Bar. Torgath goes in first.]
Georges the GM: “There’s no way the bouncer would remember Torgath.”
Brock: “Humans – they all look the same.”

[Lyta goes in and order a round of beer for the table.]
V the Bartender: “Tall one of vat juice!”
Julie: “Lyta remembered that’s what it was called, because it was offensive.”

[Minnie finds us at our table.]
Minnie: “Hello, strangers.”
Fennec: “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
Minnie: “I was gonna ask the same thing, red.”

[Ah, small talk with Minnie. How I missed it…]
Lukas: “How’ve things been?”
Minnie: “A might bit quieter since you guys have been out of town.”

[Sadly, we must transition to business.]
Lukas: “We were told you’re the person to set up a meeting with a ‘Mr. H.’”
Minnie: “Oh, that’s you?! Isn’t that a bit prosaic for you, smuggling?”

[Minnie knows more than we do. As always.]
Minnie: “Do you guys know what you have to do with those crates?”
Lukas: “Deliver them?”
Minnie: *smirks*

[With Minnie, so much comes down to innuendo.]
Ariel: “You’ve got a lot of catching up to do… by which I mean you have to have sex with her again.”

[After the meeting with Minnie, we spend the afternoon doing some leg-work.]
Lukas: “Secure us ground transportation too.”
Fennec: “You want something local or something off-roady?”
Lukas: “…Yeah.”

[More of our afternoon downtime.]
Julie: “Lyta takes Fennec shopping for clothes.”
Brock: “What nightmarish world are we living in where Lyta is the one going shopping?”

[A little banter about our tactical crates.]
Fennec: “Where’d you get those crates?”
Lukas: “It’s a long story.”
Torgath: “Her dead boyfriend.”
Georges the GM: “Apparently it’s a short story.”

[That evening, we have a fancy dinner with Perry and our new employee, Kerry Fines.]
Brock: “I go in full-on.”
Zac: “Does he ever go in any other way?”

[We order drinks.]
Ariel: “I get the most complicated drink on the menu.”

[Perry orders a beer, then a thought strikes him.]
Perry: “Boss, is this a working dinner?”
Lukas: “Yes.”
Perry: “So it’s a write-off?”
Lukas: “Yes.”
Perry: “…Two beers.”

[We meeting Kerry Fines.]
Georges the GM: “She seems uncomfortable, defensive, socially awkward at the best of times…”
Julie: “And this is not the best of times.”
Georges the GM: “No.”

[After drinks comes the time to order dinner.]
Zac: “I go through the menu and order the thing that looks coolest and most expensive.”

[Kerry Fines is probably somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Which is to say, she really doesn’t want to be having this conversation.]
Fennec: “What do you want to do?”
Brock: “She wants to do this, but more.”

[We try to figure out what deal Perry made with Kerry with regards to our business.]
Lukas: “Perry was vague on the specifics of your arrangement.”
Kerry Fines: “Really? I’ve found him to be particularly forthright and straight-speaking.”
Perry: “Oh, no, boss. I just don’t know.”

[A little more about Kerry’s role, which seems to involve having spun off a subsidiary that deals in coffee futures trading, bringing us from a net loss of $15,000 to a net profit of $75,000.]
Perry: “She doesn’t run this business, but she keeps the business running.”
Ariel: “Wow, that’s good for Perry.”
Georges the GM: “He doesn’t even realize he said something insightful.”

[Kerry and Lukas discuss a role for someone who might go around Terra Nova finding people who want to open franchises for us.]
Lukas: “It sounds to me like you’re describing the perfect job for Perry.”
Perry: “…Is that what she was doing, boss?”

[Perry gets defensive about his intelligence sometimes.]
Torgath: “Can you read?”
Perry: “Can I read?! I could write my name since I was 10!”

[Kerry has some questions of her own.]
Kerry Fines: “If I may be so bold, why are you leaving this business to Perry and I?”
Lukas: “This isn’t my primary business.”
Kerry Fines: “Then what is your primary business?”
Ariel: “Acquisitions?”
Georges the GM: “Hostile takeovers?”
Lukas: “We’re adventurers.”

[The business talk isn’t so exciting for everyone.]
Lyta: “Okay, I’m bored. Let’s go watch big heavy metal things beat up on other big heavy metal things.”
Fennec: “I’m down with that.”

[Lyta and Fennec watch a Gear dueling match.]
Julie: “Insert technobabble here in excited terms!”

[Lukas, meanwhile, pays a late-night visit to Minnie.]
Georges the GM: “So unless you have some specific information you want to squeeze out of Minnie…”
Ariel: “And by ‘information,’ do you mean ‘sex’?”

[The next morning, we meet with Humanist ambassador Gavin Hippolyte.]
Gavin Hippolyte: “The mission is straightforward but not simple.”

[We find out what the last stage of the cargo delivery will entail.]
Gavin Hippolyte: “You need to paradrop the cargo at night.”
Lukas: “That’s not in our skill set.”

[We try to come up with alternative ways to get the six shipping crates up to Hippolyte’s hunting lodge.]
Gavin Hippolyte: “Roads would not accommodate it.”
Julie: “This is Georges really wanting us to paradrop it in.”

[Lukas pushes back against the idea of paradroping our crates.]
Lukas: “We’ve taken these things 3/4 of the way across the planet.”
Julie: “Which in some circles is the same as 1/4 of the way across the planet.”
Georges the GM: “I knew we should’ve taken a left at Albuquerque!”

[We contemplate other alternatives.]
Gavin Hippolyte: “You could take it over by muling it on your backs. That should only take…”
Torgath: “Seven cycles.”

[More on the idea of paradropping the crates.]
Fennec: “It’s not the hardest thing we’ve ever done.”
Lukas: “No, but it’s the stupidest.”

[Georges the GM considers what will happen if we simply walk away from the job.]
Georges the GM: “If the person who’s putting pressure on you can’t put enough pressure on you, he expects they’ll put more pressure on someone else.”

[Lukas is still annoyed at Hippolyte’s idea.]
Lukas: “Aren’t you guys supposed to be good at this?! Logistics is your thing!”
Gavin Hippolyte: “This is not the Humanist Alliance.”

[We consider the last stage of the job.]
Fennec: “You think we oughta use local talent?”
Lukas: “I think we oughta walk away.”

[In the end, it all comes down to your tools.]
Fennec: “We’re gonna need a bigger drone.”




Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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