Friday, December 12, 2014

Wordslingin'

A small side-issue wound up taking the entire night to complete, much to the consternation of Georges the GM. On the other hand, we have all our crates back and are pretty sure we’re once more in the targeting hairs of the SRID. Again.


[Fennec has acquired two Gears along the way, a Chatterbox and an Iguana. We discuss which she’ll take back with her for our op.]
Zac: “Oh, that Iguana. It’s missing a leg, isn’t it?”
Julie: “I think you have all the pieces. They’re just not all together.”

[Fennec pays for most of the costs of making the Gear-sized backpacks.]
Brock: “Write it down and I’ll reimburse you.”
Zac: “I’ve heard that before.”

[We return to Port Arthur and go through customs.]
Georges the GM: “The guy scanning your Gears is probably thinking, ‘I bet these guys are more likely to get into trouble than not.’ They’re taking bets after you leave.”

[We consider what might happen if we do anything stupid.]
Ariel: “He’ll say, ‘If you get into any trouble, we have a whole lotta GRELs.”
Georges the GM: “And hovertanks.”

[We return to the warehouse to find that one of our crates is missing.]
Zac: “Someone’s done an ‘us’ on us!”

[We talk to Jed, the night manager of the warehouse, to see about our missing crate.]
Lukas: “All right, Jed, what would it take to expedite this process?”

[Jed takes Lukas’ money, checks the paperwork, blanches, and gives Lukas back his money, saying that he can’t help us and that we should just fill out the insurance paperwork on our missing crate.]
Lukas: “You should tell me what you know. Then it’ll be my problem.”
Jed: “If I tell you, it’s my problem.”
Lukas: “It’s your problem now.”

[Lukas manages to get Jed away from his clipboard long enough to find the paper for our crate.]
Brock: *rolls 3 on bureaucracy*
Zac: “You may wanna reroll that. I know it’ll be hard to face the future with only 37 dice, but…”

[Meanwhile, Fennec investigates in her own way.]
Zac: “I go back to the scene of the crime and look for clues.”
Georges the GM: “You won’t find any.”
Zac: “How do you know!?”

[Fennec continues to investigate.]
Zac: “Is the front office open or closed?”
Georges the GM: “Closed.”
Zac: “Perfect.”
Brock: “You could just let yourself in.”
Zac: “I plan to.”

[The front office is mostly unsecured. The door’s locked and there’s a camera in the corner, which feeds into the main computer inside the office.]
Zac: “You’d think between security and stealth, there would be a way to get around a single fisheye camera.”
Brock: “Regrettably no. This happens to us more often than you'd think.”

[Lukas calls everyone’s favorite information broker Jimmy Croyden to see if he can figure out what’s going on.]
Jimmy Croyden: “Who’s this?”
Lukas: “It’s Quinn.”
Jimmy Croyden: “Quinn! I should have known by the unidentified number.”
Lukas: “I imagine at least half the people who call you have unidentified numbers.”
Jimmy Croyden: “True enough.”

[Jimmy informs us that the people who stole our crate are most likely the Granis cartel. Lukas returns to Jed.]
Lukas: “It may not have been clear to you before, but anything we do to you will absolutely be worse than what the Granis will do to you.”

[Jed sadly knows nothing.]
Georges the GM: “This guy is very low… He’s not even on the totem pole.”

[Lukas tries to figure out how to contact the Granis to get our crate back. First call: Perry.]
Perry: “Boss? How you doin’?”
Lukas: “Good. Well, bad.”
Perry: “That sounds confusing.”

[Lukas lays out the situation for Perry.]
Lukas: “The Granis have stolen one of my crates.”
Perry: “What’s the good news?”
Lukas: “I’m back in town. And I’m smiling.”

[We think about how to get the crate back from the Granis.]
Fennec: “Do we have anything to leverage them with?”
Lyta: “Money.”

[Lukas explains to Fennec a little bit of our past history dealing with the crime families in Port Arthur.]
Lukas: “We had an apocalyptic firefight here. It might have been our most apocalyptic firefight.”

[Lukas gets through to a Granis lieutenant named Gino.]
Lukas: “Your boss may have found something I lost. A shipping crate that may have been sent to him by mistake.”
Gino: “Hypothetically that might be the case.”

[Gino does in fact have our crate, which contains assault weapons, body armor, and survival equipment.]
Gino: “That’s a pretty nice crate. I like your taste in women’s apparel.”

[We prepare to negotiate for the return of our crate.]
Brock: “What do I suppose an appropriate amount of money is in this case?”
Julie: “More is more.”

[Lukas prepares his bluff for the negotiations, insinuating that the client who has employed us to deliver the crate is both very large and very scary.]
Lukas: “I know for a fact this client has dealings with the Granis in other areas.”
Ariel: “Do they?”
Julie: “Of course they do.”

[Lukas is using a name that is not our standard Badlands operating alias.]
Ariel: “Are you going to drop our name?”
Brock: “Not unless things go badly.”

[Lukas arrives at the Granis warehouse.]
Brock: “How well set up do they look?”
Georges the GM: “I’m going to give you a tactical map as the negotiations move into a new phase!”

[Negotiations are not going well.]
Julie: “I’d prefer this didn’t come to combat, though I imagine it will.”
Brock: “They had their chance.”
Zac: “Lukas doesn’t give many chances.”
Georges the GM: “Unless he’s interrogating someone.”

[We prepare for what looks to be inevitable combat.]
Zac: “What firepower does the Chatterbox carry?”
Brock: “Almost nothing.”

[Gino rolls very, very well on his haggling.]
Lukas: “Fifty thousand. That’s a lot of money.”
Fennec: “That’s the code word! Go!”

[Gino explains why Lukas should pay fifty thousand for the crate.]
Gino: “This is your finder’s fee. We found your crate for you.”

[Lukas is not keen on spending that much money.]
Lukas: “I don’t want to pay you fifty thousand to get it back. I’m thinking of the munitions I’d need to take it back, and I’m thinking it’s less than that.”

[Lukas is, however, willing to negotiate.]
Lukas: “It does occur to me that you might have a problem I could help you solve.”

[Things are not going well. Lukas suggests he could call ‘his accountant,’ i.e. Hippoylte, to see if we can get the money. It will take a little while, though.]
Gino: “This is taking a long time.”
Lukas: “It’s night. He’s an accountant, not a commando.”
Ariel: “Is that my cue?”
Zac: “I love how Grizz thinks that’s his cue.”

[Gino et al leave the office. Again. Fennec overhears that in five minutes, they’re gonna kill Lukas.]
Brock: “I could shove the desk against the door.”
Zac: “A desk with a shotgun in it!”

[Combat ensues. Lyta comes in with her Gear and launches a grenade at the Granis who are standing around in the warehouse.]
Georges the GM: “These guys run out into the warehouse, because everyone runs towards an explosion…”

[Next priority: getting Lukas out of the office.]
Julie: “I vibroblade down the wall.”
Brock: “You could probably just punch it.”
Ariel: “But it’s not as cool as a vibroblade.”
Brock: “That’s true. You may vibroblade it.”

[Combat continues to ensue.]
Brock: “You know what we should have done? Rolled tactics.”
Zac: (pointedly) “If only one of us was specifically combat trained in tactical communications.”

[After we’ve taken out quite a lot of Gino’s guys, Lukas has Fennec patch him through to Gino’s phone… in the next room.]
Gino: “Hello?”
Lukas: “Gino! It’s Jack-o!”
Gino: “You fuckin’ kidding me?”
Lukas: “Remember when you said you weren’t getting any phone calls? This is the phone call.”

[Lukas agrees that we’ll take the crate and owe Gino a favor.]
Lukas: “Just to be clear: we’re friends now.”

[We take the crate.]
Lukas: “Sorry about your guys.”
Gino: “There’s more where they came from.”

[After all the excitement is over.]
Georges the GM: “It’s now quite late, or nearly very early.”

[While we were at the warehouse, it turns out there were some Southern Gears spying on us. Fennec managed to record their conversation.]
Southern Gear Pilot: “Team 1, stop using your comms!”
Brock (as Southern Gear Pilot): “You damn muppets!”

[Discussing the fact that the watchers were speaking Universal French.]
Zac: “Southerners.”
Brock: “Or Northerners speaking French.”
Georges the GM: “Ah-ha!”

[We tell Perry what happened with the Granis.]
Perry: “I don’t get it. You shot them up, you took their stuff, and you owe them a favor?”
Lukas: “That’s right.”

[More explaining.]
Lukas: “They did steal from me.”
Perry: “Yeah, they’re Granis.”
Lukas: “I offered them a way out.”
Perry: “Yeah, you’re you.”
Lukas: “They didn’t take it.”
Perry: “Yeah, they’re Granis.”

[Discussing what might be the fallout from taking our crate back.]
Perry: “Did you do it quiet? Did Doc Grim go in with a knife?”
Lukas: “No, it was more like a Gear through the door.”
Perry: “Oh. At least there weren’t any grenades, right?”
Lukas: “I counted four.”

[Time for a little more intimidation!]
Lukas: (on phone to Gino) “It occurs to me I didn’t mention something earlier, something that might have changed the way you reacted at our meeting. You remember how about a cycle and a half ago there were Forzi in town, and then they were all killed in a massive firefight in the government district? Yeah, that was us. I’m sorry I didn’t think to mention that earlier.”
Gino: “…That might have changed the situation, yeah.”

[Gino informs us that our ‘favor’ can be to take out the Southern spooks who tipped him off to the location of the crates in the first place.]
Zac: “This is a very timely and convenient favor that dovetails nicely with our interests.”
Georges the GM: “Are you not reading that the intimidation worked?”




Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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