Sunday, September 18, 2016

Wordslingin'

It’s time for maximum boom! In these two sessions, Our Heroes (tm) kill a long-time antagonist, mow through his minions, and – most importantly – successfully prevent his missile from taking out the Hermes network. And all it cost us our our sound mental function…


[When last we left Our Intrepid Heroes (tm), they were in the missile launch silo.]
Julie: “How parkour-able is this place?”
Georges the GM: “It’s a parkour dream.”
Ariel: “If we take out the rocket, you want to start a school here?”

[Fennec tries to figure out the best way to get her explosives onto the missile.]
Zac: “Relying on my research… which I sayed up all night doing…”

[One of the Zelanis guards calls Lyta over to help out a technician with some brute-strength work. Things start going downhill.]
Technician: *says something in a language Lyta doesn’t understand*
Guard: “Come to think of it, I don’t recognize her either.”
Zac: “Everything is about to go to hell.”

[Lyta fails to roll a convincing bluff check.]
Julie: “Wrenches have been thrown into our plan. Because of my dice.”

[Lyta prepares to take out the guards quickly and silently. Fennec comes in as backup, hand on gun.]
Brock: “Things could go wrong very quickly, but we’re not at wrong yet.”

[Lyta and Fennec manage to take out both the guard and the technician, which returns us to the matter at hand.]
Brock: “In fact, destroying the rocket isn’t in our mission parameters at all. We’re doing that as a favor to the planet.”

[Lukas gives the team some less-than-useful advice.]
Brock: “Rely on your training and our tried-and-true tactics.”
Zac: “Making it up as we go along?”

[While the rest of the team prepares to storm the command centre, Lyta is noticed on a side-mission by two of the guards. She takes them out but is forced to leave their unconscious bodies in view of a camera.]
Lyta: “I was made. They’re taken care of but if anyone looks at the camera, they’ll notice.”
Lukas: “Well, we’re going into the place where they’re most likely to be looking at the cameras, so it’s fine.”

[We make it up the stairs and take out a few of the people manning the security sub-station, but are stopped by yet more security doors.]
Zac: “I dub this dungeon ‘the dungeon of plentiful blast doors.’”

[Combat ensues, as was inevitable. The opening moves are about as one would expect.]
Ariel: “We take cover because we know how grenades work.”

[We find ourselves outside what we think is the main command centre. Sadly, a very solid blast door stands between us and it.]
Brock: “Could you make a person-sized hole? Enough for a small-sized person? Like, a Lyta-sized person?”

[As we’re figuring out how to get through the door, we realize that a number of slots in the wall are not just decorative…]
Georges the GM: “From inside the slot, you see a barrel.”
Brock: “Does it look like a flamethrower barrel?”
Georges the GM: “Ooh, that would have been awesome!”

[Yes, it turns out the slots are in fact machine-gun slots of death. Most of the team flees immediately while Lukas spends an extra moment placing a grenade inside one of them, and sadly getting quite injured.]
Brock: “Where’s my ‘getting through the door’ plan at?”
Zac: “It’s aborted because we can’t get through the room.”
Brock: “Oh, we’re not aborted.”

[We try to figure out what to do regarding our current predicament.]
Georges the GM: “The guns have specifically been designed to hit anything in their kill zone. Which is you.”

[The comms activate.]
Zac: “Georges is trying to do a voice. Go to your Swedish Chef place.”
Georges the GM: “A more menacing version of that.”

[Yes, the voice on the comms is, as everyone expected, Gustafson.]
Gustafson: “Dear interlopers…”
Brock: “He doesn’t know who we are! He can’t tell us not to kill him!”

[Gustafson lays out his demands.]
Gustafson: “I will give you sixty seconds to consider your position. After that we will continue our… aggression.”

[Naturally, we do not give in to Gustafson’s demands. We have other plans.]
Zac: “You’re changing out of your Zelanis gear?”
Brock: “It’s outlived its usefulness. Now we can go in as faceless menacing angels of death.”

[As Lukas and Torgath backtrack to handle some guards coming up from behind us, Lyta and Fennec face four guards to the front.]
Brock: “How brave are you feeling?”
Zac: “This isn’t a grenade situation?”
Brock: “This is an ideal grenade situation.”

[Back with Lukas and Torgath…]
Torgath: *rolls 10 on suppressing fire*
Ariel: “That area is so suppressed.”
Brock: “Maybe too suppressed.”

[Lukas and Torgath take out their guys quickly, while Lyta and Fennec are having more difficulty with theirs. Lyta has launched herself amidst the group of guards and is being a distracting target while Fennec takes pot-shots from the hallway. Lukas and Torgath approach.]
Brock: “How do I feel about firing a LAW rocket into this group?”
Zac: “You mean the group your sister’s in?”
Brock: “Yes.”

[More of the same.]
Georges the GM: “Fennec’s in the way of the LAW.”
Brock: “Are you trying to sell me on this?”

[Lukas decides not to fire the LAW, and instead to keep using his SAW.]
Brock: “I will do walking fire, attempt not to shoot Fennec, but if it happens…” *shrugs*

[As Lyta makes her way further into the command centre, one of the guards activates all the security doors and shoots out the panel that controls them. Lukas and Torgath are in a hallway with two guards; Lyta is in a room with one; and Fennec is in a room with three.]
Brock: “It’s all right – we’re not locked in here with them, they’re locked in with us.”
Zac: “I feel like I’m locked in with them.”
Brock: “You’re locked in with them.”

[Speaking of Lyta…]
Georges the GM: “The guard’s in the room with Lyta.”
Julie: “What’s he doing?”
Brock: “Looking nervous. Wishing he was on the other side of the door.”

[Keep in mind that the blast doors are still down, leaving Lyta and Fennec deeper in the complex, cut off from the other two members of the team.]
Brock: “How ideologically committed are you?”
Zac: “Why?”
Brock: “Because Torgath and I can retreat, rescue Vovelle, and call in an artillery strike.”

[Fennec, trapped in the control room, tries to think of ways to be useful.]
Zac: “If I open the blast shield, it exposes Gustafson?”
Julie: “Gustafson and us.”

[Fennec thinks of other ways to be useful.]
Zac: “I want to look at all the options for making this rocket useless. I envision there are many.”

[Meanwhile, Torgath pulls back to rescue Vovelle and attempt to sabotage the missile, whose countdown to launch has already begun.]
Georges the GM: “You encounter armed technicians.”
Ariel: “Who are now dead.”

[Torgath finds Vovelle and puts her on the comms. Whereupon we realize that just because we’re all about to die is no reason not to be pedantic.]
Fennec: “Doctor? Suppose I wanted to defuse a rocket that wants to launch.”
Henriette Vovelle: “It’s a missile, but all right…”

[Vovelle tries to impress upon Fennec that if the missile launches, it will do irreparable damage.]
Henriette Vovelle: “Do you know where this missile will land?”
Zac: “No doubt a population centre, despite this being Terra Nova, which is mostly unpopulated desert.”

[Fennec, Torgath, and Vovelle make their way to the missile launch room.]
Henriette Vovelle: “Time?”
Torgath: “Three minutes.”
Henriette Vovelle: “We need… never mind.”

[Lukas and Lyta have finally find the room Gustafson is in. Now we need to figure out what to do with him.]
Julie: “What are the chances Gustafson has a dead man’s switch?”
Brock: “High. Approaching 100%.”

[Gustafson has two guards with him.]
Lukas: “If you put down your guns, you can live.”
Guards: *put down guns*
Lukas: *shoots them*

[Lukas turns his sights on Gustafson.]
Lukas: “Any last words?”
Gustafson: “…”
Lukas: “Too late!” *shoots him*

[We realize that the blast doors are controlled from the command center, which is unfortunately now directly exposed to the missile because of a malfunctioning blast door.]
Julie: “So we have no way to hide from the blast?”
Georges the GM: “One person would have to stay behind.”
Julie: “And die.”
Georges the GM: “…Yes.”

[Lyta and Lukas come up with a plan that would allow one person to press the blast door control and rush away at the last moment, avoiding otherwise-imminent death. But only if they’re fast enough.]
Lukas: “I’m staying.”
Lyta: “It should be me. I’m faster, and you’re wounded.”
Lukas: “This isn’t a negotiation. I’m in charge of this op.”
Lyta: “…If you die, I’m coming after you and killing your ghost. Got it?”
Lukas: “That’s acceptable.”

[Lukas presses the button and runs. As might have been expected, he pulls a stitch as he’s running.]
Zac: “You feel that force on your chest making it hard to breathe? That’s your petard.”

[We manage to get behind the blast doors at the last moment as the missile powers up but is held in place by the struts that Vovelle, Torgath, and Fennec sabotaged. The bad news is…]
Georges the GM: “There’s a new sound in the distance.”
Brock: “Is it water?”
Georges the GM: “Yes.”

[We try to figure out a way to escape the soon-to-be-onrushing water.]
Brock: “What do we have that would float?”
Zac: “Most of what we have is explosives, guns, and body armor.”

[In the end, we escape the mines and return to Port Arthur in various states of injury and shell-shock. We return to Minnie’s Bar, where we find Ennik and Mads, both of whom think that go-time will be the following night.]
Ennik: (looking at the PCs) “…Rough night?”





Heavy Gear Roleplaying Game

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