Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Thirty-One

Bleakbane Plays BATTLETECH, Part Thirty-One:

Blame the contract RNG for a short session...!

So, I elected to go down the mod route. I figured I might as well, since I will likely play RogueTech at someone, so get that groundwork out of the way now, right?

Lynessa elected to head straight to Cluff's Stand to do this tournament. She did a quick headcount and determined they needed a Highlander 733P part and a three Banshee 3E parts to complete the assault chassis, so they would look out for those in the shops.

There was no maintenance work to be done. There wasn't currently a good place to put any of the ER mediums lasers, since while they would increase damage and range, the only mechs that had them were already suffering from heat problems.

Payday...

(240 days left...)

Dealing with the Black Market was going to be difficult, since the pirates hated them so much.

Natasha's unfortunately-lingering chaos magic bout was causing some problems all over the ship as they went through a surprise spike. Lynessa had her move into the Gamma Pod, into a rune-reinforced room to try and ebb away the fluctuating waveforms. The result was almost immediate; the chaos magic faded back away (Lynessa suspected a full session with some curse-breakers back home would be needed to get rid of it entirely) and Natasha was absolutely delighted bouncing around, much more like her ebullient usual self.

(Proceeded to spend ridiculous amount of time trying to generate decent set of contracts, but as usual, whatever I want, RNG isn't interested in giving me.

After FAR too long, I finally got what I thought was reasonable and then looked in the store and Black Market and - of course - basically nothing. I ended up going back to an earlier mediocre try and the best that had to offer was barely anything.)

Lynessa considered her options. If she could get the pirates to give the lance some contracts, they could get the Black Market to the point where it was possible. She elected to watch Darius try and negotiate - she normally left it to him - and decided that his method... Needed work.

Specifically, getting the girls to give their best puppy eyes and wobbly lower lips, at which point, not even the hardest pirate could refuse to let them have a contract.

Though this was going to have some odd changes to the base store prices, but never mind.

So, three pirate contracts; one for the Capellans and Canopians (the former against the local government, the latter against the pirates, so that perhaps should be done first).

The first thing they were doing, though, was this Tournament of Champions.

The tournament was being run by one Professor Mencius Horvat and was by invitation to worthy mercenary companies. A rather... Odd man with a strange taste in apparel (to the point that Farah reckoned he had a near-romantic attraction the animal pelt he was wearing).

The tournament it involved using stock mechs. Wonderful. And this rule was enforced by the "man-monster" Calamar Gigante.

The first round consisted of...

Four UrbanMechs?

Of course it did. Was a mere million cbills really worth this?

So the line-up would be Natasha, Shelat, Luximai and Scarlet. (As all but Natasha (who was in high spirits) was a master tactician.)

Apparently, the enemy would be one "Limpet" Siato, the Terror of Fronc and his brother Jake. Sumire commented this was like something out of a Brock Armstrong movie. Lynessa thought that if she was into wrestling or something, this might have been mildly amusing...?

They were going to be in heavier mechs, weren't they?

30-tonners. Oh, and a "wild-card" was going to be dropped in to attack everyone. Great.

The lance moved to engage. To Lynessa's surprise, they were UrbanMechs too. The lance's first salvo managed to destroy the Limpet's leg at least.

And then the "wild card" dropped in, apparently piloted by a woman, the "Jackhammer," who had been caught by the Prof, saying he'd been responsible for the death of her father. (Seemed likely, to be honest.)

"Limpet" was dispatched by Shelat's deft CT kill as he lay prone. One down.

Jake failed to hit as he closed with the lance. In the distance, there was the sound of autocannon fire. Perhaps the other two of brother's lance engaged with the Jackhammer wild-card lady...?

Two precise CT shots from Natasha and Luximai got rid of Jake.

There seemed to be three mechs hammering it out, so the lance really didn't need to do anything other than wait, the figured...

Well, it didn't seem like the lance needed to fight the Jackhammer, though she'd ejected...

The other two UrbanMechs advanced slowly. One got close enough to get on a building, which the lance destroyed (though Luximai embarrassingly missed it). It still took three aimed shot to kill it through, with its entrenchment. One left.

The last one had a damaged leg. Natasha shot it off.

Now, what happened if a mech lying prone fell from a destroyed building?

Scarlet decided to find out!

A fair bit of damage, looked like!

Took the whole left side off.

One last aimed shot blew the other leg off. Job done.

Alexa "Jackhammer" Jones was slapped into a cell, still swearing revenge.

But shortly afterward, she contacted the paladins through a subdermal comunicator and a complete change of demeanor. She was, in fact, not a vengeance-obsessed lunatic, but an undercover operative for Davion intelligence.

The Prof was a pirate (as if anyone was surprised). He used the contest to try and get minions, but Gigante was the only one to succeed - and everyone else tended to come down with a case of Death, as the last round of the contest was basically a trap.

Alexa had a contract for Davion to kill the nutter. So the paladins could work with their allies or continue to fight in a contest run by a man who, as Sumire put it, "wanted to marry his coat." Yeah, this was a really difficult decision wasn't it?

The latter would mean a 75% paycut, but the alternative was more fighting in UrbanMechs against odds explicitly intended to get the paladins killed and even then making everyone that wasn't a pirate angry at them if they even won.

Why had they bothered coming here again...?

Oh well.

(Goddess, though, 250K? That was less that they paladins would get for a typical 0.5-skull contract...)

So, Llana in the Overlord, Natasha in the Annihilator, Mylassta in the Bull Shark and Anja in the Shortbow.

The Prof and Gigante, showing rather too much confidence, denounced the lance and told them they would be hunted down. While the drop-pods came in, the lance had to deal with the other competitors.

Though really, two damaged UrbanMechs?

They survived the first Thumper shell, to be fair... But then the Shortbow and Overlord took them out a shot a piece.

Prof Horvat and Gigante showed indeed they were overconfident, turning up with two UrbanMechs, plus their own Blackjack and Centurion.

Now, clearly, if this had been a fight with two UrbanMechs (as the implication had been) this wouldn't have been funny at all. Alexa was right; Horvat really had no intentions other than setting up people for him to satiate his bloodlust.

The lance stood waiting and were deeply amused to see none of the fools did anything other than move out of the landing zone. And the biggest pair of idiots actually RAN UP to the Overlord...

So much for the Prof!

Gigante also went down to CT-death, after an SRM salvo and the Bull Shark. Natasha contented herself with splitting her fire to shoot both UrbanMechs.

They staggered out of that, only for a Thumper shell to destroy one and tear the leg off the other. Natasha blew the other leg off almost before it had fallen over.

Well, this was all mostly a waste of time...

Oh, that was sweet of Alexa, she was going to sneak the lance a few of the UrbanMech parts from Horvat's stores (all stolen from Davion shipments).

Yang, for some reason, was excited about this. Lynessa really didn't understand. She would never get the affection some people seemed to have for a walking barrel.

Well, it at least gave them a R60L to sell.

Anja maxed her tactics.

And there we shall leave it for today.