As Talbot races past Glitch-702 throws an overheat his direction, and the distracted Talbot isn't able to duck in time. However, he does use some fancy maneuvering to attack the android from an unexpected point. At the same time Moktargarn hits the miner with ‘Teal’ written on his pistol. The miner still draws his club and advances in retaliation.
Glitch-702 runs after the cart, and casts another spell into it. Talbot this time is prepared though and ducks under the flames avoiding the worst of the heat.
Using the fan of flames as a cover, Vahni tries to pile into the speeding cart but fails to time it right and ends up flat on their face.
Fuskee, redeeming himself for the wild shot he took earlier, takes more careful aim and fires at Talbot. The man happens to move ever so slightly out of the way of the laser beam and only takes a glancing blow.
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Realizing Fuskee was not in the mood to be helped, Leo chases after Talbot, as the majority of his allies. Not sure if he'd be able to get close enough to the speeding cart and without much time to unholster his Needler Pistol, Leo decides to use an ability he learned at the Academy.
As he runs, he wills mental energy into his free hand (since the other was now holding his Medical Kit). After doing so, he points at a loose-enough looking stone on the cave wall next to Talbot. And he feels the mental energy bolt from his hand and into the rock he pointed at. Then, he flings his arm towards Talbot, almost as if slapping him, and the stone launches from the rock wall towards Talbot in response.
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As Talbot passes by Vandor he gathers himself and leaps gracefully, like some sort of Castrovellian jungle cat, over the side, landing safely in the cart.
Looking shocked, he exclaims "Hey, I made it!".
Vandor points his pistol at Talbot, but instead of shooting he tries to convince him to surrender.
"Give up Talbot! AbadarCorp is coming! And they are not happy with you! We got here right in front of a Vesk hit squad! Surrendering to us is your only hope! AbadarCorp won't want to risk a public conflict with the Society. You've got to let us take you in, for your own protection!"
In the back of the mine, Moktargarn lashes out with his taclash and quickly brings the last miner to his knees. L.E.O. runs after the cart and then telekinetically slams a piece of the cave walls into Talbot’s head. This distracts Talbot enough to give Vandor an opportunity to jump into the cart as it heads back without Talbot acting against him.
The words the envoy say don’t make Talbot think about backing down, and instead rile him up even further. ”Wait you mean you aren’t AbadarCorp and there’s another group after me? shit this just keeps getting better and better. Now either tell me about the AbadarCorp representatives or die and let me go!”
His anger, however causes the man to move with less precision than before but he still proves a very effective distractor and quickly arcs a bolt of lightning into Vandor’s arms, raising large red welts along the man’s skin.
Fuskee's shot goes wide, grazing the back wall of the mines, while Talbot proves to be a nuisance to Vahni and keeps them out of the cart.
Talbot, distracted with the guns being fired at him and pushing Vahni off the cart, fails to notice Glitch-702 is casting a spell. He takes the full force of it, leaving his body with some nasty burns as he topples over next, and almost onto, Vandor.
L.E.O. rushes over with his medical kit and finds the man still breathing, but bleeding profusely from the many tears in his crispy skin from falling over. The Android makes quick work of stabilizing Talbot,and preventing him from dying. He also finds almost all of the other miners are unconscious or have stabilized on their own.
Rifling through their pockets the group quickly finds the Charlatan's Stone as well as a freebooter armor mk. I, a static arc pistol with 1 battery (18 charges), a survival knife, a mk 1 ring of
resistance, 6 credsticks with 100 credits each, 3 second skin armors, 3 tactical semi-auto pistols with some shots fired, and 3 clubs.
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After making sure their target was secured and not dead, Leo sighs.
"For a moment... I, uhm, thought he was dead. What now?"
He looks around to see what his allies might respond and notices that they're a little battered, like him. Suddenly, he realizes that, perhaps, his allies - and not just the fallen enemies - might also need medical attention.
"Oh! My-my apologies! Are you all, erm, okay?"
He prepares to give what aid he can, as necessary.
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"I'm fine, I didn't take any hits this battle," Vahni says, but then rubs their arm, "...although I still have a few bruises from rumbling with that shobhad. Don't worry about it, though."
As the others begin to recover, Vahni sighs and plucks the stone from Talbot's unconscious body, examining it suggesting, "I say we haul in Talbot to the reps. He could've stopped when he figured out the stone was fake, but he didn't, and that's on his head now. I don't know what we should do about his goons, though." They pause. "Anybody got manacles for when he wakes up?"
After resting up the group explores the rest of the cavern, and shortly finds some line that could be used to make some basics restraints. The prefab 'office' of sorts has some of the documents dealing with the sales and purchases of the glamored minerals and little else of import. The rest of the mines seems about as abandoned as the entrance and other areas had been.
Loading Talbot and company into the dune buggy, the group aces back to the nearest point of civilization and, more importantly, fuel. Getting to Tasch with four captives proves pretty easy, the restraints cause the men to start wriggling when they wake up, alerting Moktargarn to put them to sleep again. Talbot does get a hand free once, but some tighter bonds prove to be all that is needed to rectify that.
You pull into a very somber and quiet Tasch, though that might be the result of the time as much as your arrival. Podswald's bar is locked up tight without a single light on, and it seems the only place with any lights at all is the single run down hotel and the automated refueling station.
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Vandor doesn't say much (for once) while the group secures the miners and searches the mine. Mostly he just glares at Talbot and mumbles things unde0r his breath like "...could have just surrendered..." and "... didn't have to shoot me...". Although he does gratefully thank LEO for the healing.
Upon arrival back in Tasch, Vandor says "I say we turn this lot over to A-Corp as soon as possible, they can be their problem now. And maybe Phil will have that finder's fee he mentioned". Vandor's face brightens for the first time in hours at the thought of payment.
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Vahni crinkles their brow, pondering Moktargan’s point. ”Yeah, but it’s like our venture captain said: the society doesn’t have the time or resources to prosecute him, like it or not. Turning him into Abadarcorp might be our only chance to prosecute him. Speaking of, and I’ve been wanting to hear this,” Vahni turns to the buggy and drags Talbot out, ripping off his gag, ”What do you have to say for yourself, mister?”
Talbot watches the group with dark eyes as they talk about his fate in front of him. When Vahni removes the gag on him, he tries to spit in their eye, before grimacing at the solarion. He stays silent for a bit.
Around town a few curtains start moving as people start realizing the group is standing in the middle of town. After a few of them realize just who it is tied up they start gathering on their front porches and a small crowd quickly builds. The townfolk unwilling to approach the obviously armed group hangs back and watches from afar.
Talbot gives a cruel smile as he realizes that he might have an advantage here, he looks around and opens his mouth to start shouting something before his eyes alight on Moktargarn and he deflates with a whimper.
”Fine, fine I’ll talk. The Starfinders never gave me the credit or credits I deserved. When they decided to pass me over for a Venture-Captainship with all of those openings, I decided I’d had enough! But I wasn’t going to leave without taking my due. So I stole your ‘precious’ Philosopher’s Stone. Akiton’s markets are so volatile earning a few credits here would be easy and untraceable, so I thought I’d earn some credits here before Drifting out of the Pact Worlds. The stone was so easy to use and created such an amazing product, that it turned out to be such a disappointment when it proved to be defective…”
Here he pauses and looks at the crowd that has gathered, seeing their looks of disappointment, disgust and disillusionment. A few tears in his eyes well up as he address them directly. ”What i hadn’t expected was for the amount of love and trust that you would give me. I thought I’d just come in do my thing and be gone, but you proved to be more loyal and supportive than I ever expected. Please don’t think too bad of me for what i’ve done.”
His bit said he falls into a repentant slump. From the back of the crowd comes a slow clap. The clapping proves to be coming from Philit as he has his bodyguards clear a path through the crowd. He gives the group a broad shirren approximation of a grin and quickly sends to everyone, ”Well that was beautifully done, if I may say so. I was certain I’d have to send in Moxian and Moeian here for Talbot and your bodies, but here you are!” He then holds up a small recording device, ”You even got him to confess, which should make the trials and court proceedings significantly easier. Thanks for all of the hard work, I’ll see that you get the finder’s fee and the Society gets a letter of appreciation for your work.”
He nods at the guards who move in and pick up the bound man before turning and addressing the crowd of people gathered here. ”Talbot maybe a criminal and a cheat, but he is right about one thing, the people of Tasch are certainly a sight to behold. AbadarCorp has been looking for a better place than Maro, with it’s corruption and dilapidated-ness, to put a large shipping center. Your efforts to support that man, however misguided, are inspiring. If you’d be willing to work that hard for us, I’m sure my superiors would love to hire you! If there are no hiccups, we’ll start taking applications for positions early next week. You can find the types of positions and necessary documents on our page….” The shirren pauses for a second after giving the address, and quickly sends a message to you with a wink before turning back to the crowd and giving them the details of what they have to do to apply. ”There are plenty of rooms in the hotel, and I think I can swing for the ‘corp to cover them.”
The next morning the group sells all of the gear they found and with the 500 credit finder’s fee from Philit everyone gets on the shuttle home with a new shiny AbadarCorp credstick with 719 credits on it, along with a lot of signs of gratitude from the townsmembers of Tasch. As soon as everyone is back on the station, the overhead announcement calls you into Venture-Captain Arvin’s office.
The busy as usual lashuta turns off his screen and gives the group a long look. ”Well you seemed to handle that situation well, considering I got a letter of thanks from the AbadarCorp Akiton Branch Headquarters this morning, though they did seem a little pissed about us not telling them we had agents in the area… But that’s beside the matter. Did you get the stone? What happened to Talbot? And how did our new recruit handle themself? I’m expecting full reports of this later, but for right now I’d like to hear the basics so I know if there’s anything I need to handle right away.”
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"Well, we caught Talbot, got him to confess, recovered the stone... And apparently Abadarcorp is building a new shipping center as well on Akiton, which will be of benefit to the folks there. I think our job is done for now." Glitch says briefly, ending with a little twitch, which turns into a little smile. She hands over the stone, or waits for whoever is holding it to do so. "So unless you need to know more details, which are in our written reports, I guess that's it."
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Vahni nods. "That about covers it. Talbot is getting due process down on Akiton courtesy of AbadarCorp, for both the charges of theft and fraud. We also did a little bit of good on the ground, or at least I hope we did: the corp's converting Tasch into a new shipping center, which will hopefully make a few jobs. If we get out word that we helped start that up, the Society could get a PR boost which I really think it needs right now. And, um, as for myself..." Vahni blushes slightly, looking at their feet. "I handled myself pretty well, I think, but, um, when we finally cornered Talbot I ended up spending more time running after a minecart than actually fighting." They pause. "Don't ask. More details are in the report."