Once more the feather creature seems to follow Inari's acting, unable to retain the full benefit of its normal defenses.
Having already locked in on the creature, Bewm's steadies his aim as he ignores his wound and lodges another slug into the feather stalker, making good use of Inari's distraction. Taser Face's electrical blast rippled through the feathers, but seemingly does hardly any damage at all. Still, the attack the party have directed to the creature have begun to take a toll as numerous parts of its body are wounded.
Clearly having had enough of Inari, it fires another harpoon at her which catches her in her neck and another towards the sniper android on the ground which critically strikes her upper back .
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Jena twitches as the harpoon plans into her spine. You see her twitch almost subtly and take aim again. "Warning!" she says.
Warning lights flash in front of her eyes as automated repair systems move to pair the spinal damage. She was unable to maintain a solid grip on the rifle as the shot goes off and the kick buries the butt of the rifle against her shoulder. She grunts to acknowledge the missed shot as she begins to compensate for the damage.
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From his hidden spot, Kai crouched behind cover and took aim at the creature once more. Then he changed his mind and grabbed his data pad. It still had the codes for the lights in it. With a few quick taps he caused the warehouse lights to flicker in a random pattern while that was going on, he took aim and fired again.
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Inari's death acting turns even more realistic as she is blasted by the creature once more. She lets out an overwhelming screech. She once again using what little energy she has left tries to distract the creature. She draws attention to her wounds and starts laughing overwhelmingly, in an attempt to show the creature that its tactics are futile.
With Inari's help, Kai, Taser Face and Brewm all land their shots on the creature. The alien screaches from... some orifice you can't see. It begins to thrash wildly before going completely quiet. The husk of the creature is now completely still, unmoving. The sounds of battle go quiet as a voice from outside breaks the new silence, "Ummmm hey, is this good news or bad? It's station security by the way." Clearly they don't want to come in without confirming.
After shooting it a few more times and with assurances from the party, the forces come in and quickly secure the area. There's a fair amount of chatter between them on how bad-ass you must be to have pulled that off.
After nearly concluding your third mission you head off to the line for the new album...
And instantly you find yourselves regretting a lot of your life's choices. The line looks like it's going to be about 6 hours of standing, followed by a mad rush of fans...
It is extremely boring.
EXTREMELY.
It takes FOREVER.
Seriously, this is super boring.
You contemplate quitting the Starfinders.
It's a mob! feet, tentacles, and claws everywhere. It's all you can do to not drown in the crowd! Finally though, you get to the front. You're welcomed to also buy a copy for yourself if you'd like, it's 50 credits and pool credits is allowed.[/ooc]
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Standing around for hours, Jena seems to "check out" and you swear you see her eyes go dim. She starts to droop, and then gets shoved again and her eyes light up again. This seems to go for hours.
Her eyes dart open one more time just in time to avoid the rush!
Seeing the price, Jena sighs Really? 50 credits? I could buy a nice tool kit with this.... She pulls out her credit chip and activates it. Oh.... she sheepishly turns to the group. "I uh... only have 7 credits left... I'm more than happy to use it all."
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"50 credits? For this? I seriously stood in line for half a day, got trampled by every known race of idiots under the sun, and now you want 50 credits for some saccharine sweet synth-pop that's probably been available on the net for free for months? This is ridiculous. I hope there's enough on that credstick Ziggy gave us. I'm not spending my own money on this junk!"
The punk kid selling your desired item cuts Inari a 10% discount because he thinks she's hot more than he recognizes her. With partial pooling the party is eventually able to get enough together for her "favorite artist".
Making your back to the VC, the shirren squeals in delight and offers you single charge cloak as a reward for your thoughtfulness!
With shaking heads the new recruits head out for their final assignment....
The Wayfinders’ transitory nature precludes them from having a single stationary headquarters on Absalom Station. Instead, the Wayfinders operate out of the Master of Stars, an enormous starship that is part of the Armada orbiting Absalom Station. The Master of Stars is currently undergoing extensive repairs, obsessively overseen by the Wayfinders’ leader Fitch. A Society shuttle takes you out to the orbiting ship.
The station’s Armada can be seen from the shuttle’s view screen as it takes off, gleaming figures standing out against the emptiness of space. The Master of Stars immediately stands out from the rest, as layers and layers of scaffolding obscure its hull. Tiny lights flicker among the metal beams as distant figures weld plates and heat shields to the ship’s exterior. The shuttle smoothly glides closer until it reaches the starship’s docking bay, slipping through the magic field that keeps the hold pressurized with breathable atmosphere. As the shuttle doors open, a small drone flies in and pops up a holoscreen, displaying a harried-looking ratfolk.
"Finally, fresh meat!" the ysoki exclaims over the screen, sounding pleased. "Name’s Fitch—pleasantries over, time to get to work. I had some trouble earlier with the lights flickering on the ship, and now both the lights and computers have suddenly gone out on E-Deck. No idea what’s causing it, but you work this job long enough and—" Fitch’s attention flicks to something offscreen, and she shouts "Kirkath! The welding torch is not a toy! You wanna go in the toddler’s pen with the other kids?" She snorts dismissively before continuing, "Sorry, some of these little ones would cut off their own heads if I let them. Anyway, it could be some lunkhead screwed up the wiring, but that’s a pretty big system failure for a simple electrical short. I’d prefer to send in some people with combat training to scout it out, just in case someone or something is sabotaging the ship. If it’s nothing, great, get the power back on if you can. If there’s something suspicious, use your comm units to report in to me. I’ll give you the access codes, so— Selicha! If you touch that panel I will staple you to the hull!"
The screen on the drone cuts out, then flashes to display the ship’s schematics and the passwords for the computers on E-Deck.
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Kai tries to look nonchalant through the shuttle trip, but the fact is that he loved space travel. He loved lo- and null-G, and he was continually impressed by the sights of space outside of a planetary atmosphere, or even just away from Absalom Station. It was one of the reasons he had taken up with the Starfinders in the first place.
He meant to ask the Wayfinders' leader more questions about the engineering and the specific problems they were having, but the screen cu off. He blinked deliberately, a trick he had learned for memorizing information, storing the codes and schematic away in his short term recall. Then, he turned to Bewm.
"Well, friend, are you ready to do repairs for the good of the service?" He smiled as he said it, because that really did sound like a bad dialogue from a popular holoflick.
Kai led the others towards E-deck.
Kai can see that the place is a mess.
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"Man, this place is a wreck Anyone catch what happened her? Why is this ship in such horrible condition? Wait, there's a computer terminal. Maybe it's in working order. Let's see what we can find out. Maybe we can get the lights back on, assuming we have power."
Kai moved to the computer and found it working. He began slicing into the system, trying to get the lights up.
Kai and Bewm work together to get the lights back on. Scattered barrels and boxes line the lowered floor of this storage chamber. A thick bulkhead to the port side leads farther onto the deck, while a similar bulkhead to the aft connects to an arterial hallway that runs the length of the deck. You catch a computer system that you could likely use to reroute power and get some lights back here.
A pair of very frightened human children blink at you. "Are we in trouble because of our pet?"
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Kai was startled to see the kids, but quickly gathered his wits. ”we actually aren’t here for you or your pet. We just came to get some of the electrical equipment working again. It was damaged or something. Do you know anything about that? The man who sent us thought someone or something might have broken things on this part of the ship. If it wasn’t you or your pet, then there might be something else responsible. “
The kids exchange a glance and look nervously around. One of them starts to shed tears from their eyes and the other one nervously says "I'm Kieu Lan and this is my sister, Kieu Si. Ever since mom vanished with the other Starfinders, dad has to bring us to work. Well, this morning we saw some weird alien. I think we woke it up in the kids area and it came here. It's our new pet! Anyway we decided to keep it as a pet and hid it in the next room."
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Harrac squats down with the kids, "can you tell me about your new friend? Is he big and scary like me?" His mouth spreads into a massive grin and his eyes light up as he chuckles. "My friends call me Harrac. It's nice to meet you Kieu Lan and Kieu Si
So your friend. Can it fly? does it have big teeth? Where do you think it's hiding?" He laughs and holds out his hand, "let's move to someplace safe."
Looking to Harrac they shake their heads. Lan speaks up and says, "No way mister, you're way more scary. Blue, that's his name, Blue is just a small blob with a huge mouth is all. He'd never hurt anyone."
Clearly not worried about the creature, Si speaks up, "We ummm.... set a trap for anyone who goes in. Sorry."
Lan responds, "Please. We think our pet ate some wires and that's why the lights went out. We didn't think any adults would come down here. Please don't be mad."
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"We're not mad, trust me. But we do need to keep Blue from eating any more wires. Is there something he likes to eat more than wires? I bet we can get him some yummy food and then we can make our repairs."
Kai turned to the others. "Someone call the Ysoki and let him know we got power on up here, and we found some kids. Also tell him about 'Blue' and see what he wants us to do about it."
Lan pulls out a foiled package from his pocket and holds it out. Kai recognized the local sweet food immediately and takes it from the child with a nod. The boy offers "He likes this too."
Inari pulls Fitch up on her comms and relays the information. After hearing the situation, he informs you "Good work, now get it out of there and bring it back to us for survival before it eats through the rest of the ship. Don't kill it if you can manage it. I'll have someone inform the father about the children and get them taken out of there. Fitch out."
Both children sheepishly point to the door to the west. Neither child makes eye contact, but they whisper "Since you're Starfinders."
You can see the trap they've jury-rigged. It doesn't look overly complicated. Lan sees the party looking at it, "It's just the fire extinguisher will go off on you if you open the door. I'm not sure how to undo it."
The kids shrug to Inari, unsure. "Dunno, Blue just, like you know. You know."