Hasshachir raises a baleen-bearing arm and says, "Good luck. Let me know if you need any other directions."
Exiting into the market area once more, you are greeted with the cacophony of alien bartering. The hall on the opposite side of the cantina should lead deeper into the station where the even less reputable business transactions take place.
Steve notes the two yellow-skinned aliens that were following you before are still present, hiding just out of sight.
Steve turns around in his drone and squats low and yells at the pair of yellow beings following them. "HEY! WHAT DO YOU WANT?" He asks in the friendliest of yelling tones.
"I was going to try to lure them into an alley, but this works too." Antenor tries to subtly unholster his weapon
Steve, ever subtle, points out the stalking draelik who immediately raise their shadowstaves to attack. Patrons of the market scatter with an efficiency and relative lack of screaming that suggests they're used to shoot outs occurring at random.
Combat! Round 1. Bold may act.
Rril
Antenor
Blue Draelik
Red Draelik
Steve
Lors
Haro
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Seeing the draelik's menacing with their shadowstaves, Rril shakes his head.
"Look," he shouts to the yellow-skinned creatures as he moves ahead, weaving through the equipment along the wall in an effort to remain behind cover, "I'm not a fan of the little biter, either, but I suggest you put down your weapons and leave my crew alone."
Reaching his position, and with his weapon quickly drawn , he stops to line up a shot if the draelik attack.
Rril fires on the hostile draelik.
"Dammit! Gang up on that one! We can take the other for questioning!" Antenor points at the closer one and takes a shot
The shot goes wide though
Antenor's 'warning' shot does not seem to dissuade the alien brigands, and it is clear from their expression that they intend hostilities. A hovering orb of darkness manifests above both draelik. The first raises its shadowstaff to fire. Rril fires first. The bullet seems to slow as it approaches the target, but it still penetrates the alien's armor.
Both yellow aliens fire black bolts from the end of their staves at Rril with alien words the tone of which sounds like a challenge. One strikes him, freezing his skin beneath his armor. The other sails wide.
Combat! Round 1. Bold may act.
Rril (-6)
Antenor
Blue Draelik (-2)
Red Draelik
Steve
Lors
Haro
"This was a poor attempt," grumps Lors as she pulls out her trident, trotting forward into their stalkers' midst.
"Very unprofessional to strike merely because you were noticed."
"I am famous?" Steve asks Haro. "Who knows me?" He draws his handaxe as Oonopidae skitters very quickly across the ground, closing in on the hunter.
Lors drives the magical trident through the draelik's armor and graviton field, producing a wicked wound. The alien hisses in pain and blurts something that sounds derogatory.
Combat! Round 2. Bold may act.
Rril (-6)
Antenor
Blue Draelik (-9) (Coordinated Assault)
Red Draelik (Coordinated Assault)
Steve
Lors
Haro
"They got nothin' on you Rril! Keep it up!"
Antenor invigorates the outlaw. While Rril fails to catch the draelik off-guard, the bullet just penetrates the protective freebooter armor.
Dark energy courses along the staves in the aliens' hands, forming wicked spikes at the end of each staff. One swings at Steve and painfully punches through his armor. The other carefully approaches Lors and swings at her legs and misses.
Combat! Round 2. Bold may act.
Blue Draelik (-11) (Coordinated Shot)
Red Draelik (Coordinated Shot)
Steve (18/21 | 20/20)
Lors
Haro
--3--
Rril (i)
Antenor
Lors wasn't fighting at the best reach for her trident, but a few elbow jogs and feints with her own crushing bodyweight were enough to make her a little space.
One of the draelik clutches at his head in pain. Taking advantage of the distraction, Lors strikes it down with a powerful blow. She tries to skewer the remaining brigand, but it dodges. Unfortunately, it steps into the path of Rril's bullet.
Combat! Round 2/3. Bold may act.
Red Draelik (-2) (Coordinated Shot)
Steve (18/21 | 20/20)
Lors
Haro
--3--
Rril (i)
Antenor
Steve swats his axe down at the draelik. "Quit sneaking up on people!"
"We got this! Get'em!" Antenor moves a bit in case he needs to take a shot, but focuses the team on ending this quickly.
Steve strikes hard, even slowed through the graviton field as his axe is. The draelik swings back, shouting something that sounds like a lofty, zealous retort in whatever language these aliens speak. It swings back with its dark staff, knocking Steve upside the head painfully.
Combat! Round 3/4. Bold may act.
Red Draelik (-6) (Coordinated Shot, Get'em)
Steve (13/21 | 20/20)
Lors
Haro
--3--
Rril (i)
Antenor
(i = Inspiring Boost Used)
"Not going to give up, eh?" laments Rril. He shakes his head, then fires a shot at the remaining draelik.
Antenor continues to egg the party on, but also looks around to see if there are security forces coming to break up (or worst arrest).
The Draelik makes a fatal error and gets too close to Steve as the goblin hacks at it with his hatchet. "Gotcha!"
Rril's bullet just misses his target, having failed to take him by surprise. However, between Haro's pike and Steve's lethal axe swing to the draelik's head, the battle is ended before anything too dramatic occurred. Equally swift, the market sellers and patrons return from the shadows and places of cover, picking up business as though nothing out of the ordinary had taken place.
Antenor, taking a moment to look around, notes not a single alien dressed or equipped in a way to suggest a peacekeeping force on the promenade. If the station has such a thing, your little scuffle certainly failed to draw them out.
2 x freebooter armor I
2 x lesser shadowstaff (Starfinder Alien Archive 37)
1 shadowstaff clip (40 charges)
1 shadowstaff clip (39 charges)
2 x shadowblend serum (Starfinder Armory 116)
2 x XRAY serum (Starfinder Armory 116)
"Grab the goods and let's make like a tree and get outa here!"
Antenor grabs a shadowblend serum and Xray serum.
You head into the corridor that leads deeper into the station. Metal tracks, now worn smooth by constant foot traffic, run the length of this corridor and through a heavy metal door that has been propped open to the north. Several aliens of different species push metal carts with ore processed at stations in the promenade toward the back of the station. A few old carts have been co-opted to serve as merchant stalls along the side of the long corridor leading to the old smelting factory.
What was once a smelting factory has been converted into a bustling marketplace, with unlit furnaces and overturned mine carts serving as various storefronts. The walls are decorated with bits of metal cans, worn ropes, and broken weapons hanging among the exposed pipes. A set of tracks emerges from the southern door, and another door exits to the west.
Among the myriad other aliens in this market, an iridescent blue alien almost as tall as Lors stands out among the rest. It has a long, eyeless head with broad, horse-like teeth, sharp claws at the end of its overly long arms, and wearing only a simple belt with several pouches. Noticing you by some sensory organ, it makes straight for you. The alien pulls out a coil of high density smart cable and shoves it into Rril's hands. It them promptly shoves its large claws into one of the bounty hunter's pouches and tries to pull something out, apparently his medkit. When Rril resists and it fails to retrieve what it was reaching for, it seems to be come frustrated, gesturing at the cable it 'gave' Rril and trying to reach into his pouch again.
"Want me to discourage your admirer?"
Antenor watches the whole scene trying to get a hunch on the intentions of the strange alien... , but apparently the alien is hard to read.
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"Want me to discourage your admirer?"
"No need to get all jealous, Lors. You know I only have eyes for you, Beautiful." Rril says in response. Then, almost immediately spotting a passing, curvy creature in a fairly tight spacesuit, he adds, "Mostly."
When the blue alien gets more insistent on an apparent transaction, he tries to do some quick calculations in his head to determine whether the cables have comparative value to the med kit.
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Haro initially investigates the tracks while the others deal with the alien, but once he's had a chance to examine them, he walks over and tries to help.
"Let me give this a try. My parents sent me to this academy when I was younger. I've got some mental abilities that might help."
He reaches out and touches the creature, hoping to form a link with its mind.
How are you? I'm Haro.
The tracks are steel. The sort designed to keep wheels following a predetermined path.
The smart cable is a fairly advanced piece of technology easily worth a couple thousand credits in trade.
The alien calms down at Haro's touch. It tries to pantomime what it is trying to accomplish, which the vid streamer understands to mean that the blue alien wants to trade. He also gets the sense that the alien does not care much for what it is trading or trading for but rather seems to simply enjoy taking (or receiving) things from other aliens.
Steve laughs and darts right up to the alien. He takes out an umbrella from his pack, shoves it intp the alien's hands and takes the medkit. He then grabs his zipstick, shocks it a few times to show what it does, shoves it into the alien's hands and begins rummaging through the creature's pack for something interesting. He is roughly waist deep if nothing stops him.
The tall blue alien bobs its head, seemingly in enjoyment of the exchange between itself and Steve. It takes the umbrella and then the zip sticks, allowing Steve enough time to withdraw a cylindrical lens pistol from the alien's pouches. The alien claps its clawed hands in satisfaction and wanders back into the crowd.
"That was some slick trading! Well done." Antenor looks around, "Let's not dally though. We've got a date."
Moving onward, you find what must be the gambling den. The majority of this chamber is taken up by several raised platforms, some of which are covered by scattered pieces from unusual games: squares of plastic bearing holographic images, plastic chits of various shapes and colors, and hexagonal wooden containers filled with glass beads, among other paraphernalia. A door exits to the east, and a ramp leads up to another chamber to the south.
None of the games seem in the least bit familiar to you.
Beings that resemble yellow crystals with spindly, spider-like legs gather near a table. Glowing light in their crystalline bodies brightens and dims, accompanied by bursts of crackling noise.
"Interesting looking ship they were examining..."
Lors approaches, waving a brief greeting with one hand while typing away on her datapad.
"We hear you are the ones to talk to about Zolan Ulivestra."
<Akitonian>"I missed it, but memorize the details for later."</Akitonian>
As the group is discussing the strange crystal aliens they quickly notice that Steve is eyeballing the new pistol he has, flicking it around from hand to hand and twirling it around the trigger, fake aiming at nearly everything in the room as he mimics laser sounds. "Can't wait to tear this thing apart for parts." He is too distracted and just keeps walking down the stairs. Seen the others have stopped he turns around and looks. "You just going to stand there all night or you going to go talk to the nice pirates?"
One of the glimsharrs, presumably a dominant one, flickers a complex pattern of lights inside its crystalline body.
The lead glimmshar snatches the datapad from Lors' hand with one of its long, spindly legs and begins tapping away furiously with two of its other clawed legs. Meanwhile, its colors shift, bright and fade accompanied by a weird sound like fluctuating static. Finally, the glimsharr hands the datapad back. Sadly, the written text is not Common.
Steve shakes his head. "No clue what it says." He turns and mimics a fluctuating sttaic sound, hoping to get in a few good words.
"Maybe you can type your fancy human thought words into there and it can read it."