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The Iksheti resists Saryn's lashunta magicks and retreats backwards to fire her rifle. Saryn leaps forward, keeping up the pressure. She lowers the rifle to her side and fires a blast of cold at him from the hip.
The shot strikes Saryn in the shoulder, turning his face slightly blue, but not causing any permanent damage. "Laks, help me smash this fool!" the reptilian hisses at the thug who's still on his feet.
The Verthani leaves his pistol in his waistband, instead strapping a heavy spiked gauntlet on his hand. The thug moves behind Saryn and brings attempts to punch him in the back of the head. Seeing the gangster moving in to flank him, Saryn spins around, easily parrying the punch with his sword.
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Istorvir sighs as violence erupts. He closes his eyes and brings a hand to his forehead. After a couple moments of intense concentration, he extends the hand that was at his forehead at the Ikeshti. Three missiles appear to come from his hand as if it were some sort of portal and race and crash into the face of the Ikeshti.
Vindler moves forward, drawing his sword and channeling the rampant forces of entropy into the weapon. As he advances, he shoves his shield toward the verthani thug and tries to throw his weight into him.
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The first six seconds of combat ended with a bang. JJ Oakley took out a gang member before he even had the chance to pull out the weapon he was reaching for. Saryn took a nasty subzero blast from the Ikeshti's zero rifle and Isotovir retaliated with a blast of magic. Saryn and Vindlér moved into engage in hand to hand combat.
The verthani ganger is brushing himself off and looks like he is getting ready to re-engage with his battle cestus. Congregate Merthinett is sizing your group up, but she is a cunning fighter and its unclear what she will do next.
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Pangea fires a glob of plasma at the verthani thug, burning off the leg of his flight suit and filling the area with the smell of burning polymer and flesh. Saryn delivers a series of bold strikes to the rampaging reptilian, but none of them manage to pierce her high quality ring armor.
Merthani drops the zero rifle in the mud and pulls a swoop hammer off her back, extending the handle with a flick of her wrist.
"You think you can defeat me smooth skins? I killed and ate the largest male in my brood. You are NOTHING to me!"
Merthani swings the hammer down on Saryn, crushing through his armor.
The verthani thug moves in to finish the soldier of, but his foot slips in the mud as he pulls his fist back to punch and his swing goes well over Saryn's head.
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Istorvir sees the heavy hit to his ally by the hammer and his face darkens. "You are being unnecessarily obtuse," he scolds as he walks forward up to the ikeshti. During this walk, he pulls out a battery from a pocket and electricity begins arcing between the fingers of the hand as if his hand were some sort of powered conductor. When he arrives next to the ikeshti, he reaches out the hand, with near perfect timing, and touches the ikeshti's head. Waves of electricity flow through its body.
Casting this spell doesn’t provoke attacks of opportunity.
Vender shows speed uncommon to the people of his race as he swiftly moves around the verthani thug with his shield interposed between himself and the cestus-wearing brute. As he steps in behind the thug and Congregant Merthani, he swings his hooked blade and rippling energy pulses through it into the ikeshti. The strike is aimed at Merthani, but could easily carry through into the verthani as well.
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Istovir's jolting spell strikes Merthinett directly on the head. Smoke drifting out of her mouth, she turns towards the elf. She has definitely taken notice of him.
Vindler rushes into position and strikes both gangsters with a wide swing from his hook bladed sword. Merthinett's weapon has a long reach, but the oversized head is too bulky to swing at either the dwarf or the elf and they move in towards her.
The Verthani reaches out with his battle cestus as the dwarf runs by, but the armored fist slides off Vindler's armor plating without making any purchase.
Verthani Thug 9 damage?
Congregant Merthinett 38 damage?
Both the thug and Merthinett are looking very badly injured.
Feel free to post your actions!
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In a very economical display of marksmanship, JJ Okalie kills the second verthani thug with the second shot he fires.
As the ikeshti raises the head of her swoop hammer above her head, Saryn delivers a mighty blow to Congregate Merthinett, cleaving through her armor and delivering a fatal slash to her side. The ikeshti drops the hammer and falls over, a look of surprise in her eyes. She dies almost immediately.
An eerie silence falls over the junkyard, as the three thugs lie bleeding out into the pool of stagnant water. You can see that Merthinett had a small rucksack on her back. Inside you find a rugged black tablet with a large, bright red sticker on it; its a clenched fist with the letters AAF along the knuckles.
Vindler looks at the tablet as well, "AAF sounds familiar to me too. Let me think..."
"Ah! Now that I think about it, I think that symbol is the insignia of the Android Abolitionist Front. It would seem our new android friend has more than one secret to keep."
"Er...no, Alpha. I believe the Front is in favor of abolishing android slavery. Not androids themselves."
*Aside*
"Man, I thought androids were usually cleverer than that."
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There is some competent encryption on the datapad, but its nothing that Istorvir isn't able to get around. After a cursory look through the data pad, you see that is it mostly consists of records of transactions between an a shell corporation called 'Workforce Solutions' and a number of other shady looking accounts. There are also transactions for a number of cryo storage units designed for transporting humanoid sized life forms. There is also documentation tying additional credit trails leading from 'Workforce Solutions' to a number of an anonymous high end art auctions. Istovir does not have enough time to go through even a fraction of the data in here, but he is able to see enough to tell that something shady is going on.
When you return the data pad to Lecreti, they thank you and hand over a sealed case. Inside is a fist sized fragment of the sandstone tablet.
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Did you all see that shot JJ shouts as he comes back down the ramp, reloading another round as he goes, the bullet passed right between you all. If i was a hair off or I didn't time it just right.
When he gets to the bodies, "Nah, grenades are not really my style. But I will take some of the pistol ammo."
JJ stays silent as the others brief the Lecretti and the VC.
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"Many have used androids as slaves and many still do. That, however, is a lesson for the trip back. For now, we should inform Arvin that we have this piece," Istorvir concludes as he turns to begin the walk back to he ship. A short time after turning to leave, he pulls out his datapad and begins reading something that seems to have a logo WS.
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Lecreti frowns and then says, "There are a lot of people here who support the AAF her on Aballon. Enough so that my friend didn't think there would be anything wrong with slapping a big red sticker on her personal datapad. The laws on Verces are a bit less...forgiving towards our kind. If you ever end up there, my recommendation is that you avoid dealing with a verthani named Karelite Bogdin. He's bad news."
After contacting VC Arvin over interplanetary comms, he congratulates your group enthusiastically.
"That is excellent news, Starfinders. I trust that you can keep the tablet safe for the time being, but please send me some digital scans of the artifact. It should be enough for our data jockey's to begin working on deciphering it.
"For your next mission, you are going to pick up a piece of the tablet from the Silverbrew Mining station in the Diaspora. They're the ones who originally found the tablet and they say that they still have one of the pieces. The coordinates are in the encrypted document I'm sending all of you, along with the second message that we received from the Liavaran Dreamer. Hopefully it makes sense when you get there!
"If you go to the docking station on Striving, you will see that we have a ship for you. You're in for a treat! You'll be flying The Loreseeker on this mission. I'm sure you've heard of it, but this ship is one of the oldest in our fleet and it has seen a ton of action. It was in the process of getting retrofitted with a pulse red reactor core, so luckily it missed out on the Scoured Stars invasion. I'm sure you will live up to the honor of flying this ship and you will return it in one piece."
"Ah good," Vindler says with a slight smile. "I'm sure my kin in the Diaspora will be more than hospitable. Might actually be able to find a good drink too. That is, after we recover the tablet of course, Venture Captain. Seems like we shouldn't have too much trouble anyway. Who's gonna cause us problems all the way out in the Diaspora?"
The dwarf looks over the document Arvin sent over and sighs. "Ah. Right. We get to deal with someone else's problems in exchange for another part of the tablet. Well, we're all going to become less than space-dust someday. No need to delay the decay. It is the Lady's will!"
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It takes days to travel through the Drift to the Silverbrew mining colony. You emerge from the Drift near a cluster of asteroids. The Loreseeker's sensors pick up a faint signal from the mining colony, but there is no response when you attempt to communicate with them. As you cruise closer to the station, the computer science officer (Istovir) can scan the asteroid field.
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Istovir is casually scanning the asteroid field when he notices a few anomalies. He can tell that one of them is a starship. The other two seem to automated weapon arrays. You can tell that they are both in the asteroid field, but it is impossible to tell exactly where they are. Luckily, if Istovir had enough time, he things he could figure out what frequency they are on and jam the communications between the turrets and the starship.
Shortly after approaching the asteroid field, a slim, dagger-like vessel emerges from a hiding spot between two particularly large asteroid clusters, its olive-colored hull showing signs of recent and incomplete repairs. It approaches at a slow, cautious speed.
The hologram of a ysoki dressed in fine clothes and gaudy jewelry appears in the Loreseeker’s bridge, a wide grin on his face. “You’ve come a long way, travelers. You can call me Mr. Smiles. I’m everyone’s best friend around these parts.”
The ysoki, Mr. Smiles, looks off to the side, nodding at some unheard comment. “Of course. Crank, Stock, Shell, Shuffle, and Breach all say hi. So, what can Her humble grandchildren do for you?”
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Pangea answers: "Good day, always nice to see some friendly Smiles! What do you feel about the Android Abolitionist Front? Also, what does Crank feel? And how about Stock? And Shell? And does Shuffle favor the Android Abolitionist Front? As for Breach, is he, or she, or it, against it? And your grandmother, how does she see the AAF? And why?"
Vindler leans back in his seat at the gunnery station as he casually picks at his fingernails, then flicks his comms over to the ship's internal channels to talk to his companions without Smiles and his crew overhearing. "Careful there, folks. These ones are children of Lao Shu Po. Now, I don't have any problems with the ysoki in general, but old Grandmother Rat has a special love for less savory types--thieves, assassins, that sort of thing. I get a feeling we might have the pleasure of meeting the local bandits."
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Mr. Smiles responds to Pangea's flurry of questions with a sharp and nasy tone. "What are you talking about? No one here cares about Android liberation. You know, this is why we have a *spokesperson* aboard our ship. I don't just let anybody get on the comms. It's something you guys might want to consider."
"You have any Y'soki on board? Or someone with a bit of little bit of sense?"
"Sorry, no ysoki on board with us here, but Mr. Saryn here can discuss our new friendship with you."
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A huge grin spreads across Mr. Smiles face, showing a mouthful of shiny silver teeth. "My, my, you Starfinders are sure polite and helpful, aren't ya. Well, we might be able to use a little bit of help from you, since you asked. What are you guys doing in these parts anyways? You just exploring, or are you back from a mission or something?"
The River Rat is slowly drifting closer to your ship.