Deger misses, Smek drinks a restorative serum, and Zezka crawls along the walls!
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Round 8
Active conditions: Zero G
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Zez'ka
Deger
Frank
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Rafelo (Surrendering)
Shonyvyzam (Unconscious)
Verity-5 (Unconscious)
Tillik (Unconscious)
Moxie (-18 NL)
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Smek (-10, NL)
Rose-5 and Spinning Falcon
Tyus
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Click. Whirr.
Frank swings, and Moxie goes down!
Moxie goes down, Rafelo surrenders with not a spot of damage on him, and the battle is over! Medics rush in to revive the Rivals, while confetti spews out of hidden vents, creating a mess out of everything in this Zero-G environment! You manage to collect all three flags and then do an impromptu parade and dance number with the showman himself!
A wash of even more sparkling confetti and the sound of upbeat brass instruments heralds the arrival of Zo! onto the stage. The undead mogul effortlessly swings a microphone in one hand, while casually pointing and smiling at members of the live studio audience. As the music calms, Zo! turns to provide both teams with a shot from his finger guns before addressing the audience.
“Trials and tribulations! Drama and intrigue! Dangerous obstacles and murderous animals rendered into appetizers! Really folks, we have it all, don't we!?” Zo! revels in the crowd's adulation for a few seconds before a blinking red-screen causes the assembled masses to stop, save for a few lagging zombies who continue. “Now, if it were up to me, I'd call each of these teams a winner! But this is prime-time vidcasting, so there simply has to be a winner! If there wasn't, well, all of you might kill me—for a second time, that is!
“So, for this episode of Pact World Warriors, the winning team is...” Zo! grins, drawing out the moment as long as possible, "...the Starfinder Seven, yay! Now everyone, dance!"
Balloons fall from the ceiling.
Brandishing a femur, Zo! leads the dance, popping as many balloons as he can! ♫ You put your right femur in, you put your right femur out, you do the hokey pokey and you shake it all about... ♫
Verity bounces up and down and claps for all of you. "You guys totally deserved this!"
Rafelo and Shonvyzam come to shake your hands, then Rafelo escorts Verity out on the floor. Giggling, the two of them do the hokey pokey with Zo!
Even Tillik and Moxie come out to shake your hands, though Tillik seems more reluctant than Moxie, who says, "Alright, I'll admit it. You guys were badass. No hard feelings?" She leans in. "What do you say to a rematch in a few months? A whole fight-night spectacle? I'll be sure to trash talk with you guys lots on all the vids, just to drum up viewership. The fans love that!"
Even Radaszam comes out on to the stage, joining the dance just as it gains more of a techno-rock heavy metal beat. It's still the hokey-pokey, but it's the hokey-pokey with a bunch of undead brandishing femurs and a brutal bass beat with drum solos.
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Zez'ka squeals in delight and claps her hands, waggling her antennae around rapidly. "Victory?! PROUD! Oh, I have had a great deal of fun!" She waves at the crowd and cameras. "Happy to meet you, Soon-To-Be-Friends!!"
Zez'ka joins in the dance with enthusiasm, but she's a jittery, wild dancer, and it looks super awkward. "HAPPY!"
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Smek offers a paw to Moxie, "Well done and a lot of fun! I'd look forward to matching wits with you and your team again." He then turns to Tillik, "Sorry, I can get... Competitive. You've got real skill, never even saw you in the Bridge by the flag. Impressive."
After congratulating the other members of the Rivals, he swats away some of the floating confetti. "Great fun Zo! and surprising as always." He offers their host an overly dramatic bow before surrendering to the sheer silliness of the victory celebration, joining in the dancing and singing.
Verity-5 giggles again, and takes pity on Deger. "Here, honorable adversary! Here's how to dance!" She joins him, and somehow makes his stiff dwarven dance style look good.
Tillik shakes Smek's paw. "You're one tough rat. I may be light on my feet, but you're no slouch yourself." The pahtra nervously bows, and finally accepts defeat with grace.
All of the Rivals talk excitedly about how much work they are going to have to do to best you in the rematch.
"You are taking all that tea with you, right? No, really, I insist."
Zo! sends a battalion of undead minions to load Poshkettle tea and your fruit basket onto Radaszam's shuttle.
"Do look me up again! I always love reconnecting with my stars!" Zo! says genially.
Meanwhile, on the trip home, Radaszam laughs and drinks with all of you, recounting hilarious moments from your escapades. You are all in a wonderful mood when three days later you visit the Lorespire Complex for a more thorough debriefing from First Seeker Luwazi Elsebo.
Radaszam leaves you in the waiting room for a few minutes to confer with Luwazi, when you notice a well-stocked and eerily familiar food assortment waiting on the currently abandoned reception desk.
Behind you, a vidscreen displays a live newsfeed. A pair of dirindi* newscasters are discussing a breaking news story.
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"Tragedy over Eox tonight, everyone. The Stewards are investigating a shuttle explosion that claimed the lives of several Pact Worlds Citizens, recently famous from being the Rivals Team on Pact World Warriors." The dirindi in the bright yellow suit gestures behind him, as video of a devastating explosion plays.
A dirindi woman in a blue and silver suit leans forward. "Oh how terrible! I watched that show. Are there any survivors?"
"No." The man in the yellow suit shakes his head as headshots of the Rivals team flash behind him. The last is a picture of Verity dancing with Deger. "While the investigation has yet to include, our news team was leaked some evidence indicating potential Starfinder involvement."
Video flashes behind him of Tillik and Smek's epic battle, both with grim faces and serious wounds.
"Huh," says the woman. "There sure have been a lot of leaks of evidence of Starfinder ill-doings in the past weeks. Exploding shuttles! Whomever is responsible should be slapped down!" She slaps the desk with a flash of electricity, and then continues. "Next up: the confusing nature of maraquoi soap operas. Why do we like them, when no one can understand who is really sleeping with whom?"
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As the news story concludes, a shirren from Delivery Hive Couriers comes up to you with another fruit basket. One of the apples in this basket has a single bite taken out of it, and the unsigned card that accompanies the basket reads, I don't like people who fail me, but I'm really starting to like all of you.
"Ooh, that ending was BRUTAL!"
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Rose-5 says, “No hard feelings, Moxie. Zo!s challenges are quite inventive. I believe I would enjoy experiencing more of his creativity and using it to augment my training and performance as an agent of the Starfinder Society.”
She turns toward the large group dancing. “Oh, another surprise challenge. To dance for the audience. I am not good at dancing, but I will try.”
Stepping forward into the crowd, Rose-5 gives dancing her best shot. Her dance is a ritualistic series of moves repeated precisely in time, with no improvisation or signs of her feeling the beat as more than a mechanistic set of instructions.
When Zo! offers the Poshkettle tea to Rose-5, she grins, entirely oblivious to the implication that Zo! just wants the tea out of his studio. “Thank you, Zo! I am glad that you remembered that I like Poshkettle Tea and that you have generously decided to share it with us as a gift in acknowledgement of our victory.”
Back in the Lorespire Complex, Rose-5 kicks back and relaxes, in her way. She spends hours upon hours in her machine shop plotting future improvements for Falcon in her sketchbook and then trying new models in search of an innovation that works well and strikes her drone’s fancy. All the while, she enjoys numerous cups of her favorite tea.
When the anti-Starfinder propaganda plays, Rose-5 sputters at the vid-screen. “That’s…That’s highly inaccurate. They are reporting on a nonlethal battle as if it were mortal combat, and selectively editing the video footage in order to produce a false narrative. I don’t like this. And then they just talk about soap operas?" She sighs, “This is why video news is inferior to written news.” She shakes a bit, as part of her mind that she's pushing far to the back contemplates the possibility that what she saw on the screen about the fate of the Rivals may well be true.
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Spinning Falcon joins in with the dancing, flipping and flying to and fro. He sings along with the music with a series of beeps and flashes his lights in tune with the beat. His patterns repeat in the same way Rose-5's do—this is a formulaic dance that the two of them have practiced many times before. The social interaction and public-facing speech have tired him out, so he mostly spends time with Rose-5 after returning to the ship rather than speaking with the other Starfinders much. Still, in between hours in the machine shop with Rose-5, he takes some time to hang out with his new friend Tyus.