Previously on the votes:
PART THREE:
Different Choice & Pendles: 44%
Ambra / Oscar Mike: 33%
Rendain / Kleese / Deande: 11%
PART 3.5:
Eldrid & Lack of Confidence: 50%
BEWARE: This penultimate “episode” is quite long. Apologies.
Who is Galilea’s Secret Admirer: Penultimate Episode
The Varelsibabes
Shayne and Aurox’s Room. Nova
Galilea had errands to run, leaving Shayne and Aurox on their own. When she’d come back, in five or so hours, she wanted some solid leads, and if they got whoever was sending her these love letters, Shayne would get bonus credit; money she really needed.
It also meant Shayne and Grumbles could start focusing on the investigation, which meant they could now give Galilea the impression they had control over the matter - when they really didn’t. There’s a lot of variables in this, a lot of ends that seemed to either lead somewhere or to nowhere at all. It was a fairly innocent case, and while Shayne and Aurox would have liked a grisly murder, it’s the small things they need to get through first to join the leagues in which Kingfisher Gray is apart of.
To make their lives a little easier, they knew they wanted to find Pendles first, then, Shayne and Aurox decided that two other leads needed to be explored: one; the medicine recipe and two, the person behind these love letters really didn’t seem… confident. These two leads seemed like a win to them.
But finding Pendles wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world; he was stealthy and he literally lived in the shadows. Seriously, no one knows where he lives. But did he really seem like a hopeless romantic who sat and watched shows like the Real Housewives of Solus every Tuesday night?
Finding him was going to be a nightmare, and Shayne dreaded it, but with a little luck, she knew where he might be — and thus, the investigation into Galilea’s Secret Admirer began.
Leisure Room. Nova.
After searching for him, far and wide, Shayne and Aurox finally found Pendles in the large leisure room where most of the Battleborn came to play pool, relax and mingle. It was here they found Pendles at the bar. Shayne slipped onto the stool beside him, arm resting on the bench, and looks into Pendles one good eye. Aurox hovers on the stool opposite her.
“Shayne”, Pendles says as he raises a finger for another glass.
“Pendles. I’ll have whatever he’s having.” Shayne says smoothly.
“Ha. She’ll have a soda. On me.” He turns to face her, “now what can I do for you today?”
“I have evidence to suggest you’re stalking a certain someone”.
Pendles roars with laughter, “Stalking someone? It’s what I do!”
“We know you’re the one sending Galilea love letters. Fess up.”
“Love le…? What are you on about?”
Shayne looks over at Aurox and raises an eyebrow. She gives him the four letters of importance. He notices something…
“My Girlfriend is a Varelsi”
“You know it?”
“Not personally, no, but I do know for a fact Kid whateverhisnameis, is a massive fan. Talks to me about it all the time. I don’t care much for that kind of thing.”
“He’s a fan?”
“Owns a fanclub and everything. People go to it, can you believe it? Unbelievable”.
Hmm. Kid Ultra, ‘My Girlfriend is a Varelsi’ and a fanclub? Shayne drinks her soda as soon as it arrives and pats Pendles’ back as she leaves.
Then she comes back.
“Library” Pendles says before she can utter another word and goes back to drinking.
Library. Nova.
They had a surprising lead, a fan-club revolving around a show about a Varelsi who is also a girl? Shayne thought maybe all Varelsi were male or at least genderless. This lead into the question: how come there’s so many of them? And how come they all look the same? Are they like Oscar Mike and all clones? How can you make a show about a Varelsi so close after the whole Heliophage incident happened? The list goes on.
And there it was, the poster for what was possibly the worst name a fan-base could name themselves, “the Varelsibabes”. Its poster was a tiny little notice on the wall outside the library door, obscured by the other posters. Shayne had never seen it nor heard of such a thing, but according to the poster it happened every day at seven, which was just in an hour or so. In the interim, Shayne thought it would be best to check out their other leads.
Miko’s Room. Nova.
Shayne and Aurox visited Miko who remained at her room, busily working away making potions and whatnot. Shayne recognised the medicine recipe the moment she saw it; it’s a common Eldrid recipe, a drink in fact, that cures all aliments.
Oh, and it can also be worked easily into an extremely powerful laxative.
So there’s that.
When she enters, she notices recipes pinned to the wall and some scattered onto the floor. Miko — who Shayne assumed was a she — turned to face her as she worked away on a potion.
“We give this out freely, to those who are in great need” Miko says as she looks down at the recipe. “We do not get people to pay, as that would be greed.”
“I’m looking for someone who may have bought this recipe recently?”
“Everyone uses this, but we keep track of those who do, as it sometimes has… side-effects”.
Ha, yeah. That laxative is a side-effect all right.
Miko goes over to her desk and after spending a few seconds brushing pages about and looking for holo-pads, she eventually finds what she’s looking for: a bundle of pages, all wrapped tightly together. When she unfurls them, they reveal names and dates. She plucks one and gives it to Shayne.
“These are the names of people who bought it recently”
Mellka, Thorn, Orendi, Phoebe, Montana, Oscar Mike, Toby and Kid Ultra. Shayne snapped this onto her holo-pad and thanks Miko.
They had names belonging to the people who bought the recipe around the time Galilea got the note. All they had to do is somehow narrow it down.
Library. Nova.
When they arrived, they did so just as the small group talked excitedly about last night’s episode of “My Girlfriend is a Varelsi”, which sounded dumb and absurd. From what Shayne could gather, it was about:
- An Oscar Mike unit falling in love with a Varelsi, but when the UPR want to kill the Varelsi, including ‘her’, the two go on the run. Think Romeo and Juliet meets Blade Runner.
- A sitcom about a Varelsi moving in with a millionaire who runs an LLC corporation. Multi-camera show.
- A reality show that’s like “The Bachelor” but a man is looking for a Varelsi girlfriend.
- a “How I Met Your Mother” type show but more like How I Met Your Varlesi Mother Oh By The Way She Isn’t From This Dimension.
Siting around in a circle were Kid Ultra (massive nerd), Alani (face still bruised after Galilea whacked her with her shield for being too creepy and thinking she was the stalker), Montana, Attikus, Ambra, Orendi and El Dragon. Yep, that was one of the weirdest groups Shayne had ever seen.
They talked about last night’s thrilling episode while Shayne looked at the note she took from Miko, snapped onto her holo-pad. She noticed Orendi and Kid Ultra’s name, as well as Montana.
When it was all over, Shayne made her way to Kid Ultra, who was ready to go. When asked if he had a minute, he agreed.
“Are you a Varelsibabe?” Kid Ultra asks curiously.
“Not… really.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. We’re really into it. The show. You should give it a shot."
“Right. Hey, listen, I was wondering, has anyone joined recently?”
“Recently? Well, Orendi is pretty new. We converted her last week.”
“You what?” Shayne asks, taken aback.
“Converted. We let her into the group. Why? What we’re doing isn’t illegal. I promise!”
"I’m just wondering. Has she talked about it?”
“Oh, we all do. We all try to convert others. It’s kind of our thing.”
“Right.”
“If you join, you get cool rewards. We discuss episodes, think up better fan-names. We even… and they’re gone.”
Shayne and Aurox had a lead. Orendi. Maybe Kid Ultra. Possibly Montana. They had one final lead to work on, which was the no-confidence angle. With two hours left to spare before Galilea came back, Shayne hoped she had some kind of substantial evidence to, well maybe not convict someone (because this isn’t exactly a crime) but at least give Galilea a name. At the moment, she had three.
Maintenance Bay. Nova.
There was only one person on Nova who had no confidence, no self-esteem, and that was Toby. Maybe in hindsight it was quite obvious, or maybe it was lazy investigative work, but Toby fit the bill quite easily. Toby also happened to buy a recipe from Miko, though why someone like Toby needed the recipe when they had a perfectly good mech, was not lost on Shayne.
When they enter the large bay, Toby was there, painting Berg with his flipper.
“Hey, buddy” Shayne says a little too loudly and also who the hell says buddy, anyway?
“Uh, hey” Toby was anxious without even trying to be. He stopped what he was doing.
“Is anything wrong? Did I do something?”
“No, we’re just… well, actually, we wanted to ask you something. And it might not be anything, so don’t get yourself all worked up over it —”
“Me? Worried? I’m never worried! Who says I worry? I don’t. Trust me, I really… was it Reyna?”
“No, no! Look, someone has come to us with a little… problem. A small problem. And I wanted to ask you about it.”
“Me? What problem? If I yelled to someone, I’m REALLY sorry”
“Our client has been getting letters and, going off of them, they seem very…”
“DRENCHED IN MISERY” Aurox pipes up
“R-right. Maybe tone it down a bit, Aurox.”
Toby makes a sad little grunt, and starts to get anxious.
“What letters? I can’t do letters. WHO SAYS I DID THE LETTERS?”
“No one! Well, not yet. Galilea has been getting these letters. They sound like, well, you. But only because they… they tend to be a little…”
“SOUL-CRUSHING” Aurox pipes in again.
Toby looks guilty.
“Is she mad?”
“Mad?”
“If she’s mad, I’ll stop.”
“So… wait, you’re the one behind the letters?”
“You have to understand”, Toby whimpers, “I didn’t know how else to approach her! Galilea has been so kind to me and I guess somewhere down the line I felt something, you know?”
Shayne didn’t expect… well, a confession for starters. Toby was Galilea’s secret admirer?
“You wrote these…?”
“What? No. Look. I have flippers. I can’t write or… or do anything. Oh, man! I’m such a loser! I can’t even wash my face properly without slapping myself.”
“Calm down. Just… deep breaths and from the top.”
“Okay, well, I was trying to get her attention because she’s kind and I heard, at least from Whiskey, that the way to a woman’s heart is by giving her gifts.”
“Those are you as well?”
“Yeah. I guess I went overboard. WHICH IS TOTALLY NOT A SEA REFERENCE, OKAY?! Anyway, I decided to give her the gifts but I didn’t give them to her. Oscar did. He was really kind to drop them off to Gali because, well, I didn’t have the stomach to show myself at her door.”
“Why? You didn’t need to hide yourself.”
“Look at me,” Toby sighs, “I’m… me. And those letters! I didn’t write them. Orendi did. She and I struck up a bit of a thing where I told her what to write and she did it. Oscar delivered the whole lot.”
Shayne looks at Aurox, who shrugs, and gives him the letters.
“These are yours…?”
“Uh, those two aren’t. That recipe isn’t and I have no idea what the Real Housewives of Solus is or that Varelsi show. Do you think Orendi went rogue?”
“She is rogue.”
“But like, real rogue? Because I didn’t tell her to write that one about watching the Varelsi show.”
“Maybe. We’ll have to ask her.”
“Is Galilea angry with me? Oh, man! If she’s angry, I’m so screwed. But mostly lonely.”
“She’s just… confused who sent them. But you fessed up! And that’s a good thing!”
“PLEASE don’t tell her I sent those letters. I can’t imagine what she’d do to me if she finds out.”
“We won’t tell her, buddy. We promise”
You’re going to tell her, aren’t you?
Shayne and Aurox’s Room. Nova
When Galilea arrives at their room, and asks if they have any leads, Shayne isn’t sure what to do. Could you help Shayne make a decision?
- Choice One: TELL HER ABOUT TOBY. Poor Toby begged Shayne not to tell Galilea that he’s the secret admirer. You promised you wouldn’t. But whoopsie, looks like you told her the truth anyway. Oh well.
- Choice Two: TELL HER ABOUT ORENDI. You tell Galilea that Orendi is the secret admirer, which isn’t exactly a lie. It does seem Orendi went a bit rogue and started developing feelings for Galilea. Or perhaps she’s just messing with Galilea because it’s Orendi.
- Choice Three: TELL HER ABOUT OSCAR MIKE. For some reason you think telling Galilea that Oscar Mike is her secret admirer is the right way to go, even though all he’s ever done is deliver the gifts and letters to her door.
- Choice Four: YOU LIE. You tell Galilea that you have no leads, even though you have a pretty solid one. For the sake of Toby, you decide to tell Galilea that nothing has turned up and in fact they may never know who sent those love letters.
- Choice Five. YOU TELL HER EVERYTHING. You don’t have a bad bone in your body. You tell her everything. While the other choices are individual; this is the whole thing out in the open. Toby is the secret admirer, Orendi wrote the letters, Oscar is somehow involved.
Next post will be the final part of the story. How will it end? You decide.
