The host seemed to have received a message from it's higher-ups, and had grimaced. I could only assume because I heard a faint sound from it's ear-piece. Kira smiled in response too, and solidified my thoughts.
"Looks like your boss is mad, kekeke-"
The host went to slam the table, surprisingly, it made a collision. Maybe it was yet another fake moment of interaction and sound. Kira reached towards the host's suit, and had actually made contact. "Oh? So you are actually here, are you?"
The host smirked confidently. "Yes, but you cannot harm me. The punishment for doing so is immediate death. The higher-ups would not like for more trouble anyway. And that screams trouble, lady."
Holy shit, so, if the host was here… Could I… Kill him? I should right now, nono… I need to wait until after we get through the next few rounds. The board stayed the same, so I tried to memorize it all before it vanished. I'd need to remember by the time I come back here once again.
The host backed away and cleared it's throat. "Well, that was interesting. Very interesting, indeed. The next question, however, will be less upsetting. Of course, they can't get harder. That's not really how it worked in the actual show…" The host looked among the two groups, and Ashley and the other team's second member walked up to the stands, although quite hesitant. The center of the podium had grown in size, as the punishment grew as well. The hot pad remained as big as it was already.
"This next question… What would be the scariest human weapon to space-kind?" The board had a top 5 results reaction to the question. Ashley reluctantly went to hit the button but team 2's member pressed it faster. Seemingly not wanting to have to see it again, although this could be a bad idea, or a good one. We couldn't do much from here. Ashley came back, and she let go of a rather spooked breath.
In short, they did quite poorly. Three responses were obvious, nukes, biological warfare, and alien-specific allergies. The last two were complete mis-haps, considering that nukes counted as "large bombs" team 2 had seen a terrifying loss. Not even radiation was right, as that probably was considered as "biological warfare". Tony nervously raised his hands, and I immediately knew what he was doing, he signed "Anyone know sign language?" Someone from the team nodded, luckily the last person of their team.
Tony smirked, signing "atmosphere" technically, it wasn't wrong. If aliens were to invade, the atmosphere would be most likely to do them in first. I gotta do that next time… Team 2 luckily sacrificed one hand because of our help.
"Well, it's not a weapon, but… Survey says..." Luckily, yes, it was the last answer in the survey. People were quite hurt at this point, however, I am sure nobody but me brought a weapon. Not to mention there was going to be an intervention by the higher ups if we attacked anyway. We are almost done here, then we just need to deal with the last hurdle. No one needs to get any more hurt here.
That question wasn't much of an open ended one, however, the next one was rather a problem. "What are the best tourist locations in the rings of Saturn?" How would anyone know this? However, judging by the Mars question, this one must be some-what broad as well, or take some actual knowledge. There were only 4 blank boxes on the board. One of the members on the other team signed something to us, I caught it late, but Tony relayed it to the next one up on our team. Once again, the podium in the middle grew with the punishment's size.
Soon after, the buzzer was hit, and- "Material rich satellites?" It was the 3rd most answered thing. Lucky for us.. It was back to me, once again. "Alright, Jack. It seems your team is doing quite well off, but for how long must that last? Surely you can't keep going for much longer."
"Do you really want us to lose?"
"Of course. Why not? I am the host, seeing you win is nice, but I get a bad rep if people can just win all the time."
"Well, get used to it, then. Maybe… Planets with abnormal weather?"
"Survey says..." The host revealed it's stop as only the 4th box. There were only two more answers we needed. We can do this.
Soon, Ashley, and Jonny gave the last two responses, abandoned planets, with hints of lost civilizations, and ones with bizarre wildlife. That was all that could be said. However, they were mostly asteroids, the word "planet" wasn't always corrected to that. It counted more or less, however. We have experienced some losses, but that doesn't matter now. We're one more question closer to being done with this game.
Tony and the other team's fifth player went up to the middle podium.
The host had the next question relayed to him, it's response was a laugh. But it didn't end there. It was amusing enough to get Faux Harvey to burst into laughter. How could he be so amused? What the fuck did we need to expect? Soon, the board had lit up. It was revealed there was only 5 blanks pretty early. Soon, the host barely was able to stop laughing and said "What is a non-human phrase one could use when angry?"