The opera house erupts in screams even more piercing than the Diva’s as a phalanx of Mangalores storms in and opens fire. You turn to your teammates, only to find that half of them have shaken off their faces and revealed themselves to be Mangalores as well. Damn that Zorg!

You are about to play a game of laser tag. Anyone who finds this notion unappealing may take a breather on this one, but otherwise, you should divide yourselves up as evenly as possible into Red (human) and Green (Mangalore) factions. At least one of the two people with marked arms should play (if neither of them wants to, see us immediately so we can write on someone else!) If both are playing, they should be on different teams.

You will be playing against – and with – five other Game teams. This will be an unusual game of laser tag, in that those of you in the Red/Green faction won’t necessarily be trying to win the game for the Red/Green faction. Your team’s score for the laser tag game will be based on only two individual scores: those of the highest-scoring member of the Red faction on your team, and the highest-scoring member of the Green faction on your team. For instance, if Team Grover Cleveland Steamer’s top red player scores higher than the top red players on the other 5 teams, but their top green player scores lower than the top green players on the other 5 teams, then the team will earn 15 points for the physical portion of the event.

Listen carefully to the Q-Zar rules, because standing in one place and shooting your own teammate to earn points is not an optimal strategy.

But wait, there’s more! Your “marked” team members will begin to display valuable information as soon as they enter the briefing room. You should conceal this information until the laser tag actually begins, at which point you may no longer attempt to cover it up. There are many possible answers to the resulting puzzle, but one of them fits the mechanism especially well and is worth more points. Once your team exits the arena, you will have 5 minutes to submit an answer. Any valid answer is worth 15 points, and the particularly suitable one is worth 25 points.

Your team can earn a total of 55 points on this puzzle. As for the Diva’s interrupted concert puzzle, if you solve it at any point before the end of the game and tell the staffer at the end location, you will earn a further 45 points. There are no hints.

There were three games, with six teams per game. As soon as the teams entered the black-lit Q-Zar arena, the invisible letters that had been written on players' arms when they arrived at Fhloston Paradise began to glow, and the following six bigrams could be seen and collected:

CH FI JO LM VI VO