Episode 59 - The Coming Storm

Intro
Jason: Hello, and welcome Celestial Expanse, a real play D&D podcast set in the Celestial Expanse universe. My name is Jason, and I'll be playing everyone's favorite heretic elf, Theran. Tonight, you will witness much chicanery, tomfoolery, and if you're lucky, maybe even some shmozzle. But now, I want to introduce the Prime Minister of Sinister, the Foreman of Fornicating Skyward, the Numero Uno of rolling numero uno, Matthew. How are you tonight, Matthew? Matt: Pretty good, how's it going. Jason: It goes. Ben! Playing Rell. What was your most recent lie? Ben: Uhhhhhh, I said I wasn't ready. Jason: Rebecca! Who is playing the kind and generous Martle. What is the smallest bone in the human body Rebecca? Rebecca: Ear bone. I don't know what it's called, but ear bone. Jason: Well done. Boston, playing our favorite shrub Juniper. Would you rather shart, or vurp? Boston: Vurt. Jason: Word. Natalia playing Z. Which book famously begins with the line, "Happy families are all alike. Even every unhappy family is happy in its own special way. Natalia: Story of my life? Mitch: Oh, I know that line. - from? Natalia: It's a book? Mitch: Yes. I know it's scary, I've read a book. Jason: Lastly, Mitch playing Z-rial. Did you notice, Mitch, that to overdose on THC you have to smoke 1500 pounds of cannabis in less than 15 minutes? Natalia: Wow. Mitch: Uhh, challenge accepted? Jason: Back to you, Matt! Rebecca: I don't think that's how that's supposed to go. Matt: Right?

Episode Description
The Crew are able to survive the horde that greeted them at the hangar entrance, now the they need to find the relay before it's too late.

Summary
The episode has a cold open, beginning with a scene of Lilith and Athena in Parliament. Athena reports that she has had no luck finding the Allforge or the humans she is supposed to locate. Barnabas has made it difficult to find the Allforge, but she thinks it was sealed on Agora by his new champion, the Harlequin. She says he has two souls; one is his own, and the other belongs to one of the recent dead. Lilith says it's time to get a champion of their own, and she and Athena go to see what Martle was hiding on Jörmungandr. Lilith is surprised and delighted to find Amethyst, calling him one of the First. She asks Amethyst if she should call him his true name, and he grows angry. He lists the accomplishments of the Junari empire, and how they, and in particular he, became gods, and tells her he will not have his true name sullied by a pretender. He says he knows she was the one who set the horde of undead on his empire. He compares her to the true god of death, whom he met, and says she is wanting. Lilith is angry, but then acts delighted, and proposes that he become her champion. He is to cause mayhem, strife, death, and destruction, channel his fury towards her enemies, and she will grant him his deepest desire: to revive the Junari empire, expel the invaders, and resurrect his beloved. Amethyst accepts. Lilith presses her finger to Amethyst's forehead and he screams in pain. When she retracts her finger, several lines travel down to his heart, where a skeletal wing appears. Lilith and Athena disappear, and Amethyst walks through the cell's forcefield. His skin partially melts as he does, revealing a metal body beneath it, but regrows. When he leaves, Jörmungandr tries to shoot him, but Amethyst dodges every blast. He makes his way to a large room filled with computer banks. A hologram of Jörmungandr appears. They discuss old grievances, and Amethyst says once he's helped Lilith defeat her opponent, he will bring down the other gods next. He goes to Jörmungandr's interface and Jörmungandr tries to shoot him again, but Amethyst destroys the turrets with lightning. Dark clouds surround Jörmungandr's hologram, which Amethyst calls Jörmungandr's own poison. Jörmungandr's image begins to degrade as he screams in pain. Ten of the pirate crew Lelia sent as backup arrive, and Amethyst kills them all. He leaves the ship, but at the entrance scratches, "Thanks for the wake up call" on the wall with a knife. He hums a tune thus far only heard from Lilith.

After the crew defeated the zombies, Zarial covers the elevator that just arrived while Theran makes a barricade out of zombie corpses. They take a short rest and heal up before continuing on. Martle warns everyone to sneak around zombie hordes instead of charging in, but Z is running to the elevator and doesn't hear. Martle grabs her by the collar and gives her a talking to about her reckless behavior. They ride the elevator to the top floor, and find that they're only halfway to the beacon. The elevator opens onto the promenade, which is filled with zombies. Juniper directs them to a maintenance hatch and Theran causes a distraction, and they successfully cross without a fight. Theran unlocks the door, and they find themselves in a dim hallway. They go down the hall until they're underneath the beacon, and Juniper sees an unusually clean panel. She presses it, and it opens into a corridor not in the blueprints of the asteroid. The walls resemble those of the Junari ruins she has visited. They go up a ladder and through a hatch into a narrow hallway. The signal is coming from behind a door to the left, which is more secure than a door farther down and to the right. Juniper tries to hack the first door while Theran checks out the second. Inside Theran's room is lots of boxes. Zarial shoves Juniper aside and successfully hacks the door open. Stale air billows out, and beyond an airlock room they can see a giant computer. Juniper goes in first and sees a cryogenic tube also in the room. She connects the tablet with the Catalyst program to the computer, and it uploads code.

The lines of code swirl around and coalesce into the form of a junari. Martle and Theran walk in as the form smiles at Juniper. He starts talking in High Primordial, too fast for Juniper to follow. She asks him to slow down, and he switches to common. He introduces himself as Bixbyte, or Bix. He asks Z what her species is, not recognizing her. He asks if they want to activate the Catalyst program. They question him about it when he mentions weapons, and he says his creator said using the Catalyst is a bad idea. It doesn't just activate programs and weapons, it activates doomsday devices. He sees that the Junari Empire is dead, and recommends that it stay dead. His creator despised what the race had become, murdering and enslaving gods to take their place. He notes that the crew is traveling with one, and when they mention the name Amethyst he becomes terrified. He says Amethyst is of the First, true evil. The crew explains why they have Amethyst with them, and their quest to defeat the Inquisition, with their own xenophobia. Rell brings up the crystalline monsters, and Bix says his creator was trying to create a weapon that would shatter them into a permanent nonexistence. He tried an enhanced version of Shatter, but it wasn't enough. They needed a weapon that would make the perfect harmonic sequence, but every machine they created would just destroy itself within minutes. Martle asks for his notes, and Bix downloads them to her pad. Z asks about the Allforge, showing Bix the Death's Cradle. Bix's creator had friends who were researching how to make a weapon that could destroy what they called the Abyssal Crystalline from the Allforge, but they couldn't find the right blueprint. The Junari discovered the Allforge 200,000 years after the creation of the empire, and they believed it was at least 100,000 years older than them. Bix tells Z the Death's Cradle is believed to be of flawed design, and no one knows who designed it. He doesn't know where to find the Allforge, or about ATLAS. Rell asks if they can take Bix with them, but he says he's stuck in the system in the asteroid. He sees himself as a warden of knowledge for the future. He is glad to see cooperation between races within their group, as the realization of his creator's dream. Bix says they can communicate with him remotely. Rell wants to take Bix's entire system, but it's too big. Martle looks in the cryochamber, and sees it's a storage device for a drone. Bix says it's a guard bot, that should have activated when they came in, but Juniper and Zarial must have bypassed the security mechanism.

Bix asks if they want to activate the Catalyst, knowing what it does. Martle says no, Juniper says yes. Bix shows them a list of what would be activated, and it includes atomic weapons, the Scourge, and Talon. They ask if they can only activate some things, but Bix says no. Z and Rell want to go find some of them to activate them individually, but Martle doesn't want to activate anything to do with the Junari. Bix says it's not possible to activate the Talons without the Catalyst. Z asks Bix about Lilith, but he doesn't know any more than they do. Z is worried Lilith will be aware they've used the Catalyst, and get to the weapons before they do. Martle, Z, and Zarial want to find the Allforge instead. Juniper tries to push the button, Zarial tries to stop her, and Martle stops Zarial. Juniper activates the Catalyst. Martle sends Lelia the map and tells her to send people to get these weapons ASAP. The signal isn't getting through, however, and she gets a message from Jörmungandr saying it's not coming. Then there's a roar of pain from Jörmungandr, and the episode ends.

New Information

 * Lilith is surprised that Barnabas would be willing to grant a mortal powers.
 * Amethyst has dark purple eyes.
 * Lilith calls Amethyst Master of the Firsts. She thought the Firsts were all dead.
 * Amethyst calls Jörmungandr the Galactic Serpent, the one who keeps the border of this realm from the next.
 * Bix says Amethyst caused so much death, and destroyed races he considered to be invaders that others thought could cause society to grow. Bix's creator thought the Junari were dying because they refused to let others into the galaxy, sacrificing the ideas and possibilities they could bring.
 * The guard bot in Bix's room resembles the guardians in the temple in the black hole, but it's smaller, humanoid sized. There's a holographic display for its face, but it's turned off at the moment. It appears to be equipped with a sword. According to Bix it's extremely fast, and would instantly attack anyone who didn't have a security clearance if it was let out.

Memorable Quotes
Ben: Craig! Rebecca: Mm. Matt: *frustrated noise* Rebecca: Craaaig! Mitch: Mm. Beef buns.

Natalia: Craig is broken. Rebecca: Craig? Ben: "Error cannot send"? Rebecca: What? Ben: He has changed his name to "Error cannot send messages". Matt (whispering): Oh my god.

Martle: Do you - no, I'm not gonna ask if you understand, I'm going to keep talking.

Matt: It takes awhile to reach the top of this rail ladder. You've actually been climbing it for about ten minutes before you realize you're - Jason: Jesus. Mitch: I don't know if I can do that, I'm a weak boy.

Rebecca: Ooh, he's cool! Natalia: All of a sudden Martle changes her mind. Rebecca: No, this isn't Martle changing her mind, this is Rebecca going, "Can I have a pet? I wanna pet."

Trivia

 * Lilith and Athena were played by Lauren and Stephanie from Tabletop Champions, and Amethyst was played by Kylan.
 * Ben rolled hit dice to heal himself and got 0 hp back twice in a row because his CON is -1, but Matt said he gets at least 1 hp back per die. He used 4 rolls to get 6 hp. Martle got 20 back in 3 rolls.
 * Matt got @ed once by Roll20 with a meme.
 * Craig had issues this episode.
 * Everyone in the crew has Darkvision.