Episode 41 - Doctor Visit

Intro
Matt: Hello and welcome to Celestial Expanse, a real play D&D podcast set in the celestial expanse universe, my name is Matthew, playing as your DM for the night, playing with me today is Ben as Rell... Ben: Uh, hello. Matt: Jason as Theran... Jason: Well, it's groundhog's day, again. Matt: Rebecca as Martle... Rebecca: I don't have a joke. I don't even know if I have, like, a funny thing to say. I'm just here and I'm happy to be here. Matt: Natalia as Z... Natalia: Ewo! Matt: And Mitch as Zarial. Mitch: Hello friend. Matt: So, how's everybody doing today? Natalia: Gucci. Matt: Gucci? Mitch: Pretty good. Natalia: Gucci. Matt: Is gucci a thing in celestial expanse? Natalia: Uh, spucci? Jason: Spucci? Jason: Yeah. But there's no real spucci, it's all knockoffs. Someone assumes that it's like, real out there, but it's not, it's just always been knockoffs. Matt: Yeah, spucci is the urban legend, everything else is just fake. Rebecca: Spucci is the mothman of celestial expanse. Matt: It's like, "It's a real spucci!" he's like, "Nah, man, it's a knockoff, we know that." Jason: Right, right, yeah.
 * laughter*

Episode Description
The Crew have a new member when they visit the Parliament listening station and now have to figure out a way around the station to get what they need to take on the Inquisition.

Summary
Theran grills Zarial. He says he crashed on a planet and Parliament rescued him, and he was convalescing in the medical bay when the zombie outbreak started. He adds that he saw a huge, strong zombie on the station, which makes Martle think of the titan they fought last year.

Zarial points them towards the command deck, but the door is electronically locked and seemingly unhackable. It has three slots for ID cards. Zarial remembers one of the medical technicians had one, so they backtrack to the med bay.

They pass several dead bodies, but none of them appear to be zombified. When they reach the med bay, they see one of the technicians up and moving, operating the computers. Martle casts Divine Sense and can tell that he's undead. When she says so, he turns around and asks who they are. He looks alive and calls Zarial by name, but he has lots of stab wounds and the blood resembles black ichor. When Zarial asks if he's in pain, he says he's hungry, and Martle and Zarial immediately shoot. Bits of his flesh start falling off, and as they fight, he pulls off and throws a boil from his chest, which explodes and makes some of the party sick.

After killing the zombie, they explore the med bay a bit. Zarial hacks into the medical database and discovers that the zombie outbreak started when Private Ferguson fell dead, and then rose as a zombie. They kept him in the morgue initially, but then he got out somehow and started the outbreak. It is unknown how Ferguson became zombified in the first place. Theran finds a card in the one of the zombie's pockets. Theran finds three spotions of sphealing and a dermal regenerator with enough charges for two uses (can stop a bleeding effect). They plug the card into the door and the slot lights up green, but the slot next to it lights up red: they need another card.

They go through the officers' quarters (Z finding some unpleasant personal items) but find no card; Zarial busts into the captain's quarters, refusing Martle's help with the door, and is faced with the captain, who has turned into a titan zombie. As they start fighting, they notice that the captain apparently tried to kill himself as he became a zombie, but it wasn't permanent. They kill him and find a red card. Z rolls the titan over with very little help from Rell to get her axe, impressing Martle. Zarial watches and downloads a video that the captain left for Parliament just before his suicide. In it, he attributes the zombie outbreak to a bioweapon, and has told some people to evacuate. The episode ends with the party starting down the third hallway and hearing an unnatural screech.

Memorable Quotes
Jason: Why are we giving the DM ideas? I told you, good ideas. Hugs, and hit points, you wieners.

Matt: *roars* Theran: Yeah you got it there, Z-rial. You got that all by yourself? Alright. We'll be down here! Rebecca: Who wants to bet that's the big one? Jason: You know that's gonna be the big one. Rebecca: Of course it's the big one. Jason: Uhp, we're going to a map, it's gotta - yeah, it's the big one.

Rebecca: I couldn't remember if he threw something at me, or if he threw me at someone. Matt: Mmhm. Ben: He threw someone at you.

Rebecca: Sorry, guys, I'm gonna be weaponized. Matt: Mmhm. Ben: It's okay, I'll deflect you, and throw you back at him. Rebecca: Okay that would actually be really cool though.

Trivia

 * Matt rolled max damage on the first zombie's first attack on Rell, knocking him unconscious with 49 points of damage.
 * Theran's crit did 81 points of damage, killing the first zombie.
 * Ben gave Matt the idea for invisible zombies.