Episode 19 - Love Lost, Found and Lost Again

Intro
Matt: Hello and welcome to Celestial Expanse, a real play D&D podcast set in the Celestial Expanse universe, my name is Matthew, and I'll be your DM for the night, and playing with me today is Ben as Rell... Ben: Hello. Matt: Jason as Theran... Jason: What up suckers. Matt: Rebecca as Martle... Rebecca: Why does the sun never have lasting relationships? They burn everyone who gets close to them. Natalia: Nice. Matt: Boooooo. I blame Lauren for this. Rebecca: As I said before, I - Natalia: Because they burn all their bridges would have been better, note for future reference. Matt: Mm. Boston: I mean this is space. Natalia: Space. I'm in space. Matt: Well, there are space bridges in some scifi shows. Anyway Boston as Juniper... Boston (singing): You spin my head right round right round. Matt: ...who thinks she is the next American Idol. Natalia as Z. Natalia (singing): Cause I'm an owl, cause I'm an owl. Boston: What?! Ben: What? Jason: Wrong song. Rebecca: Huh. Natalia: No, yes. No! I was - I made a funny! Rebecca: Not - Natalia: Owls spin their head all the way around, what the fuck! I am a genius, I'm a comical genius, y'all are just slow. Jason: Sure. Rebecca: So, do you like my puns better? Boston: Yeah. Matt: They're just - Natalia: I'm just trying to help you out Rebecca, I mean come on. Rebecca: And I'm very grateful. Matt: They're just as bad as Lauren's. Anyway, how's everybody doing tonight? Natalia: Good. Rebecca: I'm doing great. Ben: Playing D&D, so pretty good. Natalia: Fantastic. Yessss! Rebecca: Yeah! Boston: I am sad trash.

Episode Description
With most of the crew dealing with rambunctious kids, we see Theran encounter a past he thought lost.

Summary
Martle enters the apartment to find Juniper, Rell, and two children. Martle and Juniper face off over the shower, and Martle wins, so she takes a shower and the boy asks if they can eat. Juniper and Rell say to go ahead, so he takes a plate to his sister and then starts stuffing his face. He introduces himself as Cassius and his sister as Perwina.

Martle emerges from the shower with light red skin. She claims the water was warm, but Juniper and Rell can tell she's lying, and Juniper recognizes she's a tiefling. She tries to pat Martle's head for horns, and as Martle swats at her hand, her tail emerges from under the towel. Juniper gets very excited, saying she hasn't seen another tiefling for a decade. Martle angrily insists she's an elf, and Juniper is intimidated into agreeing. Cassius doesn't play along, and Martle gets angry at him. When he realizes she might kick him out, he pleads to stay. She says she'll think on it.

At Spooters, the woman Theran was chasing asks how he's been. He says he's been looking for her for over 10 years. She says she's been adventuring, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. She said she had fun on the moon, but after what happened, she realized she needed more. She was forced to run away, and the pirate crew picked her up. They weren't the ones who killed everyone on the moon, and she's been looking for who did. Right now their focus is on the Inquisition, who seem to have a goal beyond genocide. She says she might have seen her sister survive, and strangely dressed men wearing dark heavy cloaks and armor, who came out of nowhere and started blowing things up and killing. She tried to gather people to hide, but wasn't very successful. She saw her parents and brother killed in front of her. She asks if Martle survived, and Theran says he doesn't know. She calls him a bad liar, and he tells her about Martle disguising herself as an elf and grinding down her horns, saying he's not sure if that counts as Martle surviving. He says when he first found Martle, he thought she was her, Lelia. Lelia says he'd have had to try harder than that to find her, but that she found him. He says he was getting close, and she says he got lucky. Then she says she's not here to go down memory lane, and that she wants Theran's help freeing a prisoner. She says she looked up him and his crew, and that the artifact they found in the ruins was not stolen by her crew. The prisoner Theran's crew has permission to interrogate about it is on her crew, and she wants him freed. If he gives away the location of the pirates' base, a lot of people who have fled the Inquisition would be in trouble, and meanwhile the pirates can use information he recently acquired to further their hunt of the Inquisition. Theran is reluctant to help, and brings up the fact that Lelia knew where he was and didn't come find him until she needed something from him. She says the Inquisition stole the Allforge, and that the information the prisoner has could help them recover lots of things the Inquisition has stolen. Theran asks for the location of their base, so that he and his crew won't be expendable. Knowing Theran won't backstab her, she gives him the coordinates: 0, 0, 0, the center of the galaxy. Lelia tells Theran it was good to see him, and not just for business. She leaves, and Theran pays for the tab, which has more than just the drinks they had tonight. He also receives a napkin, which has the words, "Remember Theran, we always have the lake" and a lipstick kiss.

Therin returns to the apartment and listens to Martle rant about her day. When she's finished, he asks if the girl's name is Lelia. Martle says that Lelia's dead, and Theran tells her about his meeting with her, claiming not to know where Lelia's base is. It takes some time for him to convince Martle it wasn't an impersonation, and then she asks why Lelia didn't look for either of them sooner. Theran says she knew where he was, and tells how he spotted her looking at him near the bar. Martle questions why he was at the bar where she was meeting Eric, and he says he was watching Eric's head through the scope of his rifle in case Martle got into trouble. Before they can argue over whether Martle needs Theran's protection, Martle gets a call from Eric.

Eric apologizes for leaving, and reminds her that they're slated to interrogate the prisoner at noon tomorrow. She asks about the security arrangements. He'll be in a faraday cage-like cell where no electrical devices can go in or out, and three squads that only answer to Eric or the Lord General will be patrolling the halls.

Theran encourages Martle to go sleep with Eric and earn his trust so he'll call off guards. Martle declines, and they go to bed.

Juniper asks what happened to Rell's arm. He says he was on an awful planet that was hot and had lots of trees and monsters, and a monster ripped his arm off when he was fighting it.

New Information

 * Theran has been tracking down Lelia. They say she changed her name slightly, but Theran used the same name when talking about her to Martle.
 * The center of the galaxy is filled with black holes, so it's very dangerous.
 * Lelia looks like Martle would when not in disguise.

Memorable Quotes
Cassius: I have a name! Martle: Good for you, so do I. Cassius: What is it, is it uptight bitch? Martle: Yes. My name is Uptight Bitch, middle name Martle, it's not nice to meet you, go away.

Theran: Lelia, you never had to chase me.

Boston: Saxophone in the background. Matt: I might have to do that. Ben: Of all the asteroids in the universe, she had to walk around on mine. Matt: Thank you Ben. Jason: Theran watched her go, and saw her legs went all the way up.

Martle: I'm the only one here who knows her, I have to be the one to comfort her and take care of her, because "oh, maybe I'm supposed to be a good person," whatever who cares.

Martle: Did it sound like Eric wanted anything else to happen tonight? Theran: Yeah. It did. You said "I'll see you tomorrow," and did you see how bummed he sounded?