Rot and Tattoos

Intro
Matt: Hello and welcome to Celestial Expanse, a real play D&D podcast set in the Celestial Expanse universe, my name is Matthew, I'll be playing as your DM for the night, and today we have a special guest coming back to the podcast. Boston, who plays as Juniper. Boston: Hello hello.

Episode Description
We follow the adventures of Juniper; as she explores her ancestors' ruins and old territories, she discovers something that will change the galaxy.

Summary
It's been several months since Juniper left the Torog with ATLAS. She heard that the Raiders of Central attacked a major Inquisition base, and also heard about the crystal ships that attacked both sides. ATLAS has been talking about bases where stasis pods of the progenitors could be found. He has led her to a number of ruins, some simply filled with ancient corpses, others full of traps and automated defenses. She's started to lose hope of finding anyone alive. The next location is in the exterior Paramount, more specifically the Encodo system, where Mercy is located. The base is on the planet Tricoda, on the outskirts of the system. 80% of the planet is covered in ice, with only a thin band of liquid water near the equator. It's ranked E4, or epsilon 4. Luckily, Juniper still has her bracelet from Iepetus to counter the strong gravity.

When she exits the ship, she sees holes in the ice, with poles that ropes can be tied to so people can climb down. ATLAS directs her down a hole, saying it's 100 km deep. He says the farther down they go, the more stable the ice will be. ATLAS replicates more rope as she goes.

She eventually reaches the ruins, which transition from carved to artificial walls. ATLAS senses life forms in stasis. Juniper finds an interface and brings up a map of the galaxy. There are a number of blips, often on asteroids, labeled "cache". She sees one on Agora. She opens the stasis pods and runs to the room indicated, which has 30 pods along each wall. One of the pods opens, releasing mist. Through the mist she can see the silhouette of a tiefling that is especially tall but with a tail about half as long as Juniper's, and very ornate horns decorated with small carvings. He has tattoos reminiscent of Mentaru caste tattoos, but even more ornate. Juniper can decipher scattered words among the tattoos, such as "Loyalty", "Power", and "Strength". He is also naked. He talks to Juniper in High Primordial, assuming she has woken him for battle against the undead. He asks if she has the Catalyst, and when she says no, he begins to panic. He says they're not ready, and that he needs to get back to sleep. As he goes back to his pod, he chokes. ATLAS says he is undergoing a rapid regeneration, and it's killing him. As Juniper watches, his skin rots and he becomes a Shedder, but with a metal skeleton. ATLAS blasts him and he goes down, but ATLAS tells Juniper that similar pods are opening throughout the base.

Juniper grabs ATLAS and runs. The terminal she was working on earlier says "Hard drive ready for download." She hacks the computer to get the download and gets back to the entrance. She finds herself surrounded by shedders, and ATLAS says goodbye before self-destructing, emitting an EMP blast that knocks out all the shedders. Juniper collects his chassis and promises to fix him before returning to the ship.

As Juniper flies off, she looks through the files she just got. They talk about the tattoos she saw on the progenitor, which are based off of an old religion even the progenitors didn't understand. Somehow, the tattoos gave them power. The Mentaru, who the Progenitors kept as slaves, adopted these crests for themselves. Another file, titled "Scourge", says the undead were here before the Progenitors had space flight technology; the undead even appear in their oldest religions. They are thought to have been here since the beginning of time. After the Progenitors achieved space travel, they discovered the Allforge, and attempted to use technology to fight the undead, with flawed results. The soldiers they attempted to modify would go mad, like the progenitors Juniper just encountered.

Juniper looks at the map of the caches again. She sees that Agora is another Scourge research facility, which has turned from a red dot to a green one. She searches for "Catalyst", and it gives the coordinates [0, 0, 0]: the location of the Terminal. She sets a course for the Terminal, and goes back to reading about the crests. She realizes she has the materials needed, and goes about becoming a Crestforger.

New Information

 * Epsilon ranking means dangerous, but still inhabitable: rule of thumb is always keep a pistol on hand.
 * Gravity ranking of 4 means gravity is 4x stronger than the gravity on the Parliament asteroid (which is roughly equivalent to Earth).
 * ATLAS piloted the ship on Juniper's travels.
 * ATLAS is capable of replicating matter, but can only carry about 5 pounds.
 * ATLAS has taught Juniper to speak Primordial, the language of the progenitors. It's High Primordial, which is similar to but different from the Primordial spoken by Genasi.
 * ATLAS only has one speed.

Memorable Quotes
Juniper: We're gonna fix this. We're gonna bring you back somehow, even if you're not the same.

Boston: Ah yes, let's give ourselves a tattoo. That's a smart idea. What else will you do while you're by yourself in space?

Trivia
This episode marks the return of Boston to the show!