Episode 13 - Aftermath

Intro
Matt: Hello and welcome back to Celestial Expanse, a real play D&D podcast set in the Celestial Expanse universe, my name is Matthew I'll be your DM for the night, playing with me today is Ben, playing as Rell... Ben: Hello. Matt: Jason, playing as Theran... Jason: What up my ninjas. Matt: Oh boy. Uh, Rebecca as Martle... Rebecca: Hello. Matt: Boston as Juniper... Boston (singing): I can't do this anymore... Matt: And Natalia as Z, who's not on Roll20 right now. Natalia: Oh, shit. Hi. Matt: So, how's everybody doing today? Natalia: Good, little behind here. Boston: *moans*
 * laughter*

Episode Description
After the tragic events of the last episode, the crew must now carry on and deal with the aftermath of decisions made by one of their own, along with the emerging personal secrets.

Summary
The episode starts a few weeks after the events of last episode, in which Arula was killed. The party has been put up by the military in a local hotel, and Martle has been kept updated on the status of maybe-Ashley. She's alive, but too wounded to take DNA samples from, and a dental record match somehow came back inconclusive; they appear to not have her file on record. Juniper, who has been mourning in her room, gets a knock on her door from a dwarf with one blue eye and one blind eye that appears to have been shot. Unlike most dwarves, he has an extremely short beard. He introduces himself as Thoradin, Arula's boss. He gives Juniper a data slate, which was told to give it to Juniper in the event of Arula's death. He also gives her a device to contact him.

Juniper watches a video from Arula in which she tells Juniper what she's found out about the Inquisition. Not only have they been killing "impure" races, she believes they are responsible for the destruction of the gnome homeworld. Parliament is starting to go after them militarily. Arula tells Juniper about her planned expedition to Iepitus, and asks her to continue her work. When the video finishes, the data slate loads hundreds of files, which Juniper begins reading.

Z, who had earlier offered Juniper an apology with no response, goes to a bar for intel and attempts to drown her guilt in alcohol. As she goes to bed, she starts hearing the voices of her friends analyzing her actions leading up to Arula's death. Eventually she falls asleep, and dreams of her mother. They were always traveling, trying to find a new home. Her mother's descriptions of the gnome homeworld were always idyllic. Z would ask her about her father, but never got an answer. The last memory Z has of her mother is her giving Z a ring and saying it has the answers she is looking for, when she's ready. After her mother's death, Z put the memory aside, but still has the ring. The memory is at the forefront of her mind when she wakes up, and she inspects the ring. She says the word "father", and the ring projects a star chart of the Draconis system, which is a neighboring system to Iepetus in the Marauder cluster. The highlighted planet, Agora, is in the middle of a nebula. It's one of the most dangerous planets ever discovered. The chart disappears, and Z goes to bang on Theran's door. She shows him the star chart and tells him about her dad, who was a Seeker. Theran knows that Agora is the most dangerous planet in the galaxy, with a rating of Z5. He also knows that Seekers are elite bounty hunters with a strong sense of justice who will stop at nothing to get their prey, even going after powerful people such as pirate lords and Parliament senators.

When Z goes to leave Theran's room, she sees a man about to knock on Theran's door. He's a messenger from Parliament, who are requesting the crew's presence. They offer enough credits for the fuel to get there. The crew agrees to go, Z signing her name as "Fuck you" and Juniper as "Fuck off." Z looks up Agora and got details of how hostile the planet is. She also looks up Seekers, but there's no recent accounts of them. They typically hide their identities, though they have a symbol: a mountain peak intersected by a quarter moon, which is depicted on Z's ring. She takes notes on the Crimson Seeker and a few other famous Seekers. The crew drags Juniper out of her room and goes back to the ship via a smooth, safe, and clean taxi ride with a different driver. They debate whether to go to Parliament or somewhere else, but decide in the end it's worth not being hunted down. The episode ends as they take off.

New Information

 * The gnome homeworld was called Aesep.
 * In planet ratings, Z means the most dangerous you can get - do not land except in an emergency. 5 means it has 8x the gravity of the Parliament asteroid, which has roughly the same gravity as Earth.
 * The Seeker of the Curtain, aka the Crimson Seeker, was a very famous Seeker from around 100 years ago. He mostly hunted in the Marauder's Curtain, was 9 feet tall, and was known for using a bow.
 * The last planet Z grew up on was Mercy.

Memorable Quotes
Jason: The sound of the knocking is about at the height of the door handle, so I figure it's from Z, I think, and she's impulsive, so yeah.

Jason: Would you say that I was uhhhh, Agoraphobic? Matt: Yes. Rebecca: *groans* Jason: Yeah. Matt: I don't know if I should roll a d4 for psychic damage or not. Rebecca: Do it. Do it. Do it. Punish him for his crimes!

Jason: Yeah I voted for you, it's cool. Boston: I don't think that counts. Jason: Fight me.

Trivia
Theran got 2 psychic damage for Jason's Agoraphobic joke.