Session 5

A Memory
Whilst sleeping off the events of the previous day several members of the crew experience an identical dream, seemingly from the perspective of a hungover Gabriel. In it they are spoken to by a fat gentleman claiming to be part of an "Interior Ministry" who gives Gabriel his orders to investigate the western colonies he had previously mentioned. He also claims that Gabriel has been involved in illegal pit fights and has shown suicidal behaviour but is seemingly too proud to take his own life. The dream concludes with the advice that if he were lucky Gabriel would never return from his mission. Upon waking Hezsia questions Gabriel who is cagey but confesses that it is a memory of his they have somehow witnessed. Tinka then enters, having received psychic damage from the experience and is given an ice pack by Hezsia and an experimental potion. Upon consumption Tinka is invigorated but believes it to be an ordinary potion and so attributes his vitality to the coffee he had just brewed. Hezsia returns to bed to conclude the events of the previous night.

As the crew prepare to leave the ship upon arriving at Epsilon Station Gabriel offers to join them, expressing distaste for pirates and the willingness to let the entity assist in a fight if necessary. Hezsia makes an attempt to draw out the entity by slapping Gabriel but this only serves to demonstrate his own reactions, avoiding the slap entirely.

The Black Market
As the crew enter the stations through the disused customs area they encounter a group of slavers talking with the local guards. Ibett seems to recognise the face of their leader and Tinka spots that they have a hostage goliath that they had previously encountered at Lazarus Station. The crew are allowed into the station without issue and then split up, most going in search of transport in the black market, leaving Hezsia to investigate a club named Nekomancer that appears to be the central building of the station. They are unable to find transport, instead being first drawn in by a Rakshasa pedlar who claims to be selling rare artefacts, in particular a knife that he claims was used by the Titan to amputate his arm at some point in the past. However they are not sold on this, Tinka instead buy a robot hand which he later realises is fake, and Gabriel takes interest into an object that is apparently an ancient drained solar battery, which he claims he can feel the entity react to. Searching further into the markets they stumble across a weapons shop where Tinka tries in vain to find a mech suit. With no luck they return to the central plaza expecting to find Hezsia.

Meanwhile Hezsia enters Nekomancer to find it is in fact a tabaxi stip club. Looking around the disappointingly unattractive patrons she eventually finds a forlorn dragonborn and claiming to be a connoisseur of the craft offers to help him find the ideal stripper in return for a drink. She quickly finds one and talks the dragonborn into buying them both a lap dance. As this is happening the rest of the crew return from the market and enter, acquiring drinks and eventually spotting Hezsia. Moving to speak to her they are all interrupted by a besuited minotaur, who states that the owner of the club has a proposition for them.

Another Job
The crew enter the office of Mr Lazuto, the club's owner who is revealed to be a goblin and with whom Tinka exchanges many unusual formalities. Lazuto claims to be very powerful, being able to offer them almost anything they wish for in return for them doing a job for him. The job in question is that he wants Adrian Verstadt, the leader of the slavers the crew had seen at customs to be discretely killed. Following the Bears' attack on the Dead Suns a rival gang had been offering them refuge in Epsilon Station in return for fealty, but Vestadt's apparent bad history with the gang has led him to kidnap refugees and sell them to the local drow population for use in ritual sacrifice. Believing that sending his own men in would be an open demonstration that he does not have totalitarian control over the station an thus threatens his power, Lazuto wants outsiders to do the job, and having observed that the crew are clearly not on the station for trade, thinks they are suited to the task. Tinka demands that they receive a down payment as a sign of good faith, in the form of information on who has purchased the mech suits from the station; Lazuto informs him that there was an unusually high number of orders made by a goblin woman only identified as "Big G" in the last week.