Baba's Bar

After the crew's victory over the Hellknights, "Doc" ventures out to the ships to check for surviving pilots. To his dismay he only finds the one severed in half, but he had a plan with this body. He brings it on board and uses his newly obtained corpse lantern to get more information out of the deceased knight. From the corpse's babbling they manage to reconfirm they are from the Order of the Gate wing of the Hellknights investing gating the crew. They believed the crew was or is the cult related to the one on Akiton they ran into prior, clearly this is a mistake.

Jettisoning the corpse the crew make the rest of the trip back to Absalom Station. While journeying back, Skitty informs his adopted parents that he understands he's clearly adopted which showed more intellect in the process and speaking very rough but understandable Vesk to Atvar and Bossk. He also made his interest in learning another language if it were to help his family, Falk suggested Akitonian and he went to his learning modules on multilingo app.

Upon arriving in Absalom airspace, they crew is hailed and it's Turb offering his shipyard for parking and patch ups, he sounded very excited the crew made it back in one piece. Atvar also received a few saved messages that were only set to planetary distance. Once seeing the ship Turb is shocked in horror as it was scorched up from the fire fight with the Hellknights, he also quickly deduced that someone else had worked on the ship... "How could they?!" he thought. Gathering his emotions with the help of Falk, realizing it isn't his ship he calmed down and offered his services to fix it back up and add some improvements if he can. Also he noted the missing Bob from that crew and the new Vesk member Bossk.

Skitty was another thing as Turb quickly put two and two together and realized why he got wrung out during the week. With the info the crew gave as well he warned them to maybe just hide Skitty for a bit, like cover him up if they go out and about the station. He noted that he could very well be genetically modified to mature fast as he could be potentially owned by Abadar Corp. The crew opted to leave Skitty with Turb to learn a thing or two as they go to meet the liaison Turb told them about Gabel.

Gabel waited in a burger joint for the crew too arrive. Atvar ordering some burgs the rest sit down with Gabel and she lays out why they needed to meet first. Turns out Baba's place is shrouded in magic and is nearly impossible to find; she also notes she runs a magic shop on the station and that is how the two got to know each other. Down the back alley Gabel opens the magic door giving a gesture to reveal it.

Inside they see what looks like a derelict bar and Baba trying to enjoy a drink by herself. She waves the crew over also noticing the crew change but offers the same reward regardless of this if the crew was cool with it. She fully gives them their ship, no strings attached now and revealed this was her last attempt to do anything in her line of work, desperate she made sure she at least retained some insurances if the crew were to just abandon things. She then goes into the same backstory they have already heard from Turb, how she was double crossed by her own management in her crime syndicate and lost it all. Removing her glamour spell she reveals she is MUCH, much older than she looks.

This is why she offers them this, the bar itself and explains it's workings. It's a pre-gap magic keeping this dimension it resides in together. Only those who are "management" can allow certain groups in, to better phrase it anyone they don't want it, including A-Sec. Hence the Gabel introduction to better grasp the concept of choosing their patrons essentially. To take the bar the group all have to agree on what they want it to become and whom they wish to bless the magic to bind the new management circle as Baba will step down and be middle management, working on their day to day stuff when they're gone.

They crew agrees to the terms and choose Damoritosh and Oras as the gods to bless the magic. They settle on a fight or MMA bar for their day to day legal operation while offering smuggling services for the more illegal business, a name will be chosen at a later date. Each member of the crew then took on a role for the new business granting more specific control on each aspect of the business.

Once that is settled Baba mentions a parlay she setup with them and the Free Captains, they weren't obligated to go but she made it clear that she would have to go, she wants any bad blood cleared up. The details of the parlay is to meet in Diaspora again during a murder pod event they are hosting, the crew somewhat agrees to do this though it wasn't clear at the time as they were still hashing out details they would like the bar to be. Eventually they realized they all had a bounty to cash in and Bossk his own personal bounty. Thankfully Bossk knew how the system worked as he's a fledgling bounty hunter and brought them to the Vesk Quarters to a bar.

Unfortunately they run into some disgruntle, later to be revealed bounty hunters. A fight ensues and the crew quickly chew through almost half of them until a man in full power armour walks out of the bar screaming "Not here gentlemen! And punches one of the other bounty hunters to their death". Bossk was able to convince the other enraged bounty hunters to lower their arms as they realized who the man was and what parts of the code they are violating.

Bild is the man in the power armour that thankfully recognizes Bossk and invites the crew into the at least somewhat more of a safe haven that is the bar. Inside they see it's somewhat neglected but clearly a front as there is no bartender and a few scatted bounty hunters sitting having their drinks and looking things up on the infosphere. Bild soon explains the bounty hunter system and code after they cash in both bounties. However, the crew had to prove the bounty collection as they weren't already in the system. Thankfully "Doc" had the chop cycle controller as proof, was good enough for Bild who might just had been impressed witnessing the shoot out that just happened.

They all agree, "Doc" apprehensive at first to become members, the thing was they needed to be body scanned into the system. Bild reassured "Doc" that it's 100% cosmetic and aren't taking a peep inside, this was to help them be tagged by other hunters through their new app. The code is simple, don't go after other hunters without a bounty on them, don't interrupt a hunter's hunt unless it has already been completed, at that point it's fair game, don't mention the bounty system on Absalom unless you are in the bar, bar and outside the bar is hallow ground behave, and all bounties need to be cashed in through Moocy's system making the bar the bottleneck of traffic in the Pact Worlds.

Atvar takes his new role very seriously and begins to try and recruit bounty hunters in the bar. Two being hunters they ran into already HiKee and Oslat, the third being an over eager uplifted goldfish Gulb McKenzie. Bild offers his services as well if they are need and can drum up more fighters if needed too. Few others weren't recruited and one patron was actually offended due to being misgendering by Atvar.

The crew returns back to their new bar to further discuss the renovations and the bounty system. Atvar reveals his old agent contacted him earlier and roped him into this process to drum up sponsors, workers, and fighters. Baba says someone donated A LOT of cash for the renovations, oddly enough the crew were already talking about the new donor Gift. The crew continues to make alterations and suggestions into the evening.