Interlude: The Reveal

## Synopsis

### Gifts from Euphonia

The party received special gifts from Euphonia for their service in defeating her nascent unbroken AI sister Cacophany. The gifts were received as follows:

* Mielikki received Titan Powered Armor
* Penelope received a 3D Flesh Printer
* Erin received an autonomous Alecto Drone with custom fittings
* Drake Masterwoord received... a promise of things to come.
* The Reverend received some sort of revelation, though what it was is not yet revealed!

Upon finishing her work with Euphonia's flesh body, Penelope decided to spend some time relaxing at the Hot Springs, while the crew managed to enjoy their last few days.

The Reverend, now hosting ever more popular hot yoga streams from his OnlyMans account, decided that his work on Ameena was not finished. He called Drake Masterwood to tender his resignation as there was glorious work for the Stellar Spirit to be done here. His hot yoga has become even more popular than the Harmony's version of the very same, and the Harmony has become ever more fascinated by the Reverend's intriguing spiritual outreach methods.

Drake was relieved that one of the crazy people have voluntarily left his crew.

### Poorus Gaius

The bounty that Drake posted was finally fulfilled. Drake received a call from a bounty hunter crew headed by a Captain Eli Starring. A video call showed Poorus Gaius having been very roughed up and tied to a chair. After some interrogation by Drake, Drake told Poorus that he will start a business and tell anyone who asks that Poorus Gaius did NOT run from Drake's crew. After organizing the payment of 5000 credits to Starring's crew, Poorus Gaius was beamed to Ameena's surface and the issue resolved.

### An Offer from Sato-san

Mielikki decided to treat herself to a sushi dinner. Though the question of how seafood was prepared without a single sea on the planet never crossed her mind, the delicious sushi seafood dinner in the traditional style. The sushi restaurant in particular was owned by the brother of Sato-san, the master swordmaker of Ameena. He once gain offered Mielikki the chance to stay on Ameena and forge swords and learn his traditions, Mielikki politely declined but said she was honored by the offer.

The conversation turned towards swords, and Sato-san brought up some philosophical questions about the sword. Though Sato-san was hoping that Mielikki would be a good conversationalist with regards to spirituality of swords, he was a little disappointed. He then asked if she had ever worked with pretech weapons, and with some evasion, Sato-san reminded her that pre-tech weapons often have a spirit of their own. He mirrored Ozen Teno's words in this regard.

### Magical Space Cancer

Penelope returned to find an utterly disgusting hobo Donald Green crying at her station in her favorite chair. She was not amused. Having a gross man ruin her favorite chair, and fuck up her workstation, Penelope called her best friend to help her out in this situation and told Erin that there was an emergency. After forcing Erin to deal with this problem, Penelope decided to give Donald Green horrifying undetectable space cancer because he was disgusting. She then told Donald to take a goddamn shower. Erin returned to the hot springs after this debacle after dropping Penelope's ruined chair into a volcano.

Donald Green now has only 2 months left to live if he doesn't get treatment.

### Psychic Attempt on Erin

As the crew were enjoying their time at the Hot Springs, Erin was mid conversation in the hot spring with Asari Chen. Asari was continuing to tell Erin that she really didn't have to deal with the Drake Masterwood nonsense. After Asari failed to really convince Erin to leave the crew and start off on her own, Drake Masterwood snooped around. With no intention of being a peeping tom, Drake attempted to telepathically induce Erin to delete the medical records from Euphonia's scans.

It didn't work, as Erin's neuro-intruder alert went off. In a panic, Erin ran to the safest place she new: Starship Christine. After said panic, Erin realizes that she needed to bring the crew's scans to Penelope, who has now returned to the crew. In doing so, she showed Penelope the scans which showed that their dear captain had...

### ...The Wrong Colored Brain!

Penelope found that the scans indicated that Drake had two sets of brainwaves. One set of brainwaves mimicked that of a sleeping individual, and another set of brainwaves being that of a conscious individual. In addition to that, the color of Drake's actual brain seemed to be irregular. This indicated that something was definitely up with the Captain. A conspiracy was brewing as they tried to figure out what the hell to do with this information.

### Drake's Reward

Drake meanwhile, having failed to make Erin delete the data, simply decided to retreat to his ship where the Space Cat acted strangely and knocked on Drake's door. After what seemed to be some sort of disagreement between Space Cat and Euphonia, Drake entered a conversation to receive his reward. Euphonia spoke to Drake and relayed important information to Drake's needs (or what seemed to be Drake) and the next course of action seemed to take form. The destination would be the Guritza Andoiz system to obtain a rare alien artifact to help with bio-interfacing.

### The Confrontation

Drake called a meeting and made a salad for everyone. He suggested that the crew make their way to the Guritza Andoiz which was a few jumps away and would be quite a trek. During the meeting however, Erin couldn't take the stress anymore and screamed that the captain's brain was the wrong color.

A tense confrontation emerged as the crew finally confronted their captain about what the fuck is happening. After many attempts to deflect, and the crew threatening to leave, Drake Masterwood revealed the truth: he was actually a brain parasite known as "Exper" who was a pretech therapy device to help Drake out. After negotiations regarding the new normal, the crew tentatively agreed to this paradigm shift and charted a course to the Clyte System.

## Aftermath

* Exper's identity was revealed
* The Bounty on Poorus Gaius has been revealed
* The Reverend and Tim Herzog have left the team.
* The crew received pretech gifts from Euphonia.