After arriving out of warp space, the Chimera has arrived at a Warp Hub where they have now joined a queue of spaceships that are flying into a massive space station.
"This is a Warp Hub," Ark begins explaining to Mel, who is staring out the window, fascinated,
"You see that massive floating structure, surrounded by rings? That's a 'space city', and the rings that surround it are all wormhole generators that send ships to other planets or hubs. So, basically, wormhole rings can only send ships to one location, so having every planet having multiple rings is problematic, so instead, the rings send ships to Warp Hubs, like this one, and then from the Warp Hub, you can go to all the planets in the solar system or go to a Hub in a different system."
"So why are we going to the space city?" Mel asks, watching as the Chimera slowly flies towards the space station.
"Because we have to wait until it's our turn to use the ring. To stop traffic, they created a system where you go to the city, get a ticket, and use the ring when you're called." Tholl answers while steering.
"And the best part is that the city is… Full of shops!" Ark butts in excitedly.
******
Disembarking from the ship in a parking garage surrounded by other parked spaceships, Tholl told them a meeting spot and a time when they should meet, like a father and his kids, and the party split up.
Melissa joins Ark, who immediately heads to grab lunch.
Ark turns around, walking backwards to the elevator, before saying,
"It's been a few hours since we ate breakfast and you've been doing all that training, so you must be hungry. Any suggestions?"
"Uh, I'm not reall-" Mel tries to considerately decline before being interrupted.
"Oh, I know! Sandwiches are always great! After that, we need to buy you some armour."
The pair proceed to the shopping district.
They enter via elevator a massive multi story shopping mall, with a massive modern glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling in an empty space between the floors.
Lining the walls are a large variety of shops selling food, clothes, spaceships, armour and even weapons.
After finishing eating sandwiches at a sandwich shop, they head over to an armour shop called 'The Fine Dwarven Armoury' which is part of a large, galaxy-wide chain of shops.
Entering, they find many rows of different mass-produced armours and weapons with Dwarf assistants wearing leather, blacksmith's aprons with small nametags attached.
"Hello and welcome to The Fine Dwarven Armoury, I am Clyde, do you need any help with your shopping today?" A Dwarf shorter than Mel with a big beard and a gruff voice introduces himself to Ark and Mel.
"Hi Clyde, we're looking for some light armour for the young miss here, you think you could help us?" Ark greets Clyde the assistant.
"Yeah, I can. Follow me, folks."
Clyde leads them through the aisles towards the women's armour section.
"Here we've got all sorts of armour for women from practical to stylish, if you get my gist. Fitting rooms are at the back, if you need a custom, head to the counter and they can get that arranged."
"Yeah, definitely practical. Mel, take a pick."
Mel browses through the armours, checking the sizes like they're clothes, before picking one and heading with Ark and Clyde to the fitting rooms.
Putting it on and tightening the various straps, she exits the fitting room wearing a breastplate with a backplate, shoulder pads and knee & shin pads. All made of a light grey metal with brown straps connecting it all to her body.
"Looks great!" Ark compliments.
"It's made of a metal that conducts mana well, so you should be able to easily imbue your mana into it." Clyde explains.
"We'll have to try that out later, Mel, for now, I'll buy this and we can head back to the ship."
They then go to the counter where another dwarf is waiting for them. The dwarf then scans the barcode on the armour and presses a few buttons on a register.
"225 credits please." The dwarf says while handing over a payment device. Ark gets out his smartphone and pays for it.
They then leave with Mel's newly purchased armour.
******
An hour earlier, when the party splits up, Harron doesn't go to the shopping mall, but instead heads to a different part of the city.
The young engineer walks through the busy city, before turning into a dark side alley and approaching a thick metal door.
He knocks a specific sequence of knocks and the slit in the metal door opens revealing a face.
The face examines Harron before opening the door.
Harron enters inside a dimly lit room with rusty shelves and a very eerie feel. There are a few other shady individuals mingling. Harron ignores them and starts browsing quickly through the shelves. While looking at the items, the scanner in his glasses starts appraising the items and showing the data on the lenses of the glasses in front of his eyes.
While scanning the items, he overhears a conversation from the other customers and begins eavesdropping.
"... Rotol…" and "...Pirates…" are all he manages to hear, but it's enough, so he opens his small notepad tablet and notes it down.
After browsing for some time, he finally finds the item he is looking for and grabs it with a grin on his face.
He brings the item to a counter where a dark elf, a corrupted sub-species of elf with dark scaly skin, is sitting. The dark elf slowly turns to examine it with his beady blood red eyes.
"Two silver coins." the dark elf croaked out nastily while holding out his hand.
Harron opens his jacket, reaches into a hidden pocket and pulls out some bronze, silver and gold metallic circular coins before handing two of the silver coins to the dark elf. The dark elf looks closely at the silver coins, then puts them under the counter before waving his hand at Harron, gesturing him to shoo off.
Harron takes the item he bought, putting it into a magic bag which is bigger on the inside, and leaves the shady shop.
******
Tholl waits in front of the Chimera with Elsa, waiting for the rest of the crew.
"So, what do you think of the girl, Melissa?" Tholl, making conversation, asks Elsa.
"She clearly has a lot of talent, with good training, she could be a useful member of the team… it's also nice to have another girl on the team…" Elsa replies, whispering the last part.
"Fu fu…" Tholl giggles before Elsa punches him.
They continue chatting away until everyone else arrives.
"Alright guys, get everything you need?" Tholl asks.
"Course!" Ark replied while showing off the shopping bag.
Harron, standing behind Ark and Melissa, just nods slightly and gestures to the side.
"Well, you guys go in, Elsa, start up the ship." Tholl smiles while they get on the Chimera before walking over to where Harron is standing.
10 minutes later, the party is gathered in the cockpit. Steering the ship, Tholl flies the Chimera past other ships and towards one of the less crowded Warp Rings.
Fortunately, they quickly manage to enter the ring and begin warp travel.