Going to the mall!

"Dargon!" exclaimed John and Anna in unison. "What are you doing here?"

The small red creature continued to look around in amazement, almost oblivious to their remarks. This was a world of sounds, smells and colors, full of weird people and flashy lights, almost too much for him to deal with. John's sudden silence and heavy stare somehow grabbed his attention, more so than his cries of surprise.

"Heyyy.... Hmm... Yes... Well... Everybody seemed so excited to go here, so I decided to just take a small peak of what it was about..." he explained, not looking at John for a single second of his reply, his eyes captivated by everything around him.

"Dargon, you can't stay here, you have to go back to the castle. Remember what I said about the vault?" said John, trying to appeal to Dargon's sense of responsibility.

"Sure, sure, I'll be back right n.... I mean... I can stay with you for a few hours, right? Minutes? OK, OK I'll..." Dargon had turned around and raised his small, four fingered hand in the air, standing there motionless for a few seconds. "Hmm. Boss, I really tried, but I can't leave. I guess I'll have to stay with you. A shame, really... So what are we doing?"

"Don't think that you will get away with it like that, genius." John grabbed Dargon's hand and tried to exit the mall to send him back to Arcadia. Only to realize that he could not get out either, nor could he go back directly to his realm. He then let go of the derpy lizard and turned to Tricia for an explanation.

"Hey, it's a mall. Some of the stuff that they sell here is very expensive. They can't have people teleporting in and out like that. You can only get in or out at the official entrances or exits."

"But we are at the entrance... Wait. Don't tell me..."

"Well, it is a mall they want you to buy a lot of stuff. Entrances and exits are on opposite sides and different floors so you go by the maximum amount of shops and stands. We can take him back to one, but there are none in the direction of where we are going and it will take a while."

"Well, let's just hope that he'll be able to handle himself for a few hours. I'm sure we can try to motivate him to be nice if we find what..." John stopped when Anna tapped on his shoulder and pointed to the the side. "What the hell?"

In the few seconds it took him to discuss things with Tricia, Dargon had escaped everyone's attention and walked to a food vendor stand where he was being handed a large portion of funnel cakes with some ice-cream and whipped cream on top of it.

"Boss! This person says that he wants 12 dollars, what are those? Do you have some?" asked the small creature, beginning to eat his food.

"This will be a long day I guess," said John as he got the money to pay for the food. Making a scene and refusing to pay would have been a bad start for the day. "Dargon, things cost money. Don't order or take anything that doesn't belong to you if you don't have enough to pay for it."

"Wait, you are giving people money? No, no, no. That's wrong. You are supposed to get it and pile it in a huge hoard in a vault, that's how you use money," retorted Dargon, very proud of correcting John.

The whole exchange had made the girls chuckle, and after seeing them look at Dargon eating his piece of sugary pastry, he understood that there was only one thing to do. After buying one portion for everyone, the small group began to wander the mall in direction of the shop that brought them here. They had two places to go to: a medical equipment supply store where Tricia needed to buy a few parts in order to finish the lab and a special equipment manufacturer to get a replacement helmet or mask for his fighting gear.

The Mall was an amazing place. While the majority of people were obviously human (wearing clothes ranging from the mundane to some fantasy or sci-fi ones), there were also a lot of creatures roaming around: elves, dwarves, beastfolk and various things he couldn't even identify.

The shops too were an assortment of things one could find in any mall and some more exotic things. One of the latter was a store that advertised "Myths and Oak Here!" followed by "Renowned Carpenter Story Teller" inside of which a large bearded man was reading from a book to a bunch of kids in the middle of what looked like a wood workshop. John had to stop Dargon from entering "Wesman's Dragon Supply Depot: Your One Stop Shop For All Your Pet Dragon Needs!" only to regret a few minutes later not having entered it to buy a leash for the air headed lizard.

"Getting your gear ready will take a while and it's on our way to the place I ordered the lab equipment from, so let's go there first. We're almost there," said Tricia. Once the pastries had been eaten, Anna and Tricia had both come back to his side, Vesta for herself had to babysit Dargon and make sure that he wouldn't get out of sight for who knew what kind of mischief.

The group stopped in front of the storefront of a rather dimly lit store only advertised as "Lambda Security".

"This is it? Doesn't look like much," said John.

"Don't worry, they don't have a fancy place but they have some awesome gear," reassured Tricia.

They entered the store, and after passing by a lot of display cases full of various gadgets and weapons, they arrived at the desk in the back. There was a redheaded girl with a long braided ponytail being served, wearing denim coveralls, black bedazzled security boots and a pair of flashy, glittery, pink VR goggles resting on the top of her head. The vendor was a slim girl with short, dark hair and something John didn't expect at all. She was a cyborg. At the knees and elbows her limbs continued in the form of mechanical prosthetics and she had a sort of long tail ending in a three fingered pincer, lastly her left eye was covered or replaced by some sort of technological eyepatch. She was sitting on the desk in a somewhat unprofessional manner, a cup of iced coffee in hand and a half eaten donut held by her tail.

Stella Kivoura
Lvl 17 Artificer
<Defective Prototype: Devastator>
Rp 12
Electrical Craving
Charge: 88%

"Here is it, Miss Deeley, a 5.1 gigahertz Cliffe flux difractor, just like you ordered. You're lucky, it was our last one and I won't have any more until my next shipment from Praxis," said the vendor.

"Awesome, just what I need to finish my prismatic lance, you're a lifesaver. I can't get this stuff anywhere else," replied the girl, holding a gadget made of bits of tech built around some sort of faceted crystal.

"Don't forget your receipt, miss," added the cyborg as the freckled girl left the store, holding her purchase like a treasure. "Well, if it isn't Miss Kislev! It's been a while, I barely recognized you dressed like that. Some friends of yours? I guess you're here for the usual?"

"Hello Stella. This are John, Anna, Vesta and Dargon. I'm not here for drone parts or cybersecurity equipment today. My friend John needs to use your autofab," replied Tricia. Stella took a long look at the trio with a devious grin.

"Your friend? Sure, I'm not fooled; there's some interesting story behind it. So, what do you need, stud?"

"I had a gas mask that got destroyed in my last fight which made me acutely aware of my need for more efficient head protection, plus the whole armor could need an upgrade. Do you sell reinforced gauntlets with claws or blades attached that could be used to channel magic or electricity?" said John, not reacting to the girl's attitude.

"Ooh, a complete overhaul. That's cool, but it could be pricey. Let's see what you have in the way of current armor and materials, we'll see the gadgets after that," she said. She walked behind the huge screen displaying some sort of yellowy alien landscape and told them to follow her.

John retrieved his full set of armor, boots included, from his inventory and displayed it on the table. The woman pushed a button and a curtain of red light swiped over the gear, followed by a blinking of her eyepiece.

"That's some cool gear you have here. The materials used are absolutely insane, but you have some nifty magical properties on it. I don't know if Danielle here explained why our autofab is so awesome. This marvel of arcanotech allows us to disassemble and reassemble, repair and upgrade magical artefacts while preserving their properties. You could bring us a bronze magical dagger and we'll be able to give you a modern steel tactical knife that is the same artefact with the same powers. Hence why the thing is so expensive. Of course, the more of the materials you bring yourself, the less it costs. So, yeah. Headgear, what will it be?" she asked, booting up a holographic display and showing him different models of helmets and masks.

"Fully enclosed with full protection. Sound and light amplification, life support, comms, the whole deal. I have brought this with me, some for the head gear, the rest for the armor," explained John. He added to the table some of the contents of his inventory: a full bucket of reinforced slime material, a big chunk of fused quartz, a few shards of his hyperium crystal, the Obscurite sphere he had obtained long ago during the same quest, a few small fragments of Amber, a couple strips of the dwarven alloy and a few vials of nanites supplied by Tricia.

"Holy shit... You're not messing around. Do you know how much all of this is worth?"

"Less than my life. When I get into a fight, I have a lot of reasons to get out of it alive."

"Yeah, I guess. This will work perfectly. I can upgrade your armor, this slimy stuff and the nanites will make for perfect synth-muscles, plus with their quasi living status and the amber bits it could probably self repair most of the light damage. This will add some raw strength and speed to the whole thing, on top of the current stats of your gear. This black shit, it has some cool light and magic absorption properties; between that and your quartz, it should be possible to make it a one way mirror with fiber optic properties, add a layer of nanites to the inside for display purposes, a full respiratory pack and a comm unit... And these sparkly marvels should be enough to power it all... This is so good. Fuck, I was so bored shilling stuff from the catalog. Danielle, your boyfriend here has awesome toys!"

"He's not my..."

"I know, he's with the bouncy beauty here, but you're getting some on the side too. Trust me, golden boy, this will be epic. Let's see about the gadget you wanted. I have just the thing. The EG-201 Shocker, a favorite of a lot of bounty hunters and security crews. This reinforced gauntlet is solid enough to parry swords without getting damaged, the special material allows you to maintain full range of movement. The zapping part has two settings: stun and pain. That is until I remove the weak sauce power pack, disable the limiters and install one of your treasures instead. Then, if you want to fry or scorch things, it's up to you; I'll add a haptic interface and some etheral conduits and you should be able to cast or channel magic without issues."

John was smiling now and the bored and rude girl from before was becoming some overcharged ball of energy as soon as she was getting excited about a project. He also noticed how she licked her lips every time she talked about electricity or his hyperium shards. He wondered what this electrical craving status was about. He had noticed that she had nearly shivered while touching the shards with her tail's pincer and from time to time she plugged it in various outlets or power cells lying around, her charge status going up each time she did.

"Let's be serious and talk price. This all sounds very impressive, so how much is it all going to cost me?" asked John. He had made some serious money lately, but his budget was far from unlimited.

"The gauntlets are a steal at 10k a pop, but since you’ll buy the pair, I'll make you the second one half off and throw in the upgrades for free. The helmet and armor... Let me see, you're providing close to everything for the armor and most of the stuff for the helmet. Of course the helmet is some fabrication job, while the armor is just an upgrade. Best price I can give you is 60k for the whole thing, but it'll kick ass. I'll even throw some stuff that's been on clearance for a while so that your elf there doesn't look like a cavewoman."

"Danielle?" he asked, almost calling her Tricia by accident. He didn't know well the kind of prices practiced here, so he couldn't distinguish a bargain from a rip-off.

"John, it's a very good offer. It's the only place that offers this kind of service, at least without losing the things you already had. I know it sounds like a lot of money, but you would pay a lot to buy individual pieces of equipment elsewhere."

"Deal," replied John. He couldn't cut corners when it came to his survival.

The next step, after paying half of the sum in advance, was to step fully naked on a full body scanner to ensure that the end product would perfectly fit his anatomy. Why this process required the presence of the 4 girls, including a fully naked Vesta trying to figure out how to put on the clothes she had been offered, remained a mystery to John. It did not fail to provoke the expected response from his body to the amusement of the ones familiar with it and the amazement of the vendor.

Vesta sure looked more modern once in these new clothes, but she barely seemed more dressed. The ensemble of some skin tight and almost see through underwear, shorts so short that John had seen underwear cover more, a sports jacket, garters, tights, various straps and accessories was an arousing sight. She even received an ear piece adapted to elven ears that, according to Stella, on top of being able to connect to a phone, interfaced with various devices in the clothes to help someone control magic more easily.

The fabrication process would take 4 hours to complete, so after getting dressed, John decided that they would go do the rest of their shopping before coming back.