“Since this is a city, opportunities exist to do what we normally do when we visit a city: to go shopping,” Hanako speculated. “We can probably barter; but, we should also see what currency is used here. We can explore the city, seek out new, unique and interesting items, and pick up the local rumors and gossip. At the same time, we should document the species we encounter. Koizumi Chieko will be responsible for that. Just as usual, Bors, we should be safe by not going alone.”
All around them were aliens previously unknown to the Empire. A huge whale-like creature passed over the group, slick with slimy hydrating gels and kept aloft by a giant anti-gravity sled. To their right was a large worm-creature looking at them as it seemed to slowly dance in place. To the left was an awful-smelling primate thing with 6 large insectoid eyes circling its face which resembled an anus, but half a meter wide. Little tongues short of out its furred skin every few seconds, sticking to one of the swarm of flies around its and shoving the captured flies into the giant face-orifice, which occasionally left out a loud fart-and-or-burp. Ahead was a marketplace full of more life of all shapes, sizes, colors, textures, and smells. There were robot drones zooming through the air and along the ground picking up trash and even buying and delivering things for people. In addition to the life that was here in person, there were about half of the locals that, according to scanners, were simply volumetric.
Hanako approached the shit-reeking, zoo-smelling flycatcher thing first but made a 180 when it said, “No free sex. What do you got?” Wait, that was a prostitute?? She looked at Bors with her nose still wrinkled.
Ahead in the marketplace they could spot vendors selling everything from foods, to pets, to objects seemingly made of light. The city was composed of numerous pastel teal buildings and the markets took up spaces along their edges, with the various shops and streetside stalls identified by multilingual signs that showed various glowing alien scripts in rotation.