Magolor knew the Lor wouldn’t run perfectly forever. He knew that even with all the main parts and energy spheres back, there were other important parts of the ship that would definitely need replacing after sitting under a volcano for thousands of years. Unfortunately, these parts were exceedingly rare and impossibly expensive at best and no longer in existence at worst. The part of which he was in need was a type of propeller- it was only just starting to really wear down, but without it, the Lor Starcutter would not be anywhere near fast enough to cut through any kind of star. By some miracle, he had found someone who seemed to have one- and, by some other miracle, this person didn’t seem to know how much it was actually worth. He had convinced her to meet him not far from his own planet (for the sake of the current propeller) and was just now arriving at what seemed to be a small moon. @spaceboundscavenger
It wasn’t a long wait before something else arrived on the moon nearby - a rickety, rusty old ship about the size of a bus. It made a rather shaky landing, its landing gear creaking and whining in protest before finally settling as the pilot cut the engines.
Shortly after, the ship’s main door opened with a screeching metal scraping sound, and what looked like some kind of bird person stepped out, about three and a half feet tall and covered in a vivid reddish-pink color.
Acrim looked around a few moments, and of course caught sight of the other ship quickly. Must be the one she was here for.
“Hello?” she called. “I got called about a ship part, are you the guy?”
Shortly after Magolor arrived on the moon, an enchanted scrap heap had miraculously made its way next to him and the Lor. It was alright, though- as long as they weren’t here to steal the part, he didn’t mind doing the trade in front of an audience. Surely, the person with the propeller would be here any second now.
Any second now.
As the bird person stepped out of the ship, Magolor realized. He wasn’t waiting for the propeller guy- she was already here. Standing in front of him. A little taller than him, but he could always levitate a bit higher to make up the difference. If she had the courage to show up in that thing, with that important a part, for that good a price, she was clearly not one to be messed with. He was really starting to reconsider all his ideas of stealing it, or getting it for as low a price as it would go.
“Uh… Yeah! Yeah, that’s me. I’m the guy looking for the ship part. You got it with you?”
“Ah, great! Then my navigation still works.” Acrim replied. “Yeah, I have it in the ship, let me open up the cargo bay and grab it.”
She briefly went back inside the rusty old ship, and soon a large hatch towards the back fell open with a fairly loud clank.
“Have to fix that latch…” Acrim mumbled as she stepped back out, walking around to the new opening and carefully retrieving the part in question.
“Pretty unusual thing. Definitely stuck out to me when I found it. Glad somebody’s got a good use for the thing.”
Inwardly, though she had seen some pretty interesting species, Acrim was definitely surprised that her client appeared to be some kind of floating egg. Was he a prodigy child, some species already advanced as eggs, just something that stayed an egg forever? She had no clue. This was a professional transaction, she reminded herself, shaking off thoughts of tapping at his shell to see if it felt like any other egg she had encountered and other such curious touching.
Wanting to see for himself that the correct part was actually there, Magolor briefly tailed Acrim as she re-entered her ship. He slowed down, deciding whether or not to follow her in - however, as he went along, distracted by the little decision-making-game going on inside his head, his hovering was brought to an abrupt halt with the loud crash from the back of the flying scrap heap.
“A-ah!” Magolor tried his best to disguise his yelp of surprise as a sound of curiosity.
As Acrim walked back to where the crash had come from, Magolor once again followed her, albeit from a bit of a distance. He came to a stop and waited for her to retrieve the propeller, which she surprisingly did with ease, and without complaint. It was odd, seeing a rather large thing balanced on top of a rather small bird-person, but Magolor couldn’t say he wasn’t impressed. And, despite the circumstances, it was incredibly rewarding to have found such a rare part in such a good condition. His eyes had narrowed into a grin, and his hands found themselves clasped together.
“Great! Well, I’ll go ahead and take that off your hands- must’ve weighed down your ship a ton!” With care, he levitated the propeller out of her hands, and, once he had brought it close enough to the Lor for it to recognize the ship, it teleported itself into his own cargo bay. “As for your payment, I’ll-”
“Oi!”
Magolor blinked. He looked around him, not able to tell where the noise had come from.
Then, he heard decidedly angry shouting, though it was in a language he couldn’t understand, but he could deduce it was most likely some kind of warning.
Suddenly, a little creature with a head that could only be described as short and cylindrical, and a body that could only be described as thin and stick-like, popped out of the ground, leaving behind a perfectly round hole in the same shape as its head. Over its head was a very specific kind of helmet, with what looked like a glowing red eye where there should have been a face. Seeing the creature in full view, Magolor figured he would have to find out what the problem was. And fast, as glowing red eyes were never a good sign.
“Whoa, hey, let’s not let things get out of hand, shall we?” He said, as he reflectively held his hands up in defense. “There’s nothing worth attacking, or stealing, or destroying here - trust me - so if you’ll just let us finish this up we’ll be on our way-”
Although he had gotten good at getting his points out before letting someone else have the last word, it wasn’t enough in this case.
The little cylinder-alien was apparently just out to ruin Magolor’s day, as it cut him off with a high-pitched siren sound and summoned a whole horde of others just like it. They sprung out of the surface of the moon in the same way the first one had a moment ago. In a fraction of a second, 20, 30, maybe even 40 or more of the tiny things had come up out of the ground in a pattern that, unfortunately, surrounded both the Lor and Acrim’s ship. He sighed and shook his head, looking down, hands hanging in defeat. Guess there was no chance of avoiding a confrontation after all.
