Quoted By:
'The Rings' is the colloquial name for Barter's trio of enormous, circular docking berths running around the middle of the station: one for passenger traffic and two for cargo, all of which see around the clock traffic whenever Barter is parked in some planet's orbit. Since the adjacent nodes are generally the first thing disembarking visitors see and experience, they have experienced a self-fueling feedback loop of being highly desired real estate and consequently needing to appear presentable and appealing to visiting sapients. As such, these are usually the most heavily modified and expanded nodes, much closer in appearance to regular void ports and trade stations, but at the cost of often losing the original, unique identity of the voidcraft they started out as.
Halcyon Hill is probably the most well known and most opulent of these visitor-focused nodes: a gutted mega-freighter, its vast cargo holds that could once deliver years worth of supplies to an entire planet now repurposed into a facsimile of a ritzy planetside commercial neighborhood, containing some of Barter's highest end shops and businesses, as well as parks, recreation centers, and luxury restaurants and hotels. There are even massive, incredibly wasteful holoprojectors set into the ceiling, simulating a real sky.
Hrassi, the silent and somewhat awkward reptilian you've dragged around with you after discovering him lurking in a maintenance shaft down in the Belly while you were inflicting reasonable violence on a psionic cult leader, and who works for the noble you're heading to visit, slips away into the crowd shortly after you enter the node - he was most likely staying with you just to confirm your destination. Which is a shame, because you never did figure out why he was acting so apprehensive of you.
Five Petals Hotel - your destination - is considered the absolute height of class on Barter, so it's no surprise that Marchioness Shanaia of House Maevian would take up residence there while onboard. Even though you suspect that, for her, the accommodations are a shabby imitation of the standard of quality she was raised to expect. But as you approach the hotel's location along Halcyon's main concourse, it is immediately apparent that this is indeed where the Dragonblood Noble is staying. The first hint being the increased ProfSec presence along the route - as unobtrusive as possible, but still noticeable through the sheer number of deployed officers. Here to intervene against any sort of aberrant behavior that the first Dragonblood visiting Barter might very possibly provoke.
The second hint is the decidedly higher than average concentration of business suits present in the cafes and bars around the hotel. Merchants, trade representatives, corporate agents and other such types who've no doubt buried the hotel's reception under audience petitions and business offer requests. Big fish and minnow alike, chasing what for them might be the opportunity of a lifetime.
(cont)
