[RP] The Docks of The White Bloom

Migs practically skidded down the docking ramp, his boots clattering against the metal as he fumbled with a loose strap on his studded leather armor. His hair was a mess, and the vibrant purple light of the nebula made his hangover feel like a physical weight behind his eyes.

"Captain! Joey! Look, I can explain," Migs blurted out, waving a hand dismissively as if to sweep away his tardiness. "I was... uh... scouting. Yeah, scouting! I heard a rumor at the tavern—well, a different tavern than the one you were at—that there was a specific, high-grade crystalline lubricant available only during the Jubilee. Very rare. Very essential for the Magpie’s secondary thrusters. But the merchant was... a real character. Kept me haggling. Total nightmare."

Captain Joey crossed her arms, her gaze flat and unimpressed. "A lubricant merchant. In the middle of the night. In a residential district?"

"He was a mobile vendor!" Migs added quickly, his face flushing. "Very mobile. Hard to track down. Alexa, back me up here?"

"My logs indicate a significant gap in your geographic data," Alexa chimed in from his wrist. "However, your stress levels are consistent with someone who has been... haggling."

"See? Stress!" Migs pivoted away from the Captain’s suspicious glare before she could ask more questions. He spotted Rolex near the engine manifold and hurried over, grabbing the gnome by the shoulder and pulling him a few feet away from the noise of the cargo-bots. "Rolex, talk to me. What’s the deal with the 'dying whale' sound? Is the helm going to explode or just melt?"

Rolex adjusted his goggles, his eyes wide and frantic. "Oh, Migs, it's a mess! The harmonic resonance in the primary Aether-Core is oscillating at a sub-arcane frequency that’s causing a feedback loop in the mana-conduits. I tried to recalibrate the ley-line injectors, but the thaumaturgical pressure is spiking because the coolant-vapors are ionizing with the local nebula gases! If we don't phase-shift the containment field by at least six degrees, the whole spelljamming circuit is going to suffer a catastrophic sympathetic rupture!"

Migs stared at him for a beat, his brain—assisted by Alexa’s data but hampered by the 'Solar Nectar'—trying to process the word vomit.

"Right. Oscillating. Pressure. Rupture," Migs muttered, patting Rolex on the head. "I got it. Alexa, give me a diagnostic overlay of the Core. I’m going in."

Migs scrambled toward the heart of the ship, heading straight for the glowing housing of the Aether-Core.