Challenge Accepted: Icelock
13 Apr 2016Magnudius
With one major hurdle done, Nudo looked towards the next one: the 4 System Permits, which are Terra Mater, Jotun, Vega, and Shintara. The first 2 only require alliance with local minor fractions, which Nudo could do on her own, and the latter 2 required CMDR assistance, one of which needed to be Federation-aligned and the other Elite-ranked. Nudo pulled up her galaxy map and searched to see which system was closest—Jotun. She did some research on the Dukes of Jotun and found that Caleta was the best system to grind away for the permit, so off she went.
It took 3 days of trucking predominately--to a funny named surface port, Heck's Folly, with a beautiful stellar view--before Nudo schmoozed access to Jotun. It would have been faster if Nudo could take the combat missions, but her cargo was too precious to risk. Nudo's excitement was short lived once she arrived in Jotun; she had expected a more grandiose galactic view for a limited access system. She was even more disheartened when she arrived into Icelock, a poor and tiny agricultural station. As she walked around the station, Nudo's senses picked up something odd about the population but couldn't perceive what was off. Nudo wondered if these people had to get a permit out like she had to get one in.
Nudo pondered the mystery as she walked into the Jotun Mookah shop. She went over to the beefy man behind the counter and said her greetings. He just gave a grunt in reply, turned towards the two-way mirror, motioned a summons with his arm, and walked to the chair by the wall at the end of the counter. Confused, Nudo looked towards the woman walking out the doorway on the other end of the counter.
“How may I help you?” the woman asked when she stood in front of Nudo.
“Ah yeah, um, I'm here to purchase some Jotun Mookah. Do you have any?” answered Nudo.
“Of course, otherwise we would have a different name.”
Nudo blinked at the condescending tone of this woman. Lucky for them to have access to a rare good otherwise they wouldn't be able to get away with that attitude in customer service. To add further strangeness to the situation, the man had been doing nothing but staring her down, boring holes into her head. Nudo gave him a hard look in return before turning back to the matter at hand. In no way did Nudo want to help these people profit.
“I'll take one then.”
“One? You're almost not worth my time,” the merchant said as she took Nudo's money. Nudo's nostrils flared in rage at the woman—no the couple! Those greedy sons of...
“Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Never hurts to kill with kindness. “You guys sure do things differently around here.”
“We're tough.” The woman said with a shrug of her shoulders. “That's why mostly men are around here.”
Ah! It all clicked in Nudo's mind now; the strangeness she noticed earlier. It was the gender ratio skew in the male favor. She looked back at the man, and suddenly his look took on a whole new—and disturbing—meaning. She needed to get out of her before some guy thought he could snatch her away, but she had to sate her curiosity on one thing first.
“If you guys are so tough, how do you manage to delicately nurture these sensitive creatures for their furs?”
With a look full of distaste, the woman answered, “That's why they're rare, yea?” She turn towards the man and said, “No wonder you didn't want to talk to her.”
Highly-affronted, Nudo grabbed her fur and walked out the store without another word. She wished she could sell her System Permit because she had no plans to ever come back to Jotun.