Phony Pirate Practices

Soul wasn't entirely sure how to respond to that, but he thankfully didn't need to figure out what to say. The door to the dressing room suddenly opened up. Mage peeked out from within it. He was wearing the last jacket he had picked: the long, dark one. It easily reached his knees and went a little past that.

"The sleeves on the other jackets were too tight," Mage said, "but this one fits."

Harry couldn't help the smile that came to his face at the sight. It was far too adorable. For the first time in a long time he had the unreasonable urge to squeal but he had a reputation to uphold so he managed to stop at the smile.

Jennifer didn't have quite the same reservations.

"AWWWW...that looks really good on you," said Jennifer, stepping forward. "If you like it, you should absolutely get it."

Mage looked down at the outfit, then glanced up at Soul.

Soul gave him a supportive smile. Mage couldn't see it, but he had become good at reading Soul's body posture to know what he was doing underneath his helmet.

"I agree," Soul said. "It really does look good on you."

Mage grinned.

"I think I will get it," he said.

"Awesome," said Jennifer, breaking out into a few claps as she did it. "That will look amazing. If that's all you're going to get from this lot then, why don't you change back and we'll go look for a few more things from here?"

"Okay," Mage said, nodding.

He turned back to the changing room and closed the door behind him. A few moments later, Mage stepped back out of the changing room in his outfit from before.

"I'm ready," he said, holding the jacket he had picked.

"Perfect," said Jennifer," just chuck that at Harry, he's going to be our shopping cart for the moment."

In a surprise twist, Harry doesn't even sputter indignantly at her. She exchanged a look with Shania. That had to be chalked up for some later teasing.

"So...what would you like to look for next?" asked Jennifer, turning back to Mage. "Something completely different in style, or more clothes that are more on the normal side?"

"We probably should look for some more normal clothes at some point," Soul pointed, glancing over Mage's finds again.

Mage nodded. He knew Soul wasn't trying to discourage him from looking at other clothes. But they really did need to get him more clothes to wear back on their world, and the two of them didn't have the most stamina when it came to shopping for anything for long periods of time.

"Can we look for something I could wear on our world?" Mage asked.

"Sounds like a plan," said Jennifer, nodding. "We might have to change floors. You guys have taken a grav shaft before right?"

Soul blinked.

"A what?" he asked. He didn't know what "grav" was, but the shaft part made him imagine a hole in the ground. The thought of a jump made Soul excited for reasons he couldn't quite explain. Maybe it was some remnant of Zogin, who had always had a thrill when it came to things like that.

"I don't that world is quite up there yet," said Harry.

"Ohh..sorry for assuming," said Jennifer. "Umm, as for what a grav shaft is, well have you ever ridden in an elevator before?"

Mage shook his head just as Soul nodded. Soul was surprised at that. He had been imagining an elevator being how Mage had gotten out from Infernum to Medium, but was only just now realizing how wrong that assumption was. Infernum was considered cut off from the rest of the world for a reason. It was deep, deep below the earth, and an elevator would be far too easy of a way to get down there or get back up to the surface.

"Okay, so one of you knows how an elevator, that's great. Better than nothing," said Harry, "this...is well...kind of the same, it serves the same purpose, but uhh instead of a box that gets pulled up, here we've got a constantly fluctuating um...field...I'll try not to get too sciency, but basically you go stand in it, it levitates you straight up and to the next floor. Its not as scary as it sounds believe me, its a lot safer than an elevator. It was a design meant to reduce anxiety for people with claustrophobia and also to just increase the speed in buildings like this which have a ridiculous number of floors."

The words absolutely went over Mage's head, but Soul nodded along to what Harry said like he vaguely understood the concept. The two things Mage did get was that it was supposed to reduce anxiety and went incredibly fast.

He gave Harry a wary look.

"...It's not like the car, right?" he asked, shuddering at the memory of the car he had taken with Harry the first time they met.

"That depends on what you're referring to as the car..." began Harry," I mean it is not a car, no...but it is umm fast."

Mage still looked wary, but he decided to relent. If it was the only way they could change floors, he'd just have to use it. The sooner he went through with it, the better.

"Okay," Mage said. "Let's go to the grav shaft."

Soul gave him a questioning look, but Mage didn't explain what a car was.