Metallic dragons are slightly smaller on average than their chromatic cousins causing them to be more likely to achieve sentience. The vast majority of them despise the fiends almost as much as they do their chromatic cousins. Like chromatics they come in a variety of colors, though there can be some overlap between the abilities of each kind. They are also known to make deals with dwarves, though the details of such agreements are not known to outsiders. The known colors for metallic dragons are, ordered by size: Copper, Brass, Bronze, Iron, Rust, Steel, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Mithril.

Adrian

It is midafternoon by the time we arrive at the shopping complex I saw while flying this morning, the travel itself was not difficult nor hard though K forcing Ria to fight and deal with pain slowed us down a lot. We ran into some goblins at least once an hour and K repeated her slapping lesson more than a few times. I feel almost bad as K is basically beating a backbone into Ria. It is working though. . .

We walk through the broken glass doors of the mall and as the members of our group not from Earth are looking at all the new things I try to sense for any nearby life forces. I don’t feel anything nearby that I wasn’t expecting so I turn over to the others, “we can separate into groups to search for anything that we can use.”

“Is it safe to split up?” Abagail asks?

I nod and so does K after a few seconds of sniffing the air. She came to the same conclusion as me. Bryan ends up being a dragged off by Abagail to help her in her looting while the other four are looking at me.

“Don’t wait on me, go find what you want. I can’t follow all of you around” I tell them, my words mostly meant for the trio.

“What are you going to be doing?” asks Lysan with her usual smile.

“I am going to be going through a clothing store, then I’m not sure. Probably going to grab all the books I can before going through the toys and jewelry.”

“Can we go together?”

“Sure, but I’m not planning to pass through every shop, you might want to search on your own.”

There is a slight frown and a nod from Lysan before she starts following me around as I enter the first store I plan on looting. I find myself fairly disappointed in the selection, like when I was out shopping with the trio it was difficult to find clothes for non-obese tall people.

After twenty minutes of trying to find what I wanted in the store that had clearly already been raided at least once I gave up and started just throwing everything I thought could be close into Void Cache. I can always just leave it there if I end up not being able to use it.

The jewelry section of the clothing store was predictably more thoroughly looted than the clothing section, that did not mean there was nothing left but most of the more expensive, non-fake, items are gone. Lysan seemed to have more fun as she kept trying on necklaces in front of a broken but usable mirror as she asked me if she could have them. I would simply nod to that question and the one for me to hold onto it for her.

Abagail

Walking around an abandoned and previously ransacked store just is not as much fun as shopping. The searching for a pretty outfit turned into a task of almost cleaning the store. At least Bryan let us go through the women’s section first, even if he was less than interested in the specific articles of clothing I chose.

After putting the last shirt I wanted to keep in the not quite purse and frowning at how it won’t match anything I would want to wear I walk over to the underwear section.

“How about these?” Bryan asks as he passes me a package.

“No, wrong size” I manage to say as I begin to blush at him. I begin to push him out of the section as I struggle to tell him “I’ll find my own. Just go ahead to the men's section.”

“But I’d like to see you in these.”

I push with a little more force but I have neither the strength or leverage to move him as I say “Go, I’ll meet you there.”

With some disappointment he leaves and I put the lingerie back on the shelf it could have come from before, with some embarrassment, searching for one closer to my size. For once I am glad I carry the unfashionable not quite a purse so no one will see me walking around with something like this.

Once I finish grabbing most of what I am willing to wear I rush over to the men’s section to find Bryan had made a pile of boxers as is now throwing pants on top of them. Any pair with his size seems to be going into the pile.

He looks over to me after finishing looking through the piles of pants and fallen shelves. “did you make sure these are the right size?” I ask.

“Yes”

Glancing at the pants, I doubt he did as there are several different kinds of cuts but I begin to place them in the satchel anyways. I can always throw them out while he isn’t looking after all. As Bryan begins to pick up some shirts and toss them over to me I throw the first back but miss horribly, “try some on and make sure they fit.”

“They are the same size as the one I’m wearing it’ll be fine.”

“No, different brands different cuts. Try a few on first or I won’t put them in the bag.”

He just rolls his eyes for a second thinking I won’t catch it in the dim lighting but it is not quite that dark. I walk over to him as he is temporarily shirtless and can’t help but smile at my boyfriend’s appearance. The shirt I made him try on turned out to be too short.

“See, I was right. If you want that shirt you’ll have to try the next size up.”

I can hear the slightest of sighs as he gives in to me having him try on shirt after shirt, at least two from each size and brand before I would skip the size checking. I would have tried to make him do it for every shirt but I don’t want him to accuse me of trying to see him shirtless.

After the clothes, we end up walking past one of the bookstores and I see Ria reading something. Curious, I pull Bryan into that store and he quickly finds himself looking through the fantasy section as I walk over to Ria.

“What are you looking for?” I ask her.

“Are there more of these picture books?” she answers as I look at what she has in her hands. Some Japanese comic, I don’t know what they are called but I point her toward she corner that has them. This store is in far better condition that the others and still remains mostly organized. Probably because the only thing people would try using most of the inventory is to make fires.

She nods and rushes over there with a smile before she rushes over and begins to read them. I myself go through the cooking section and grab any book I think could still be useful.

After a few more minutes Adrian walks into the store followed by one of the elven sisters, Lysan I think. She seems to enjoy following him around more than her sister does.

“Ria, we are here to grab what we need not leisurely read. Have you looked at other stores yet?”

“No, but can I have these?”

“Yes, you can have anything you manage to carry out of here but first go find some new clothes.”

“But I like these clothes.”

“You can own more than one set” Bryan interjects.

“Really?”

Both of the boys nod at Ria and she smiles before turning towards the door. She then flicks one of her tails at Bryan and I am sure his eyes followed her out the door. I’m going to have to have a talk with him about that and another with her.

Poor girl though, what has she lived through to think you can only own a single pair of clothes?

“Lysan, could you help her? She just ran off in the wrong direction” Adrian asks Lysan who quickly nods and runs off with a smile.

Bryan and Adrian talk to each other softly as Adrian starts dropping everything he can into his magical storage.

Adrian

The rest of our time searching through the shopping complex did not net us any weapons save for some knives, though we should not have to worry about clothes or much of anything aside from food and weapons for a long time.

“Where to now our fearless leader?” Bryan asks cracking an inside joke the others don’t understand.

“We still need weapons so I was thinking of finding a sporting goods or hunting supply shop. That and see if I could steal all the books from the libraries and college in the city.

Unfortunately, I don’t know where any of those things are and have yet to find a good map of the city. We may just have to head back to the secured part of the city and buy what we can from the dwarves.”

“And what would we trade them? We are out of coin or have they started taking the dollar?” Abagail asks.

“If we have to I have some scales and bones from a red dragon.”

Everyone save K who already knew of that encounter gives me a look of disbelief.

“It wasn’t a very big one. Still, let’s head back.”

Once more our walking contains the occasional break where we watch K force Ria to get over her pain problems. This is probably not the healthiest way for it to be dealt with but I’m not going to argue with results. That and I now know that she has magic none of the rest of us have, illusions.

The smile she makes after trapping a pair of goblins in an illusion to kill each other was slightly disturbing but I probably would have made a similar one. Just a few streets before the gate to get back into town Abagail speaks up, “Ria, you may want to hide your tails.”

“Will bad men hurt me because of them?” she asks in return.

“They may try to” K tells her.

Ria herself unconsciously shivers in her fear of pain before her tails and animal ears vanish from sight. Now appearing completely human she follows the estimate of us as we reach the gate.

It is guarded as the other I had used before was. One of the human guards, one who seems to have been a soldier before the conjunction, walks up to the gate and unlocks it.

“Welcome back sir, who is the blonde with red highlights? I was not informed of the possibility of her presence.”

“Her name is Ria, you don’t need to worry about her.”

“I’m sorry but I have orders to detain any non-cleared personnel who come to the gate.”

“Are you sure? I’m just with some friends” Ria says as she smiles at the guard. There is a few seconds pause in the man before he responds.

“Oh, sorry my mistake.”

“What did you do?” I whisper to Ria.

“Magic, it makes people believe you are allowed to be wherever you are.”

Damn, I want to learn that spell. There are probably holes in it though, and what are you to do when they remember it afterwards? I should probably keep Ria out of sight when we leave.

We don’t get stopped again as we get to the civilian areas. The rest of the day is spent talking to dwarven merchants and smiths. We need better equipment and I don’t want to wait around this city for too long.