####**'\|_Finnegan's Trade House_, Hyperspace |\,**

*Finnegan's* was one of a handful of Inns between Worlds - establishments built on semi-stable hyperspace nodules in the middle of the Fairy Path. You could walk there, the Path could suck your spaceship into the "parking lot", or (if you were well-regarded by Finnegan or the staff) you could follow the directions from a Fairy pendant. The pendants were a relatively new thing, made with the cooperation of a well-inebriated Guan. Activated by body heat and only operable in the unique physics of hyperspace or the Path, the pendants pointed the way toward *Finnegan's* using a tiny homing microchip blessed with Fay magic. If you owned one, you could always find your way back to *Finnegan's*, and if you could find your way back to *Finnegan's*, you could make yourself very wealthy. They had paid for themselves many times over.

The introduction of the pendants had turned *Finnegan's* from a jovial pub and inn to a neutral ground where a select number of merchants, mercenaries, secret government officials, Path-walkers, and ship-captains could meet, barter, trade, exchange information, and get a good night's rest. Meanwhile, Finnegan was getting a never-ending source of staff from those unable to pay for their food and drink. Not to mention the hundreds of rare treasures hidden away in secret rooms. It was a very lucrative business, and recently Finnegan had installed an entire warehouse to facilitate it. You could, if you paid Finnegan a "fair" price, rent out space, set up shop, and make yourself a pretty penny.

The pub itself, once entirely made of a two-story brick-and-glass storefront, now had expanded out in a slew of directions and materials. There was a modern plastic, alloy, and glass edifice with flashing lights and smoky air that always had a heavy bass song blaring; a thirteen-story concrete hotel jutting out the back of the pub; an oaken longhouse with a roaring firepit, bawdy bards, and a heavy smell of meat; a rather extravagent five-story stone gothic ballroom with stained glass and peaked roofs and flying buttresses; and, of course, the new warehouse, made of a shimmering bronze and marble. The parking lot was weightless, but atmosphere-filled. Finnegan had had to strike a bargain with Queen Titania herself to get the Path to do that, but it was much better than when the first spaceships had stumbled onto the node and crashed dramatically into the forest.

The Fairy Path itself was a woodchip road lined with small mossy stones. At one point, this chunk of Path had been part of a pine-needle forest, with rotting trunks, rings of mushrooms, and beds of moss two inches thick covering the ground. If you could make it to *Finnegan's*, the next hundred meters of Path was incredibly obvious to even non-magical species: a rarity along the Path. That's why it was a popular destination for would-be adventurers, most of whom would wind up dead on an airless rock somewhere.

It was an uneasy air in the pub this morning. Rumors were flying. A severely burnt Path-walker had died the night before; apparently somebody had glassed her planet. She had stayed in one of the guest's rooms: a surly Roman by the name of Seth. Romans were rare. Like most non-magical species (or unawakened ones, at any rate), they had difficulty walking and finding the Path. Meanwhile, there were wild claims of empires making actual contact with each other. Peaceful contact. The kind that might result in trade. *Finnegan's* might no longer have a near-monopoly on interspecies trade. Oh, sure, some "rare artifacts" could always be sold, and "new" inventions could always be patented. No species was in contact with every other species. If the rumors were true, it was the end of an era. Potentially, however, it was the beginning of another.

Finnegan thought that this could be an opportunity. Grabbing some of his closest staff at random, he made an offer: freedom in exchange for making contact with alien diplomats, and giving them pendants. A small few accepted, and he sent them out to walk the Path. Perhaps a few would make it somewhere interesting. Likely they would all die. But it would be worth a few good stories, at any rate.