Out with the old...

It's a funny old life, I suppose.

Murdock ripped open his large canvas bag and hurriedly threw the various items he had on sale. Masks and maps, trinkets and tokens, souvenirs from planets not in this universe and ones from planets that had long since been forgotten.

Murdock's Miscellaneous! was proudly painted on a sign that hung above the simple stall that was tucked away in a corner of the quickly emptying promenade. Perhaps it was not an officially licensed vendor of the JMC Blue Dwarf, but that didn't prevent the brave and the curious from stepping out from the mainstream of the market stretch than ran the length of the promenade to browse his wares. And the security guards would always look the other way if a discount was given for the more 'powerful' drinks that Murdock sold.

Business had been good, which was a nice change of pace. Often when he arrived on a Dwarf ship, it was either abandoned, destroyed, infested, infected, or overrun with mutant animals. Or he would be driven away by the inane AIs that they insisted on installing in the vast majority of the ships throughout the universe.

Murdock slung the heavy bag over his back and joined the bustling crowd that surged for shelter as the ship went into red alert. He gave a whistle, a short few notes. A small creature, a mouse with large ears and long back legs leapt to his shoulder, expertly avoiding trampling feet.

"Are you ready, Jeb?"

The little jerboa ruffled its nose and gripped firmly onto the shoulder of Murdock's tattered coat.

Of course, Murdock wasn't going to be foolish enough to follow the crowd. No, he and Jeb had a much better plan than that.

Inter-dimensional travel use to be rare, or it was in Murdock's younger days, at least. But now everyone seemed to have it as an excuse to be enigmatic and mysterious. Still, it at least made walking the pathways a slightly less terrifying time. Especially now that some old man seemed to be trying to pacify the beast and creatures that prowled on honest merchants such as Murdock.

As the crowd began to become more panicked as blasts and shouts and cracks and thuds echoed around the ship, Murdock slipped his hand into his coat pocket. A cold metal device found the comfort of his gloved palm. With just a press of a button, Murdock would be taken to the pathways, and off to a new dimension to sell over priced junk to.

There was a fizzle and crackle of purple energy and then everything went black.

"Oh."

It didn't work. Why didn't it work?

Several panic shopkeepers began to push Murdock as he pulled out the Dimension Drive, rubbing it between his hands and bashing it against his palm.

And then it occurred to him.

Have they finally found me? No, I was so careful this time...

A green light began to blink softly on the tip of the steel tube.

"Dimension lock down?!" Murdock cried to himself, his words largely ignored by the crowd. "But it wasn't them. This appears to have been... natural?"

Jeb let out a little squeak, seemingly at nothing. And then suddenly, a worm burst through a doorway up on a gantry far above. The door was ripped from its hinges and tumbled to the ground, crushing two security guards. It was too late to save them.

A maw of jagged teeth chased a small band of crewmen across the metal walkway, one of them shouting a complaint about the nature of this dimension.

Dimension?!

Murdock's attention snapped to full. If there were travellers from another dimension, they might know the reason for the dimension lock down.

"Well, Jeb, looks like we've got some new friends to meet..."

<OOC - Sorry this doesn't really add anything, still getting into the swing of things, really.>