Verath

One of the three largest libraries in the system. Public access for 5 cr/day; restricted collections require enrollment credentials or a brokered research agreement. The Archive maintains a rare text brokerage, items commissioned from off-world sources through Archive intermediaries cost base price plus 15%. Document authentication is a formal Archive service accepted as definitive in most inter-world legal proceedings.

The premier arcane goods shop in Verath. Prepared scrolls, arcane foci, wands, staves, and crafted magic items across all traditions. Maintains a commission service for items not in stock. Run by a partnership of three retired Academy scholars who still disagree about curriculum and have done so, visibly, for twenty-two years. The disagreements have not once affected the quality of the stock.

Alchemical tools, reagents, bombs, elixirs, and advanced formulas. Has supplied the Academy's alchemical programs for four generations. A Whitfeld has run the shop since it opened; which Whitfeld varies by decade and the current one declines to confirm their given name professionally. The basement stocks restricted compounds available with Academy credentials or a persuasive explanation, the Whitfelds have never defined "persuasive."

Ship repair, component sales, hull work, and crew hire. The Port Guild's primary licensed shipwright. Thirty-person crew, three shifts, standard two-day turnaround for anything short of frame replacement. Sells most standard ship components off the floor. Capital-grade and specialty components require advance order through the Guild catalog. Ironport also runs a parts exchange, bring worn components, receive credit toward replacements.

The Concordat of Blades' official armory and licensed weapons dealer. Weapons, armor, dueling-grade equipment, and Concordat maintenance services. Everything sold carries a provenance certificate, useful in worlds that regulate weapon imports. The Armory buys back used weapons and resells them; the secondhand rack has held, on more than one occasion, items considerably more interesting than their pricing suggests.

Full-service Compact station with two resident physicians and rotating specialists. Provides care regardless of faction affiliation, a policy maintained through three periods of inter-world political pressure and one attempted bombing. The bomber is treated here annually for unrelated injuries and finds this uncomfortable. Standard Compact-approved items available for purchase without prescription.

Currency exchange (2% fee), letters of credit, secure vault storage, and inter-world transfers for those with the access protocol. Coin Lords-affiliated but operates under the Neutrality Commission's financial charter, transaction records are not shared with planetary governments unless a request passes a formal legal process the Exchange's lawyers have never lost. Vault storage: 5 cr/month per standard container, 25 cr/month for oversized.

Certified document scribing, cartographic services, translation, and the quiet production of very accurate unofficial copies of documents their clients do not officially have access to, a service never formally listed and never formally stopped. Current system-transit maps are maintained here and considered definitive. Ship manifests can be certified or, for a higher fee, "corrected," which the Guild calls historiographic revision.

Officially: a dealer in antiquities, recovered artifacts, and pre-8th Era items of scholarly interest. Actually: the most reliable gray-market broker in Verath. Ravel moves goods with complicated ownership histories, provides access to items whose direct sale would attract inconvenient attention, and sells information about things that no longer appear in any official record. There is no Sons. There never was.

A permanent covered market running six days a week with over two hundred licensed stalls. The standard source for general equipment, basic supplies, food, clothing, and the mundane items no specialist shop bothers to carry. Prices at or slightly below standard, the Market Authority enforces no price-fixing, and competition between stalls is vigorous. The Market runs a lost-property register that has recovered three ships' worth of misplaced cargo in the last decade.

The Port Ward's primary accommodation for arriving and departing crews. Named for the three languages the original owner spoke, none of which was local. Meals and drinks from early morning; the dinner service is recommended by people who have eaten extensively across Verath and made their decision. Port Guild rules apply inside: no faction violence, disputes to the Guild mediator. The Guild mediator drinks here every evening and is not difficult to find.

Accommodation and meeting space for the Returned, graduates who left, saw the system, and came back convinced the academies are failing. The name is ironic; the building was never a barracks. The common room hosts nightly debates free to attend and often worth attending. A reliable place to find people who have been somewhere you need information about and are willing to talk, sometimes for free, always for the right audience.