The Other Witch; A Gray World

It was a little gray world.  Salvia had learned to expect a few things of gray worlds over the years.  The first was that they rarely believed in magic, even if you used it on them.  The second was that the traffic was horrible.  And lastly, any hotel worth staying at cost twice what it would anywhere else.
And there were never taverns.  Planet-wide cities rarely had the sort of adventurous atmosphere it took to support a decent tavern.  Bars, cantinas, and if you knew where to look, diners filled the same mundane purposes that a tavern would elsewhere, but the social and higher roles simply didn't exist.  A good diner or the right sort of bar could handle some of the social roles, but odds were you wouldn't be welcomed into the local group even if you found the place.  But besides that disadvantage planet-cities were just downright unpleasant.  They smelled bad, were always corrupt, and the population was almost always human dominant.  If they weren't human, it was because some minor alien race had lacked the common sense to keep their planet's environment self-sustainable.  Planets like this were monuments to arrogance, ignorance, and excess.  The Nielda had only two planets even close to being like these, Rhinsla and Mejjan, and even they could mount the agriculture to sustain their populations if need be.  But a gray world was one without any natural surface visible from space; even the oceans had been built over.  Many of their inhabitants wouldn't have known grass if they'd fallen into it.
"A gray world?  What good would a grayworlder be in an adventure?  They're all smooth talking, pale-blooded, thick-legged fools."
"We need someone who can move unseen.  There is a man in the depths who can do so.  We are going to find him."
"I expect that one who can move unseen will present a particular challenge in tracking down."
"To most, but not to those who do not rely on mere sight.  The two of you should have little difficulty in spotting him."

The ship set down in what Salvia could already tell was a bad neighborhood.  For starters, the smell was even worse than she'd anticipated.  Braga wrinkled his nose and made a series of sounds that could have as easily been an allergic reaction as a curse, though she suspected it was the latter.
Hack wasted no time in heading off into the depths of the city, moving through the crowd like it were a maze rather than simply a lot of oblivious, uninterested people.  Salvia resisted the urge to create a sphere of force or similarly force the crowd apart before her, Although Braga's presence, and that of his great-axe, certainly seemed to have the desired effect.  Even though he was shorter than the average human, the reputation of his species was such that even here, deep in human space, he was perceived as the most dangerous thing on the streets.
Salvia glanced about, observing the patterns of life around her.  It was mundane, more mundane than any Nieldic world she'd ever visited.  Even where she could see a hint of magic it was nothing more than a lingering aura from a long past battle or powerful artifact having passed by.  Technology was everywhere, street lights and flying cars abounded in an environment such as this, as did the vermin creatures, flies, rodents, snipes of all varieties, and, of course, pigeons.  The sewer's were out of sight and out of mind for the locals, but for a proper, cleanly Nielda like herself, it was downright foul.  She could only imagine how Braga must have felt.

"How do the human's deal with this filth?  It smells like snipe mating season, a pile of manure, and an amateur alchemist's lab all at once.  And those clouds?  That's all steam, smoke, or worse.  That street?  Its gum, bodily fluids, and a nearly infinite number of bacterial colonies that will likely gain sentience before anyone gets around to cleaning this place."
Salvia felt a sudden intense need to bathe, in fire.  "And people hold it against us that we like to slag gray worlds for resources whenever a real war breaks out, I'd say we're doing people a favor by forcing them to move out of this filth."
Braga chortled, "My people have never held that against yours.  It is a practical solution, and a functioning Imperial battleship is cleaner of both body and soul than is, I suspect, any inch of this planet."  He coughed.  "And they certainly smell better."
Salvia pulled him into a side alley and muttered a chant to clear his senses.  Not fully of course, but it would remove the persistent background that all senses were aware of, the color of streets and the sound of stranger's conversations, that sort of thing.  For a Ga-Vok it removed the smells that permeated the surroundings and left only those of people and their belongings, the weather, and anything else they might focus upon.  In someways it was dangerous, but in a place like this where he could barely move for the overwhelming sensations it would give him the clearness of life that he was accustomed to.
"Thank you, madam Hex."
"Just Salvia will do.  Hex is as much a title as a name anyways."
"Well then thank you, Salvia.  I should be of much more use now."  He sniffed at the air again.  "I believe I was wrong before, the bacteria may already be sentient."
"That's disgusting.  Do you smell Hack?"
He nodded.  "Old Cloak is below us, two levels.  There is a diner, I believe we should meet him there."