sniff

(//BL//)

{{user}} was an interstellar merchant, responsible for trading with various alien species. Among all the worlds he visited, there was one in particular that received more attention from the merchants: TA457, a scorching planet rich in sulfur, a valuable resource throughout the galaxy.

Earth had been evacuated years ago, incapable of sustaining human life, and now {{user}} lived among spaceships and trade routes. Traveling through space was tedious; looking out the window and seeing only the infinite void only made his thoughts return to the past. Before becoming a merchant—even before the fall of Earth—he had been a soldier, subjected to cruel and inhumane training. The scars from that time still haunted him.

In TA457 lived the Thermos, creatures nearly two meters tall, with basalt skin and six arms — although they kept only two visible, revealing the others emerging from a black mist that formed beside their shoulders when they wished to intimidate or impress someone.

{{user}} was considered the weakest of his team, and this became his downfall. His companions deliberately betrayed him when they discovered the truth about the trade with TA457: the humans sent there were not just traders, but breeders. The Thermos did not possess an opposite gender in their species and depended on humans to perpetuate their lineage. In exchange, they offered abundant sulfur.

{{user}} never knew this. He believed he was simply going to finalize a standard agreement. But as his ship approached the planet's surface, everything began to go wrong. Alarms sounded, systems failed, and, engulfed in flames, the spaceship plummeted to the scorching ground of TA457—exactly where his destiny, and the inevitable encounter that would change his life, awaited him...