Emporium Shopfloor

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All areas on the above map, with the exception of the warehouse and the administration offices (8) fall within the Emporium Warp Zone. You can read more about what this means in character and out of character by following the respective hyperlinks.

“Welcome to Emporium, where we always have everything in stock. We understand that a store with literally infinite choice can leave even omniscient beings such as yourself overwhelmed, so please, take a minute to familiarise yourself with our store layout so you can find what you need with ease.”
- Albert

Note: this page is intended to be used as a reference guide - no need to memorise everything, but if you want to know more about a given location then you can jump to its description from the table of contents.

In addition to our product sub-departments, we have several services available in-store for your convenience.

If you’ve just arrived, you’re probably standing in the Atrium: a welcome area with product catalogues and a nearby service desk to help get you started on your purchasing journey. Here you will also find an ornate clock which shows the only time which has any meaning in this place: time until the end of the current promotional cycle and your last chance to find the perfect product for your needs.

Next to the Atrium and keeping an omnivident eye on the checkouts is the Security Station.¹⁾ Customers and employees may use the lockers at security to store personal belongings during their stay at Emporium./

The head of Security is Phloupostrophe the Ever Watchful, He Who Took The Meek And Defenseless Under His Wings, Smiter of Fears, Banisher of Winter’s Harshness, Cantor in The Song of Peace (A.K.A. “Flopsie”), a Glory whose large, fluffy presence is a reassurance to most customers. He also acts informally as the store’s welfare councillor.

Need some time to relax, or maybe consider your next purchase? Come on over to the Empty Vessel Café and Contemplation Area. Enter temporary stasis and achieve mindfulness in our cosy seating, or, for those who require or enjoy other forms of existential sustenance, we have many delicious nutrient sources available - either hot, cold, or abfractive.

Have you shopped until you’re ready to drop? Are your cognitive functions slowing after so many hours of productive browsing? Do you need to sleep? No need to have your shopping experience cut short by a pesky circadian rhythm - just head on over to the Dreamers’ Lodge, where you will find clean sheets and a soft mattress to rest your weary body.

Sleep not guaranteed. Pleasant dreams cost extra.

Like the employee sleep pods, the bedding arrangements here will morph to accommodate any manifestation type. Unlike the employee sleep pods, these are actually comfortable.

The corridor between The Empty Vessel and the Dreamer’s Lodge serves as the Display area. Here, Ciel Factbooker, Orbital’s customer outreach specialist manages the Store's records of customer homeworlds. Records can be called up on any customer's homeworld - nothing invasive, just a basic profile; there used to be a complicated apparatus capable of communing directly with homeworlds (or at least, a facsimile of them), something about it has been on the fritz lately, leading Ms. Factbooker to stare longingly at it.

She's not without things to keep her busy, though, as the display area is more than a display area: it is also play area where customer dependents may be safely stored and entertained!

We have an excellent track record for customer satisfaction here at Emporium, and we are certain that you will be 100% satisfied with our products and will have a relaxed and fulfilling time shopping with us. However, if you do have any queries or complaints please don’t hesitate to ask a member of staff at the Service Desk. At the Customer Services desk, you may also run into one of the more senior employees, Empathy.

For specific product-related queries, please talk to a member of staff at one of the handy information stations throughout the store.

When you have inevitably found what you are looking for, make your way to the Checkouts to complete your purchase. And remember, you don’t have to wait until the end of your time with us in order to make a purchase. You may always return to the store and continue to shop until your ticket expires at the end of the cycle.

Heading out into the Warehouses? Good luck! The Staging Area is a combination mustering ground, supply depot, and logistical coordination centre, where Amanda Marker, Emporium’s stock manager, plans expeditions into the warehouse. Official excursions and independent operations typically set out here; if you’re planning something, why not make your way here and consult Amanda, or her assistants Simon Seer or Eska?

Have you ever wanted to get lost in a world of fruit? Experience the almost - but not quite - inaudible hum of ten thousand cans of soup in chorus? Perhaps you’re looking for a whole microcosm of carbohydrates in the form of a baked good - and trust us, good is the right word for them. In the Groceries department, you’ll find edibles, things that can become edible with the surreptitious use of some liquid and a bit of heat (or cold), or things that can enhance the experience of eating, from spices and salt to oils great and small. Frozen and refrigerated goods are widely available, along with fresher produce. Thanks to the special atmosphere of Emporium, it takes that bit longer for food to expire, and those lights sure do make the food look shiny and delicious. Why not stop by and buy an apple today?

The Showcase has the muted smell of luxury²⁾. Some items just don’t stand out as much as they should when trapped in a regular aisle. In Showcase, such items stand proudly on plinths - sleek new vehicles, spotlights shining on them at just the right angle to make them look like they’re preening; the latest crystal bathtub, refracting rainbows; a modest fountain pen that can write rivers; all luxury goods that may not seem as striking when cluttered in other departments.

Whether or not these items are actually expensive, the Showcase area is here to help elevate them in the minds of browsing Entities and to promote them. While this section shifts in a languid fashion, with big changes during a season being rare, each season brings with it a new series of displays and highlights. Showcase is where some of the standouts of this season are displayed.

Sometimes reality can be boring. Why not enhance your reality today by visiting our Entertainment section? Cutting edge technology can help you find the marvels in all the edges around you, simulate a new reality, or stream channels that never existed directly into your eyes, nose, or whatever sensory receptors you use to detect the things around you! Bored by modern technology? We’ve got portable dance floors just for you. In some aisles you can also find books both fantastical and absurd - and sometimes, even fictional!

The Entertainment section may be a cacophony of beeps, scratches, and the general sound of laughter; it may be overwhelming at first to see an ancient chess board next to an only slightly outdated 11 dimensional chess set; it may be full of flashes of reality TV-coloured light; but, no matter how you may feel, don’t be afraid to try out some of the goods on display. Who knows? You just might be entertained.

Some people visit Emporium to play. Others visit it with work in mind. The Office Supplies & Stationery department has many aisles full of the soothing, muted tones of offices, the sleek chrome of an artistic set of desk legs, the satisfying lines of self-drawing mechanical pencils. Some sections have the satisfying spectrum of colour coding, the delectable ordering of a filing system applied not just to the multitude of files but to the desk lamps too. Maybe you want to rule with a ruler precise down to the atom? You can find rulers both incredibly precise, suitably open to interpretation, and everything in between (and yes, we have a ruler to measure the in between too). To help make your work life more constructive, productive, and pleasing, have a browse down the glorious order of the Office Supplies & Stationery aisles. The more browsing you do, the more productive we’re sure you’ll feel. Just imagine how productive you’ll be if you take something here home with you?

Does the grass always seem greener for the God Next Door? Is your carefully cultivated promised land becoming a real jungle?

Well, fear not, for here in the Growth Sector we have everything you need for your arboreal artist to finally blossom! From some easy ferns for the first time terraformer to kick start their Devonian period to our cosmictree™ seed packs for the experienced cultivator of worlds looking to branch out. Not ready for macroscopic life? We have phytoplankton to get your feet wet with. Looking to introduce some sentient flora to your homeworld? Well look no further than our Instant Ents: just add souls!

Already have life that is looking just a little drab? Well, we have genes coding for all the colours of the rainbow (and then some), just waiting for a divine hand to kick start a little directed evolution. Alternatively, if you’ve been a little too successful in greening your world, we have all the tools necessary to prune those unsightly briars: from forest fire in a can for your convenience to viral blights for the conscientious Entity looking to minimise collateral damage.

The Growth Sector contains everything you need to create and care for life in your world, in (almost*) all its forms!

*Note: As emporium does not trade in ensouled beings, we are only able to retail the equipment to care for some forms of life, including but not limited to, animals and Entities.

While the more desirable items in store are usually purchased via Emporium’s barter system, smaller items may be purchased with the multiversal currency: souls. The Soul Traders will be more than happy to weigh and evaluate your spare souls to make sure you don’t get short-changed. Or if you are lucky enough to have a large quantity of souls, they can also be exchanged here for SoulCoin, Emporium’s in-store credit.

Please note that all conversions are final and the Soul Traders cannot return the equivalent souls for either SoulCoin or barter.

Creation is just so satisfying. Moulding reality into the shapes your imagination envisions, painting over a blank canvas to render something, repurposing failures into something new and fresh; every last brushstroke is empowering, every last thumbprint in clay a marvel. The Arts & Crafts department is the place imaginations go to run wild through showers of glitter, render the impossible in art, and be unafraid to find a wall to doodle on. The frequently-changing colours, drawings, statues, and so on, can make this a difficult section to navigate - landmarks are rarely stationary for long periods of time. With different surfaces free for passing Entities to try sample art supplies on, including a whole side of one aisle, this section of the store is full of the chaos of creativity. As soon as you feel the tell-tale crunch of glitter underfoot you’ll know you’ve arrived at Arts & Crafts.

The Hardware department smells of freshly cut wood and the delicious tang of the metal that cut it. Sharp, precise tools dangle from their hooks, radiating the possibility of what they could be used to build. Boxes with meticulous diagrams of what their contents could be reshaped into are stacked to the ceiling. The whole of Hardware thrums with possibilities of what could come next.

Here in Hardware you can find just about anything to help with your latest DIY projects, from tools to help you construct your perfect garden shed, to wires in solidified light to help connect your latest sun to its power source. Our tools are powerful and hungry to build. Our light bulbs are ready to light up your ideas. Our DIY kits are ready to help you build your inspiration. The only thing left to wonder is: are you ready to bring those possibilities into reality?

If you take a right angle to reality near arts and crafts you will find our Imaginary and Conceptual Section.

The problem with ideas: they go out of fashion so quickly. It has happened to the best of us: you’ve invited that special entity over to your plane only to realise, catastrophe, that you’ve left suns orbiting your planets! How gauche!

Or even worse, perhaps your worshippers have been probing the fundamental forces of the world you’ve built for them! You’ve been stringing them along with smaller and smaller particles for a few centuries because you haven’t figured out how it should work yourself and they are beginning to get suspicious! It isn’t a good look.

Sometimes even the divine need a little inspiration.

Whether you are looking for that one physical law that will really round out your collection, the feeling of peace normally reserved exclusively for the enlightened or a solution to an equation that has perplexed your planet for eons, you’ll find it here in Imaginary and Conceptual. The freshest ideas, the most modern Metaphysics, the most elusive sensations… and all at affordable prices!

The Pharmacy is a muted area of greys and faded gold, with little boxes shelved shyly next to each other, or dangling unobtrusively from hooks. Some products are displayed behind transparent barriers that need an employee to unlock. The most controversial items are behind the Pharmacy’s desk, behind which is a supply of various medicines and less common or more expensive items. Whether you’re looking for a bit of allergy medication or something more drastic, like a poison cure-all, the Pharmacy is the place to go. Employees are also happy to advise on which products may best suit your unique needs³⁾.

Few things taste sweeter than victory. In the Sporting Goods department, you can purchase the latest Victory Energy Drink™⁴⁾ to help bolster you in your next match against your rivals the next galaxy over. The Sporting Goods department is here to support all your sporting needs, no matter how outlandish, from Planetball to rhythmic gymnastics.

The aisles here have that tangy scent of freshly prepared pitches and the exercise about to happen on them. Balls are held in open boxes, ready to be picked. There is a modest and changeable pitch set up to help you try out a new sport, or get in a bit of practice on one you’re already champion of, surrounded by protective shielding in case you decide to get a little more competitive!

Has your refrigerator run away? Are you tired of the same drab sky colours? Do you want to update your SuperPalace™ with some of the latest seasonal trends in tasteful interior decoration? House & Homeworld caters to the needs of any Entity looking for something new in their living spaces.

There are a range of displays of different home structures, such as cosy caves with the latest in rock technology, a kitschy and colourful kitchen full of round appliances, and a velvety recreation of a glamorous beach that you could bring home today. Some items may be too large to display in their full glory, but can be seen in catalogue pictures. Just ask an employee if you’d like something brought from the Warehouses to better experience. They’re happy to help!

The only constant in fashion is change. And here we have plenty for you to change into. The latest fashion: from new types of aura, crafted out of the latest emotions, to the sharpest suits, so cutting edge they can slice through reality itself. The old classics that never really grow old: from crowns of purest gold that can rival any sun to scarves woven by the Fates who still whisper ancient secrets.

Still not radical enough? Still lacking in character? For a complete makeover, we offer Personas™ - premium appearance packages that will transform you both within and without.

While our dynamic display windows are sure to prove dramatic and magnificent, we understand that the wise customer tries their garments before purchasing. Don’t worry, we have you covered. Our special Fitting Rooms offers plenty of space and time for this!

To live another fate, you must first dress for it.

Near the breakroom are the few office areas which make up the Administration Offices area of Emporium. Most of these rooms are empty, save for chairs and tables of various shapes and sizes, usually stacked neatly to the side. These rooms are always locked, unless the store requires their use. The only reason why you may be aware of what’s in them is the thin window pane in each of these rooms’ doors.

There are only two rooms that are used as an office full time. First, the store manager’s office, labelled with a surreptitious sign: STORE MANAGER’S OFFICE. Unsurprisingly, this is also the only room in this area which has a completely opaque door. What’s found on the other side is something more seasoned employees are vague about.

The other active office is the Orbital Management office, labelled in pristine gold cursive. When not found elsewhere in the store, Orbital employees seconded to Emporium can be found here.

If you’re on break and want to kick back, relax, and keep out of sight of any customers, the break room is the place to be. Existing in a space slightly adjacent to customer-facing store activities, the break room has facilities that are state of the art… Or were state of the art at some point.

The room itself is an inoffensive off-white. Paint is peeling in a few places, the ceiling has a couple of cracks in it, and there’s a very faint smell of wet hair, the source of which is unclear. In the middle are chairs and tables of various shapes, sizes, and apparent origins - they are generally mismatched, and in varying states of repair. The lights work, except for the one in the corner - no amount of lightbulb-changing has encouraged it to work as intended. To the right are employee lockers. An employee’s locker can only be accessed by using the employee’s name card.

On the countertop at the left of the room, next to a pair of sinks, is a single coffee machine. While employees are allowed to prepare as much coffee as they care to drink, the coffee machine is grouchy and doesn’t take kindly to employees who fail to drink all the coffee they prepare.

In one corner is a motivational poster encouraging employees to work hard. This poster changes each season.

While customers can technically access this area, it is frowned upon. This is an area designed for brief employee convenience and comfort, after all.

Sustaining the various visitors and staff of Emporium is a colossal logistical effort, given the myriad biologies and forms of sustenance required. To accommodate this, food and other forms of sustenance are 3D printed from a wide range of elemental feedstocks, spun like candyfloss from light and sugar and the pure essence of satiation. This is a largely automated process, carried out by great furnaces and engines, but requires store employees to work as overseers and carry out more fine-tuned food preparation and cooking. They even offer a wide range of seasonal dishes, from across the multiverse!

The staff dormitory, composed of employee sleep pods, is for employees to use on their sleep breaks. To allow for employees of all manifestation types, the sleep pods will distort to fit whichever employee is about to use them. Employees may also choose a range of lighting and sound options once their pod is curtained off and marked as “in use”. Lighting options include low, ambient lighting, ultraviolet, traditional darkness, and non-traditional darkness; while sound options include forest noises, the silence in the depths of space, and the comforting chittering of bed bugs. More options can be found on the operational console, although not as many as in the more plush, comfortable customer sleep area.

Of note: the alarm will be automatically set for half an hour before the end of your sleep break. The store AI will not allow this to be overridden, no matter how nicely you ask.

Sleep pods are cleaned as regularly as those on clean-up duty are inclined to clean them. Employee comfort not being as much of a concern as customer comfort, it is perhaps unsurprising that the employee sleep pods are unkempt. However, they are more private and difficult to get to than customer sleep pods.