Nightshade shook her head. "Just remember that Maya doesn't need to know about this part of the trip."
"It's the giant cone-shaped building. Just touch the outside wall, and you'll be transported inside."
Inside the cone was... a mall. It was just like any other mall. Brightly-lit, noisy, full of shoppers and stores. It wouldn't have been out of place on any world... until one noticed the people. Thousands of alien creatures of all shapes and sizes walked, crawled, slithered, floated, or oozed in and out of the stores. Nightshade grinned. "Welcome to Multiverse Mall."
"Whoa..." Raven's eyes widened as she landed and looked around at the creatures. "Gotta show Maya this place."
Nightshade walked over to a bin full of small, squirming, green tentacle creatures. She held one up to her face, and grimaced as it plunged a slimy tendril into her ear. After a few moments, it removed the tentacle and transformed itself into what looked like a credit card. She tucked the card into her mane and turned back to Raven. "So, what do you want to do?"
She pointed to the shopkeepers in each store and kiosk. They were all of the same species, and looked like larger versions of the credit blobs. "These creatures are bound to this realm. They can never leave it. They're also empaths, with a hivemind consciousness . What they value, more than anything, are new experiences and emotions. So they came up with a way to convince other species to visit them, and to share the memories of the experiences that they will never have, and emotions that they can't feel on their own." She motioned to the credit blobs. "These creatures tap into your memories, and spread them through the hivemind. The more unique or emotional the memory, the more valuable it is. For example, the memory of skinning my knee last week might buy a small soda, while the memory of the first time I beat my father in hoof to hoof combat was worth a set of enchanted armor."
"Alright. It's a little unpleasant, though." Nightshade picked up one of the blobs and tossed it to her.
The creature stretched out a slimy tendril and forced it into Raven's ear, phasing through the delicate inner ear structures and settling in the brain itself. It then waited patiently for her to begin remembering things.
"Eeew..." Raven cringed as the tentacle poked into her ear. Some more negative memories came to mind first. The most serious was watching her parents, both night guards, being eviscerated by a crazed earth pony. She remembered Maya breaking in through the window and eventually slicing his neck open on said broken window, something that was worse looking back than then, seeing a mare she loved being forced to do such a greusome thing. Getting the wrong cutie mark by being stupid also came to mind. She remembered positive things as well. Finally allowing Maya and Dusty, both positive influilences, to play a part in her life after some serious resistance. Picking up a guitar for the first time. Writing her first song. More recently, getting her first proper concert and Nightshade accepting her.
Nightshade watched with interest as the creature slowly transformed itself into a card. "I've never seen one take that long. You must have given up quite a bit." She grinned. "Which, of course, means that you're now quite wealthy in this realm."
