Hoda gloomily calculated yet again. The numbers just weren't adding up correctly. At this rate, they weren't going to make a single cent of profit. Most, if not all, of their earnings were going to be going towards paying their debt.
She looked up and scowled at Mockingbird who was flittering around a brawny centaur. He'd shown up a couple of days after the wagon delivery, looking to buy passage by working as a guard.
Hoda didn't have any objections to that. She'd found that caravan guards were expensive. She was just happy that Euan only wanted passage and not actual money.
As it was, she was nearly tapped out just furnishing the wagons. They'd only come with the seats and basic fixtures. The bathrooms had looked sad, especially the higher end wagon's where the quality really counted.
She wasn't sure where Virtuous Moon had found the tub they'd shoved into the high-end wagon's bathroom, but it was one of the times that his idea was perfect. It was a sculpted, textured delight that made even her want to lock herself inside and soak away all her troubles for an hour or two.
But it also came with the issue of how to fill it. She hadn't considered that when the wagons first showed up. Virtuous Moon kept promising that he would find a solution, but she kept expecting that to be something else that would bite into their increasingly small amount of working capital.
"Which is the cargo wagon," had her looking up to find her first official passenger standing in front of her. The girl had a companion this time, an Asian girl with two toned hair of white and black who was busily gawking. A gray horse stood a little bit behind them, nose buried in a feed bag strapped around its nose.
Even as she watched, the horse jerked its head and the bag vanished. Hoda fought to keep her eyes from widening. She'd never heard of an animal having an inventory.
"I think we've put them in the back. You brought your cargo?" Hoda asked, trying to look around them.
"Being delivered in an hour or so," the girl said. She was looking toward the centaur. "You hired a caravan guard?"
Hoda followed her stare to see Euan staring back, his expression poleaxed. Then he was trotting their way, long silky black tail swishing excitedly.
She glanced back to see the same baffled expression she must have on her face on the Asian girl's. The horse just tossed its mane a bit and the original passenger just smiled wryly.
It made Hoda all the more fascinated by the game mechanics. The level of expression everyone had was just outstanding.
"Are you a passenger? May I help you with anything," Euan asked, his eyes flicking to a spot over the girl's head and back to her face repeatedly.
Hoda frowned. There had to be something there that only the NPCs could see. To her eyes, there was just a flash of 'Cora, level 9' that vanished even if she tried to pay more attention to it. Mockingbird had explained that she needed to train her perception more to identify people's levels, even if they were low like Cora's.
Whatever the secret was, a lot of NPCs had a startled expression on first seeing the girl. Hoda had noticed it before.
"We are adding Stormare to our passenger roster, so I need a new ticket for her," Cora said, nodding towards the horse.
Hoda thought for a moment, shrugged, and accessed her tablet. Surprisingly enough, there was actually a pricing for a 'Non-bipedal sapient non-human variant.'
"That will be another 250 coins," she said, looking up at Cora who shrugged.
"I'll pay for it. I'm the one who introduced Stormare to you, after all," the Asian girl said. 'April June July' flashed over her head briefly.
Hoda briefly wondered just how her hair worked. The colors were in a checkerboard pattern, each square sharply defined, even when the girl turned her head. It had to be some sort of filter. Hoda dismissed the thought as she checked the option to sell the ticket.
"As long as someone pays, I'm fine," Hoda said as she held out her tablet towards the two.
To her surprise, the horse stuck her finely sculpted head forward and jerked, making the jewel dangling from her bridal chime against the darkened brass fitting. The chime was bright and almost shocking in its melody in the mostly silent warehouse.
250 coins appeared in Hoda's accounts.
"Well, that settles everything," Cora said with a smile. "Let's go. I want to make sure the delivery knows to come here."
The trio walked away, Euan trailing after them for a bit. He returned, stars in his eyes.
"Do you know who that was?" He asked, looking starstruck.
"Not really," Mockingbird said as she glanced at Hoda.
"That was Stormare! The Stormare! I've got to follow after! I'm here until they're not," Euan said, his tail swishing. "I've got to go tell my brothers! And my friends! Oh! And I have to go brag to Michel. He's going to lose it."
Hoda and Mockingbird watched as the previously calm and collected Euan turned into a blithering fanboy.
"And who is Stormare?" Hoda finally asked.
"Oh, I'll explain later. I've got to go! There's so much to do before we leave. I have to make sure it's perfect for Stormare! The Stormare!" Euan trotted out of the warehouse, whistling cheerfully.
"Didn't see that coming," Mockingbird said.
"I think he was talking about the horse," Hoda said, looking at the transaction on her tablet.
"The horse? Seriously?" Mockingbird asked. "Let me go make sure we have enough grain. Virtuous Moon said that he'd found some oxen."
Hoda waved her away. She had too many things on her to-do list to finish before their scheduled departure to wonder about mystery tickets and strange passengers. She needed more passengers and couldn't afford to scare any potential passengers away.