The path from the Frostwalker lands to Snif territory was not fraught with danger, but rather a deeply tedious ordeal. There was no proper road to speak of, so a path had to be made more often than not. It was much faster with three people than just Sam, so they still made decent time, but having to stop the wagon, calm the beasts of burden, and bushwhack some scrub or find a detour became very old, very fast.
Slowly, the terrain around them changed; The sparse taiga forests shifted to more temperate forests. Plants that took advantage of the cold permafrost to eke out a living were replaced by more common and widespread ones that required a regular rainfall to thrive. Elody was pleased to no end, excitedly jumping out of the slow-moving wagon to inspect a patch of plants she thought she recognized. Every time, Sam would complain that she should just ask to stop before taking off.
“I know I should,” Elody complained, “I’m just so bored.”
“Can’t you do something with what we have?” Sam asked.
“With this random batch of stuff? No,” She snorted.
“Then maybe you should drive this thing! These dumb beasts would walk into the trees without direction, and I’ve got better things to do,” Sam said, and then took off.
Hugh continued his work in "cataloging" his work and the specifications for his choker and earpiece. It was tedious work, and only a slight variation upon what he had performed in the past: taking the existing sequences he had and altering them at random.
Despite it being his single greatest success, he really didn't understand why his earpiece worked at all. He had taken the base design for the choker and copied it onto whatever he could, then made minor alterations. Small additions of lines, copying it without one, changes of that nature. When he made one that repeated sound back to him, he put it on a metal earpiece so he could have fun with it. The discovery that it allowed him to understand wildlife was a surprise to him that only came much later.
His current approach was different- he was trying to figure out the basic patterns of the inscriptions, but it was slow-going. He was flailing in the dark, and he knew it. He took small, flat-ish stones and tried to cut the most basic parts of the pattern into it- at least basic as he could perceive it. Nothing came of it until suddenly, one of them lit up and shattered in his hands.
“Not to be a wet blanket, but yer thing just broke," Sam noted.
“Yes," Hugh acknowledged. "Yes it did. Why did it do that?”
“You seem oddly pleased. You sure yer alright? Not catching a case of the crazies, right?” Sam asked.
“I am quite well,” Hugh said, and he meant it absolutely.
"If you say so," Sam said with a wave, heading back into the front cabin.
Hugh turned back to his work, a smile pulling at the edges of his lips. It wasn't much, be he had a mote of inspiration now.
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Once the others were settled into their activitied, Sam took out a book. It looked similar to the one he used to keep his inventory and stocks in order, but this one made no mention of goods or money. It was his personal journal, and if anyone asked, he would lie and say it was his ledger. He wrote in a personal shorthand that he had come up with himself. The book was not his most valuable possesion, but it was his most treasured.
He would write in it many things- anything from diary entries, notes for himself later, to drawings and recordings of events. Today marked an unusual entry, but a significant one. As the other two were absorbed in their tasks, he watched them closely, and began to write about each of them in detail.
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After several days of travel, they finally found the most rudimentary of roads- a sure sign that they were entering Snif territory. The dirty trail they found eventually transformed into a dirt road with wheel marks as they began passing farmhouses and other outlying structures. Sam told them they would push into the night to make it into the first town so they could eat a proper meal for once. He was met with sighs of relief, and they pushed on.
It was past dark when they finally entered the town. It wasn’t large, only having two streets with actual establishments, intersecting on a small square that featured no major decoration apart from a large sign that advertised that they had entered, “The lovely town of Mego”. They found lodging in an Inn, and once all cargo was secured, they ate dinner and retired to rooms with actual beds.
Elody and Hugh were sluggish as the morning greeted them all too early. Sam, however, was in a frenzy of activity. He had barely slept, being used to the conditions of travelling mercantile life. Having been at this for almost five years, he had become familiar in all the actions needed to locate the appropriate figures to sign off with to set up a shop for the next several days. By the time Sam had come back to berate the other two for being so slow to rise, He had already positioned the cart in the square with all the legal niceties accounted for.
“It’s still early morning,” Hugh complained.
“Thats when all the best business happens!” Sam insisted. “Besides, we have to be ready! Get yer big hairy ass moving!”
Elody needed no further prompting. As a former shop owner herself, she knew the importance of early morning prep. While her pharmacy opened later than this, she could frequently be found stocking and organizing her shelves as dawn’s first light breached the walls of Ade.
Here was similar enough that she wouldn’t argue, but she had no idea what she was meant to do. Normally, in her own shop, she would stock and organize, sometimes sythesizing some of the simpler medications, but in this rinky-dink caravan? She was entirely out of her depth.
Normally, she would have known to ask, but in her sleep-addled state, she didn’t think to. Luckily, Sam didn’t wait for the question.
“C’mere,” he ordered. “I’m gonna show you how to open shop. I’ll be handlin’ it normally, but I want you to know in case something comes up.”
The two shaggy beasts that drew the wagon were already hitched to a post with feed and water, but the wagon was still prepped for travel. He showed Elody how to properly lock the wheels, so the wagon couldn’t be pushed. Next he showed her the most unintuitive part of the wagon- how to change the configuation by moving a single board.
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The wagon was a strange design, meant to be a blend of capacity, mobile home, and semi-secure storefront, but it couldn’t be all of these at once. The side of the wagon had a board that unlatched to let another plank swing down, turning it into a shelf that wares could be placed upon. The many latches served as hooks to hang other merchandise onto either directly or tied onto with string or twine. The board itself went to the back of the wagon. There was an opening, normally covered by a thick, opaque curtain, that the board now latched into, revealing one side of the curtain hooks to be the the same clever multi-use latches; The other side were a special variant that served as hinges, allowing the board to become a proper door.
The board was as heavy as, well, a door, but Sam noted with some relief how much easire that part was with a second person to help. The instruction took about twenty minutes, but Sam assured her it would only take a few minutes normally.
He went on to show her what ares would be set up and where, having to shoo Hugh to the front cabin for the time being. Hugh huffed as he moved, but put up no further resistance.
“Well, we seem to be all set up,” Elody said. “Now what?”
Sam grinned at her malevolently.
“Now, yer real work begins.”
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Dean was a Snif farmer who lived in the outskirts of Mego. Like most Snif people, he was a Ratkin, standing on two legs for the most part, but dropping onto all fours when they needed to run. His dark fur was adorned by small pieces of leather or thick cloth, mostly pieces of clothing that could have pockets. While their natural fur could keep them comfortable in most typical temperatures, every Ratkin, Snif, Rhyth, or elsewhere, knew they could always use more stuff.
Dean was just leaving his home, blearily rubbing his eyes, when he remembered yesterdays events; while clearing his fields for another planting, not one but three of his tools broke. His plough’s handles broke, as were his saw and hammer. He had planned on roughing out new handles, only to discover his lack of maintenance had come to bite him in the tail.
He groaned, slowly pulling his hands down his face. He didn’t want to, but he’d have to go into town and hope there was anything he could use in the town store. He grabbed his coinpurse and set off into town.
It was midday by the time he arrived. He noted that the town felt different, but decided it wasn’t important, and went to the store. He had planned to make this as quick and frugal a trip as possible, but his attention was arrested by a strange sight- A woman with dark, reddish brown skin was holding up three signs, one in each hand and one in her tail. Each of them said something different, but along the same lines.
-High Quality Wares!-
-Exotic Goods!-
-Deal of a Lifetime!-
The woman holding them up was moving and prancing around, though she was clearly unhappy with her situation. Dean didn’t know exactly what kind of humanoid she was, but that only leant credence to the claim of exotic goods. He looked in the direction of the pointed signs, and saw the storefront that had literally popped up overnight. He shrugged, and went over, buying not only a new saw and hammer, but also some hafts that he figured could work just fine with his plough.
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“You know, I was skeptical it would work,” Elody said, “But you were right. That definitely got a lot of attention.”
“Nah, that’s just the start,” Sam said offhandedly. “Tomorrow, the real moneymaking happens. Oh, and you’ll be managing the storefront for that.”
Elody turned to Sam, jaw on the floor.
“You’re just going to drop that on me? Out of the blue like that?” Elody asked incredulously.
“Why not? You’ve run a store before, you know how to work a storefront. I’ll have Hugh park his butt nearby in case you can’t understand what someone wants by pointing and it’ll be fine.”
Elody’s mind raced. Was this some sort of test? Some way of setting her up for failure so he could take advantage of her when it inevitably came? Or did he just grossly overestimate her abilities as a saleswoman? Perhaps he didn’t understand that not all stores ran the same, and he assumed she would have similar skills as him?
She tried to not let the panic seep through into her expression. She schooled herself, and took a deep breath before continuing.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll screw this up? That I’ll lose you a lot of money?” She asked, trying to sound pragmatic rather than nervous.
“Nah. You’ve got the small potatoes. You’ve got the basics, so it’ll be fine.”
Sam’s nonchalant response continued to catch her off guard.
“Small… potatoes?”
“Sure, don’tcha have potatoes where you come from?” Sam asked. “Point is, you got us a bunch of attention yesterday, and talk travels fast in these small towns. Between your show bringing tons of people and the cut-rate deals we offered yesterday, I reckon the stores here will wanna talk business. I’ll be spending most of the day workin’ out deals on the bulk items. It’ll be more barter than anything, but thats where the real money is. Coin is heavy and dangerous to carry, but a crate of goods is much harder to steal and less worth it to the common thief.”
“So, the stuff we sell at the front… doesn’t matter?”
“Less that it doesn’t matter than that’s not the point. The point of that’s just to show we’re a legit enterprise. You gotta show people that you’ve actually got stuff to sell, and you’re not just some random schlups who showed up in a wagon. Legitimacy is the most valuable commodity you can have. Merchant, leader, parent, doesn’t matter. Once people think you’re supposed to be doing something, they not only won’t stop you, but they’ll help you. All this song and dance is just us building legitimacy.”
“A legitimate circus,” Hugh chortled.
“Hey!” Elody scoffed, half affronted, half amused by the surprising prod.
“If it works,” Sam laughed. “If ‘Legitimacy is king’ is lesson number one, lesson number two is ‘The end jusifies the means’. If we act all crazy and they come to check us out, then see we got great deals and buy our stuff, thats just plain better than being prim and proper than getting no business whatsoever.”
“I don’t know that I agree with that,” Elody said.
“Howso?”
“Well,” she began, “Thats rather reductive, isn’t it? It assumes there’s only so many ways to approach something. Also, that everyone views everything the same. You had me act like a dancing animal, and people will remember that, even if they bought your wares.”
“Well sure,” Sam said, unfazed. “Yer right, that’s a part of the end. We acted crazy, and got business. I just don’t care about that other part. Now people remember us as a funny thing, an’ people like funny. I wouldn’t ever have us do something I think I’d regret.”
“You mean we’d regret?” Elody ventured.
"Naw, you work for me. I’ll make you do embarrassing things, don’t you fret.”
Elody scoffed in disbelief.
“Hey now, you may work for me, but I’m not forcing you to stay. Yer with me because I’m the best way to completing yer own goal. That whole edgy murder-revenge thing you went on about. So ask yerself: if this is the best path to yer goal, and you gotta humiliate yerself to make it happen, or would it be better to take the safe, slow path that takes longer but features less humiliation? Or, better yet, would you do something with more humiliation, but a riskier conclusion?”
Sam shrugged to emphasize his lack of attachment to the hypothetical scenario.
“That’s not the same! My ego isn’t relevant to my goal!” Elody argued.
“That’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about. Its not important, so if yer ego gets a lil beat up along the way, so long as you get what yer after, the end justifies the means. I’m not trying to justify doing awful things to get something good,” Sam said, then made a face. “Except where that good is REAL good, you know? It’s all about accepting the outcome and the price you pay to get it.”
“That’s not really what people mean when they say ‘the end justifies the means’, you know?” Elody said.p
“I don’t really care. Works for me,” Sam said. “And, on that note, so do you. C’mere and let's take inventory, you two.”