While Iain led the way once more, Cora tried to familiarize herself with the System a bit. It seemed like her Party Array actually helped with this, providing a little more direction and organization in comparison to just letting [Big Sys] throw whatever they wanted at her. She also did this while attempting to walk under her own recognizance.
While she couldn’t help an attraction to Hawk, she could try and differentiate between lust and trust. She hadn’t been doing so thus far, but was beginning to internalize the fact that Hawk was someone you needed to let earn your trust, rather than giving it freely.
The Party Array made it easier to multitask anyway. It highlighted her linked members when they were in her field of view, even through other people. When they weren't, a subtle light labeled with the first letter of their name appeared at the very edge of her vision in the direction they occupied. Combined, those two things meant she was at very little risk of getting lost, even if she was separated.
She found she could also turn each of these features off, just by thinking about it really hard. To her relief, she could also set them to turn off when she closed her eyes, which meant she might very well enjoy the warm embrace of sleep, should she survive long enough to make it back to bed.
Cora could also add HUD elements, such as colored silhouettes of her companions, that seemed to display the conditions of their constituent body parts (all green on everyone, for now), one of those for herself, a small chat box, a clock, and, conveniently, counters for basically anything, be it money, bullets, or even steps, if she was worried about staying fit.
For now, she just had the names, positions, clock and money counter on. It was 3 pm, and the sun showed no signs of beginning to set, though Cora had absolutely no clue as to when sunset would be on Onan anyway, if the name Jocasta had given earlier was indeed the name of the planet.
She kept the money counter up for one reason: it kept changing. Not a ton, hovering around 114,000 total, though (80000) was in brackets, probably denoting its inaccessibility in the bank. The other 34k though, kept changing by a few hundred either way. Even the (80000) wasn’t steady. The only explanation Cora could really come up with was that Mike was getting the household’s accounts in order, both finding new assets or writing off things that should have been written off long ago, and the system was tracking his progress.
De-cent! Cora thought excitedly. If Mike had any kind of accounting expertise, that would be a big win, and a rolling total of what she had available to her was likely to be extremely valuable moving forward. She just needed to figure out how to actually access it easily. This world seemed backwards, but there had to be a better way than just carting around wads of cash.
Are credit cards a thing?
KIND OF! WITH A BIT OF WORK ON YOUR [HOUSEHOLD] YOU’LL BE ABLE TO ACCESS YOUR FUNDS FROM ANYWHERE.
You said I needed to ‘Keep working with Jocasta’ right? That involved somehow? Those trees are cool as hell, but I’m not sure I see the connection there.
YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO! THE GROVE WOULDN’T BE VERY GOOD CAMOUFLAGE IF YOU DID. TO BE FAIR, ITS GONE A LITTLE WILD, IF IT WEREN’T IN YOUR COMPOUND, IT’D PROBABLY BE DRAWING MORE ATTENTION THAN ITS DISPERSING.
Camouflage for what?
ME, SILLY! KIND OF. ENOUGH OF ME TO HELP YOUR UNGRATEFUL ASS.
I said thank you before!
YOU HAVE TO KEEP IT UP, IT'S IMPORTANT FOR SYSTEM’S GROWTH TO RECEIVE CONSTANT POSITIVE FEEDBACK AND GRATITUDE.
That doesn’t sound true.
WHY RISK IT? BE NICE TO MEEEEEE >:3
Ugh, on the condition you don’t make that emoji flash in front of my face ever again, fine. And thank you.
GOOD START!
The buildings on either side of the street fell away, and the group emerged into what had probably been intended as some sort of public park.
What it was now, however, was some combination of stockyard, storehouse, and auction bay that Cora had zero trouble pegging as the Depot Iain had referenced a few times.
It was one more baffling thing about this city that there was a place like this right in the middle of it. Cattle, close to, but not quite cows (too many horns) lowed and shuffled around a cramped enclosure. Silos overflowed with grain on the edges, and sacks upon sacks of what looked like all the basic foods upon which humanity subsisted were organized into piles in the center.
Amongst all of this, carts pulled by those 3-horned cows came and went, appearing and disappearing via thoroughfares that seemed to be reserved for their use alone. Some of them were manned by no-one but a driver, but the more heavily laden ones also had an armed guard or two riding shotgun, or sitting among the sacks.
“I was wondering how we were planning to get a household's worth of food back, without having to make this a daily trip,” Cora said, relieved she wouldn’t be trekking back to Luxholme with 100 lbs of potatoes on her back. Really, with her boosted [End], she’d probably be fine, but she still doubted she’d enjoy it. This had already been one of the longest days of her life, marathon shoots included.
“Aye, we’ll be hirin’ a cart for the return journey,” Iain said, scratching his chin. “Few weeks ago, woulda had our own for the ride here, but were one o’ the last things yer br-, were one o’ the last things Linnaeus sold off afore he passed, gods piss on his black heart.”
Cora appreciated the effort to distance her from Linnea and her family, and reached up to give Iain’s shoulder a friendly shake.
“Follow up question,” she said, “why the fuck do you guys have cyberware and fuckin’ oxen carts?”
Iain laughed; “Trihorns, lass, and ‘sa simple matter o’ class. Ye’ll find craft in the spires, no bigger’n these carts, what can take ye to the stars. But for the cost of one o’ them, ye could buy n’ sell every soul in Light’s Fall, so we make do with the trihorns.”
To the stars…. To Earth? Cora hadn’t really considered the possibility Onan might just be another planet, not an entirely different reality. If she flew far enough, could she get home?
NOT THAT EASY, BABE, SORRY!
Eh. The hope would’ve hurt more if you let it linger.
Didn’t say impossible, though.
I DID NOT!
Hmm.
“So, Iain, where we headed?” Cora said, as the crowd parted a bit, and she realized that cattle weren’t the only livestock on display.
Five women, chained, and only enough to entice, stood on a raised dias. Next to them, an auctioneer plied his trade, the rapidfire words from his mouth professing to turn these women into property, as a paddle raised, and the word ‘Sold!’ rang out from his hand.
Cora’s hand went to her holster, only to find it empty.
“Nay, lass,” Iain said, seeing her move and following her eyeline. “I appreciate your zeal, but best case scenario trying that here, now, ye end up dead. Worst case ye find yerself in chains, and lined up with the next lot.”
Cora snarled, memorizing the auctioneers face. He’d burn along with the people that bought his wares.
Iain led the group to a busy stall with a lot of harried attendants.
Unlike the transaction with Jonah, it turned out haggling over basic goods was roughly as exciting wherever you found yourself in the multiverse. Cora threw in a few words, a carefully placed wink here or there, exercising silver-screen level [Cha] to buoy Iain’s canny efforts, but really, her skill was {Money Maker} not {Money Saver}, so when a sum was settled, she didn’t really even know if she’d helped.
That sum ended up being 10000P for three months of household essentials, including food, washing and cleaning supplies, and some kind of power source. Iain had insisted the price also include delivery, to which the attendant had ultimately acquiesced. Escort, however, would not be provided free of charge.
Escort turned out to be another transaction entirely. While Cora had originally just taken the citizens of Tyrinno to be prodigiously bad at queueing, it had quickly become clear that the clump of the people behind the line, milling about listlessly, were mercenaries, not looking to buy, but to be bought.
Cora scanned the crowd of soldiers-of-fortune, and was largely unimpressed. Looks alone, she’d put most of these guys on the same level as the goons she’d personally killed six of today. Two dozen if you counted her whole group.
There were a few standouts, bigger men and women, better fed, shinier gear, but Cora thought about Luxholme. Did they really need more elities? Or did they just need warm bodies?
A big problem was that she didn’t exactly have time to run background checks, either. She had a lot of defenseless people in Luxholme, and from what she’d seen thus far, in Tyrinno that meant free to use, especially when most people would think they were slaves. A facade Cora should probably keep up, until she had more power at her disposal.
Well, easy way to weed out the worst of the worst. We’ve already got one Monster in the house.
Cora focused on the standouts first, five in total. Of those five, Cora’s lip curled when three populated stats screens, marking them as either Monsters, or [System Integrated]. Cora doubted people with that kind of advantage would be hanging out here, so she wrote those three off. The other two definitely looked like soldier types, and would be worth considering.
She scanned over the rabble next, finding very few had any screens. Of those that did, they were almost all marked as [Level 0 ???].
What the fuck? Cora looked over the men who had showed that weird status again. With horror, she noted that each of them had a visible chain-link tattoo or patch visible on them somewhere.
A few had clearly noticed her attention, and were looking her way, recognition in their own eyes.
But none made a move.
Well, this is kind of the center of commerce for this whole section of the city. Doesn’t seem like there’s a formal police force, but gotta be something to stop things from popping off here.
She made a note to herself to bring up the weird status with [Big Sys] later, but for now, obviously, she wrote off the Links as possible escorts.
“Donovan?” Hawk’s voice came from behind her, “that you, you motherfucker!?”
Despite the words, her tone was jovial, and she brushed people aside like they were so many blades of grass as she waded into the crowd.
Oh fuck, Cora thought, as Hawk laughed, then clasped forearms with the only one of the three Monsters that was marked [Level 2 Slaver].