It took a while for the morning sun to rise high enough to reach the floor from the lone window in Gerardo and Slipstream's room, but when it did it plowed directly into Slipstream's face with the subtlety of an enraged boxer. She grunted, lifting a sore hoof to rub at her eyes... and found it stuck beneath the body pressed against her.
"Oh!" Slipstream started, realizing with a blush that she must have unconsciously cuddled up with her roommate in her sleep. She carefully tried pulling away, back to her side of the bedrolls without snagging on the blanket or waking him too, and immediately rolled off her own bedroll and onto the ground. She had stayed put after all. It must have been he who cuddled up with her.
This thought made her blush more, and she stood shakily and dusted herself off as Gerardo threatened to wake with a loud snore. Her legs were nothing but pain, but starting the journey back to the ship would at least be feasible now that she had slept. She brushed her mane with her feathers, wishing she had some water to run over her face and wings, and stepped blearily to the window, standing on her hind legs to reach it and check on the world beyond.
The window faced out into the street, a few griffons lazily picking their way through a finely-pockmarked dirt road. From here, it actually looked like it had once been artistic cobblestone, before someone removed or stole all the stones... Some griffons flaunted their wealth, others looked at them like they were idiots for wasting money on showing off, and most just watched the first two kinds with greedy eyes and ratty crests.
Across the street, in a lee that was shaded from the sun, a familiar griffon hung by his tail, spotting her instantly. He gave her a quiet thumbs-up.
"This place is beyond depressing," Slipstream whispered, dropping back to all fours. "Come on, Gerardo. I want to go home..."
Gerardo grunted into wakefulness. "That time already, is it?"
"Morning? Yep." Slipstream paced to the door, then remembered her bedroll, going back and nudging Gerardo off and beginning to roll it. "More like nearly noon. Our friend from yesterday is back."
"Well, I suppose we should see how lucrative he was." Gerardo stretched, doing the same to his roll, not seeming to notice he had woken up on Slipstream's. "And what kind of price he expects for doing our shopping..."
"I have good news and bad news," Gunther said, dropping to the ground as the pair drew near. "The bad news is, I got your food for free, so all that money you wasted on this expensive inn is money I don't get to keep for my commission."
Gerardo blinked. "Your commission? I recall you were taking our money and going shopping to spend it in our name..."
"No, I said give me your money and I'd get you a deal." Gunther grew smug. "I never specified how much of it I'd spend. But that's where the good news comes in. Take a look."
He tapped a ramshackle door to the building behind him, frowned when it did nothing, and punched it hard. The door buckled open with an almighty creak, revealing several dozen bags and baskets of flour, fruit, cheese and cured meat.
Slipstream and Gerardo gaped at the size of the haul. "That's... a very large amount of food," Gerardo stated, pointing a disbelieving talon.
"Like I said, I got you a deal." Gunther shrugged. "I know my back channels. So, is this to your liking?"
Slipstream worked her jaw, then swallowed. "What's the catch?"
"Nothing on my end." Gunther blew on the end of his low-hanging crest. "Of course, I'm not the one who now has to figure out how to get this all wherever it needs to go."
"Right." Gerardo's face fell. "We're going to have to carry all this, aren't we...?"
"That's going to be pretty tough without some hired hands," Gunther remarked. "And I can't imagine you have a whole lot to hire them with."
Gerardo raised an eyebrow. "So now that you've set us up in a position where we need help to carry these things, what are you about to do with it? It would take ten griffons to carry this all."
Gunther grinned. "You catch on quickly. But I'm just messing with you. It's not like I carried all this here myself, or anything. Come on in, boys."
A door leading further into the building cracked open, and four griffons marched out. One griffonness wore heavy eyeliner, had a long crest and looked vaguely familiar, another griffon had a massive scowl and an outrageously spiky, chaotic crest, and the third had a long face with permanent creases that suggested he always looked down on everything. The last was tiny and way too happy.
The one notable characteristic that tied all of them together was that they all wore neat, trim, form-fitting suit jackets like Gunther's, a sharp contrast to the baggy robes or else nothing favored by the rest of the population. Gunther gestured to each of them in turn. "Don't expect names unless you're willing to pay for them, but it's easy enough to call them by their colors." He glanced back at Gerardo and Slipstream. "So, is my delivery squad up to spec? Ready to go right now, and they won't cost you a thing."
Slipstream blinked. "No introductions, then?"
"I'm certain I know you," Gerardo insisted, pointing a talon at the purple-suited griffonness with the heavy eyeliner. "You were the one he sold that bread to yesterday in the plaza."
"Guilty as charged." The griffonness slowly blinked. "You can call me Violet, but I literally don't care." Her voice was droll and uninterested.
"And I'm Chartreuse," the small, bouncing one chirped, sassily winking and flipping her mane. "But you can call me Char, or whatever. We're gonna have a good time!"
The tall, long-faced griffon frowned down at them. "And I am Blue. It is a pleasure to be associating with someone better-endowed than most of the common folk, though I hope Black is exaggerating when he says he relieved you already of every bit of clout you possess."
"That's me, by the way." Gunther cleared his throat and pointed to his dark suit. "In case it wasn't obvious."
The last griffon with the spiky crest glared at everyone, as if resenting them for making him go last. "You get one guess at what my name is," he growled, sporting a vivid red suit that would be almost as terrible for stealth as Char's. "And don't try to stroke my ego by being wrong."
"They have a few rough edges, but you'll take what you can get, right?" Gunther shrugged. "Not a lot of griffons willing to carry things for free on short notice."
Gerardo and Slipstream stared at each other. "Don't try to tell me there's not an unfortunate catch," Gerardo warned.
Char tilted her head in abject confusion. "Why would us catching you be unfortunate? Tripping and landing on your face really hurts."
"You're an unfortunate catch," Violet droned.
Slipstream blinked in confusion, thrown for a loop by the train of thought. Gunther waved a distracting talon. "Nothing under the table. I want money, my associates want money, and I just told them if they did this job for me, they might be getting in good with a very wealthy customer. It's less about you and more about screwing the rest of this city out of your business." He adjusted his collar. "You have to run a tight operation to make maximum profits."
"Anyone who can use this much food likely has a reasonable amount of assets they wouldn't mind trading, no?" Blue looked down on them with an almost-approving note in his perpetual disapproval. "We would simply hate for you to waste your trading power enriching these lowlifes who fail to deserve it. They will likely just sit on any wealth you give them until the end of time, and fail to cherish it in the way it deserves."
"Basically, don't trade with losers." Char winked. "We're not losers. Just so you know."
Red huffed. "Says a loser like you."
Gunther winced hard. "And this is why I'm the party face. Instead of any of you." He turned apologetically to Gerardo and Slipstream, who were both staring at the delivery squad in concern. "Their greed is proof of their loyalty, and what they lack in charisma they make up for in muscle, which last I checked was what you need. So, think we can head out?"
"You know..." Slipstream rubbed her head. "I'm not thrilled with this, but I suppose it is our fault for not bringing a way to carry back the amount of food we really need..."
Gerardo shook his head. "This was supposed to be a scouting mission to see what the pickings were and how much we'd want to invest in making such a delivery possible. But, it is what it is."
"Heh. I knew you had more money back with your friends, and were planning on spending it later." Gunther rolled his shoulders, kicking open the door. "Come on, you lot. We have a paying customer to win over."
One by one, the griffons hefted huge loads, even Chartreuse, who was tiny. They somehow split the majority of the load between them, leaving little enough that Gunther, Gerardo and Slipstream could manage the rest on their own. As they passed, each one gave the pair a look, and they steadily filed out the door.
"Well." Gerardo fidgeted at the saddlebag that held their sound stone. "Something is all of a sudden telling me we should warn our friends to expect company..."