Fried fish, baked fish, lamb kabobs, rolls, racist glaring.

She'll take whichever of those comes with the least price discrimination.

And that evening she's hanging around in the tavern again waiting for her party.

They're back. Dressed a little better. Hagan has a large backpack and Mahdi has a bag of holding that's not quite successfully dressed up as a normal coin purse. Hagan and Fazil are armored. They have a flying carpet.

"Ready to head out? We can sleep on the carpet, make some progress towards the pass."

"I'm set. Never ridden a carpet before, is it hard not to fall off in your sleep?"

"Do you fall out of bed?"

"No, but it's a bit lower-stakes, nobody's in it with me, it's not moving through the air, and there's often sheets tucked in."

"We throw some ropes in loops over it to be safe but I've never personally needed them. If you do find yourself falling yelp so Mahdi can featherfall you."

"Supposing he's sleeping very deeply does this qualify as doing something too stupid for my insurance to kick in, the wording's not exhaustive."

"I'll kick up a fuss on your behalf if they drag their feet for some reason. I wouldn't expect them to."

"Thanks."

To the flying carpet. "How are you accustomed to doing watches?"

"Hagan Mahdi me. We'll probably want one of us awake, until we know you a little better."

"That's fair. If it ever comes up I like first or last, my sleep schedule wanders all over the place up here but solid blocks is better."

"Shouldn't be any trouble." He throws her a blanket.

She attempts to sleep on the carpet and manages all right after awhile.

In the morning they're well away from Sothis, though the dome can still be seen on the horizon. Fazil is praying and Mahdi is preparing spells. Hagan is sharpening a hunting knife and watching it recede on the horizon.

Belmarniss puts her goggles in place before opening her eyes and gets underway on her own spell prep.

And eventually they all have spells prepared and there's not much to do except catch her up on the details of the plan (there's another pass, and a dangerous route through the Underdark that reportedly connects them; they're hoping to sneak through it and then trace the missing party's footsteps), and trade adventuring stories. 

"We mostly stick to Osirion. There's a lot of culture shock, travelling internationally - I guess you'd know -"

"Oh yeah. What kinds of things shock you?"

"Everyone cheats each other very casually. I think adventuring is a - less respectable career path, most places, attracts different sorts. And, well, the women."

"We're very shocking. Cheats each other how, even in Osirion people'll tell me a price is a gold with a straight face when they charged the last guy two silver."

"One person will negotiate the commission and then tell the others it's half what they really got. Or they'll agree on quarters and then not pay up. Or break something they want replaced and claim it as an expense. There's a line - at least to me - between price discrimination and lying. But not to everyone, I guess, and that's fine except you have to be on guard all the time and it's exhausting."

"Huh. Suppose if you get used to not-that it'd be real unpleasant. Though those scams only work if everybody's expecting they can get away with not checking."

"It's probably one of those things where there are two workable equilibriums and it's mostly only unpleasant to be in the crossfire where they meet. Like the women, actually."

"I don't think of myself as an equilibrium."

"I mean - there's the kind of society where you don't sleep around and don't countenance it in others and wait for marriage and take marriage very seriously, and it works fine. And there's the kind of society where you do whatever you want but can't expect anyone else to behave better than that, and that works too, after a fashion. But someone trying the wrong strategy in either society will have a pretty bad go of it."