After a rather restful night at Grog’s Groggery, I found myself outside the Inn slightly less tired and ready for adventure. I had been waiting for a solid twenty minutes and was starting to get a little bit impatient. No, I retract that statement; I was incredibly impatient. There was a saying that adventure waited for nobody, yet, as I stood there, I proved that this was absolutely not true. The slight but aggressive tapping of my left foot and constant fidgeting with my fingers was an indicator that neither Azog nor Rose cared about the sanctity of being on time, nor did they show an innate desire to adventure. Eventually, I could hear someone stumble out of the Inn’s doors. Rose barreled out of the Inn’s door, looking more disheveled than usual. There was no more neatly done up hair, spotless dirt-free skin, or well manicured nails. It was as if Rose regressed to a feral beast overnight. Her bloodshot eyes indicated that she was anything but fine.

“How are you, Rose?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m perfectly fine.” Rose tried to smile, instead she awkwardly frowned. Her lips quivered as she fought against her miserable expression.

I decided not to dig into that can of worms.

“Do you know where Azog is? We were supposed to leave a good twenty minutes ago.”

“Ah, he told me that his back was paralyzed from the ominous springs that lurked under his mattress, and that the cold reality of the world seemed colder and bleeker after staying here for a night.”

“What do you mean? I slept in worse places. We’re fortunate enough that we even get a mattress,” I remarked. I was grateful for the slight comfort of a bed no matter the quality. I learned from experience that there were always worse places to hunker down for the night.

“Well, I think you’re alone in thinking that. That Groggery is only one step above living in squalor.”

“There are plenty of worse places to sleep.”

“Like what?”

“Well, you could find yourself trapped in the darkness of never-ending catacombs, or stuck deep within a cave where the bones of dead creatures poke and prod at your back.”

Rose gave me a dubious look. As if she didn’t know whether I was making up these fictional sounding scenarios, or if I was actually dumb enough to find myself in either of these places. And maybe, just maybe, my terrible sleep was a result of my poor planning.

Azog came barreling out the door to Grog’s Groggery, huffing as if he had been in a brawl. His manic eyes looked around, as if there was a monster lurking among the shadows. There were no monsters, but I understood how he might’ve mistaken Rose for one.

“Where is Grog! That bed was the worst trap anyone’s pulled on me, and I was dropped into a pit of Vipers.” roared Azog. It was a barbarian rage.

“Calm down, Azog. It’s just a bed.”

“That’s not a bed. A bed is for sleeping. That, that thing only prevents you from sleeping.”

“Well, now that we’re all up; should we go find out if this Urban Druid is the real deal?” I asked. I didn’t have time for idol chatter, so Azog would just have to collect himself on his own.

“Well, there is only a slight problem.” Rose interjected.

“A problem?” I asked.

“Yes. You see that the Urban Druid doesn’t exactly stay in one place, and it is hard to go find her. If we can lure her in, we can find the answers you’re looking for.”

Rose pulled out a leather rope as well as a bucket filled with a dead pigeon. It was a mystery how she had acquired the dead pigeon inside the bucket, and I figured it would be best to keep it a mystery. At the very least, the pigeon was a fresh kill and didn’t stink all that much.

“What exactly do you plan on doing with that, erm, dead pigeon? We’ll have to pick the flesh off if you want me to animate it.” I said.

Rose looked disgusted.

“We won’t be going through with any of your fake magic. The smell of the dead pigeon should be enough to lure in the Urban Druid. Frankly, if I was able to get my hands on a dead Possum then we’d be set, but this will have to do. We just have to hope that the Urban Druid is looking for some white meat.”

“She eats pigeons?” I asked, only slightly disgusted.

“I mean, I think so. What else would she do with the dead Pigeon?”

I nodded. It seemed reasonable enough. Food is energy even in the form of a sky rat.

“Pigeon tastes like wyvern, not that I’ve tried pigeon. That’s what all the sailors would claim when they visited my bar,” Azog confirmed.

“You’ve tried wyvern, though?”

“Well, no, I guess I haven’t tried wyvern either.”

“I heard from some dragon slayers that wyvern tastes a bit like chewy chicken. Maybe a little bit gamier.”

Considering that chickens were closely descended from dragons (practically cousins) it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that wyvern tasted a bit like chicken.

“I guess that I thought that wyvern would taste a little bit more… I don’t know, exotic?”

“Did you expect them to be doused in hot sauce? Of course they taste like chicken.” Rose piped up. I wondered how she would know that, but I held my tongue. We were wasting time as it was. There was no need to spend the next three hours debating the ins and outs of reptilian barbecue.

“So where exactly do we intend on searching for this Urban Druid.”

Rose just shrugged.

“I figure we just run around the city until something tackles us.” Before I could respond, Rose sprinted into the city. I grumbled but picked up my feet and ran alongside Azog as we scrambled through the city. Rose was surprisingly fast for a tour guide, although it might’ve been the case that I was surprisingly slow. Maybe it wasn’t surprising that I was slow. Necromancers didn't have a reputation for being fast.

I huffed and wheezed down alleyways, running past market stalls, and dodging city folk who dared crowd the streets. Azog didn’t really dodge pedestrians, plowing through them with his physical prowess. For some reason, the deeper into the city we ran, the less populated the city became. That shouldn’t have been the case. A large city should have a perfectly even distribution of people throughout it. Yet, the scenery around us was nicer, the buildings nicer, and the guards patrolling the streets more present than ever. Ah, this was where the rich folk lived.

I was convinced that I ran faster on the practically gilded roads, breathing in slightly fresher air. By now, Rose and Azog had put a good solid twenty feet on me. It was not a race, I told myself. It was important that I watched their backs. No, this wasn’t mental gymnastics to make myself feel a little better for being outrun by a ‘princess’.

Then it happened. In a split second, a sprinter pile drived into Rose, sending her sprawling onto the floor. A woman in a rather fashionable dress slammed her hand into the bucket and pocketed the dead pigeon. Her hair was well kept and the earrings she sported well polished. I’d imagined the Urban Druid would be homeless, or at the very least wear bark like any druid should. Also the Urban Druid was saving the Pigeon for later, I supposed.

“Follow me, quick! All answers you seek will be pondered for your generous offering. The guards will come after me for squatting.” said the Urban Druid.

She frolicked through the concrete jungle as if she knew the streets better than the city couriers who made it their job to know the streets better than anyone else. Soon we came up to a small tent, pitched down a barren street. Its velvet linen was held with a metal beam.

“Welcome travelers. You seek the wisdom of Urna the Urban Druid. What sort of mystical services do you require,” said the Urban Druid. As I ducked into her tent, I noticed that the room was larger than it should’ve been. In the corner of my eyes, I noticed the same red mana from Esmeralda’s Inn.

“Questions.” I stated.

“Questions? Are you sure you don’t need some divine fortune telling, or the help from the great animals that roam this city. You’d be surprised how diverse the ecosystem in Nosturdam is.”

“Nope. Just questions for now.”

“Ask away, young man. Also does anyone else have business with me?” asked Urna.

Azog and Rose just shook their heads.

“Tell me about the red mana that creates illusions.” I said.

Urna backed up and hissed as if she was a rat. It was fitting for a Druid, I supposed.

“Do not go digging where you don’t belong, young man. How do you know it’s red anyway? The power of Nosturdam runs deep within the city; Its mysteries boundless, the dangers lurking beneath the surface. The origin of Nosturdam’s power was integral to the city long before the Church arrived, contrary to what they’d want you to believe. It is a long story that I don’t have time for.”

“Nonsense! No one in this city talks about it, yet I see trails of red mana spreading out among the city like a web. No where else have I seen such mana.”

“You see mana? Are you sure you aren’t going mad, young man? The secrets of mana sight have been lost to the decline of our civilization. During the church's purge 200 years ago, many secrets were lost. Don’t lie about something you don’t know. ”

“I’m not lying!”

“Lying to yourself is an insidious condition. It is important for rats to remember that they’re prey, or else they feel brave enough to fight feral cats. The rats do not win a fight with the beasts whose gnarly claws were designed to hunt their kin. They’re lucky to be left beheaded, their corpse rotting on the pavement. We're all rats in this tiny tent.” Urna waved her hands around.

“What do you mean by that? I’m not a rat.” Rose interjected.

“There is nothing wrong with being a rat, dearest. Rats have their place in the ecosystem, and play a beautiful role in the cycle of life.”

"Well, you can be a rat. I'm definitely not a rat." said Rose.

"In the metaphor, I guess you can be a hamster. Is that better?"

"Fine. I can be a hamster." Rose relented, reluctantly.