"He said Griffin's Hunt? I'm not familiar with that one."

  "I think it's up on Second, try up there."

  "No, nothing called that here, but there's a Griffin's Hunt up in the gray district."

  "I'm thinking that admin was fucking with us." Meredeath was getting less amused with our situation as we'd walked up and down cobblestoned blocks as folks redirected them to different parts of the city.

  We were tired. The stares from the townsfolk weren’t helping. Although I was used to getting stared at, it was hard to be anonymous with a foot-long banana slug on my shoulders; this was a bit much. What I really hadn’t expected was the blatant hostility of the citizenry of Cersapil.

  I will fuck Captain Hilly and her admin up, Briyain intoned in our minds in a deep resonance. They were not amused.

  "Why don't we just try somewhere else? We've got cash." I wasn't wrong. Between the dungeon payout and a stash Ash found in Leyla's wagon, we were sitting pretty even by eastern metropolis standards.

  No one argued with me, so we backtracked to the last inn we'd walked past. The Bull. The bar was dim.

  It seemed to be a sit-yourself situation. I caught an odd cherry almond scent in the air, odd for a diner. I slid into a booth, grateful they would not deny us service.

  “Did that crumb just move?” Ash whispered. Looking down, I squinted, a crumble of crouton moving across the table. Realization dawned. The dimness, the scent, this bar; it had a cockroach infestation, and that salad crust was being carried off.

  A few regulars peered at us from the darkness as though we'd rudely interrupted their conversations.

  I bumped into Meredeath, backing out of the place. No part of me wanted to stay here.

  "Be careful," she chastised, holding up Briyain's bowl as it sloshed.

  “Sorry,” I muttered, pulling my companions back into the street. I gave them a waning smile, waiting for the door to close behind me. "That place wasn't for us."

  Ash gave me a look, and I gave a sharp shake of my head. It was bad luck to talk ill of a business on its stoop.

  That didn't stop Richard.

  Plenty for Briyain to eat in there. He vibrated with his molluskian laughter.

  Briyain is hungry. I shuddered at the thought of Meredeath shoveling cockroach husks into her fishbowl.

  Leading the party away, I briefly wondered if Briyain was going to have a full-size or miniaturized appetite. Our money might not last as long as I'd hoped.

  What we should have done was hit up the Adventurers Guild to get some solid advice on where to go. The guards in the city weren't here to be helpful. Ash had even tried asking a couple walking around for directions, and they too, sent us on another wild bogquacker chase. Candle lighters were making rounds, lighting lanterns on the street corners.

  I stepped into the fifth inn we'd tried, The Rockeater.

  The taproom was pretty empty, but it smelled clean, and there wasn't a horde of unfriendly faces waiting for us to leave.

  The first floor was an average-looking tavern with a rock sculpture of a worm with serrated fangs and a mouthful of rocks. A good sign they might not mind my slimy companion. Every place we'd tried had kicked us out as soon as they saw Richard or gotten a glimpse of Briyain. The hostess at The Rockeater gave us a thin smile.

  “Are you eating here? Booth or a table?” Her accent was sharp and hard. It was obvious she wasn't a local.

  "Yes, we'd like a booth, and a room." The woman gave Meredeath a compassionate frown. I shared a look with Ash. We both knew what her smile meant. I could almost recite the next words.

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  "Well, I can serve you food." Her voice softened, as though apologetic. "But we can't offer you a room. We're all full up."

  I looked across the empty dining hall. They absolutely had rooms available.

  "I think we'll—"

  "Cole, let's get some dinner, then we can go back to hunting for a room," Ash said. I nodded. My feet hurt too. My left boot had a soft spot.

  The waitress gave us a grateful look, grabbing three menus.

  "We've got stew on special, but the bread is a day old. Our burgers are good. We've got blood sausage mixed in." She eyed us as though the mention of blood sausage might put us off. When none of us flinched, she nodded. "Where are you all from? I couldn't spot your accent."

  "Woodsten, by the Ursine Wall." I answered before Ash and Meredeath could trot out their lies.

  "Ah, the frontier. That makes sense."

  She showed us the booth. Red velvet pads sat on the bench. They were only a little worn, the table, a tad sticky. Meredeath tried to hold in her disgust as the sleeve of her shirt stuck on the table. The server plopped down the menus, looking embarrassed.

  We'd eaten at waaay too many sticky bars since we'd left Woodsten. I was used to it. Time to use her embarrassment to our advantage. So far, she'd been ten times friendlier than anyone else we'd spoken to since entering Cersapil.

  "We were told to find the Griffin’s Hunt for a room. Do you know where that is?"

  "I think you've got the name wrong. It's not Griffin's Hunt..." Her face was beet red as she decided not to inform us of the actual name of the establishment. Instead, she gave us directions. "It's down by the Crack, on the cusp of the underground. If you follow Main Street down, you'll find it."

  An hour later, we'd had our fill of burgers and crisps, and felt sleepy.

  "Are you sure we can't stay here? I'm feeling a food coma coming on." Ash leaned back, tossing his green cloth napkin onto the table.

  The waitress shook her head as she replied, "Sorry, it'd be my job if I let you stay. I probably shouldn't have given you a table, but it's been a slow night."

  A slow night was an understatement.

  "And why is that exactly? We haven't had trouble anywhere else." Meredeath cut straight to the point. Richard sat at the table. For once, he'd eaten daintily, as though he knew his behavior could get us kicked out of the establishment at any moment. Meredeath counted out the coins we owed for the meal and dangled an extra silver as a tip.

  The waitress didn’t miss that she hadn’t put it on the table.

  "Look, I'm not a Cersapillian either, so what do I care? This is The Rockeater. I'd have said you had balls coming in here, if you weren't so new." She put her elbows on the table. "The original rockeater—he was a pet. Some sort of mollusk that was used to chew the original tunnels. A [Miner's Hero] or something. That was until it chewed under the Ministry. In one night, that mollusk did what monsters and armies never accomplished. They brought down our government in hours. The history books say it was intentional, that some [Adventurer] or [Miner] had a grudge. Hundreds died, and the emperor, well you've seen his memorial when you entered the gate."

  I nodded along with the server as she talked about what she'd heard of the horror of the collapse of the Ministry some fifty years ago. It took everything in me not to look over at Richard. I had the sinking feeling that Richard either knew of the offending mollusk or perhaps played a more intimate role.

  "That sounds terrible," Ash broke in with his typical empathy. "The city is beautiful. I can't imagine anyone wanting to purposefully bring it down."

  The waitress's blue eyes turned towards Ash, her smile wide.

  “It is unimaginable,” the woman agreed, as though she was holding back a comment.

  Yeah, but you haven’t seen the press gangs yet.

  "Our little guy here." Richard bristled at the moniker. "Came from the Heltenic Forest." When she frowned, unable to place our forest, Ash added, "all the way by the Ursine Wall. They have tall trees and long slugs out there." Seeing recognition, he piled on the charm. "Cole found him wallowing in the compost bin, starving. He's been with us ever sense, a bit of a mascot for the team. You sure you can't find us a room for the night? We can keep him hidden and pay extra. It's been a long journey from the Hunt, and we just need a place to stay so we can get on our feet."

  The affront! We are not staying here. Richard had spoken in [Party Chat] and Ash was having a hard time carrying the conversation forward, repressing a chuckle as Richard continued to silently berate the unknowing woman.

  I could tell from how her eyes flattened, that Ash's plea didn't move the woman.

  We were back on the street within twenty minutes.

  "At least she gave us good directions to Griffin's Hunt." Ash, ever cheerful, was getting on Meredeath's nerves.

  "I don't think 'go down until you're almost underground' is good directions." Meredeath was done with today, and I couldn't blame her.

  We'd followed Main Street as it descended on the outskirts of the Green District. The earth folded up around the street, stairs carved into rising cliffs, until a deep fissure opened up in the earth. Someone had carved a building into the side of the cliff, presumably Griffin’s Hunt. The sign was worn. It was hard to read the words, and someone had painted a C in place of the H. But a large stone bird sat on the street.

  "This looks like my kind of place." Meredeath pushed forward, as Ash and I stood before the shoddy front door with a dangling Open sign.

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