Ozzy woke up in a delirious state. His entire body ached, his eyesight was fuzzy, his throat was dry, and his brain struggled to form a coherent thought. He tried to sit up, but the sharp pain from his gut wound made him give up immediately. With no other available options, the man laid there wallowing in his misery until the haze lifted from his mind. After a few minutes he had gathered enough of his wits to remember what had happened last night. Well, most of it. Everything that took place after Benjamin’s vehicle screeched to a halt in front of a run-down bar was still a blur for the most part. He vaguely recalled a miniature ogre splashing alcohol over his wound for some reason, but that was it.
With Ozzy’s senses gradually returning to full clarity he looked around the room as much as he could without moving his torso. To his left was a window with the curtains drawn and a wooden nightstand with a lit oil lamp resting on it. What little sunlight seeped through told him it was already morning. Up above was an off-white ceiling that would have matched the color of the walls a lot better if not for those strange stains and splotches. The right-hand side proved the most curious part. Bundled up in the near corner were Ozzy’s clothes and luggage, the door was on the opposite end of the wall, and the middle was taken up by a table with a few dirty plates and a chair occupied by a strangely familiar figure.
“… Benjamin?”
The taxi driver seemed to have fallen asleep while sitting with his arms and legs crossed. He stirred at the mention of his name and lazily lifted opened his eyes. It took him a few moments for the rest of his consciousness to resurface, at which point he jerked up and fell off his seat. He recovered from the clumsy tumble as quickly as a spry young man could and went over to check on Ozzy, his face rapidly transitioning from shock to relief.
“You’re awake! How are you feeling?!”
“Like I got chewed up by a dragon.”
“… A what?”
“… Nevermind. Where are we?”
“Oh, this is Old Man Crabb’s back room. We put you in here after he finished treating your wound.”
Ozzy frowned slightly as he carefully touched his sore stomach. The pain spiked a bit as he lightly pressed his fingers against the bandaged wound, but it subsided back to a dull throb soon after.
“Careful. Crabb said you shouldn’t pick at it,” Benjamin warned him. “Also to lay still. Don’t want your stitches to come undone.”
“… Stitches?” the druid was confused.
“Yeah. Stitches.”
“Why did I need stitches?”
“Uh…”
“My wound wasn’t that big, was it?”
“I guess the old man had to cut you open.”
“He did?” Ozzy raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah? To get the bullet out, y’know?”
The druid paused for a second before realizing ‘bullet’ probably referred to the tiny foreign object that drilled a hole halfway through him. He understood why it had to be removed, but surely there were better ways to do that than to go digging around in his guts.
“Are you sure this man is a healer?”
“Yeah. I mean, not officially. He’s a bit sketchy, but he saved your life, didn’t he?”
“Yes… I suppose you are right. Thank you, for bringing me to him.”
“Ah. Ah-hah. Yeah, no problem,” Ben smiled awkwardly. “Uh, also, just so we’re clear, Crabb kind of… extracted payment from your bag while you were out.”
“Did he? How much?”
“Twelve hundred. And, I, uh, took a hundred for myself. Y’know, for the fare and the cleaning bill and we weren’t sure when you’d wake up and- I really hope you don’t mind,” he added quickly.
Ozzy smiled and chuckled to show that he did not.
“You’re a good man, Benjamin. I will be sure to seek you out the next time I require a taxi.”
“I would really prefer it if you didn’t, actually.”
“Hah-ha! Ow. Hurts to laugh.”
“A-anyway, I’ll go fetch Mr. Crabb, he’ll want to know you’re awake.”
Benjamin excused himself and left Ozzy to mull over that conversation. The veteran adventurer was no stranger to getting cut, stabbed, burned, and even dying, but he couldn’t remember the last time he had to resort to bandages and sutures. Usually he’d have potions or JJ’s magic to make even the nastiest wounds go away in seconds. Hell, the druid himself knew a few healing spells for emergencies. He obviously couldn’t cast any of them at the moment, but he kind of assumed this world’s healers wouldn’t suffer from the same magical impotence that had befallen him.
However, it now dawned on him that maybe the problem wasn’t him. If Crabb’s hands-on approach of treating grievous wounds was the standard for healers here, then that would mean that restorative magic didn’t exist in this world. Either that or it was extremely underdeveloped. The druid then thought back to all the curious wonders he had seen since his arrival. Most if not all of them seemed to be mechanical nature. Then there was the fact that the taxi’s machine spirit had no idea what a druid was, or that people could communicate with its kind. It just kept calling the man a ‘mutant.’ Ozzy had no idea what that word meant, but he had a sneaking suspicion it wasn’t a compliment.
After mulling things over for a few minutes, the druid was forced to conclude that there was a very real possibility that the residents of this world knew nothing of magic. Or, at the very least, the general public didn’t. In either case, the druid needed to be much more careful about flaunting his abilities. People feared what they did not understand, after all, and Ozzy really didn’t want to be treated as a threat just because he wielded power outside the locals’ comprehension.
The druid’s worries were abruptly interrupted when the door to his room slammed open. Glancing over he saw a figure that he recognized as the mini-ogre from his fuzzy memories. A rapid second take revealed this visitor was not, in fact, a mini-ogre. Though he certainly looked the part with his short stature, obese physique, oily skin, giant nose, horrible teeth, balding head, and wart-covered face, this particular individual was human. He was carrying two things of note - a dark leather bag with a big green cross on it and an unmarked square bottle containing a clear liquid that probably wasn’t water.
“Mr. Crabb, I presume?” he hazarded a guess. “I want to thank you for-”
“Stow it,” the old man cut him off. “I don’t know you. You don’t know me. Let’s keep it that way.”
“… Understood.”
“Good. Now, stand still. I need to change your bandages.”
Crabb waddled up to the left side of the bed and placed the bottle on the nightstand next to Ozzy’s head. The stench of alcohol invaded the druid’s nostrils, but it was unlike any scent he was familiar with. The surgeon then grabbed a ridiculously tiny pair of scissors from his bag and quickly removed his patient’s blood-soaked bandages. He then got a wad of cotton, soaked it in the clear alcohol, and started rubbing it into the wound. It stung profusely, and Ozzy wasn’t ready for it, so he flinched and grunted. Crabb gave him a deadpan look that said louder than any words to man the fuck up and stop squirming, then continued.
“What are you doing?” the druid asked.
“I’m cleaning the wound,” was the bare-bones answer.
“Do you have to waste good drink on that?”
“Do you want to get an infection?”
“I don’t- No.”
“Also, this isn’t ‘good drink.’ It’s vodka.”
“Whatever you say.”
That was close. The druid managed to catch himself before he revealed that he was immune to infections. The same went for diseases and even some toxins. Or at least, he hoped that was still the case. The source of this trait was the wild magic permeating his body, so it was possible that this too had degraded since coming to this world. He’d find out soon enough since that same boon also greatly accelerated the rate at which his wounds healed. The only issue was that he had no frame of reference for how long this sort of injury normally took to heal. Thankfully, he knew just who to ask.
“How long until I’m well enough to move?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On your schedule. If your next ten days are free, I suggest you spend all of them lying still in bed,” the surgeon explained while applying a fresh bandage. “If you have urgent business that can’t wait that long, then give it at least five days. That’s also when you should come back so I can remove the stitches, by the way. Until then you need to move very slowly and carefully, or this sucker is gonna rip right open. And change your bandages daily, or whenever they get wet or dirty.”
“Ah. Alright. Wait, come back? Am I going somewhere?”
Crabb gave the man another deadpan stare.
“This ain’t a hospital, pal. I’ve got only one bed and you’re in it.”
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“I see. Is, uh, is Benjamin still around?”
“Who?”
“The young man that brought me here.”
Crabb was in the midst of putting all his tools and supplies back in his bag when he suddenly stopped and looked at Ozzy again, but this time with confusion.
“You mean Billy?” the surgeon inquired.
“No. I mean Benjamin.”
“The cabbie with the brown hair, looks like he couldn’t fight his way out of a garden party of old ladies?”
“Yeah, him.”
“His name’s Billy.”
“Strange. He told me it was Benjamin.”
“You probably heard wrong.”
“Probably,” he wasn’t going to argue. “So is he here?”
“Why do you care?”
“I need a driver I can trust to take me to a hotel.”
Crabb’s eyes narrowed suspiciously for a moment before he continued.
“He’s downstairs catching up on sleep. He’ll probably be up around noon. I strongly recommend that you get both of your asses out of here when he wakes up. Until then, stay put.”
“Will do.”
The surgeon then started waddling out of the room, but stopped at the door.
“Oh, and one more thing,” he looked over his shoulder. “Billy’s a good kid. Don’t drag him into whatever trouble got you plugged.”
“You have my word.”
The mini-ogre of a man grumbled some indecipherable profanities as he left the room. With nothing better to do, Ozzy decided this was as good an opportunity as any to do something he really should have done when he first arrived. He closed his eyes and steadily slowed his breath until he was almost as still as a corpse. The various aches and pains racking his body subsided. The sticky feeling of the sweat on his brow disappeared, as did the slight itchiness of the bed sheets underneath. He emptied his mind of all thought, delving deeper and deeper into a meditative state.
Ozzy was attempting to commune with nature as he tried to tap into The Weave. It was the ebb and flow of energy that suffused the world, linking all living things via invisible strands that entwined together to create a grand tapestry of life. Hence the name Ozzy knew it by. It was this Weave that connected him to the sites of power that served as the source of his natural magic. He expected to find that the bonds between himself and the great spirits that suffused those places had been severed by whatever magic brought him here. That was the only probable cause for his magical deficiency. And while he did indeed fail to reach out to those sites of power, it wasn’t because they weren’t present in the Weave.
Rather, the issue was that he could not commune with this world’s wild energies at all. The repeated failed attempts felt just like what he went through during his initial training in the druidic arts. To put it simply, he had to walk up to mother nature’s door and give it a knock, but he couldn’t even find her house. The usual array of mental motions he went through produced no results, forcing the man to accept a harsh truth that was rather obvious in retrospect. This world surely had a drastically different Weave than his own. Either that or it didn’t have one at all. The phenomenon was magical in nature, after all. Then again, he was able to converse with a taxi’s spirit. He wouldn’t be able to do that if this realm was indeed completely devoid of magic. Therefore, it most assuredly had a Weave, and the reason Ozzy couldn’t perceive it was because he didn’t know ‘where’ it was.
Thankfully, Ozzy had an idea about fixing this. Two of them, actually. The first method was to repeat the same basic training and exercises he went through in his youth under his mother’s guidance. Unfortunately, that would probably take years, and the man didn’t have that long. The other, far more expedient option was to locate a site of power. He already knew how to converse with natural spirits directly, and establishing a contract with one would allow him to regain some measure of power without having to go through the Weave. His mother would probably slap him silly if she ever found out he was considering this shortcut, but time was of the essence. Ozzy’s ultimate goal was to reconnect with his friends and find a way home, and the sooner he accomplished this the better.
Then again, perhaps he didn’t need this world’s power. Though this city of Last Flag certainly had its dark side - and a deadly one at that - it was significantly more peaceful than Einhan. Or at least that was the impression Ozzy was left with prior to encountering those orc thugs. If the people here lived without magic, then they didn’t have to worry about the problems it caused. Monster attacks wouldn’t be a constant concern, liches couldn’t plot world domination since they wouldn’t exist, and the great magical plague that ravaged Ozzy’s home ten years ago would never happen. The pollution in the air was a huge problem, of course, but if that healer was any indication, the medicine here was advanced enough to deal with it. Probably.
Ultimately the druid concluded that it would be prudent of him to seek out a site of power and attempt to regain a portion of his lost magic, but it was far from necessary. There was also the matter of whether such places existed in this realm. If the magic here was weak to the point of obscurity, then the Weave would be too thin to form the ‘knots’ that Ozzy had in mind. Even if that weren’t the case, places of power wouldn’t be common knowledge. So, all in all, the druid had to regretfully shuffle that particular objective towards the bottom of his list of priorities. He’d still keep an eye and ear out, but he didn’t delude himself into thinking he’d find one any time soon.
Noon arrived before Ozzy knew it. By then he felt well enough to walk on his own, albeit very slowly. He got dressed, met up with Benjamin, and set off to find proper lodging. He soon discovered midday Last Flag was many times busier than in the evenings. Cars and people flooded the narrow streets as everyone rushed to and from their lunch breaks. Traffic slowed to the point where a five minute drive turned into a half-hour crawl. Since they weren’t going anywhere fast, Ozzy decided to use this chance to casually probe the youngster ferrying him around for some more information.
“Say, Benjamin?”
“Yeah?”
“I couldn’t help but notice the seat back here is… remarkably blood-free.”
“Oh, that? Old Man Crabb let me use his homemade blood-cleaning solution. That thing works wonders.”
“I see. He seems to care about you quite a bit.”
“Yeah, well, we’ve just known each other for a long time. He’s like the creepy uncle I never had.”
“Then why does he think your name is Billy?”
“Uh… Long story?” he tried to dodge the question.
“I think we have the time for one,” Ozzy pressed.
“What about you? I don’t think you ever told me your name.”
“… You have a point. I’m Osmond, but friends just call me Ozzy.”
“Ozzy, huh? I knew a guy called Ozzy.”
“Really, now?”
“Yeah. He wasn’t anything like you, though. I can’t imagine that little wimp could take a bullet to the stomach like it was no big deal.”
There was an awkward lull in the conversation while some asshole five cars back started yelling something about cabbages at the top of his lungs.
“So,” Ben screwed up his courage, “that thing last night. Where you turned into someone else. What was that about?”
Ozzy knew this topic would come up sooner or later. Naturally he was wary of spilling the beans on who he actually was and where he truly came from. At the same time, if he couldn’t trust the youngster that saved his life, then this world was rotten beyond redemption. He had to give him something.
“Do you know what magic is, Benjamin?”
“What, like card tricks and pulling rabbits out of top hats?”
“Not… exactly what I had in mind. Have you ever heard stories of men who could summon fire with their bare hands, or call down lightning with just their voice?”
The cabbie looked over his shoulder, his face plastered with a mix of wonder and worry.
“You mean mutants?”
“Maybe? I am not familiar with this term.”
“They’re folks that weren’t born right, or that do things science can’t explain. Like the stuff you said. And… I guess whatever that was last night.”
“Ah. Then yes, I suppose you could call me a mutant.”
“You… you really shouldn’t be saying that in public, Ozzy. Or to anyone,” Benjamin looked rather shaken. “The government really hates folks like you. If the coppers catch wind of you being one they’ll try and drag you off to some lab or camp that you won’t come back from.”
“And you wouldn’t want that?” the druid decided to test the young man.
“No, sir. Well, not unless you did something to deserve it, but you don’t seem like them deranged maniac types. Otherwise you would’ve done a lot worse to those guys last night.”
Benjamin used to be, and in some respects still was, a street rat. Brawls broke out over stupid reasons all the time in his part of town, the young man had gotten into his fair share of scuffles. He lost a lot, hence why he was so familiar with Old Man Crabb. However, he was still alive and had very few scars to show for it. That was because nobody in their right mind tried to kill or maim each other in a street brawl. Ozzy might’ve been a mutant, but the fact that he didn’t put any of those orcs in the ground made him a good guy in Ben’s book. That and he wasn’t stingy with his cash even though he had so much of it, unlike every other rich asshole that stepped into his cab.
“Also, Old Man Crabb said something that worried me a little last night,” he tried to change the topic. “He said he couldn’t find your citizen’s ID. Did you lose it or something?”
“I… am fairly certain I’ve never had one of those,” the man admitted.
“I figured. You might want to look into getting one made on the down-low. Fake IDs won’t hold up if the coppers take you in, but they’ll make your life a lot easier.”
“I see. I appreciate the advice.”
“It’s nothing. I owe you one for fixing up this old junker anyway.”
There was another lull in the conversation as Ozzy digested all this information. He didn’t like the idea of dealing with criminals and lowlifes, but he didn’t have a choice. This persecution of ‘mutants’ was going to make his search for his friends even more difficult than anticipated. Once he was healed up he’d need to get his hands on one of these fake IDs that the youngster recommended. That would take some time since he had no connections whatsoever. Well, aside from that slightly snarky tailor, the goblin he insulted, the surgeon that wanted nothing to do with him, and the cabbie that Ozzy needed to stop involving in his messes. All four of them seemed either unable or unwilling to hook the druid up with a trustworthy forger. As things stood, he had no idea when he’d be able to set out and begin his search in earnest.
“Here we are, Ozzy,” Ben declared, “the Partisan Hotel.”
The passenger poked his head out of the car and looked up at the dizzyingly tall building. It must have been at least fifty stories. It never ceased to amaze him how grand the structures of this world were. Such marvels of masonry would surely make even the most jaded dwarf mason wet their pants in excitement. Casting his gaze down to street level, he had no difficulty locating the hotel’s main entrance, which was situated underneath a vibrant blue canvas awning that stretched across the sidewalk. The front and sides of the cloth bore elegant gold-colored letters that spelled out ‘The Partisan,’ with the outline of a winged polearm blade serving as the ‘T’ in the middle. A sharply dressed man wearing a matching blue uniform stood like a dignified statue as he waited to open the stained glass doors for any guests leaving or entering the building.
Ozzy spent several seconds drinking this all in before turning to the driver.
“Say, Benjamin?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you happen to know a less fancy place I could stay for a few weeks?”
“Say no more.”
The taxi started moving away as its passenger shook his head. He expected The Partisan Hotel to be a fancy place considering the classy gentleman that recommended it. However, he didn’t expect it to be quite that… opulent. All Ozzy wanted was a quiet room, a clean bed, and maybe access to hot water, not to be waited on hand and foot by an army of servants. Excessive luxuries were not only a waste of his limited budget, but also an offense to his humble preferences. Well, relatively humble. That surgeon’s room was definitely below his standards.
“By the way,” Ozzy thought of something, “you never did tell me why Crabb thinks your name is Billy.”
“Ugh. Look, I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Tell me, or I’m not tipping you.”
“Come on, man,” the cabbie whined. “Do you really need to go that far?”
“Apparently.”
“Fuck!”
Ben slammed his hands against the steering wheel in frustration, but gave in soon after.
“Okay, it’s really not that big of a deal. It’s just that, when I first met him, it was because I accidentally broke his window while playing with some friends. He came out looking like he does and screaming at me, demanding my name. I was just a kid, so I panicked, and I lied. And then, well, I had to keep meeting him, and one thing led to another, and…”
He let out a deep sigh.
“By now he’s been calling me ‘Billy’ for so long that I just can’t bring myself to tell him the truth.”