"Joey! Joey! Hellooooo!"
Oof.
Damn.
What time is it?
I look around the apartment. Right, no clocks—wait, is that a clock? There's an actual clock on the wall, a pretty standard one too.
What the—
"Joey!"
Goddamn.
I pull myself out of bed while yawning. From the looks of it, I have slept a good eight hours.
"JOEYYYY!"
I open the door of my new apartment and find Flaminia with both hands on the sides of her hips.
"Yes?" I say with a tinge of irritation in my voice. Looking around, more than one Elf has come out of their room and is staring daggers at Flaminia. “Damn, come in. Come in.”
I grab my colleague and drag her inside before someone throws something at us.
"Rotten roots, you sleep like a rock," she says. "We need to go to the breweries—are you still wearing work clothes?"
I look at my stained shirt and pants, blushing lightly. I haven’t really had any time to go to the local target, you know?
"Yeah? I only have an elegant suit. This is pretty much my wardrobe."
Flaminia facepalms.
"Has Clodia given you any money yet?"
I shake my head and sit down on one of the three chairs in my apartment. This place is cozy, but there’s not much in the way of furniture. A medieval Ikea would definitely go a long way for these Elves.
"Whatever. I'll lend you some money—she will probably owe you a lot if this yeast thing works out."
Right, yeast, breweries. We have work to do.
"How many breweries are we hitting today?"
"They are all bundled together because of city regulations."
"City regulations?" I ask.
"Yes. You can only build certain things in certain parts of the city. For example, you can only build residential houses in the Merchant's Dwelling. I mean, it's pretty much filled up by now—just a few plots left.”
“I think Raissa mentioned something like that,” I scratch my chin, trying to remember what the short Elf told me.
“Oh, it’s very likely. Every other Elf in this city wants a place there, now. But I don’t think she’ll be able to afford it any time soon.”
“How come?” I ask, confused.
“Speculation has driven the prices up. Of course, there are always nicer and nicer houses popping up. It is the richest and safest district in Amorium. Some of the [Merchants] even proposed moving the wall and the river so they could build more houses. The [Mayor] almost had a stroke.”
[Mayor]? These people have a [Mayor]? Wow, democracy for the win, I guess. But don’t they have nobles as well? And royals? You know what, I don’t want to know.
“I mean, it's patrolled by the Watch more than any other place. [Guards] are sometimes lazy and like to patrol close to their headquarters. Anyway, we should go. As I was saying, we have pretty strict city regulations. All the [Brewers] are bundled up together. You never know when they are going to make something explode, and you certainly don’t want them as your neighbors.”
"Sure, sure. Damned Elves and their tippy-tappy bureaucracy. City regulations? Do Humans do that? Also, do you live there in the merchant thing?”
Flaminia nods with a sneaky smile.
"Yes, we have a lot of paperwork – much more than Humans, as far as I know. Anyway, I had Clodia put it in my contract. I own an apartment there and paid off most of it in less than four years."
I honestly have no idea if that's impressive, but she smiles like it is, so...
"Cool," I say, coughing a little. "Shall we get going now?"
"Sure," Flaminia looks over at my poor clothes and nods.
...
Flaminia and I finally leave my housing complex and turn to the left—wherever that shall bring us, I suppose. See, I have yet to memorize anything about these streets; honestly, it will be quite a struggle to find my way home by myself. But maybe I can do it from the Pratus. From anywhere else? Not a chance in hell.
"So, you really don't know how you ended up in Amorium?"
"Nope, it was a teleportation spell or something. I was... somewhere else, and then, boom, I'm here."
"And you had never seen an Elf before?"
"Nope. I mean, I did have an idea of what you looked like from... pictures," I say the last part with a little cringe. Well, it’s not far from the truth. Of course, they were moving pictures, but I don’t need to explain that, do I? Plus, there are no Orlando Blooms with blonde wigs in sight—which makes the overall experience ten times better.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
"Fascinating."
Flaminia looks like she's loving the tea. I'm quite sure that all these questions are half the reason she agreed to come with me.
"We'll swing by the Pratus to buy you some clothes first."
"Sure," I nod.
This is the little I know about Amorium’s geography: my apartment is in the bottom Western corner of Amorium. From what I understand, it's still quite a good residential area. There's a big river that basically cuts Amorium in two. The first half of the Northern one is about two-thirds of the entire city. It's also the least patrolled and the poorer part. The only exception is a hill at the very top of the Eastern corner, where the city’s noble family resides. The... I forgot their name.
Anyway, the nobles have a whole forest around them and like to be left to their own devices. They don't visit the city that often since they live in a huge castle that kind of acts like a city inside the city.
Wait a second, now I remember how their politics work!
---
Listen to this—I just remembered I asked Raissa if the noble family governed the city, and apparently, they don't. They do have a [Mayor] that gets elected every eight years—a bit of a long term, if you ask me, but still not too bad. A [Mayor] is elected alongside a council, and they make the laws— or something like that. I was only half-listening.
The noble family... they are just filthy rich and extremely powerful. They exert a big influence over the city, but, in theory, they are not the direct ruling force.
"You haven't been very talkative," she notes as we make our way to the Pratus.
"Oh, sorry," I say, "I was kinda lost in how Amorium functions, with the [Mayor] and the nobility co-existing. Weird stuff."
"Oh, right!" Flaminia exclaims. "Your people must be accustomed to slavery and despotic nobility! Well, Elves fought hard to liberate themselves from Humans: there's no way we are just handing out the shackles to our own people."
This is... very American, I suppose.
"How many wives can an average Elf have?" I ask with an innocent smile.
"Oh, we don't do that. One husband, one wife. Teiko can keep their weird laws. I heard that, apparently, women can't even leave the house on their own over there."
"Mh," I mumble. "I'm not from Teiko, you know?"
"Oh, you are not?" Flaminia's mouth turns into a big 'O.'
"Nope, I'm from much further away. I asked because... well, I wouldn't mind having a couple of wives, Humans or otherwise."
Flaminia snorts out a laugh and shakes her head.
"Wouldn't you now? And you think you can handle not one, but two Elves?"
"Oh, if it came down to it, I wouldn't have a problem with three either," I shoot back.
"Pray tell, do you fancy some Elf girl already?"
I can see the deep thirst for gossip in Flaminia's eyes, and I decide to quench it with some scalding tea.
"Oh, yeah, Officer Lucinda from the Watch is going to be my first wife."
However, as I say this, the laughter I was expecting doesn't arrive. On the contrary, Flaminia has sobered up completely.
"What?"
"Lucinda? You want to court Lucinda?"
"Do you know her?" I frown.
"Joey," Flaminia looks around, ensuring no one is listening to us. "Lucinda is the most sought-after match in all Amorium. Even the Valerii are sending gifts to her family, hoping to woo her. And she sends them back every single time. She has picked up a job at the Watch to save money instead of looking for a rich husband as a sponsor. Lucinda is..."
"Single," I wink at Flaminia. "Which is really the only thing that matters to me. Do you think this is the first time that I have punched above my weight? Pff."
"I have no idea what that means," Flaminia stares straight back at me.
"It means I know she's on a whole different level."
"I don't think you do," Flaminia says matter-of-factly. "Lucinda is the greatest magical talent in Amorium.”
“I’m the greatest baking talent,” I squeeze out a custom wink for her.
“Joey,” her voice comes back harsher. “Stop joking around like that. Hierarchies of levels are important. If you joke around the bakery like that or in any other professional environment, you are going to get yourself slapped silly. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I shrug. “Your people have weird things with levels. Forget about it.”
“Anyway, she is twenty and has never had one boyfriend. She is on a fast-track to entering the Nine Towers Academy as a pupil of some [Archmage]. She just needs to prove she's exceptional—and she started practicing barely two years ago. The only reason she's not already there is she started late, and her family is not rich. Her father is a [Tailor] and her mother a simple [Waitress]."
"So?"
"She has nobility pursuing her, Joey. Do you think she's going to even look at your green ears?"
If I have to be completely honest, I know where Flaminia is coming from. Lucinda is like a local superstar. And in a world where there are no smartphones, and you can't see how much better than you a five-year-old Chinese kid is, Lucinda is the big fish in a small pond. So there's a completely different level of reverence for her that is hard to explain unless you have toured any country’s small villages and towns in the pre-Instagram era.
But see, the thing is, women are still women at the end of the day. There's no gold nugget down there, just a normal person who has been put on a pedestal. And you'd be surprised how many people are scared of approaching people put on a pedestal for this exact reason. But, on a whole other level, it makes things much easier for someone who has absolutely no shame.
I learned from my Italian cousin back on the Old Continent that Italian men are not naturally good at flirting and charming women. It's all about the women themselves. For some reason, getting ‘some’ back there is much harder than in most other countries. Therefore, men have to learn some really good flirting skills and put on what they call ‘their best bronze face;’ in other words, learning how to approach a girl without shame.
"Joey? Hellooooo," Flaminia waves a hand in front of my face.
"Sorry, I was thinking of my battle plan."
"You are going after her, aren't you?" Flaminia actually snorts this time.
"You bet, baby!" I shoot my custom wink at her.
"It will be hard, you know?"
"Food tastes the best when you are hungry," I say, wisely.
"What?"
"I don't know. I just said the first thing that came to mind. Only halfway through, I realized it didn't make sense."
"Do you ever turn the enchantment off?" Flaminia is still laughing at my idiocy.
"Nah..."
Anyway, from what Flaminia’s told me, it appears I live in a lovely district. Or at least, that’s my first impression of the place. No noxious fumes, no cabs speeding to strike as many pedestrians as possible, and no swarms of homeless people around me. Who would have thought a medieval city full of Elves would be better than New York City? So far, there’s much less dog poop here—and this is a town probably doesn’t even have a proper sewer system. Wait, didn’t the Agostina lady say something about sewers? Or was it about the bathroom? Whatever.
As we keep walking and exchanging comments about pretty much anything, something comes to my mind. I look around, and again, I actually can’t smell human excrement either. I used to think that the Middle Ages were all about dumping your waste onto the streets. Am I a timeist? Eraist? Epochist? ‘Timeist’ does sound like those smug people with yellowed tote bags that flaunt their digital newspaper subscriptions. If I go back home, that’s what I’ll call them.
"Do your people throw shit out of the window in the morning?" I ask out of the blue.
"WHAT?!" Flaminia looks absolutely shocked at what I just said.
"Hum, like, you shit into basins and then throw them out?"
"For the World's Tree! Do you Humans do that with your excrement? You truly are... wild. Sorry if that’s speciesist."
"What? No, we don't. I mean, I don't. I don't know about other Humans. I'm used to having a sewer system."
"So am I," Flaminia says with her eyebrows still raised. "Unless you live in a village outside the city, that's what everyone uses. Amorium has one of the best sewer systems in the whole country. And, personally, I'm a city girl. I don't like to go to the countryside."
This is interesting. Or... disappointing.
Yeah, deep down, I’m a bit disappointed by the lack of human manure. If I ever manage to go back, I’ll be sorely disappointed that I won’t be able to tell people that I was knee-deep in human excrement.