“GOURFREND!?” Veish messily blurted the word with a mouth half-full of water, spraying droplets all over the floor, and leading into a cough. She’d been greedily drinking the water from a saucer and bucket in her hands, the bucket having been fetched and filled from the public well outside by Rum.

“Yes.” The wizard replied. “It seems to me the smartest option for us being able to explain your presence here, with me, is if we tell people you are my girlfriend.”

“That’s–no, no-no-no. I don’t want people to think I’m like that with YOU.” She put down the saucer and bucket.

“Oh? Why not?” Rum put his hands to his sides.

“That’s so... embarrassing.”

“Me?” Rum raised an eyebrow.

“Yes–well, no. It’s embarrassing in general, you’d just be extra embarrassing because you’re you, the guy who keeps a witch – me – in his closet.”

“Nobody else knows about that.” Rum gestured about the room, empty of anyone besides them and White Rose.

“I WILL KNOW! That’s–” she paused, finding the word, “–awkward enough.”

“How do we explain to other curious people our relationship then?”

“The relationship of you as my captor?” She gave him a look.

“We step outside this building there will be people who notice us together.” Rum pushed. “We’ll need some explanation, and one that doesn’t end up with you in Andertun.”

“Anything other than girlfriend.” She sighed–then stopped mid sigh: “What about friend! Or better: colleague! I’m a mage too!”

“What about Amez? Who owns the shop you and I stay in?”

“Sister?”

“He’s my brother, if we’d tell him you’re my sister, you’d be his sister too.”

“Daughter?”

“Raises a lot of questions, also, that’s ridiculous: I’m hardly that much older than you. What are you? 25? I’m 27. It’d be absurd if I made you when I was 2!” Rum chuckled. “And we can’t believably lie about your age that much.”

“I’m 22.” She frowned slightly. “But fine, that won’t work. Still, I just don’t want to pretend to be somebody’s girlfriend.”

Rum nodded, stroking his beard. “But if Amez or somebody else finds out you live in this room...” The wizard let the sentence hang in the air.

Veish grimaced a constipated look of thought. “Colleague. Just say I’m your colleague. You’re helping me, because I need a place to stay. It’s not that far from the truth.”

“Might not be enough for Amez.” Rum looked over at White Rose, who’d been following the conversation from next to the closet. “My little brother is generous, but he’s already sheltering White Rose for me. I’m not entirely sure his generosity would extend over to you, also.”

“Well” she said, her tone and face becoming hard, “that’s just a risk we’ll have to take, then.”

“Colleague.” Rum stroked his beard slowly, eyeing the witch thoughtfully. “It’s your future.” He nodded, saying nothing more of the topic, and instead began a new one: “So, food.”

Veish’s whole demeanor got to attention. “We’ll eat!?” Her words a little quick, her expression a mix of concern, excitement and veiled pleading.

“Yes. Let’s go to an eatery not far from here. They should be serving breakfast about now. Though I’m usually forced to do lunch-for-breakfast there, not often somebody wake me this early.” He gave Veish a look that could plausibly have been interpreted as accusational.

The duo walked down the streets, a pair of mages in white and blue, a wizard and a witch. The sky was blue, the sun peeking behind a few clouds, and there was a gentle breeze. A day almost as nice as they could hope for in Ermos. Many people gave them curious glances though. Veish appeared a little self-conscious of the staring, her face a little nervous and her eyes mostly downcast. Rum didn’t give the crowd much thought, though he did keep one eye on Veish. Would she try and run? Veish didn’t return his long glances as he tried seeing through her with analytic, judging eyes. How committed is she to the plan? I can’t do much but offer her the opportunity to earn my trust now. I really hope she’ll use it.

About 8 minutes of strolling past watching- and glancing pedestrians, a few carts and wagons, some mounted rich folk, as well as a couple of city guard patrols that made Veish visibly nervous and scowling with contempt; they came upon a large two-storey establishment. Outside it, and across an entire section of windowless wall there was painted a large text: The Belly Filler – Food Be Here. Below the text followed a simplistic and vividly exaggerated illustration of a dwarf woman stuffing her face with bread in the one hand, and sausage on a fork in the other, her belly pregnant with food. Or just actually pregnant? The former makes more contextual sense. Although–maybe it’s just a very feminine-looking dwarf man? But in that case, that’s a very big chest for a dwarf man, and also, how many dwarf men would shave off all of their beard?

Veish looked at Rum, and followed his eyes. He was staring at the dwarf probably-lady’s chest. Veish looked back at him. “Are we going to get food, or are you just going to stare at the woman?”

“Woman, eyh?” Rum shook his head in disapproval. “This art is confusing.”

At that Veish herself expressed confusion, but Rum said nothing, and just walked past her, and up to a short stairway leading to the establishment’s squeaky old wooden double-doors, in and out of which a few customers moved with various degrees of hurry. Food back on her mind, Veish dropped the matter, and hastily followed Rum as he walked up the stairs and entered.

The duo quickly went over to an available nearby spot and grabbed themselves seats at a table. A busy dwarf waitress with orange hair and 4 long thick braids – 2 on either side – was soon at their side, a blackboard tablet in one hand, and a piece of chalk ready to write orders in the other. “What can I get you?”

“Today’s breakfast. One each.” Rum replied. The wizard caught a glance as the waitress wrote a single symbol down on the blackboard, together with the number 2, and a couple of dwarven runic symbols that matched a hand-sized white paint on the old wooden table. The waitress quickly ran off to take another table’s orders.

“This is a cheap place to get food” Rum commented, as the 2 mages looked about, “many nearby workers come here.” The duo sat on the edge of what was a very long table. One long table among many in fact. Each of the floors here had rows of 2 such tables stretching across the slightly shorter end of the room running parallell to the streets. Across the long end that went from the street on the one side to the street on the other, many such rows of long tables combined into a grid of sorts. The place was truly big, the ceilings also tall, and the atmosphere definitely open and slightly noisy. Nobody were shouting exactly, but there were a lot of people producing a lot of small conversations. Along the table Rum and Veish sat at, there were 3 more groups of people down towards the other end, including dwarves, humans and urban elves. At some other nearby table there were even a couple of mecha-gnomes. Some of the customers gave the mage duo curious glances, but otherwise most people here were busy with their own little world of food and private conversations.

“So this is how the rest of you live.” Veish mumbled, eyes taking in the environment.

Rum raised an eyebrow. “What you mean? The people of Ermos?”

Veish shook her head lightly. “No.”

Rum continued his raised eyebrow, but Veish ignored it, and said nothing more.

“Ehm.” Rum produced after a while of uncomfortable silence. “Have you perhaps considered how you’d live your life here. Perhaps find some kind of profession? Or something to earn food on the table, a place to sleep – that kind of thing.”

Veish let her lips hang. It was clear she didn’t like the situation, even if she was curious about her environment, and perhaps about the new direction her life was taking. “I don’t know.” She crossed her arms on the table and leaned down into them. May she be crying? Rum considered, but if she were, he couldn’t see nor hear it. She just sat there leaned fully forward onto the table, staring directly into the fabric of her new robe, her new hat covering her face and head like a little shelter from the world.

Rum sighed. He wasn’t sure what to do or say in this situation. Eventually, after some time had passed, he asked: “Do you miss the sisterhood?”

It took a few seconds before a reply came, and when it did, it was muffled by her arm and fabric. “Yes.” The voice could’ve been crying, but Rum wasn’t sure.

Rum stroked his beard, slowly. He felt pity for the young woman, and yet he was also all too aware of the reason she was in this situation.

The food arrived. It was a piece of fresh bread, some salted butter, a few slices of mostly fresh fruit, baked beans and fried potatoes. It wasn’t luxury, but it was cheap, it was filling, and it kept you mostly nourished. Rum started shoveling food with a wooden spoon, and poked at Veish’s arm to nudge her. “Food’s here.” Wooden cups with some watered-down juice were quickly delivered next.

Veish got up. Her lips hanging with mild depression, but there were no signs of tears. She grabbed a piece of fried potato, used the wooden spoon to smear some salted butter on it, and started eating. She was actually very hungry, and so as soon as the first bite was in her mouth and she tasted it, hunger overtook depression. Her next bite happened faster, and the one after that faster still, until she was displaying an appetite more vigorous than most of the nearby workers.

Rum smiled at the scene, and took to enjoying fresh bread himself with some of the butter. “You know, I only recently came back to Ermos.” He began chatting. Veish glanced at him for a second, before focusing back on her food. “I’ve been gone for 6 years. A lot of things happened while I was gone, obviously, while some things stayed the same.” She looked up at him again. Before her eyes moved over to her cup, and she grabbed it, drinking. “I was wondering if you, perhaps, would like to take a stroll about the city with me. Who knows what we’ll stumble upon?” Veish chewed and swallowed, giving Rum a couple of glances in-between.

“Okay.” She let out between a couple of swallows.

Rum smiled some more, and nodded. They both soon finished their meals, and Rum put money on the table for the food and drink.

“Any place you would like to visit first?” he offered.

“University.” Veish responded, not even taking the time to think.

“Well, let’s do that then!” Rum’s smile broadened. “Maybe I could visit one of the wandmakers near there, and chat a little about how those things are made.” He began walking towards a door, leading into the street opposite the one they’d entered. “I don’t want to seem overconfident, and I’d just like to clarify that I only thought I might be able to make a better wand than the one you had because the enchantment on it was a little weak, but it all depends on how difficult making a wand is to begin with, of course.” They began strolling. ”When I attended the university, I only underwent some rudimentary learning on magic empowering tools. I remember it was fun to learn about wands, though they’re a little limited in my opinion, compared with staffs.” Rum rambled on as they moved away from Southwall, so named because its buildings sat furthest south within the city walls. “Staffs, you see, have more surface area on which to inscribe runes, and more volume to accomodate great magic before they become leaky or fracture. Although I don’t know the details, there’s also differences in materials used and how they’re enchanted.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“I know a wand from a staff.” Veish commented, a sour expression on her. “I’m not uneducated. We actually learn much of the same things.”

“You do?” Rum’s eyes opened wide a little. “You had tutors? Or is there some secret academy for witches of The Desolate Lands?”

“Elders teach us.” She answered without looking at him. “In groups.”

“Oh. So I guess that’s a little bit like lectures at classrooms?” Rum paused to think for a second as they walked. “Do you have libraries?”

“We share books.” Veish mumbled. “There are enough books.”

Rum said nothing for a bit, before letting out a simple: “Interesting.”

They entered The Middle Streets, an area that covered most of the middle section between the northern and southern parts of the walled area of Ermos City.

“Just north of here is The Flipped University” Rum gestured, “with Old Ermos Town a little further north of that. The big marketplace we just passed through” he gestured behind them, “is The Middle Market.” Gesturing in yet another direction he continued: “If we head east and north from this district we’d reach The Marble Streets. And before the marketplace we were in Southwall, that’s the place where my brother’s shop is, and The Belly Filler. Traders, craftspeople and the likes mostly live there, or they live to the north in Old Ermos Town. The Middle Streets–” he gestured about, “–are mostly a place for support staff, like for the university, or The Marble Streets.”

They rounded a corner together, and came in sight of a river, running through between buildings. Rum pointed: “This river runs from The Marble Streets, through here, down west and south. There it sort-of works like a border over to The Raven’s Slum. Poor and forgotten people live there, mostly. Meanwhile, anybody who is or wants to be anyone live in these more upper-connected and favored areas of the City.”

Rum stopped and noticed that Veish’s face became a little sad at this explanation. He stared at her while they walked along the river for a bit, before mentally shrugging and deciding to continue. “There’s also a Mage’s Quarter north and west of here, adjacent the university. It’s a tiny little hub with arcane stone- and wooden towers. The mages there are basically in a competition for who has the tallest and grandest tower.” Rum smiled. Veish didn’t smile. Rum’s smile faltered, and he sighed. “Mostly just the wealthy senior university staff that live there. Educators and researchers of high renown, that sort. And of course their private servants and apprentices live there too, just not in towers.”

Rum and Veish walked together silently for a while, Rum’s mind running with thoughts. She knows, perhaps? The fate of The Raven’s Slum? He cast the witch glances; observing her, considering her; his thoughts entertaining a growing uncertainty. Should I tell her? His eyes hardened. How The Raven’s Slum actually came into being after generations of refugees settled there, but never managed to get a new life? How most of the ones who live there now are descendants of people who fled the fall of The Three Cities, but never were given opportunities once they arrived here – eventually ending up stuck in perpetual cycles of generational poverty? Rum weighed the dilemma, envisioning the possible outcomes of speaking about the topic. I think... No. If she’s actually sad, that won’t be what she needs to hear. And me saying something that could be interpreted as blame by association probably won’t do any good. Also, while it’s true the dungeon lords are responsible for the refugee crisis occurring; ultimately this City, its people and its organizations, must realize their responsibility for providing a life of opportunity for those that come here. The city must be admit that The Raven’s Slum is the failure of more than its own inhabitants – it’s the failure of the whole City. Rum breathed heavy with his nose, like an internal sigh.

They passed wooden houses after wooden houses, some narrow and small, largely undecorated or otherwise lacking in style; some wide and large, well decorated and stylish. The poorer servants and assistants lived short distances from their richer employers here, the latter often being owners of establishments, middle managers, bureaucrats, and other functionaries for the various businesses, guilds, or the City’s few government bureaus like The Tax Office, The City Guard and The Military Council. Many times Rum and Veish saw individuals with the demeanors and attires of lower status, servants and assistants probably, speed walking or running about with baskets, sacks or small carts, wherein lay delicious foods, beautiful clothing, items of furniture or decoration or the like. They’re doing errands for their employers, probably? Rum thought, noticing the stream of people mostly happening to- and from the direction of The Middle Market. There were also many non-magical but robed individals doing the same speed walking and running about. In their arms or in satchels they carried scrolls, small- and large sheets of paper, books or sometimes instruments.

Together with all of this busying about though, there were another category of people who generally looked and behaved quite different. Many people with attire practically screaming middle- to high status sat within open cafes or -bakeries that stretched out from their buildings and way into the wide streets. For these people, their focus was pleasure. They drank tea and coffee with either peaceful calm or giddiness. Many of them moaning from bites of delicious-looking pastries, or spoons full of their small but exquisite meals. They all more or less looked to deeply appreciate the sunny weather. Laboring around them were another kind of low-status people: the ones cleaning tables, serving the foods and drinks, cooking and baking in the background, moving kegs of wine and the like. Many of the cafes also had elaborate garden-features, and Rum and Veish both glanced over as they came upon a gardener trimming the bushes that grew around a selection of tea-drinking, biscuit-cracking, noble-like ladies and gentlemen. Out on a flirt, perhaps, Rum judged, as several of the women there burst into giggles at something that’d been said by a handsome, fashionably dressed young man at their round table.

A few more minutes of walking and the mage pair ascended a small incline of the street. Reaching the top of it the witch saw, for the first time, the world renowned university – “The world’s only upside-down university” Rum uttered, as if trying to comment on her thoughts. Veish’s face was lit up with quiet amazement at what now lay before them in distance. The main building itself was hundreds of meters long, and built with stone bricks in a way reminiscient of a castle. On the outside, the building bore the general outline of a grand hall making up most of its body. On the inside though, Rum knew this (not really) hall divided up into several floors with myriads of rooms large and small. The things that really made its outside resemble a castle though, were not the hall-like-area, but its built-in spiring towers of stone, with metal pieces pointing from its upside-down roofs and sides, and straight into the earth. These gave Flipped its style, but they did more than that too. In fact, the university’s main building had only 3 entrances, and they were all at the ends of its 3 longest towers. Near the ground, there had been built ramps, kinda like bridges or stairs that led up and stopped abruptly mid air. There, these ground structures connected over finger-long gaps with the upside-down, enlarged, open windows near the towers’ tips. Powerful enchantments worked at these curious entrances, and Rum and Veish both looked on as people streamed back and forth over the close gap of one such tower entrance, their bodies moving in and out of its window, all in a manner that left them briefly but gently rotating to end up in either the normal world of the ramps, or the counter-intuitive reverse-gravitational environment of the towers, where from the outside, those people appeared to be walking upside down, attached perfectly to the tower’s upside-down floors. To Rum, Veish and probably most other outside spectators, the perfection of this inversion made it look as if it was in fact they – the spectators – who were the ones actually hanging upside down. The mind simply didn’t know how to interpret looking at this inversion from the outside, and staring at it too long simply made one dizzy in the eyes, and dazed in the mind.

“Incredible.” Veish mumbled, her eyes unable to turn away from the nearest tower, nor the constant stream of wizards, witches and support staff stepping in and out it, whereupon the magic swallowed them up or released them out, each time with equal gentleness.

“That’s where most of the classrooms and offices are.” Rum pointed at the enormous reality-bending main building. “Along with some rooms and hallways in the upper floors – or rather, the floors closest to the ground – that are forbidden for students. Since those areas are mostly forbidden I don’t really know what goes on there, but I think the rooms are mostly for small meetings, high-risk magic laboritories, and specialized libraries. At least that’s what I’ve picked up from the teachers who ventured there.” Rum and Veish moved along at a slow pace. Behind them, the architecture and busyness of The Middle Streets started changing into a new atmosphere. Ahead, of course, lay The Flipped University grounds. Here was a huge and beautifully decorated park, the size of which seemed to encompass and mark down most of university’s area. Along these greens, students of all the peoples: humans, urban elves, green elves, mecha-gnomes and many young dwarves; sat on benches, lay on blankets, or stepped around in the grass, with shoes or barefoot. Between vividly colorful gardens, tiny ponds, large lone trees, enclosing hedges, marble statues, and the occasional animal enclosure; the students read and contemplated books, scrolls or sheets of paper. Some students who apparently didn’t want to study, instead lazied about like cats in the warm sunlight. Others in turn were quite motivated to transcend the theoreticals, with energized dwarf boys and dwarf girls practising various simple spells in the air next to humans doing the same. And not far from them, a smiling group of young green-elves practised magic on plants picked from their surroundings. Further yet still, Rum’s eyes caught the sight of a couple of fascinated little mecha-gnomes trying to enchant a small metal item in the palms of tiny gloved hands. There were no combat spells though, because of course, Rum reminded himself, the university doesn’t like the chance that such spells may cause significant damages outside of controlled environments. Which reminds me... He looked over to a middle-sized longhouse of heavy bricks, sitting on a far away spot within the park, a spot very close to one of the main building’s tower entrances, though not so close as to partake in any of the gravity-flipping magic. “That’s” he gestured, “where war-mages, and others who dabble in war-magic, come to train.” Veish followed his eyes and hands to the building. “I’ve barely been there myself though. Never been much of an enthusiast for war-magic.” He scanned the rest of the campus buildings, spread around the park, or sitting at the border between the park and The Middle Streets. He began pointed at each, explaining their functions: “That’s a place for reading. That’s a miniature library for common magic books. That’s a beastiary” he pointed at a small house-like building connected to what looked liked a huge bird cage the size of multiple buildings, “and that’s another beastiary” he moved his pointing finger to what looked more like a small fort of stone, roughly square in shape, with beastial noises ascending from its walls. “That’s an observatory.” He pointed at a building cylindrical at its base, but leading up into a spherical structure, most of which was see-through glass, with holes in its roof-area where large glass lenses concentrated in several layers. “For years they’ve been trying to find evidence of either Naghmath or Trivili on The Vibrant Moon there. So far they’ve been mostly failing. Though that said, when I was here 6 years ago they were talking about maybe, finally, focusing on other stuff. Since then, they’ve been writing scrolls about what hides in the great cosmos” Rum gestured at the skies, “which envelops our world.” He further pointed to some other buildings, explaining them as supplemental laboratories, magical workshops, closed gardens for rare plants, closed ponds for rare aquatic creatures, small beastiaries for small animals, insect hotels, more places for reading and studying, and buildings for storing magical as well as non-magical equipment. There were also restaurants, cafes and bakeries catering to students and faculty staff at the edges of the park. One extra large independent tower, pointing the normal way of upwards, sat in the front center of the large park. Its walls were made of spotless black marble, upon which was carved lines filled with shining gold, the patterns of which produced great artistic artworks that showed mythical and quasi-historical scenes of magic. This tower further featured a number of interesting features, including wide balconies with beautiful small gardens, a balcony with a pool of bubbling hot water, steam rising visibly from it where Rum and Veish stood. A couple of other balconies in turn were completely shielded off from the rest of the world by some kind of black crystaline glass, and most surprising of all: there were no entrances at its base. Rum gestured towards it. “And that, finally, is where The Grand Mage lives. They say The Grand Mage is the supreme head of the university, but nobody seems to know who it really is. When I was a student we often speculated it may be Irridiklara” Veish suddenly turned all her attention from the view and onto Rum, “because she always gets her way and nobody ever interfers with her. But, she usually just behaves like any other professor, and nobody has ever seen her alone on the tower. Only on the balconies with other professors. And nobody has ever seen her walk inside, or anyone at all walk inside really. Nobody even knows where the entrance is.”

Veish looked at Rum with considerably raised interest. “Irridiklara?” She asked as if she hadn’t heard right, her mouth standing half open, and her eyes widened.

“Yes.” Rum said, surprised at her interest.

“Have you met Irridiklara?” Veish walked closer to Rum, as they both entered into the large open park grounds.

“Yes, multiple times. In fact, I met her just a few weeks ago. She attended a presentation I was holding.”

“You know her, then?”

“Depends upon on what you mean by knowing?” Rum raised an eyebrow. “I’ve interacted with her, but I don’t have any more of a relationship with her than most other students here.”

“Right.” Veish said, and took her eyes off Rum. “She’s a teacher, you said. What does she teach?”

“Advanced Magic Fundamentals it’s called, if I remember correctly. Her classes are supposed to be particularly tough I’ve heard. You practically need to be a many-year researcher yourself to take them. She only teaches 1 or 2 semesters totally every 3 years, and she won’t let more than a few people become her direct students. But the people who do become her students, for them, success and a life of great opportunities is virtually guaranteed.” Rum lingered in thought on memories of some students his senior, people who’d displayed exceptional learning capacities and managed to get into that class. He recalled all the amazing spellwork they turned out afterwards, and all the attention they had received as the chosen few – as Irrid’s chosen. They instantly got offers from rich families to tutor their magic-inclined sons and daughters, for ridiculously large pay too. Would I have been chosen at some point too, I wonder? Probably not. I ain't really that good of a student. Too much of my own self-given homework in what I do, and too little actual homework.

“There.” Rum pointed at a building in the distance, hiding behind several of the park’s trees. “That’s Fareris’ Wand Shop. Let’s visit him and have a look around.”