Nathan felt overwhelmed. If the southern harbor was big and busy, then the northern harbor was gigantic and overcrowded. He couldn't see the end of it, but if he had to guess, it would be at least three times as big as its southern counterpart. Far at the northern end, a majestic castle towered over the area. The harbor was densely packed with ornamented buildings, belonging to several merchant guilds, luxurious stores and even the warehouses emanated an aura of wealth. Jim smirked when he saw Nathan's astonishment.

“See? I told you the southern harbor area looks shabby compared to this. ”With a proud look on his face, he spread his arms out.“ This is what Port Verago really looks like. Just forget those shitty southern slums.”

“You sound like you built this city. Keep it down a bit. ”Joe admonished his brother.

“I don't want to hear that from someone who doesn't have any aspirations except for his military career.”

Nathan paid no attention to the squabble of the brothers. He was too distracted by what he saw. When he entered Port Verago for the first time, he didn't feel anything special. The buildings were just a floor higher and built closer together than in his village, but there wasn't much of a difference between the overall quality, and he even felt a bit disappointed. After he left the guard station this morning and saw the stone buildings, he was quite excited and thought, that this was the city, his parents described in their stories. But entering the northern part of Verago completely stunned him. He had never even thought of such buildings, let alone seen them. It was the first time he felt like a naive country bumpkin, and he didn't like it. Trying not to let Jim and Joe notice how big the impact on him was, he downplayed it.

“Yes, it looks pretty nice.”

“Just nice huh?” Jim grinned and nudged his brother with the elbow. “Guess you're rather often here then.”

Joe interrupted him.

“I see the ferry, with Moria's flag, at dock 17. Let's go.”

They had to expend some effort to walk through the mass of people, but ten minutes later, they arrived at the dock. The ferry, belonging to Moria, was one of the modern ships without sails. When Nathan saw it, his heartbeat started to increase, there weren't many things that excited him more than things related to magic. He carefully examined the ship. It was a medium-sized wooden vessel with a length of roughly 13 meters. Because it didn't have a mast, nearly the whole deck was covered with a wooden structure, which reminded Nathan of an inn. But no matter where he looked, he couldn't find the magic tool used to control the ship. Right when he wanted to walk along the hull to search for it, Joe stopped him.

“Its time to part Nathan, please board the ferry as soon as possible and don't wander around. I don't want to be held accountable by the captain if something happens after we leave.”

“Yes Sir, I will stay on the ferry. Thank you for bringing me here.”

“No Problem, it was a duty and pleasure.” He waved at Nathan and turned around to leave. Joe winked at him and followed his brother.

“Brother, I bet you're hungry, let's go to ...” Nathan could only hear a few words until they were swallowed by the noise of the harbor. He turned around excited, impatient to board the ferry. When he got close to the landing stage, a bald old man, with a grey full beard intercepted him.

“Dear Sir, you're here to travel to Gilsbeck?”

“Yes, I am.”

“One person?”

“Yes.”

“That's 15 silver then, food and drinks not included.”

That amount of money was quite a lot for Nathan, but he happily paid for it. Not only would he soon arrive at his school and leave this cursed city behind him, but he would also do so on a boat driven by magic. He took the money out of his purse and handed it to the old man.

“I wish you a nice journey.”

Anticipating the boat trip, Nathan forgot his usual politeness and went up the stage without answering. When he arrived on deck, a middle-aged man in sailor clothes greeted him.

“Heya boy, you want to travel to Gilsbeck?”

Confused Nathan answered, “Yes?”

“That's 15 silver then, food and drinks not included.”

“What?”

“15 silvers.”

“But I just paid the money?”

Now it was the sailor's turn to be confused. “To whom?”

“To your work-mate down there.” Nathan pointed towards where the old man stood. The place was empty. The sailor laughed out loud.

“You've got scammed there, boy. Why would you pay someone money who isn't even on the ship?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Nathan blushed. He never had expected, that a person would be shameless enough, to do something like that. Still laughing the sailor sad with as much of a serious voice as he could muster,

“I hope you still have 15 silver boy, or I can't let you on board.”

Nathan begrudgingly took out another 15 silvers and handed it to the man.

“Welcome on board boy. If you feel thirsty, go to our bar and tell Miranda that Hammok owes you a drink. A treat for the nice story, that I can tell later” He had a broad grin in his face.

“Thank you.” With a red face, Nathan hurried towards the restaurant on deck, still hearing the laughter behind him.

The interior of the restaurant was rather unimpressive. A woman was working at a wide, clean counter, right at the entrance. A bit farther back were several rows of sparely occupied wooden benches and tables. When Nathan saw, that the large hall was lit up by mana lamps instead of the more common lanterns, he forgot his disappointment immediately.

The woman at the counter finished cleaning a jug and asked Nathan, “Can I help you with something?”

“No, thanks.” Nathan answered reflexively. “Or yes, the man collecting the money, Hammok I think, told me that I can have a free drink.”

“Did he say that, yes? Then what shall it be young man?”

“I don't know, what can I get?”

“Well, we have ale, wine-” Nathan interrupted her.

“Maybe something without alcohol? I'm not so good with it.”

“Oh, ok. Water or fruit juices then I guess.”

“Any fruit juice then, thank you.” He smiled at her. The woman turned around and took out a pitcher from a weird-looking cabinet, then filled a cup for Nathan and handed it to him.

“Oh,” Nathan was surprised, “it's cold!”

“Of course it is, if I don't store it in the cooler it would go bad.”

“A cooler?” Nathan encountered so many things, he didn't know, in the past two days, he didn't feel that surprised anymore.

“You don't know what a cooler is? It was invented in Moria a decade ago, it uses mana essence to keep everything, you put in, cool.”

“It's a magic tool? How does it work? Can I take a look at its circuit?”

“Calm down young man, I don't know anything about magic, so I can't tell you how it works, and I have no access to the circuits either.”

Nathan's elation was curbed. “Okay, too bad.”

He sat down at the counter and looked at the strange cabinet. He guessed, that it was about two meters away from him. From his experience it was a bit too far to see the mana clearly, nonetheless, he had to try. Concentrating on the mana in the room, his vision became clearer, he could barely see a huge quantity of dense mana above the cabinet. From time to time a tiny amount of mana dropped down on something that looked like a straight line.

Nathan grumbled to himself, “Ah screw it. Of course, I can't see anything sideways. I would have to look down on it.”Nathan stood up with a bleak smile.

“Thank you for the drink.”

He took his cup and carried it over to a bench, which was located right below one of the magic lamps. Looking at the lamp, his joyless smile turned happy again.

“Then the lamp it is.”

Again he concentrated on the mana surrounding him. This time he had more success. He saw a small cluster of dense mana in the lamp, where, once again, tiny drops of mana regularly fell on the circuit below it. The rough outline of the circuit appeared in front of his eyes, he could guess its basic form due to his experience with the illumination spell, but he couldn't see any details. Without hesitation Nathan climbed on the bank, staring at the lamp from half a meter distance. Similar to the weird, melted box from the last evening, the circuit of the magic lamp consisted of many small, interlinked and identical spiral patterns. The links between the spirals were weird, complex structures, with many corners and crossings. Intrigued Nathan tried to memorize as much of that pattern as possible when someone grabbed him from behind and carried him off the bench.

“Hey, what are you doing?!" Nathan shouted in surprise.

“What the hell are YOU doing?” A muscular big man, with a similar appearance as the guard in the magic store, he had to flee from yesterday, scolded Nathan.

“Are you trying to blind yourself, you fool?”

Nathan squinted his eyes a bit, trying to get rid of the iridescent spots in his vision. He justified himself. “Of course not, I was studying!”

“Studying my ass. You stared at the light, as if you were a moth, and regretted not to be able to fly into it!”

Annoyed Nathan retorted, “So what? Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do?”

“You ungrateful bastard. If you don't care about yourself, then at least care about your family! Who is supposed to care for your parents or spread your family if you go blind? A man has his duties!”

Nathan swallowed his anger at the mention of his family. Losing all motivation to argue with the man he turned around and went out of the restaurant, without uttering another word. Infuriated the man shouted after him. “What, sulking now? Grow some balls kid!”

Ignoring the yell, Nathan went to the bow of the ferry and leaned on the rail. Everything that happened the past few days came into his mind again. He was furious. Furious about that man, for his intrusion, furious at the unknown group that destroyed his village, furious at himself for being unable to shout that man down.

“Fuck it!” He hit the rail in frustration.

A voice came from behind. “He didn't have any ill will towards you, mate.”

Nathan turned around. “And you are?”

In front of him stood a lean youth, that had short, messy hair with a color that reminded Nathan of wood of the walnut tree, that stood in front of his window back home. Nathan had to raise his head a bit, to look into his eyes.

“I'm Terran. Hi.” He held his hand out to him. Nathan looked at it for a second, before shaking it reluctantly.

“He is a Rakvor. They're all about their clans and families. Guess he couldn't stay quiet.”

“It's not his business what I'm doing.” Nathan was still mad.

“True, but what exactly were you doing? It looked damn weird.”

“I was studying the mana circuit in the magic lamps.”

Terran raised his left brow. “Why were you studying the lamps? It's not like their circuits are a trade secret or something similar.”

His sentence got Nathan's attention.

“Where can I get the drawings to those mana circuits then?”

“You are traveling to the Gilsbeck Magic School, right?”

“How did you know?”

Terran laughed. “How would I not know, after you ignored the possibility to go blind, just to look at a mana circuit.”

“I guess you're right.” He awkwardly joined in Terran's laughter.

“The Gilsbeck Magic School has a huge library with all kinds of circuits, spells, and everything, just wait till we arrive and you can study as much as you want.”

“How do you know?”

“My father told me, he's an alumnus of Gilsbeck.” His voice carried pride.

“And you? Are you going to Gilsbeck too?”

The loud sound of a horn, signaling that the fairy embarked, interrupted their talk. Terran yelled to drown out the horn.

“Just enrolled. I'm traveling there for the first time myself.”

Nathan just nodded. He signaled Terran with his hand, to continue to talk inside the restaurant. Terran willingly agreed. While they were walking towards the entrance, the ferry started to leave the docks and move towards the open ocean.