The night was not kind to Rum, and filled him with terrors. A long nightmare of the arrow still stuck inside him ravaged his mind, and he woke up at dawn with a mild pain in his chest. He was sweating, his right hand clinging to where his lungs were. The dream had been both weird and terrifying. Sitting up in his bed and pulling aside his blanket, Rum noticed White Rose standing at the end of the bed. Ze was looking into the mirror, just as ze’d been doing hours ago. Noticing Rum in return in the reflection, White Rose turned around to look at him. No expression as always from a skeleton, though for the briefest of moments, Rum wondered if ze was not capable of that most primal of emotions: concerned curiosity. For I am after all was, at least for the most part: White Rose’s only real connection in this world. But he put that thought aside. No answers could be found in it, not yet at least.

Grabbing his blanket again with his both hands, he wept away a chunk of sweat from his forehead. After several wipes, he looked down at the large stain spot on it. This is not good, he thought. He continuing to wipe various spots on his face and neck. The blanket slowly became almost fully soaked. Looking down again at it, he thought again: Not good at all. I will have to do something. Today!

Staying in bed for a little while longer, he kept switching between wiping, and thinking back to the arrow which he’d felt in his dreams, piercing at his insides. Eventually he stepped out of bed, and looked over at his skeleton. “White Rose, I have to go somewhere.” The skeleton simply watched Rum as he left the bedroom.

My injuries are going to require exceptional arts of healing, Rum pondered as he walked out of the shop. A mild pain was still present in his lungs, as he strode down the dawn-lit streets of Ermos City, and on towards his brothers house. Arriving there several minutes later, Rum woke up a sleepy Amez who begrudgingly let him inside. Together around a table, Rum quizzed a sleepy Amez long and hard. Despite being tired, Amez did come to concerned attention when Rum explained the issue. When leaving Amez’s house, Rum was sent to talk to old rich customers of Amez, who his little brother had remembered, had talked about being patched up by famous physicians. In a tired but determined state himself, Rum strode across the city from district to district, eventually finding 2 such old customers, who put Rum on the trail to find the most capable doctors in the city. If I don’t find the best, I don’t find salvation, Rum encouraged himself, as he bore the back and forth walking across Ermos’ long streets. With insufficient sleep, he was now experiencing an almost perpetual state of fatigue. However, the damages still inside of Rum were so small, and so intricate, that Rum couldn’t imagine anyone but the foremost at the medical field were even able to properly understand his problem. Except perhaps in a superficial way, Rum sighed.

The running around the city that Rum experienced, and the quizzing of nearly a dozen different people, led him, eventually, to a sure name, and a sure location. The tiresome quest was bearing fruit, if yet not entirely ripe.

A few hours later, and Rum had now begun the next, and most importance stage of his quest: to find the cure. He stood outside, from across a wide, clean, and nearly empty street, gazing at a middle-sized building in front of him. The building in question was the offices of one of Ermos’ most trusted and respected doctor, loved by the rich and the powerful: Doctor Sharam, also known as Sharam The Great.

Surrounding Rum was an environment appropriate to the apparent eliteness of his doctor. Part of a beautiful, affluent district, the street’s stone pavements were lined by bright colorful flowerbeds and tall hedges, beyond which were marble structures and majestic marble sculptures. The sculptures in particular were sights to behold. They were many, and came in all sizes and depicting all manners of people, monsters and things, varying between cute, abstract, or historic, and then all the way to just plain horrific. It was a street, a district, of the rich and the powerful. This was the message of his surroundings.

Before coming here, Rum had tried for a brief break in his bed again. But with sleep unable to find him, Rum had decided he had to visit the doctor today, and now, while the sun was still up, and the doctor still available. Using Renew Clothes, Rum’s spell had left him with a very expensive looking dress, complete with useless rich-person decorations. Standing in the middle of this affluent district now, Rum looked practically at home here. His attire included multiple silvery embroidery, a red rose flower peeking out from a chest pocket, and big baggy sleeves. So baggy were the sleeves in fact, that it was almost like the dress itself was trying to show off just how much silky cloth Rum could afford, despite him randomly conjuring it for free out of thin air. His Become Clean spell had also, it appeared, conspired with Renew Clothes in order to make him presentable, as he now had an exquisitely braided beard which even smelled faintly of honey perfume. It might’ve been his imagination, but he also felt like a previously visible pimple on his neck had been covered up with some kind of magical make-up.

Regardless, Rum didn’t care much about any of this, besides the fact that his clothing was a little less comfortable than usual. That bothered him. But not too much. And so, instead of thinking any more about how he looked, and how this place looked, Rum just walked up towards the building, the important stage of his quest for health starting.

The front of the building – of which he had a perfect view – had marble walls decorated with an array of engraved depictions of acts of healing. The entrance, meanwhile, was a sleek glistening wooden frame, on top which hang a large garland of flowers and fresh pieces of tree. Everything about this place hummed with pride, wealth and even a little power. Stepping inside he came upon a hallway whose sides held further marble depictions where the doctor, or at least some doctor, was saving lives. There were depictions of serious operations, depictions of home-visits to bedridden nobles, and even a depiction of healing amidst an ongoing battle against the dungeon lords. Here, the nobles Rum noticed; were all glorified to the point of silly. As in: the battle mounts were just heaps of muscle under plated armor, every noble had a perfect figure, and they all stood in valiant poses – except the one noble being brought back to life by the doctor. He was valiantly dying instead, seeming prepared to give a long heroic speech, while an axe stuck out from his fully-muscled belly. Rum had been in a battle before. Not as a combatant, but he’d seen soldiers die, even two nobles die. Neither the soldiers nor the nobles came either fully-muscled or fully armored, and their last acts upon dying – especially when gutted by sharp weapons – was usually to cough up mountains of blood while relieving themselves. Most shameless of all, their loyal friends and followers would usually try to excuse themselves from the inconvenient mid-battle deathbed, leaving the less-than-heroic noble to bleed out and choke – alone, terrified and in agony.

Exiting the hallway, there appeared in front of Rum a human female nurse standing as a receptionist on his right, with a half-circle of comfy luxurious chairs on his left. One patient, a male urban elf, sat there with a swollen right foot resting in his lap. He was a younger, slightly less pompous-looking fellow than Rum. As Rum briefly stared, he felt just a tiny hint of superiority-by-pomposity comparing the two of them, though this feeling lasted for but one curious little indulgent moment. He turned to the nurse, who met him with the widest practiced smile.

“I would like an appointment with Doctor Sharam” he said, matter-of-factly. The nurse nodded at him and looked into an appointment book in front of her.

“You are in luck!” she said, appearing to show happiness on his behalf. “May I ask your name, lord?”

Rum pondered telling her he was not a lord. But she thinking he was a lord seemed quite convenient, and so, like a little white lie, he settled for an ambiguous answer. After all he’d been worried they would not allow him in here!

“My name is Rum.”

“Rum?” she said, puzzled for a moment. Rum suppressed a facepalm and an outward sigh at her tone. The name did not come off as very noble-like. In fact, Rum had himself reflected upon this before: It really makes me feel like the most unfortunate surprise child, in the most dysfunctional family, found in poorest streets of The Raven’s Slum. He actually knew why he’d been given that name, but he wasn’t about to share that fact with anyone, not yet at least.

“Yes” he simply said, trying to keep his dignity, “that is my name.”

The nurse looked at him awkwardly for but a second, then she smiled and seemed to have forgotten whatever thoughts had been going on in her head. “Well, Lord Rum, as I said, you are in luck today. Doctor Sharam has no more appointments for an hour at least. Do you wish to see the esteemed doctor right now?”

“Yes, that would be nice” and Rum smiled a little himself, feeling lucky and perhaps becoming infected by the nurse’s powerful smiling. Rum wondered if those lips of hers had been enchanted to produce this ability to spread her outward sentiment, but he put that strange thought away pretty quickly. She guided him down another overly decorated hallway, and into a room whose every wall was wood, with all of it slightly glistening. Around the room, various plants stood on top of shelves, with some standing along a window, and further more standing right next to a magnificently large curved desk.

On the opposite side of this desk sat the doctor, smoking a fat gold-lined cigar in a white coat. He, the doctor, was an above average-sized dwarf, and in fact, a rather beautiful dwarf. His hair blond half-long and stylish. His beard and moustache cut short for efficiency. His eyes though wore big round glasses causing them eyes to appear at ridiculous proportions, and yet it was very clear that were he to take them off, he’d look stunningly handsome. As the doctor tilted upwards from a stack of old paper on his desk, Rum couldn’t help but also notice a large golden-yellow bowtie at the dwarf’s neck, cementing an aura of luxury that’d otherwise permeated every wall of this building.

“Now, who is this one?” the dwarf doctor said in a deep, pleasant, but authoritative voice, putting out his cigar in a tray along the window waiting for a response.

The nurse bowed so low that her behavior looked rather ridiculous to Rum. Although to Rum: all forms of bowing was ridiculous. To him, such games of humility felt entirely unnatural. It’s like people are surrendering their self-worth, that was how he best could describe his unease with it. Something about submitting to a lower position in a hierarchy just stirred up a general worry in him.

“This Lord Rum wishes to consult the esteemed doctor” The nurse said, still not pulling up from her bow. The dwarf grabbed the stack of old paper in front of him, putting it all collectively to one side, then folded his hands looking straight up into Rum’s eyes.

“What seems to be the issue, Lord Rum?” As soon as the dwarf had spoken the nurse pulled up and silently walked back outside, presumably to the reception. On her way out she closed a door behind her, which Rum hadn’t noticed was there before now.

As the nurse disappeared, Rum returned his eyes back to the dwarf, immediately beginning his explanation: “I recently suffered an arrow to the lungs. With healing magic I’ve been able to heal most of it, but it seems the spells haven’t been able to deal with it entirely. I’m still suffering from what I believe to be a myriad of very tiny damages to my insides. The damages have recently begun disturbing my sleep, and in the day they keep me drained of stamina. I don’t know how to fix this, and so I seek the aid of a skilled healer. I’ve been told you are among the most skilled out there.”

The dwarf nodded along, then stood up, taking his time to walk around the table while talking: “Alright, I understand.” He said, pausing his talk briefly to stare at Rum with analytic intensity, before continuing, “Straight to the point, I see? Good, makes this all easier. You think you might have tissue scars? That’s what is sounds like to me. Damaged organ tissue that won’t properly heal? I’ve worked with cases like that before, and I could help you with that.”

“Great!” Rum beamed at the dwarf. The dwarf didn’t beam back. Instead he put his hands behind his back and started slowly pacing back and forth in front of Rum.

“Of course the solution I have in mind is likely to be a difficult procedure, Lord Rum. I will need to consult with my great apothecarian friend Irvanir The Bright, she’s a superb elf operating down near the City Forest. She can make a healing salve that is likely to help with your particular issue. It is very potent stuff that you can’t get many other places. Of course I will also have to consult with my colleague Doctor Morvan, a fellow dwarf. Also a surgeon who specializes in these kind of intricate operations. Yes, all in all, I can help you with this issue of yours. Though I’ll need to take a proper look at you myself first, in order to ascertain that we have the right diagnosis here.” The dwarf paused for a moment, put his hands up to his beard and started massaging his chin thinkingly. After a moment had passed he added “Have you sorted out payment with my nurse yet, Lord Rum? I’m afraid this sort of problem can be quite expensive to solve, seeing as we’ll need three of Ermos’ finest healers to resolve the issue.”

Rum couldn’t help but notice the dwarf had included himself in that sentence. Humility was for the lower ranking members it seemed, and not a concept worthy of the higher ranks. On the subject of payment, well… that’s the topic I’ve been dreading. He had been hoping that he might just use Self-Running Legs to escape the bill once the fix had taken place, leaving behind his share of the money from the loot, in order to cover what part of the expenses he could afford. This plan had seemed to be working right up until about now. But maybe it can still work?

“Yes I have. But what kind of payment – purely out of curiosity – are we looking at here?”

“Oh” the dwarf thought to himself, massaging his chin some more. “Hmm. I’ll have to double check, but a rough estimate it’ll be right around 460 gold?”

Rum had never been much worried about money, but when he’d received his 3 gold and 50 silver (remember he’d given White Rose ze’s share), he’d felt almost rich. But now this dwarf wanted way above 100 times what he had, and he felt dirt poor. Rum managed to not express his poverty in any way though, and just nodded along, like 460 gold was the most normal sum of money in the world, and not 4.6 MILLION COPPER COINS!

“Good then. Let’s have a see, shall we?”

The next fifteen minutes the dwarf studied Rum, even casting spells on him intended to study his condition, and evaluate the medical narrative they’d been starting with. In the end the dwarf confirmed most of Rum’s suspicions. He had a significant amount of scarred tissue, which would need a magically enhanced healing salve to overcome the scarring, and quite skilled surgeon hands in order to perfectly administer the concoction. Rum was asked to come back later to arrange the time and the place for the operation, and thus it all seemed to be over – for now.

As Rum walked out of Doctor Sharam’s building though, a plan started to form inside his head. He could not get 460 gold, or 4.6 million copper, to pay the outrageous sum for his healing. Neither could he go on like this. He decided he’d need to go one step further than his previous plans for escape, as they’d discover he had no money before the operation could even take place. What he would have to do, is to recreate the skills of Doctor Sharam in a spell, and use it on himself.

Rum stood in the middle of the street outside the building, thinking. He turned about, facing the building, and stretched out his hand. With his mana he reached out, all the way inside, down both hallways, into the doctor’s office room, before spreading his mana all across the dwarf known as Sharam The Great.

“Mana Ghost” he whispered.

With his mana he felt the dwarf on the other side almost instantly collapse on top of his desk. A few seconds later and a trail of magic flew through the hallway up towards him. Reaching him it swirled up along his arm, over his shoulder, and around his neck, before settling into his forehead. Panicked shouts and yells could be heard from the nurse inside who seemed to have come across the collapsed dwarf, probably as a cause of curiosity seeing the magical trail that’d been created. Rum wasn’t worried about the dwarf though, it was just the body’s brief shock response to having its essences copied, and the dwarf would be fine in a few minutes. Like they always had been – at least up until now.

One done, Rum thought to himself, putting the first doctor out of his mind, two more to go.

Feeling a lazy and still a little unwell from the morning’s nightmare, Rum decided to cast Self-Running Legs on himself to make himself move down the streets at a rapid pace, aiming for the City Forest – home of the green-elves. Really, who needs exercise, when they can just order their body into shape? he thought as block corners were rounded expeditiously. He suddenly started remembering that he had faulty lungs however, and as he’d just come from the northern-most part of the city of Ermos, and was now heading for the far south-eastern part of it, he just realized he may not survive this intense run with his consciousness intact.

Half an hour later or so, Rum’s legs arrived at their designated destination. As the legs jogged in to a wide street of dirt, with wooden houses on either side seemingly overrun by climbing plants and grassy rooftops – the torso of the leg’s owner hang loose like a corpse on horseback, dangling left and right, the brain of the body totally unconscious from oxygen deprivation. When the legs eventually stopped at the end of the wide street, Rum’s entire body just tipped over, and for over fifteen minutes, Rum would lie in the dirt unconscious like a boiled shrimp, curious elven onlookers staring at the body wondering if he be dead.

As Rum finally showed signs of moving, three mature female green-elves could be heard gasping in succession. Rum soon opened his eyes too, and as a first order of business attempted to stretch legs as best he could, trying to overcome his shrimpy bend. Eventually he managed to stretch, and rolled over to lie on his back. Hazily his eyes stared at the sky, while he heard voices about him.

“Should I go see the human?” a womanly voice sounded. Through the general background noise of the city, and a few carriages and wagons moving past him both directions, Rum couldn’t hear exactly what the woman got in reply, but he guessed it soon enough as his line of sight up towards the sky was suddenly blocked by a blond, pointy-eared, busty woman, in a patched cheap green dress, and a golden necklace hanging from her neck.

“You well human?”

Rum tried answering through bare consciousness: “nnn… nyeeeaah”

“Do you need anything? Water perhaps?” The elf woman looked at Rum with motherly worry.

“Nnnh… nh-sure” he managed to respond tiredly. The elf woman walked away, and Rum got to stare at the fine blue sky once more, now starting to approach sunset.

The elf woman came back with a small jug of water, kneeling down in front of his left side. “Now” she started saying, “if you can sit up, and we might avoid spilling. Or would you like I give it to you, while you lie down?”

Rum tried to ask his muscles if they were ready to respond. He got a weak reply back, indicating it was not outside the range of possibilities, but that sitting would likely pose a challenge. He tried anyways. Initially those tries consisted of attempting to use his less tired back muscles and arms to sling his torso up into a sitting position. This exercise looked rather dumb as he failed miserably several times. Eventually he fumbled with his left arm after the elf woman’s hands, and mumbled: “Nnnh-help”. The elf woman understood, and put the jug aside. She helped Rum get up into a sitting position, whereupon Rum decided to learn extra forward, afraid that his exhausted legs would give away and he’d fall back down again. The elf woman placed the jug at his lips and he drank heartily in-between exhausted breaths.

“That’s good” she said, then used her robe to dry Rum’s mouth. “What’s your name, and what brings you here in such a hurry?”

Rum breathed heavily for a couple of times, then replied for the first time like a normal person “I’m looking for Irvanir The Bright.” He breathed heavily a couple of more times, before adding “Have you heard of her?”

The elf put her head to one side and thought out loud, mumbling the name “Irvanir… Irvanir… The Bright?” She stood up and walked back whence she’d came. Now that Rum was no longer staring up at the sky he could see where that was. Out on a veranda in front of one of the buildings were three massive wooden chairs surrounding a small wooden table, on top of which was a glass bottle of yellow-greenish liquid. Sitting in two of the chairs was a duo of other green-elven women, both blond, but wearing separately purple and orange patched dresses. The woman with the purple dress also had a wide sun-shielding hat in matching color. Rum’s green-dressed elven savior sat next to her friends and chatted with them intensely for a minute, then she got up again and walked over to Rum, who was starting to improve in his exhausted condition. She squatted next to him, still carrying her jug of water. She offered Rum another sip, and he accepted.

“We haven’t heard of this elf Irvanir The Bright. But what is your name?”

“Rum” he steadied himself, and managed to lift his knees and turn over so that he was now the one kneeling, “And you?”

“Luvin” she smiled warmly. “Good look finding the elf, Rum”

Luvin walked back to her friends and Rum spent a few more minutes recovering, before finally getting back up on his feet, though stumbling a bit. He sighed heavily as he managed to stand upright and steady.

“Where could you be Irvanir?” he asked nobody in particular, or perhaps he was hoping some passerby would hear him and return him an answer. But none came.

Turning around to look over at the City Forest, he saw three enormous trees only a hundred meters or so away. At the bottom of the tree was an opening, and he could see just a bit of the stairs leading up the tree from the inside. Along the tree going upwards were a few dozen or so houses on the outside, the entrance to the houses presumably inside the tree. In-between the houses one could also see window-holes revealing yet more portions of the tree’s stairs, while 3-4 terraces per tree allowed for small communal gatherings with a view. The most interesting thing about green-elven architecture however was that this was all magic. The wood itself had been shaped by magic, and not cut into planks or carved into holes. Green-elves morphed the trees, forcing interior wood to surface outside and form the houses and the terraces, while stairs and window-holes became the result of the emptied interior. It was all absolutely magnificent, Rum thought, and in all his years living in Ermos City before, he’d never faced an opportunity to be here and study these wonders himself. Not even on his 6 years journey had he come across whole communities of green-elves. It was said that the green-elves of Ermos City were some of the last of their species, after the dungeon lords wiped out four out of every five of their communities in the now-named Desolate Lands. There were green-elven communities living south, south-west and south-east of The Desolate Lands, but all the known communities were rather small as far as Rum knew, and while there’d been rumors of a great city of green-elves deep within a vast forest to the south-east, they were just rumors. If the city existed, it was effectively sealed off from the world, and so to the world; The City Forest was the only large urban green-elven area left, formed by the united clans of the remaining green-elves escaping the dungeon lords long ago.

Rum stumbled forward towards the City Forest proper. He didn’t know exactly where to go. Sharam had said Irvanir The Bright lived near the City Forest. Considering the size of the City Forest however, that left a huge circumference of city to potentially explore. All Rum knew for certain was that The Bright was an elven woman, one of who-knows-how-many thousands of elves living around this area.

Rum stopped walking. He looked back over at the three elven women, and instead stumbled over to their table.

“Luvin, do you know where I could ask about Irvanir The Bright?” he said as he approached, “I haven’t been here before, don’t really know where to get started.”

Luvin’s eyes went up towards the sky while she thought for a moment about a response. Before she could find one though, her orange-dressed friend offered a suggestion: “What about the Committee of The Pine? They should probably be able to help the human.”

The two other elves looked at their orange friend and they all kind of started cloud watching while humming with thought.

“What do you know about this elf, Irvanir The Bright?” the purple-dressed elf suddenly asked.

“Only her name, and that she lives near the City Forest. So probably not inside it.”

“Ah” the same elf responded, “The Committee of The Oak! That’s where he should go. The Oak Committee has their tree closer to the city wall. The tree of the Committee of The Pine is too close to the center of our Forest.”

“But the Pine people are so many!” the orange-dressed elf objected, “And the Oak Committee so small!”

“What about the Committee of The Spruce?” offered Luvin. Her two friends frowned.

“The Committee of The Spruce are too strange.” The elf of orange disapproved. “This human wouldn’t want to associate with them!”

“But” Luvin started her retort, “they know many humans. Remember all the parties they’ve had in their tree? Remember when they lead 300 humans up into their tree, and drank and played with them for 3 days straight? They must know a lot of humans if they could get that many of them. And if our human is looking for an elf, it’s probably an elf who has contact with humans.”

“But reeeally” orange elf looked weirded out by the idea of these Spruce-elves, “they are so… awkward. We don’t want to be sending him to them!”

“Look, the both of you” Luvin said as she started seizing control of the discussion, “the Pine Committee hardly knows much about humans. The Oak Committee trades with humans, true, but they mostly stick to themselves. A third of their board are wild gnomes for the gods’ sake! If anyone would have a connection with this human, it’d probably be the Committee of The Spruce.”

Purple elf turned over at Rum, who’d been silently watching their debate. “Human, which one sounds best, do you think?”

Rum considered it for but a second, but whether it was because she’d come to his aid, or just because she was indeed making the most sense, he chose to side with miss green dress Luvin. “I guess this Committee of The Spruce you speak of. I’ll try them.”

Purple elf nodded, orange elf kept a skeptical look on her face, while Luvin smiled a small triumph. “Well, walk up the north side of the City Forest” Luvin started explaining, “when you see the northern-most great tree there, walk about 15 minutes’ westwards just south of it. When you get there, you should be able to spot a great tree whose trunk and boughs have been painted in… well every way really. Every few months they do a new paint job on that tree, and it’s been receiving half-finished paint jobs for decades. The Committee of The Spruce like their colors. Their higher members wear bright yellow robes with blue stripes–“

“–a horrible sight” orange elf interjected.

“It’s quite something, yes.” Luvin continued. “They also really like lemon juice. Growing lemons and making lemon juice is a favorite pastime of theirs. If you see any lemon juice bar suddenly appear between a couple of bushes somewhere: know that you’re in the right neighborhood.”

“Oh, okay.” Rum nodded along, trying to imagine what kind of elves these were exactly. He doubted his mental image was correct though. Something told him he was missing some information.

I guess I’ll have to go and find out.