As Rum took another difficult step through the storm raging over The Iron City, he felt his foot enter into a space without resistance. One more step, and his arm and face pushed into an environment of peace, his beard and robes no longer flapping, the wind no longer whipping. Around him he could see a city engulfed in the chaos of elemental magic, but inside here: nothing. He stood straight and, wearily, inspected the person ahead of him.

"Irridiklara" the name escaped his lips before he could form a single thought.

"Rum Warmhud" the old woman responded, her face caught between a smile and suspicion. She took a step forward, and a few more as Rum just stared back at her.

"What are you doing here?" the wizard blurted.

"What are you doing here?" she retorted, and raised an eyebrow at him. They both stood quiet for a few seconds, which Rum filled with growing nervousness. "I heard rumours", the old witch eventually proceeded, "of a mage casting unheard of spells around The Iron City. Rumours which I promptly dismissed. The fanciful imagination of gnomes. That's what I figured." She made a gesture as if thinking it over. "Then these rumours are followed by an explosion at Shoss' business. Still, what concerns are these of mine? A mere vindictive quarell between Shoss and her former allies. That makes the most sense, doesn't it? I get reports from The Iron City. An agent of the dungeon lords they say, has infiltrated the gnomish quarters. I believe them" she nods her head at the admission. "Later I hear they capture the suspect, certain of his guilt. A story truly unworthy of my attention, you'd think. It's an old story. This has happened many times before, and really makes no difference to me" the old witch shrugged her shoulders. "Then yesterday I am informed that the same suspect is a former student of the university, one with a familiar name. Rum Warmhud. Sounds familiar." A few fingers landed on her cheek, and she posed as if to be thinking. "He's going to be sentenced today, they say. Still" she shrugged again, "what consequence is that of mine?" She raised an arm and made a single wavey motion towards the magical storm, quieting it down. The lightning and the thunder ceased almost immediately, while the barrels with trajectories heading towards walls, doors, and stationary wagons at dangerous speeds, these slowed some. The wind was still blowing hard, but the scene looked markedly less apocalyptic now. "Could you guess why I'm here then, Rum?"

Rum's heart beat fast, and his breath was joining in on the race. He found his lips unable to speak, caught as they were between lying and spilling the truth – not knowing quite which was the safest route out of this confrontation.

"Mute, are you?" She stared at him expectant, but also getting a little bored with each second passing.

"M-no" Rum produced.

"Guess then" she ordered.

Rum's eyes fell a little. It was easier not to look at her, at the witch whose powers were legendary, confronting him, a dropout whose creative impulses might truly end him this time. Instead of answering by speech though, Rum chose to do something different. He raised his hand in front of him, and in front of her, and tugged at what little mana he had left, whispering a spell. "Gay Aura." The gold, yellow, and rainbowy lights spilled out of his hand like a small fountain overflowing. They ran across the ground towards Irridiklara, where they broke against an invisible wall like waves against a cliff. Unable to penetrate in and towards her, the magic began to circle the witch as it sought out new avenues to their target, but, as quickly became obvious, it found none.

"Interesting" the witch followed the fluid motions of the lights beneath her, eyes curious. A few seconds in though, and she looked up to Rum.

"Where does this spell come from?"

Rum pointed with his index at himself.

"You?" she scrunged up her face in confusion.

Rum nodded, eyes still lowered. "I made it."

"You cast it" she tried correcting him.

"No" Rum shook his head. "I created it. It's of me, of my design, of my being and individuality."

"And what god would allow you to do this?"

Rum finally looked up to meet her eyes straight on. "If you need a god: I am that god. But–" and Rum took a deep breath, "–if you can imagine that there was magic before the gods, and thus, magic without gods. Then the answer is that there is no god. Nobody but me, and those ordinary people who I've studied and who inspired my creation."

Irridiklara eyed him, searching him perhaps, trying to gauge if he was lying.

"You said a similiar thing, didn't you, that day, many weeks ago now, when you made your presentation at the university."

Rum nodded.

"And you are not a dungeon lord's minion? Or a dungeon lord yourself?"

Rum shook his head.

"Of course you aren't" the old witch shook her own head. "I know dungeon lords. I know them well. You are not even a fragment of what is necessary to make a dungeon lord. You're weak boy, too weak. But not as weak as you're pretending to be. Level two?" Irridiklara snorted. "How can you be hiding your level from me? And with such an obvious lie too. If you were hiding it on purpose you'd either be incompetent, or an idiot for trying to pass off as only level two. But were you an idiot of that calibre, surely you wouldn't have the intellectual capabilities necessary to pull off such an effective means of concealment." Irridiklara brought a finger up to her mouth and began to bite her own nail, her face wrapped in hard thought for a moment.

"I'm not hiding it" Rum spoke.

Irrid stopped biting and looked up at him.

"I'm not hiding my level. It's Akalios Calculus – the method is wrong. If that's what you're using on me, the results are not always meaningful. I cannot be studied by Akalios' Calculus, and I believe the reason may relate to the fact I have rejected the powers of the gods."

Irrid eyed him with mild surprise. "That's a novel thought" she said. "But is it a clever lie" her eyebrow raised again, "or the truth?"

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"You can speculate all you want" he responded, with a nervous shrug of his shoulders, "but that's the explanation I have to offer you. My true level, if there even can be said to be such a thing, is more appropriately estimated upwards of 40. I have created a spell of my own which improves upon Akalios' Calculus. It is adapted to work also for my case."

"Hmm" the witch thought. "Your level aside." She gestured to the city around them. "How did you cast a charm spell which appears to have reached nearly half The Iron City. Even a level 40-something cannot remotely hope to perform a feat like that. I could. But then I'm not anyone. I carry centuries of growth with me."

"I built a mana storage in my cell, using an enchantment" Rum admitted, and as he said so the gay magic dissipated between them, his available mana running out.

"No mana storage you could build in your little cell would ever be big enough" Irridiklara brushed off the explanation. "You're lying, or not telling the full truth."

Rum nodded. "You're right. Not that I'm lying, but there's more to it. The effects–" Rum eyed the surrounding buildings, imagining the partying of the gnomes inside, some of which he could hear as muffled music, "–the effects went beyond what I had hoped for, but I believe I know why it spread this far." He looked back at Irrid. "Chain reaction. The aura magic was mixed with a mana draining effect. For every creature the aura passed, the aura tried to drain a small amount of mana from its targets to fuel itself. I intended this, but didn't know if it'd work, and certainly not to what extent. It was really a live experiment. The effects though – far beyond what I'd imagined." Rum's eyes shifted, and his gaze grew distant for a moment, the wizard forgetting the situation he was in entirely as the magnitude of it all hit him like a slow tsunami of consequence.

"You say you charmed a city, by accident?" the old witch's tone had a hint of sarcasm to it.

Rum pulled out of his thoughts. "What? No. Not an accident. Or rather, somewhat of an accident. But not entirely."

The witch lingered her eyes on Rum, and he looked at her. For a time they stood like this, until Rum lost and couldn't meet her eyes anymore.

The wizard gulped. There was something he wanted to say. Something he wanted to ask. But he dreaded the answer. For a long, awful pause, he hesitated, caught in indecision.

"What is to become of me?" The words shook out of his mouth, and he felt tears trying to escape his eyes. In his mind a dark future stood before him, decades of being trapped beneath the grounds of Ermos City, cast in a horrible spotlight of meaningless stimulation and surveillance, until all his youth was lost and all his life was wasted.

Irridiklara tapped her lower lip with her finger. She eyed Rum, and her eyes had the same problem that he had: not quite being able to look at the other person.

Finally, after long, torturous moment, the witch lowered her hand, straightened up her crooked back a little, and looked right at him, smirking a little. "You are interesting, Rum Warmhud. Interesting indeed. Like nothing and noone I have ever met, and that says a lot. A lot more than you'd think. For I have even talked to gods."

In the dramatic pause that ensued, Rum wiped his eyes. "You mean like you drank the potion?"

Irridiklara was about to continue when she stopped, and blinked her eyes at him. "The what?"

"I've not been able to use it yet, but I got that one too recently. The Moon-Hailer Potion, I think that's what it's called?"

Irridiklara looked at him, momentarily stunned by his statement.

"That's what you meant, right?"

She shook her head slowly. "No. But the fact that you know one of the means of communicating with the gods is surprising." Her expression lost its stunnedness, and she looked at him normally. "No, I didn't mean the gifts of The Scriptlord. I meant I met them. But that is besides the point, I merely wish to say this: that you are a truly special someone, to be judged special by me."

She paused to stare, and Rum in turn tried to take in what she'd said. It wasn't dismay, it wasn't hostile, or even annoyance. It could even be called: approval?

"Rum Warmhud." Irridiklara's face firmed up, and she raised her voice at him. "The gnomes will most certainly have you executed for what you did here today." A deep chill erupted across Rum's back and spread across his body. Coming from Irridiklara, the words carried a greater certainty to them, a magnified weight of determined destiny. "They'd probably make a big display of it too. It would be their first public execution in a long while." Inside of Rum, every part of his body other than his heart slowed, as if preparing for him to die then and there. "But I can't have that. No. Someone like you cannot simply be killed off, or locked behind bars for the rest of your life. I cannot have the one thing that has made me feel any sort of excitement the last few years just be thrown away like that." She paused at the end of her own sentence, and brought her index up to her lips again, appearing to think.

Rum waited anxiously. After a while he felt an urge to go and pee, but he did not dear interrupt the witch's thought process, least him running off to pee somehow would disturb her thoughts and send them into an unfortuitous direction.

Irridiklara, the witch of Ermos, lowered her hand. She looked at his face, a decision about to be revealed. "I have come to a conclusion. We will make a Shoss out of you."

Rum stared confusedly back at her. "A what?" he blurted.

"I'll declare you an asset to the city. We will say you have switched sides and are now working for the city."

"But I never was a spy! No type of agent at all!"

"Doesn't matter" Irridiklara waved off his protest. "We need a story that keeps you alive. Who's going to be believe you're any degree of innocent? You did cause this" she gestured to the city, with its muffled sounds of music and uproarious noises, "how are you going to explain to the mecha gnomes that this wasn't a great act of sabotage? It has the markings of an ENORMOUS act of terror. I'm sure the remaining mecha gnomes are shaking in their boots at mere thought of–" she circled a finger in the air trying to find a descriptor, "–what does this spell do?"

"Make people gay?" Rum responded. "For a little while at least. After that they're back to themselves, but with the memories from having acted gaiely."

"That" she pointed her finger at him, "nothing an old mecha gnome hates more than gaiety. And all the gnomish leaders are old grumps. They don't know it yet, but as soon as the guilty individual is known – and that will happen soon enough – then they will most certainly declare you an arch-enemy. My solution is the only one that will keep you alive."

Rum stared at her for a moment, then looked out over the city. The weight of the situation was pushing down upon him, and pushing hard, forcing him into agreement. "I'm not going to be able to be anonymous anymore, am I?"

"No you're not" Irridiklara confirmed. "Not in this city at least. But we can keep you alive, and shelter you from the mobs of angry gnomes that surely will come for you."

Rum snapped back to the witch. "How? How will you shelter me?"

Irridiklara smiled, opened up her arms, and in a loud old woman's voice, she made him an offer. "Rum Warmhud" she began. "The teaching- and research staff at The Flipped University has been looking stale, as of late. I should know, I have to suffer the lot of them, and listen to them, answer their questions." Her voice got a little low and grumbly for a moment, before quickly picking up again. "I believe we might have an opening for some fresh blood. A job, for a young, creative soul. One I believe may freshen up the curriculum a bit, offer some new avenues of research. Initiate new and interesting debates among the learned." The witch's smile broadened. "Would you, Rum Warmhud, like to become a Professor of..." the witch stopped, frowning to herself, "what did you call your magic?"

"P-person magic" Rum stuttered, stunned inside.

"Would you like to become a Professor of Person Magic at The Flipped University?"

Rum's feet started to feel weak, his breath growing heavy. He looked away from the smiling old witch. He had to look away. Out towards the horizon, towards The Iron Towers, towards the sky, and The Little Mountain in the distance. Far away. He breathed, and breathed some more. He listened to the wind, ignoring every other little sound. As time passed, his breath became lighter, and his mind became less chaotic.

Then Rum spun around towards the witch. "YES!"

So shouted The Grand Wizard, Master of The Greatest Gayest Magic, Doom and Bloom of The Iron City, and now Professor, of The Flipped University of Magical Studies.

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