"So what does it even mean… really?"
Asveri muttered the words aloud, voice low and sharp against the empty road.
He wasn't asking Anor'ven. He wasn't even sure who he was asking. Himself, maybe. Or the sky. Or whatever silent thing had made the old Strayed of Selmor speak so cryptically before they left.
"Go where things break."
Two days. That's how long they had walked since leaving the resting place of the voiceless wanderers. Two days of dust, tired legs, and nothing much to hold onto.
Not total isolation, no. A few merchants crossed their path — tired men and women, faces worn by wind and hunger. They had traded water and scraps of food in exchange for small, simple favors. Moving wood. Adjusting a cart. Nothing grand. Nothing worth remembering.
But the march itself… dragged on.
Asveri kicked a loose stone, sending it clattering uselessly down the cracked path.
"Seriously though," he continued, mostly to himself. "Where things break. Break how? Break where? What does it even mean?"
His voice felt too loud in the open air, like he was daring the silence to answer.
Anor'ven, naturally, didn't.
He walked ahead, steady and indifferent as always. Not cold — just… unmoved.
Asveri fell back into step beside him, groaning softly.
"This is stupid. We're following a puzzle with no solution. We're just walking in circles."
The wind shifted then — faint, but carrying with it something heavier than air.
Asveri stopped, narrowing his eyes.
Something was off.
Before he could fully reach into his omnipresence, a voice cut through the haze.
"You walk noisy."
Asveri snapped his head to the side.
A man stood there, draped in patchwork robes, face lined like dried clay, eyes hidden beneath a rusted hood. He leaned casually on a crooked staff, as though he had been standing there forever.
The stranger smiled thinly.
"Too noisy for a place like this."
Asveri flinched, almost ready to summon his power.
"Where the hell did you come from?"
But Anor'ven had already turned slightly, his eyes cool and unsurprised.
"I sensed him long ago," Anor'ven said flatly.
Asveri shot him a glare.
"Yeah, thanks for the warning."
The old man chuckled, clearly amused by the tension.
"No danger from me. No, no. Only words for wanderers."
He gestured lazily toward the horizon, where a thick fog clung low over distant hills.
"You're near forbidden ground now. Few dare tread so close."
Asveri raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms.
"Forbidden ground?"
The man nodded slowly, his voice lowering into something almost ritualistic.
"Beyond lies the place once called Vesicar. A city of great pride… until pride broke it. The towers fell, yet stood. The walls cracked, yet held. Upside down, yet still watching. They say those who enter see not ghosts, but reflections. And those who stay too long forget where the ground even is."
Asveri made a face and cut him off, annoyed and incredulous.
"Wait. Wait. Upside down? The whole city? What, did the sky flip too or what?"
The old man looked mildly irritated at the interruption, his words stalled like a broken gear.
He sighed, regaining his rhythm slowly.
"…Those who wander there become like the city. Lost. Silent. Inverted inside."
Asveri threw up his hands, half laughing.
"Fantastic. Sounds cozy."
But Anor'ven had already shifted.
He rose smoothly from where he stood, his eyes now fixed firmly on the distant mist. He stared for a long, still moment — as if listening to something only he could hear.
Asveri watched him, groaned softly, and pushed himself upright.
"Yeah, yeah… I can already tell."
He dusted off his coat and stepped up beside Anor'ven.
"I guess we don't exactly have better plans, huh?"
Anor'ven said nothing.
His legs moved first.
Asveri followed, muttering under his breath as they walked into the growing haze.
"Great. Upside-down ghost city, here we come."