"I'm going to go ahead and justify myself by saying I've never been here and from their reaction this is a very common confusion but I probably should've asked someone."

"We did!"

Once outside, Arik assails a random passer-by. "Excuse me, d'you know the way to the Mages' Guild?"

"Up that road, just past the plaza."

As in, the direction they came from.

That just makes him feel worse.

Arik trots in that direction.

"Something wrong?" he asks.

"Oh, nothing, I was just very confidently wrong and now I am paying for my mistakes in mild embarrassment."

"Taharqi, there was a great fucking tower at the center of everything full of wizards, but not the specific wizard you wanted. I think that's more a prank than anything."

...he grins. "Now that makes me wonder if it was a prank that someone thought would be really funny. Probably not, but."

"I don't know how whimsical wizards are, as a rule! You've probably met more of them."

"The one I'm most intimately familiar with is, I think, somewhat unique."

Now that they know that the Mages' Guild is by the plaza they arrived at there's one building that's the obvious candidate but just to be sure Taharqi asks a city guard about it to confirm.

The building is shorter and smaller but its style is definitely aiming for something very similar to what the Tower was doing, down to an (appropriately downscaled) enormous crystal floating above a pool of water. But it's cosier for being smaller, and the little nooks with chairs and black boards and bookshelves and people are all more inviting for not being so far away from each other.

Also, this building does have a reception counter!

"Oh, gods, another one," groans a mage that had been chatting to a couple of other mages in the middle of the room as Taharqi and Arik walk in their vague direction (as that is the direction where the counter is).

"Another what?" Arik wonders, loud enough for them to hear but not necessarily in their direction.

"Naked guy."

"—oh, you must've met Vallynn!"

"Yeah, I know 'im. You're looking for him? Figures. I think he was out on bounty but his room is 304 if you wanna find him."

"Well, thank you very much, Mr...?"

"Gaël. Not that it matters."

"I'm Taharqi, and my friend here is Arik, so if you happen to run into Vallynn before we do please tell him we're looking for him?"

"Sure, alright."

"I apologize for distracting you with my penis," Arik says, in the cadence of a pleasantry someone learned by rote several years ago.

He rolls his eyes and turns back to his conversation.

"Don't tease the poor mage with body image issues," Taharqi admonishes in a low voice with a half smile as they walk away towards the nearest stairs.

"Body image?" Arik wonders, not quite as quietly. "He looked very pretty. If he weren't wrapped up like a sheep for shearing I'd happily pin him against a wall."

"Most mages don't focus so much on their physical bodies and so even the ones who adventure tend to be on the 'not unhealthy' side of lean rather than properly fit, so seeing an attractive naked man can make them feel self-conscious about how that is not what they look like under their sheep wrappings."