OOCCleared with Catastrophe 
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Timestamp: 7th Day of Spring, 514 A.V.
Spring might have only just given way to Summer with the solar flare of the Watchtowers scattered all throughout Mizahar, but Lhavit was sweltering under a heatwave that the caprice of Kalea’s interesting topography had decided to heap on the glittering city. The ocean of cloud that the city habitually seemed to float upon had been banished by Syna’s unforgiving rays, and even though there were frequent cloudbursts, they did little to take the edge off the heat and only added to the oppressive humidity that clung to the city and sapped the energy of all and sundry.
Well, almost all and sundry, anyway. Alses and her kind, the solar Synaborn of the Forty-Eight Ethaefal in the city and ever the exceptions, positively revelled in the scorching heat and humidity of the heatwave. They celebrated their good fortune, drinking down the overabundance of light and heat from Syna on high, glowing perfect and beautiful when all around them people were wilting and seeking shade and cool baths.
It reinforced the thought that the Ethaefal were distant and perfect, and never mind the fact that each evening Alses herself spent most of her time as a Konti mortal submerged in her baths, exchanging one type of heat for another and being almost as miserable as everyone else.
It was now just after noon, and the sun was like a flamethrower in the sky, baking the city that was doing its level best to become an earthbound companion star with all the reflected light thrown back by the skyglass and pale stone that were the principal building materials of all of Lhavit. Insects filled the air with their busy drone, unable to believe their luck as the weather made plants cut loose and fill the air with their delicate perfumes, sweet with the promise of nectar…or whatever it was that insects so liked about plants, anyway.
Her destination, the Divine's Gateway, was one of the places that was doubtless suffering most from the heatwave - in part thanks to its position on the tiers of the peaks affording it a great deal of sunshine for most of the day, but also due to the peculiarities of its striking construction, a broad curve of reflective skyglass sheltering the transparent Gateway building proper, making it a blazing furnace on the hottest of days.
As Alses drew closer, padding with measured tread along the curving pathway that led to the Gateway, she was gratified to make out scurrying figures behind the reflecting, distorting glass of the building; it seemed that the Summoners of Lhavit, up until relatively recently forbidden from practicing their art within the city’s limits, were ignoring the heat and pushing forward with whatever endeavours occupied their time.
Good.
It wasn’t difficult to gain entry to the Gateway; its doors weren’t locked and the Shinya standing slightly more at-the-ready than was perhaps strictly necessary certainly knew who she was, waving her inside with smart salutes, and never mind that she wasn’t there in her official capacity as Her Grace the Councillor Radiant.
For once.
Inside, her first impression was that it was rather like being in front of a blast furnace; the atmosphere was dessicated and bakingly hot, laden with strange smells that tickled her sensitive nose and made her want to sneeze, and odder compounds that stung at her eyes, prickling them with phantom fingers and bringing sparkling tears to the fore.
It was whilst Alses was trying to clear her vision that, doubtless, runners were dispatched throughout the building for the master of the whole place, a certain Corin Row who had been in trouble with the law and the city recently. Doubtless the whole establishment was still a little on-edge after that incident, so it was small wonder he was summoned with considerable alacrity and no small amount of trepidation, even as Alses was sat down in a plush chair – out of the sun, which annoyed her slightly - and plied with refreshments she had no use for and assured that Corin Row was on his way.
Indeed, it was a few short chimes later that the master of the Gateway himself hurried into the foyer, waiting room, antechamber, whatever it was – it seemed to be doing triple duty, at least – plastering a fake smile on his face that wobbled and ran even as he looked at her.
“Your grace! What an unexpected surprise!” he exclaimed, slightly nervously rubbing his stained hands together. Alses squinted; to her sight they were thickly slathered in a hundred different auras, all queasily moving and shifting against one another, stinking of alien things for which she had no experience, no frame of reference.
Her heartbeat quickened; the only time she’d seen that sort of shifting alien-ness had been back in Zeltiva, in her master’s old laboratory, the reagents he used for the greater artifacts commissioned by the great and good of the city. Her hunch was possibly right.
She blinked, taking herself with an effort out of the deep world of auristics, the ocean in which she habitually swam, to look physically at Corin Row.
Tired – there were deep-graven lines cut into his face and bags under his eyes, and more than that, the general impression of a bone-tired man, the whole cant of his posture and the shivering tensing of tiny muscles all across his frame, the subliminal shaking of someone running on tea, stress and fumes, it was all there for anyone observant to see – and Alses had a very good eye these days.
“Sit down, Mr. Row,” she commanded – and even without the guards behind her to back her up his legs were folding before the echoes stopped bouncing. With an internal wince she moderated her tone somewhat – a discussion to which all and sundry in the Gateway were privy to was not what she had in mind. “You’re about to collapse,” she added, in that softer voice, even as he crumpled gratefully into a chair and tried to pull himself together, to drag his mind away from whatever arcane fug was – with the poisons of tiredness – doing a sterling job of making him vacant and absent-minded.
She pushed the tea and biscuits that had been ferreted out for her over the table towards him, a peremptory gesture for him to eat and drink and become – as the phrase had it – a little more human.
“Eat. Drink. You look half-dead.”
.Timestamp: 7th Day of Spring, 514 A.V.
Spring might have only just given way to Summer with the solar flare of the Watchtowers scattered all throughout Mizahar, but Lhavit was sweltering under a heatwave that the caprice of Kalea’s interesting topography had decided to heap on the glittering city. The ocean of cloud that the city habitually seemed to float upon had been banished by Syna’s unforgiving rays, and even though there were frequent cloudbursts, they did little to take the edge off the heat and only added to the oppressive humidity that clung to the city and sapped the energy of all and sundry.
Well, almost all and sundry, anyway. Alses and her kind, the solar Synaborn of the Forty-Eight Ethaefal in the city and ever the exceptions, positively revelled in the scorching heat and humidity of the heatwave. They celebrated their good fortune, drinking down the overabundance of light and heat from Syna on high, glowing perfect and beautiful when all around them people were wilting and seeking shade and cool baths.
It reinforced the thought that the Ethaefal were distant and perfect, and never mind the fact that each evening Alses herself spent most of her time as a Konti mortal submerged in her baths, exchanging one type of heat for another and being almost as miserable as everyone else.
It was now just after noon, and the sun was like a flamethrower in the sky, baking the city that was doing its level best to become an earthbound companion star with all the reflected light thrown back by the skyglass and pale stone that were the principal building materials of all of Lhavit. Insects filled the air with their busy drone, unable to believe their luck as the weather made plants cut loose and fill the air with their delicate perfumes, sweet with the promise of nectar…or whatever it was that insects so liked about plants, anyway.
Her destination, the Divine's Gateway, was one of the places that was doubtless suffering most from the heatwave - in part thanks to its position on the tiers of the peaks affording it a great deal of sunshine for most of the day, but also due to the peculiarities of its striking construction, a broad curve of reflective skyglass sheltering the transparent Gateway building proper, making it a blazing furnace on the hottest of days.
As Alses drew closer, padding with measured tread along the curving pathway that led to the Gateway, she was gratified to make out scurrying figures behind the reflecting, distorting glass of the building; it seemed that the Summoners of Lhavit, up until relatively recently forbidden from practicing their art within the city’s limits, were ignoring the heat and pushing forward with whatever endeavours occupied their time.
Good.
It wasn’t difficult to gain entry to the Gateway; its doors weren’t locked and the Shinya standing slightly more at-the-ready than was perhaps strictly necessary certainly knew who she was, waving her inside with smart salutes, and never mind that she wasn’t there in her official capacity as Her Grace the Councillor Radiant.
For once.
Inside, her first impression was that it was rather like being in front of a blast furnace; the atmosphere was dessicated and bakingly hot, laden with strange smells that tickled her sensitive nose and made her want to sneeze, and odder compounds that stung at her eyes, prickling them with phantom fingers and bringing sparkling tears to the fore.
It was whilst Alses was trying to clear her vision that, doubtless, runners were dispatched throughout the building for the master of the whole place, a certain Corin Row who had been in trouble with the law and the city recently. Doubtless the whole establishment was still a little on-edge after that incident, so it was small wonder he was summoned with considerable alacrity and no small amount of trepidation, even as Alses was sat down in a plush chair – out of the sun, which annoyed her slightly - and plied with refreshments she had no use for and assured that Corin Row was on his way.
Indeed, it was a few short chimes later that the master of the Gateway himself hurried into the foyer, waiting room, antechamber, whatever it was – it seemed to be doing triple duty, at least – plastering a fake smile on his face that wobbled and ran even as he looked at her.
“Your grace! What an unexpected surprise!” he exclaimed, slightly nervously rubbing his stained hands together. Alses squinted; to her sight they were thickly slathered in a hundred different auras, all queasily moving and shifting against one another, stinking of alien things for which she had no experience, no frame of reference.
Her heartbeat quickened; the only time she’d seen that sort of shifting alien-ness had been back in Zeltiva, in her master’s old laboratory, the reagents he used for the greater artifacts commissioned by the great and good of the city. Her hunch was possibly right.
She blinked, taking herself with an effort out of the deep world of auristics, the ocean in which she habitually swam, to look physically at Corin Row.
Tired – there were deep-graven lines cut into his face and bags under his eyes, and more than that, the general impression of a bone-tired man, the whole cant of his posture and the shivering tensing of tiny muscles all across his frame, the subliminal shaking of someone running on tea, stress and fumes, it was all there for anyone observant to see – and Alses had a very good eye these days.
“Sit down, Mr. Row,” she commanded – and even without the guards behind her to back her up his legs were folding before the echoes stopped bouncing. With an internal wince she moderated her tone somewhat – a discussion to which all and sundry in the Gateway were privy to was not what she had in mind. “You’re about to collapse,” she added, in that softer voice, even as he crumpled gratefully into a chair and tried to pull himself together, to drag his mind away from whatever arcane fug was – with the poisons of tiredness – doing a sterling job of making him vacant and absent-minded.
She pushed the tea and biscuits that had been ferreted out for her over the table towards him, a peremptory gesture for him to eat and drink and become – as the phrase had it – a little more human.
“Eat. Drink. You look half-dead.”
