OOC - continues from here.
20th Day of Summer, 514
It was somewhat disappointing, after all the effort "Maya" had put into making the sketches. And they had even gone to the mansion to see if they met with its approval. The response had been almost a celebration. The mansion's sentient avatar, Aceren, a vaguely uniformed combination butler, doorman and maitre d', had expressed nothing short of delight. He appeared to have been somewhat apprehensive, at first, about the reaction some of the less hospitable wings of the mansion would have towards them before he saw them. But as templates for tapestries, he now felt these offerings would go a long way to ingratiate Kuvarakh, and his friends, with the entire structure.
The front entry, promenade, and ballroom were amiable enough, as were the Greenhouse and related outbuildings. The dining area was tolerant at best, though you were often warned by sudden scootings of chairs if you tried to pass through to the kitchen, as if invisible people had stood up from the table in alarm. Kuvarakh had felt as if hostile glares had been cast in his direction the first time it happened to him. He had cleared his throat and offered his apology for his presumption and reversed his course. The chairs had slid slowly, of their own accord, back into place as he left back the way he had come.
If Aceren was accompanying him, there was a much greater degree of welcome in these areas, the avatar serving to vouch for his presence. Kuvrakh had found it surprising that the different wings and areas of the estate had their own personalities, separate from that represented by Aceren. The man had explained that it was the result of the due to the number and extremes of the violations committed against those portions of the mansion that caused them to be more distrustful.
"It is not truly separate. Think of it as a sore and repeatedly bruised spot on your body. When someone comes carelessly thrashing around, you will be more protective of that spot, taking steps to keep it away from contact. But more important, if you cannot turn yourself from contact, you will take steps to push the offender away from you. And you might also add a comment...a 'watch where you're going, idiot!' or something of that nature."
As a Nuit, Kuvarakh found it very easy to relate. Since Nuit bodies did not heal, he was frequently finding himself making instinctive efforts to avoid further injuries to spots already scraped or lacerated. He had on a number of bandages right now. They were not to shield a wound while it healed. It was more like armor on a vulnerable spot to guard against the daily battles of bumps and bruises. He had taken the initiative to spend djed in a hypnotic sort of contact, not to impose an impression on the building's opinion of him, but to simply offer an apology and an acknowledgement of understanding into the room itself. Once or twice, curtains had parted slightly to let a little more light into the room right afterward. It felt like it had been in response to his effort, and he felt he was slowly making strides in gaining the mansion's trust, room by room, chair by chair.
So when he returned to the town and went to the Bizarre, Alvadas major trade center and market, to look into having the sketches made into tapestries, it was an unpleasant surprise to find out it would take a dozen weavers a good two seasons or more to finish even ONE of them. And the very nature of how they were crafted made his alchemy a most impractical skill to use as a shortcut. The best he and the craftsman had been able to come up with was that Kuvarakh could use the djed-craft to enlarge the small sketches to "tapestry size". By this, the man meant somewhere on the order of fifteen by twenty feet.
Kuvarakh had protested that they did not need to be so large, being unable to think of anywhere in the mansion that could accommodate such a size. The man offered the details on what he called "Estate size", which was more of an eight by twelve foot affair. This was something Kuvarakh could do with the larger new ring Wanda had procured after the debacle with the "Buzzbugs", as they had come to be known. The weaver said that this would allow the artist to transfer the "cartoon" directly to the warp, rather than having to enlarge it by hand. Coupled with the smaller size, he and his crew could get three of them done in that time.
The old fellow smiled with such pride that Kuvarkh felt obliged to comment on how remarkable such a turnaround would be. Inside though, he hoped that the mansion was aware of how long it apparently took to craft a high quality tapestry.
The front entry, promenade, and ballroom were amiable enough, as were the Greenhouse and related outbuildings. The dining area was tolerant at best, though you were often warned by sudden scootings of chairs if you tried to pass through to the kitchen, as if invisible people had stood up from the table in alarm. Kuvarakh had felt as if hostile glares had been cast in his direction the first time it happened to him. He had cleared his throat and offered his apology for his presumption and reversed his course. The chairs had slid slowly, of their own accord, back into place as he left back the way he had come.
If Aceren was accompanying him, there was a much greater degree of welcome in these areas, the avatar serving to vouch for his presence. Kuvrakh had found it surprising that the different wings and areas of the estate had their own personalities, separate from that represented by Aceren. The man had explained that it was the result of the due to the number and extremes of the violations committed against those portions of the mansion that caused them to be more distrustful.
"It is not truly separate. Think of it as a sore and repeatedly bruised spot on your body. When someone comes carelessly thrashing around, you will be more protective of that spot, taking steps to keep it away from contact. But more important, if you cannot turn yourself from contact, you will take steps to push the offender away from you. And you might also add a comment...a 'watch where you're going, idiot!' or something of that nature."
As a Nuit, Kuvarakh found it very easy to relate. Since Nuit bodies did not heal, he was frequently finding himself making instinctive efforts to avoid further injuries to spots already scraped or lacerated. He had on a number of bandages right now. They were not to shield a wound while it healed. It was more like armor on a vulnerable spot to guard against the daily battles of bumps and bruises. He had taken the initiative to spend djed in a hypnotic sort of contact, not to impose an impression on the building's opinion of him, but to simply offer an apology and an acknowledgement of understanding into the room itself. Once or twice, curtains had parted slightly to let a little more light into the room right afterward. It felt like it had been in response to his effort, and he felt he was slowly making strides in gaining the mansion's trust, room by room, chair by chair.
So when he returned to the town and went to the Bizarre, Alvadas major trade center and market, to look into having the sketches made into tapestries, it was an unpleasant surprise to find out it would take a dozen weavers a good two seasons or more to finish even ONE of them. And the very nature of how they were crafted made his alchemy a most impractical skill to use as a shortcut. The best he and the craftsman had been able to come up with was that Kuvarakh could use the djed-craft to enlarge the small sketches to "tapestry size". By this, the man meant somewhere on the order of fifteen by twenty feet.
Kuvarakh had protested that they did not need to be so large, being unable to think of anywhere in the mansion that could accommodate such a size. The man offered the details on what he called "Estate size", which was more of an eight by twelve foot affair. This was something Kuvarakh could do with the larger new ring Wanda had procured after the debacle with the "Buzzbugs", as they had come to be known. The weaver said that this would allow the artist to transfer the "cartoon" directly to the warp, rather than having to enlarge it by hand. Coupled with the smaller size, he and his crew could get three of them done in that time.
The old fellow smiled with such pride that Kuvarkh felt obliged to comment on how remarkable such a turnaround would be. Inside though, he hoped that the mansion was aware of how long it apparently took to craft a high quality tapestry.
