(no subject)

[sythyry]

The Greeting [23 Hispis 4385; Eigrach, Srineia]

Wicker seems to be reserved for buildings inside the city. The Mayor's pavilion is a small fortress actually, with a short wooden wall all around, and four archery-and-sorcery towers at the corners (each with three city guards), and a two-story central keep with a big flat roof that's suitable for even more archery and sorcery, or, in the most dire emergencies, a small picnic with visitors and monsters from Ketheria.

(And nothing has said "This is a foreign world-branch, and, indeed, a newly-colonized one" nearly so much as this pavilion. In Ketheria, a pavilion outside the city would probably have a strongpoint somewhere, but would be mostly devoted to, um, pavillioning. Monsters simply don't come that close to the city without being (a) noticed, (b) deterred, and/or (c) Vae. Srineia has no such tradition and mechanism of safety, and relies on more basic fortifications.)

This was lost on Vae.

"The we're all invited and all!" she warbled. "The grand and elegant entrance we shall make!" A leaf became a bridge of frozen kidneys, dyed alternating purple and orange, arching over the fortress walls. She surrounded it by a whirling tube of astringent winds, then a spiky sheath of magic-corroding owl feathers, then an honor guard of bats with blazing tails. "Oh, the I should make it beautiful too!" She added a decorative flourish of burning flowerpots fluttering around on burning butterfly wings, and another of rippling banners embroidered (unimpressively) with many, many candelabras.

A dozen city guards took aim at us with bows and mystic staves.

Comments

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Pity. I was hoping for magic-corroding owls :)

[sythyry.livejournal.com]

Do you enjoy magic-corroding owls on your home world? I will admit I am confused about which world that may be.

After this vacation -- and a suitable recovery period -- I shall have to have a transdimensional vacation.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

I'll admit to some confusion about that myself. It seems most often to be either Edwardian England, or Ponyland. In any event, I'm fairly sure that magic-corroding owls aren't to be found there, more's the pity.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Well, for all you know, perhaps the owls corroded all of the magic already. So now they're just normal owls.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

Oooo. The idea makes owls much more special :)