sythyry | (no subject) (Reply)

Oblique Room [13 Thory 4261]

The Oblique Room at Darraden's is quite oblique: one corner is a sharp [60 degree -bb] angle, and another is a blunt [120 degree -bb] one. The whole room is carpeted, with a thick-pile carpet of tasteful dark gold and dark blue. I'm used to rooms carpeted on the floor, but this one is carpeted on the wall and the ceiling as well. One can, for example, take one's boots off and fling them carelessly across the room, even against one of the little standing wooden cabinets, and they won't make much noise. Ilottat did.

The table, set thoroughly for two, is in the angly side of the room.

I wasn't expecting it to be set with the entire dinner, but it was, with all the food there at once. Ilottat had ordered us an arkenflame, a splendid confection of frozen honeyed cream in the shape of a jagged tree growing from a flowerpot of cake, served flambeed and eaten very quickly. It is a specialty of Darraden's, and quite a presentation piece when served downstairs -- it is brought to the table on a cart, doused with fortified brandy, and set aflame, and everyone in the restaurant watches.

But that's downstairs. Upstairs, it was sitting on its cart, already aflame, but with the flames and the melting both held in abayance by quite a good Ruloc Sustenoc Pyrador spell. I am pretty sure it's a complexity 25 spell. For those of you who don't know much magic theory, my best spell is complexity 20, and I was only recently able to get that good in a few combinations of arts. I couldn't manage a 25 in Ruloc Sustenoc Pyrador, and Zi Ri have a huge advantage in Sustenoc.

It is hard to imagine a restaurant with someone who can cast that spell on staff.

And it was cast very delicately. We are provided with a bound spell on a silver-tipped candle snuffer -- a silver!-tipped candle snuffer -- to put it out. This one is not such a huge spell, but still ... they used three cley and two spells that require two unrelated kinds of professional-level expertises, just on the dessert.

There were another dozen or so cley used here and there on the meal. When the lid was lifted from the raw fish appetizer, a very accurate healing spell (bound, again) was cast on it, bringing it to the precise moment after it had been killed. Any subtle off-tastes that might have developed in the, oh, third of an hour that it was held on ice on a silver-plated -- silver!-plated -- platter would be negated.

Just so that they could bring the entire dinner to the Oblique Room before we arrived, and have it waiting for us, absolutely perfect beyond the usual downstairs level of Darraden's perfection, when we wanted it.

So they wouldn't have to send a waiter in after we both arrived.

We could even bar the door from the inside, with a big heavy bar of iron-inlaid -- iron!-inlaid -- wood, thicker than Ilottat's tail. We could even set off any or all of five bound spells to protect against various forms of magical or material snooping.

In case ...

... well ...

In the other side, the non-angly side, of the room was a very ornate bed.

With little wooden cabinets by the side, presumably containing oils and essences and bound contraceptive spells and everything else you might want. Darraden's is thorough.