How's it Hanging? [Shai]

by **Lyner** on December 26th, 2011, 5:14 pm

Day 55, Winter 511 AV
Evening - Some Street

There are those that would say that Alvadas is the most beautiful city in the world and sometimes they are correct. With nobody but the god of the city itself capable of piercing the veil of artificial beauty that the city wears it is impossible to tell if something is real or simply a product of the imagination. What may truly be a simple tavern in treality could look like a marble mansion with a roof of glossy cerulean clam shells and silver inlaid all over stone.

What might be a simple fountain may seem to spill golden mead, sweet smelling but tasteless to the tongue. An cloud covered sky might suddenly turn star-studded and a tiny bird could grow into a peacock with a vibrant tail dyed in the color of sapphire and emerald.

But light cannot exist without darkness, even a beautiful city with walls of golden bricks might have another side to it. Sleek and dark enamel might be what graces the streets, a lamp post carved into the shape of a blooming flower holding a petal housing a lantern might become the lewd form of a half-naked woman caressing a candle much like a skilled courtesan with a man's precious organ.

This street Lyner was treading had turned into such a place. A beautiful but dark testament of beauty sculpted in marble and shrouded in the shadow of night and the light of the moon. The buildings looked tall, their mysterious arches twisting and forming otherworldly shapes that cast even darker shadows on the streets below.

Lyner could spot something hanging underneath one... how and why, he could not discern but that was the reality being presented before him and he would not question it. He was tired of asking questions that only yielded even more inquiries. "Hey you there... did you slip from the roof? Are you able to move? If you cant I'll..." he looked around, nobody was in sight but there was a wagon filled with sacks of grain and hay. "I'll move that thing under you and help you down!"

by **Shai** on December 29th, 2011, 3:06 am

NoteIt might help you greatly to google M. C. Escher if you do not know who he is. It'll help illustrate what is happening in the final paragraph

Shai wrapped her deft fingers around her two largest twos and pulled her weight forward. Holding the stretch for a count of thirty before she released the posture. The final stretch in her routine was the only one Shai could not perform naturally; she had to push herself to complete it. Spreading both legs as wide as she could manage and leaning over and planting her forearms flesh against the night chilled floor. Pulling her arms wide she created blocks so that her legs couldn’t move and lessen the stretch. Lifting her hips up she slide foreword a bit and then pressed down hard onto the ground. It placed her legs in a straight split. Holding for a steady thirty count again before the spider relaxed again. Taking slow deep breaths she let her muscles rest momentarily. Then rolling onto her back she forced all of her power to accompany the momentum on her return swing and jumped up onto her feet. Tossing her cloak over her shoulders and purposely forgetting boots the spider was ready for the night.

Heading out of the front door of the government supplied housing Shai meandered in a whimsically chosen direction. For the only thing she could divine of Alvad navigation was that the city would take you where it wanted regardless of what path you strode upon. The Symenestra held no set expectations for her journey only a desired conclusion. Her lack of expectations was completely insufficient what she would actually encounter this night. As she turned the third or fourth corner into whatever avenue the spider stopped dead in her tracks.

Beneath her feet was the only solid ground to be found, a tiny charred island amongst a flowing river of molten rock. The street had literally turned into a lava flow. In only a heart beat the heat began to become unbearable. Staunchly refusing to try and reason with this phenomenon the Spider spring for the nearest wall, latching on tight with the micro cilia extruding from her ashen skin. Skittering across the golden brick surface Shai clambered around the nearest corner trying to escape the liquid flames licking at her back. Upon the next corner Shai found herself prone on a street, even though she had just been crouched against a wall.

The street beneath her paved with vivid yellow bricks the spider stood upright and continued walking. This petching city is going to make me lose my mind As soon as her sense were correctly orientated to the ground and she had the vantage point, a rather stocky young man approached her. Walking on what had appeared at first as a building, but had, on closer inspection, been revealed to be another street entirely. The wall was a street and there was a man approaching her from it, asking of all things if she needed help down. “This city is absolutely preposterous. . .” Eyeing the young man she shook her head, “No I most certainly do not require aid from my perspective. But I suppose to you I am on a wall. Who could truly say which of us has our feet on the ground.”

by **Lyner** on January 4th, 2012, 1:41 am

Now the ground was turning into molten metal and he was trapped, unable to avoid being turned into cinder and charred bone. The swordsman would have panicked if he hadn't thought that he was going to drown and die in the tidal wave and the massive chasm that opened up beneath his feet and nearly brought the city in the depths of the earth with him only hours ago.

Before his eyes the molten earth slowly took form, a symmetrical form, it reshaped itself into a brick whilst cooling in the process. When it finally become firm and cold a gust of wind was all it to for the black bricks to shed soot and ash to expose it's hidden nature as a golden bricks among a host of other bricks that formed what was probably a million miza street.

The woman refused his help, she sounded annoyed at the city's fickle nature. In sharp contrast Lyner was actually enjoying the novel sights, except for the occasional apocalyptic illusions that came into being on occasion.

"Gravity does miss." he exclaimed with a finger pointing up at the sky... or what he thought was a sky. "I am a tall and heavy man, surely between the two of us I am the least likely to hang on the smooth surface of a wall."

"And I wouldn't challenge logic, even if the city is saturated in illusions it cannot oppose the laws of nature. There's nothing that would keep me from the ground, I'm not even a wizard. The perfectly mundane Lyner, they call me."