[Location]Hall of Aural Creation

[Valkyrie]

Hall of Aural Creation The first floor of Snowsong Hold contains the Hall of Aural Creation, a hallway containing about two dozen rooms designated for the practice of musical instruments or for privacy during musical composition. Each room is ten feet wide and ten feet long and rooms along the outer edge contain windows that look out onto the snowy grounds of Avanthal. Each room holds only a single chair for the practicing musician as these rooms are not typically used for group practices. The practice rooms were built at the same time as the rest of the Hold but seem oldest in appearances. The walls are a little worn and the paint adorning them is chipped but Snowsong refuses any offers from Skyglow or Iceglaze to update the rooms. They prefer to keep the walls and chipped paint that has listened to the changing music of each new generation of Snowsong Vantha. A strange thing one might notice while walking the Hall is that in between each room is an open space stuffed with hay and wool. Snowsong requested that Iceglaze leave accessible space between the walls of the practice rooms much to Iceglaze’s consternation. The spaces are about a foot and a half wide and run from the floor to the ceiling. Members of the Hold fill the space with clean hay and wool bought from Frostfawn and Winterflame to try to insulate the rooms from noise and provide as much privacy as possible for musicians working on masterpieces they are not yet prepared to share with the rest of Avanthal. Each winter Snowsong tries to replace a portion of the hay and wool as supplies within the city allows. The rooms around the freshly changed hay and wool are filled the quickest as they often smell sweetly of their stuffing. Often young members of the Hold are forced to take the rooms that have not had their hay and wool stuffing changed for a few years and must endure the odor of decaying hay. The rooms are mostly used for individual practice though occasionally tutors will occupy the rooms with their students and very rarely will small groups practice together in these rooms. The practice rooms cannot hold more than three people at a time comfortably and usually bigger groups will use stages around the city or even just the outdoors to practice together. There is a general code of conduct that is followed and understood by residents of Avanthal: when a door is open a room is free and when a door is closed it is currently occupied. It is considered a major faux paus to open a closed door and possibly interrupt someone in the middle of composing the next great masterpiece. Rooms with doors that have been carelessly or accidentally closed have remained empty for months because of fear of disruption. Occasionally the Hold leader will go through and gently knock on doors he has not seen open for a long time to check for just such occurrences.