Elysium Hall
Elysium Hall is the name Alses has given to her residence in Lhavit. It is a pleasant mansion house built from golden marble and shimmering skyglass that stands proudly on the top tier of Tenten Peak, glowing in the abundant sunlight so beloved of its owner. Unlike the norm in many other cities, Elysium Hall isn’t hidden behind high walls, wrought iron fences and private guards; all that demarcates Alses’ property from the street is a low skyglass wall and a pair of open gates with her sunburst sigil worked into the design, more a polite reminder than a barrier of any kind.
The grounds are substantial, especially given the paucity of space atop the peaks, and the gardens are full of Alses’ favourite flowers and trees, roses being especially prominent, nodding in their hundreds along the curving pathway that leads up to the Hall proper.
The façade of the Hall is elegantly ornate, reflecting the tastes of its owner; fine allegorical statuary and fresco-work is much in evidence in between the skyglass pillars that blaze with the light of the sun, framing the grand double doors that lead inside.
The entrance hall in its current incarnation is grand and near-cavernous in its dimensions. It is obvious the place has been designed to display many works of art, from paintings to sculptures to tapestries and knick-knacks, but currently the pillared and panelled walls are bare, waiting for Alses to actually acquire some objets d’art worthy of display. It echoes, too, the result of a lack of rugs on the intricate marble floor to soak up the sounds, and is not the most welcoming of entrances; positively cold in comparison to the warm exterior, despite the best efforts of numerous skyglass glowglobes in brass claw-sconces.
The hallways, too, follow this unintentional theme of coldness; whilst the quality of the materials used is evidently second-to-none, the soft furnishings leave something to be desired – specifically, their presence.
The rooms themselves, however, are much more pleasant, extravagantly decorated in Alses’ preferred ornate styles. Decorative swirls and flourishes – many of them gilded – are much in evidence, along with painted frescoes and intricate carvings and, of course, plenty of windows, flooding every room with abundant light. The furniture is heavy and baroque, unusual in Lhavit where minimalism is more the norm, but the dimensions of the rooms keep things in generous proportion. In many ways, the house fits Alses perfectly, a reflection of her.
AThe LibraryThe metaphorical and literal heart of Elysium Hall, the library is a grand and gently-curving space covered by the central dome that dominates the house’s roofline. Entirely skyglass, the freely supported arc of glowing light bathes the room in a steady, even radiance; the chandelier suspended from its apex is more a decorative centrepiece than a functional necessity, as are the glowglobes ranged around the many, many bookshelves that give the room its primary purpose.
Books in serried ranks glow serenely from the fadeong shelves, the abundant light gleaming off gilt lettering and shimmering on the leather bindings, and ornately-clawed tables range between the bookcases, polished to a mirror-shine.
Comfortable chairs, richly upholstered in the red and gold that characterises the room, overstuffed in the approved manner, cluster around the guarded fireplace and the tables both. Plush and yielding, they’re perfect places to curl up with a good book and simply
read, and Alses herself can often be found here of an evening, a glass of something hot and wicked on a claw-footed end table nearby.
Two brass staircases, the banisters wrought into fanciful, roaring velispars, lead up to the second mezzanine floor, with further study alcoves and ranks of shelves uncurling around the central space. End tables for knick-knacks, and spaces for potted plants and statuary are commonplace, but the upper floor is much less complete, much less furnished, than the ground floor – plenty of space for Alses to fill with more knowledge and later acquisitions.
The librarian’s desk is recessed into an alcove on the upper floor, half-hidden from sight and perfectly positioned to keep a weather eye on goings-on both on the ground floor and the upper mezzanine.
AThe Magecraft LaboratoryThis laboratory is one of Alses’ most prized and treasured possessions, a large and airy space dedicated, whole and entire, to the sovereign science and the greatest of arts, the practice and execution of magecraft to the highest degree of safety and magnitude possible within the confines of a post-Valterrian world.
The baroque decoration of the rest of her house rather peters out here, obliterated by sheer necessity. Here, Alses had demanded that the room be built exactly to specification first and decorated later, rather than as an ongoing, collaborative, negotiation-filled process between builder and designer.
Even so, the architects have managed at least a little decoration; figures from Lhavitian myth and legend vault and cavort around the upper reaches of the room, a broad border that subtly draws the eye skywards, to where a smaller dome floods the room with Syna’s generous light. The supporting pillars that held up the roof are intricately carved to represent vines and ivy, each decorative leaf gleaming in the abundant sunlight.
The main focus of the laboratory, though, is the equipment. The centrepiece of it all, a mountain of metal and silvered glass, is the optical ring, suspended on twisted steel cables from the pillars, glittering and shining over the pedestal that is the anchoring point for the craft of a magesmith. Its mirrors and lenses flash and flare in the abundant light, a mundane reflection of their arcane purpose.
A tilting-barrel arrangement nearby provides an emergency damping-down mechanism, perfect for erasing glyphing runes and dissipating runaway djed reactions before they can endanger the life of the magesmith and the fabric of the building in general. Tool-racks range along the walls, flanking a heavy desk piled high with papers, quills and ink, ready for Alses to illustrate her plans along with the blackboards in sturdy wheeled frames – perfectly black and new, without a single smear of chalk to mar their fine surfaces.
AThe Animation LaboratoryThe Animation laboratory is one of the newer additions to Elysium Hall, a reaction to the loss of Maeki Cho's studio to arson in Winter 514 A.V. In keeping with the other laboratories Alses has built, practical considerations absolutely overrule artistic license; the room is high, large and fairly bereft of decoration – at least when compared to the rest of the Hall.
The floors are pale tile, carefully roughened to provide grip for shoes and an easy surface on which to inscribe Animation circles, whilst the walls are lined with shelves and recessed cubbyholes, ready to be filled with components and completed pieces. A few scalloped alcoves are also recessed into the walls, display areas for larger golems and their shells, and it is here that the architects have had their way; fluted skyglass pillars bracket each alcove, glowing softly, and gilded decoration crowns the apex of each arch.
Blackboards occupy what little wall space remains, ready for the planning stages crucial to every Animation, and in one of the alcoves there sits a desk, perfectly positioned to drink in the sunlight pouring through the window.
The upper reaches of the lab are crisscrossed with iron gantries, chains and complex pulleys, the latter designed to lift and move the very heaviest and largest of golems, components and other machinery that might need shifting from one part of the room to the next.
The high ceiling glimmers with skyglass radiance, filtering through the chains and casting an unusual dappled light down onto the floor, but even with the obstructions the chamber is very large and airy, a very pleasant space to work in. Without any of the large golems in, however, it is very echogenic, amplifying even the smallest of sounds, an unintended flaw that is somewhat distracting.
AThe BathsA watery haven in the depths of the house, the baths are perpetually wreathed in gently drifting steam. Statuesque fountains perpetually chuckle and play, forever renewing the gentle circulation of hot water from the springs far below, brought to the surface in a controlled fashion by the power of Lhavit’s reimancers and the artifice of its gadgeteers, and gentle wavelets lap at the mosaic-encrusted sides of the baths.
Glittering skyglass columns punctuate the humid atmosphere, carved into elaborate statues – Ethaefal all, holding up the weight of the rest of the house pressing down on their unflinching shoulders and hands. Along the alcove-scalloped walls, shelves and glass-fronted cabinets run in profusion, laden down with delicate glass bottles full of the philterer’s many and varied arts, or else piled high with fluffy towels, locked securely away from moisture.
Plants grow richly and well down here, in spite of the relative dimness; the water is rich in nutrients and the wet heat curling off the many pools and rills encourages luxuriant growth. Every plant – from elegant climbing vines to ornamental roses and lilies – positively bursts with health, and their quiet perfume fills the air.
A perfect place to relax and unwind after a long day, Alses can often be found here, especially as the evening slips into night, floating motionless in the deeper reaches of the main pool or else simply enjoying the steam and the heat on one of the divans that line the outer edges of the bathing chambers.
Maximilian Silver
Organization
45 Persuasion
37 Mathematics
30 Leadership
29 Geology
15Languages Common, Arumenic
Maximilian Silver is a portly and imposing gentleman, with an indefinable aura of gravitas surrounding him. He's a balding gentleman, with what hair as remains a battleground between stark white and jet black, and his skin is very much the pale Lhavitian norm, making the contrast even more striking.
A soft-spoken and efficient person, someone who has devoted much of his working life to serving the needs of others – often, now, before they even know they have a need – he is a highly-valued figure in any household and has developed and nurtured a reputation for discreet and self-effacing service in the celestial city.
He almost never loses his cool or his temper, taking in stride developments from domestic catastrophe to personal tragedy with barely a ripple in his calm mien, a rock on which a household can be built and steadied. Well versed in the vagaries of staff and running a large household, he takes a quiet pride in ensuring that his employers' home lives run as smooth as silk.
His work, however, is not his life; he has a wife and son, on whom he quietly dotes, and as something of an amateur rock hound, Maximilian can often be found, on his days, off, striding over the spectacular terrain of the Misty Peaks in stout boots and waterproof jacket, with a rock hammer in hand and a sturdy satchel to store any particularly interesting specimens. His butler's pantry, too, is usually stocked with interesting geodes, fossils or particularly beautiful rock strata, all of them harvested from the tortured landscape of Kalea, something of a source of pride for the man.