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<blockquote data-quote="Feir Fireb" data-source="post: 4808281" data-attributes="member: 14074"><p><strong>Excerpt from "The Unscholarly Journals of Darren the Senalline": Harmony</strong></p><p></p><p>[A series of overhead diagrams of the Floating Gardens, heavily annotated with descriptions of structural elements, locations and types of clockwork creatures and music boxes, plants large enough to require significant root structure, remembered carvings and reliefs, typical numbers of guards, and direction of water flow. The Xaimani equivalent of the question mark abounds.]</p><p> </p><p>[An overhead diagram of the slave quarters and connecting, similarly annotated but in much sparser detail].</p><p></p><p><strong>NOTICE ANYTHING ABOUT</strong> the layout of the Floating Gardens? Where would you hide a secret passage amongst that riot of decoration if you wanted to? The natural location is much clearer when you have a diagram laid out in front of you, but at first I found the task phenomenally difficult without Mullod's amulet. I'd originally thought that the flowing water might escape to some location outside the palace, and for all I know that possibility may still be worth exploring. But, designed as it is by the Radiant Path, I fear the water flow may follow a closed system. </p><p></p><p>The Xaimani love of symmetry and harmony makes picking out irregularities in high Xaimani architecture frustratingly difficult, but also sometimes provides the first clues that something is amiss in the design. The Xaimani also value elegance to such a degree that one should take any unnecessary bulk in the palace as a sign. Notice in particular the load-bearing columns in the garden. A clever Xaimani architect will also attempt misdirection based on the basic assumptions of geomancy that all Xaimani have in common, but fortunately as a foreigner I was unencumbered by these assumptions. That said, they will always nest their arrangement in what they believe to be a deeper and subtler geomantic truth, so I have since then had to learn at least something of this architectural philosophy.</p><p></p><p>Days passed in frustration as I scoured the areas to which we were permitted for hidden or lost passages, and Atrix kept track of the movements of guards and nobles for patterns that we could exploit. Where most slaves would savor and stretch their mealtimes, I would bolt the rice and little cakes that looked to me like rancid milk [<em>Senalline: "cheese"</em>] but tasted like scrambled eggs and were in fact made of ground beans. I then had the remainder of my mealtime to look for a way out. Every errand Li Shotay sent me on took perhaps three or four minutes longer than it ought have so I could quietly examine some new corner of the Gardens. </p><p> </p><p>Some few of those errands took me past the balconies on the walls from which I could see the ocean off to the east, and where the city sloped down to meet it, cliffs and docks. But not the twisted and lifeless docks that I had first encountered in Lynar! These bustled with life and human activity, people like tiny ants below scurrying along a maze of piers that had elaborate and well-maintained mechanisms for raising and lowering with the drastic swings of the tides. Watching the vessels drifting in and out of the port felt like walking into a fantasy from one day in Lynar, when I'd imagined how real ships might be. At least it did for a few moments before duties both open and secret beckoned. I could scarcely believe my own eyes and found my thoughts turning to ships whenever my mind had a chance to wander.</p><p></p><p>The wall is, itself, an exceedingly poor point of approach or exit. Even with its embellishments it is fairly sheer and even if Atrix could scale it as well as I, and neither of us ran the risk of breaking our legs in a fall, we would have been easy shots for the numerous guards upon it. At night the upper city remains relatively well-lit and the guards have beacons designed much like large bull's eye lanterns. To be sure, it might be done by someone well-equipped but would require a fairly elaborate scheme to distract the guards.</p><p></p><p><strong>I HAD CUT</strong> back on sleep so I could be exploring the Gardens before Li Shotay arrived in the morning. It became obvious that if I remained at the palace for a while, I would quickly learn more about clockwork than either Doggerel or Cannedun had taught me. It was not long, however, before a haggard Li Shotay awoke <em>me</em> early one morning before dawn. His eyes wild and his hands trembling with panic, he rushed me to the Gardens. Out from amid the foliage drifted the wails of young girl who sounded as if her arm had been ripped off. Rounding a hedge I saw the weeping girl, intact, dressed in royal finery and standing next to a horned clockwork beast, a strange amalgamation of other creatures that Li Shotay called a Ki-rin. It sat beside her, dumb as a statue. Before she could catch sight of us, he halted me and pointed Ki-rin, hissing out, "It's supposed to sing to the dawn! She comes here every morning to hear it!" </p><p></p><p>"Is she..."</p><p></p><p>"She is the Princess Kimusa! We must fix it, the sun will rise soon!"</p><p></p><p>I comprehended Li Shotay's horror and followed his lead. If the situation continued, our lives might be forfeit on account of a child's disappointment. Approaching her, we engaged in the most cursory of obeisances possible for one of the Imperial Family, breaking from it as soon as we saw that she paid little attention through her tears. After Li Shotay pulled back several glittering scales, I opened the back of the Ki-rin, releasing the fasteners and prying off the lid. Inside lay some of the most fiendishly complicated clockwork I have ever seen. Not only did it contain a sort of flute and bellows attached to a toothed drum that turned in time with the notes and depressed the flute keys, it was all connected to a master clock with the counterweights hidden in a leg that drove a number of other mechanisms. The clock timed the device's operation, but the other mechanisms were driven by separately wound springs that took their cues from it. The Ki-rin could pose and gesture at different times, and would sway when it sang. Or at least it would if the main gearbox hadn't been jammed by a loose cog. </p><p></p><p>[A very detailed schematic of the Ki-rin]</p><p></p><p>Such problems are rarely obvious at first, so Li Shotay went from point to point along the musical apparatus and associated gears, loosening parts that might be too tight and tightening those that might be too loose. Some parts had clearly been thrown out of alignment by the primary malfunction and at least one needed to be replaced entirely. Meanwhile I began to dismantle the casing on the main gearbox to see if the problem might be there. Master Li, his hands sweaty and shaking, began to lose grasp of his tools, but not before he could help me remove a spring that would have taken five times as long with half as many hands. After passing my eyes over it a dozen times I finally found the cog but, uncertain how to get at it, managed to drop my pliers into the gearbox in my haste and nearly displace a half a dozen other gears. I anxiously retrieved the pliers and checked that no further damage was done. Then, very carefully, I removed the cog and set it in place, more securely and properly aligned. Hoping that we had found the root of the problem, I returned in sequence each part from the small pile we'd carefully laid out, set the gears in motion and closed the back without fully sealing it.</p><p></p><p>As the sun rose over the edge of the wall and flecked the leaves with gold, the Ki-rin reared back slightly and let out a soft, low, lilting croon. Swaying its neck in motion with its tune, it called forth to the dawn with rising joy that became a true overture. Li Shotay and I sat back and watched Princess Kimusa's tears fade into silent wonderment. At the time I could not have imagined a sweeter song.</p><p></p><p><strong>LATER THAT AFTERNOON</strong>, well after the Ki-rin had faded back to silence and Princess Kimusa had taken her leave of us, after we had resealed it completely and returned to rather more mundane maintenance tasks which we approached with such ease as we could afford, I was accosted by Slavemaster Chang. "For the past several hours, the Emperor's favorite daughter by the Niyonari Empress has been singing the praises of a particular Northerner slave to anyone she comes across. I am to understand that you have repaired Princess Kimusa's favorite creature of the Floating Gardens in time for a proper sunrise and that for this you are to be suitably rewarded."</p><p></p><p>With that, my heart skipped a beat as he removed from a pouch at his side the amulet that Mullod had given me.</p><p></p><p>He continued, "Know that your status is unchanged and what has been most graciously given for exemplary service can as easily be taken away in punishment."</p><p></p><p>I lied and promised Chang only the most satisfactory behavior. Receiving the amulet from him I gratefully slipped it over my head, and everything in the Palace was different.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Feir Fireb, post: 4808281, member: 14074"] [b]Excerpt from "The Unscholarly Journals of Darren the Senalline": Harmony[/b] [A series of overhead diagrams of the Floating Gardens, heavily annotated with descriptions of structural elements, locations and types of clockwork creatures and music boxes, plants large enough to require significant root structure, remembered carvings and reliefs, typical numbers of guards, and direction of water flow. The Xaimani equivalent of the question mark abounds.] [An overhead diagram of the slave quarters and connecting, similarly annotated but in much sparser detail]. [B]NOTICE ANYTHING ABOUT[/B] the layout of the Floating Gardens? Where would you hide a secret passage amongst that riot of decoration if you wanted to? The natural location is much clearer when you have a diagram laid out in front of you, but at first I found the task phenomenally difficult without Mullod's amulet. I'd originally thought that the flowing water might escape to some location outside the palace, and for all I know that possibility may still be worth exploring. But, designed as it is by the Radiant Path, I fear the water flow may follow a closed system. The Xaimani love of symmetry and harmony makes picking out irregularities in high Xaimani architecture frustratingly difficult, but also sometimes provides the first clues that something is amiss in the design. The Xaimani also value elegance to such a degree that one should take any unnecessary bulk in the palace as a sign. Notice in particular the load-bearing columns in the garden. A clever Xaimani architect will also attempt misdirection based on the basic assumptions of geomancy that all Xaimani have in common, but fortunately as a foreigner I was unencumbered by these assumptions. That said, they will always nest their arrangement in what they believe to be a deeper and subtler geomantic truth, so I have since then had to learn at least something of this architectural philosophy. Days passed in frustration as I scoured the areas to which we were permitted for hidden or lost passages, and Atrix kept track of the movements of guards and nobles for patterns that we could exploit. Where most slaves would savor and stretch their mealtimes, I would bolt the rice and little cakes that looked to me like rancid milk [[I]Senalline: "cheese"[/I]] but tasted like scrambled eggs and were in fact made of ground beans. I then had the remainder of my mealtime to look for a way out. Every errand Li Shotay sent me on took perhaps three or four minutes longer than it ought have so I could quietly examine some new corner of the Gardens. Some few of those errands took me past the balconies on the walls from which I could see the ocean off to the east, and where the city sloped down to meet it, cliffs and docks. But not the twisted and lifeless docks that I had first encountered in Lynar! These bustled with life and human activity, people like tiny ants below scurrying along a maze of piers that had elaborate and well-maintained mechanisms for raising and lowering with the drastic swings of the tides. Watching the vessels drifting in and out of the port felt like walking into a fantasy from one day in Lynar, when I'd imagined how real ships might be. At least it did for a few moments before duties both open and secret beckoned. I could scarcely believe my own eyes and found my thoughts turning to ships whenever my mind had a chance to wander. The wall is, itself, an exceedingly poor point of approach or exit. Even with its embellishments it is fairly sheer and even if Atrix could scale it as well as I, and neither of us ran the risk of breaking our legs in a fall, we would have been easy shots for the numerous guards upon it. At night the upper city remains relatively well-lit and the guards have beacons designed much like large bull's eye lanterns. To be sure, it might be done by someone well-equipped but would require a fairly elaborate scheme to distract the guards. [B]I HAD CUT[/B] back on sleep so I could be exploring the Gardens before Li Shotay arrived in the morning. It became obvious that if I remained at the palace for a while, I would quickly learn more about clockwork than either Doggerel or Cannedun had taught me. It was not long, however, before a haggard Li Shotay awoke [I]me[/I] early one morning before dawn. His eyes wild and his hands trembling with panic, he rushed me to the Gardens. Out from amid the foliage drifted the wails of young girl who sounded as if her arm had been ripped off. Rounding a hedge I saw the weeping girl, intact, dressed in royal finery and standing next to a horned clockwork beast, a strange amalgamation of other creatures that Li Shotay called a Ki-rin. It sat beside her, dumb as a statue. Before she could catch sight of us, he halted me and pointed Ki-rin, hissing out, "It's supposed to sing to the dawn! She comes here every morning to hear it!" "Is she..." "She is the Princess Kimusa! We must fix it, the sun will rise soon!" I comprehended Li Shotay's horror and followed his lead. If the situation continued, our lives might be forfeit on account of a child's disappointment. Approaching her, we engaged in the most cursory of obeisances possible for one of the Imperial Family, breaking from it as soon as we saw that she paid little attention through her tears. After Li Shotay pulled back several glittering scales, I opened the back of the Ki-rin, releasing the fasteners and prying off the lid. Inside lay some of the most fiendishly complicated clockwork I have ever seen. Not only did it contain a sort of flute and bellows attached to a toothed drum that turned in time with the notes and depressed the flute keys, it was all connected to a master clock with the counterweights hidden in a leg that drove a number of other mechanisms. The clock timed the device's operation, but the other mechanisms were driven by separately wound springs that took their cues from it. The Ki-rin could pose and gesture at different times, and would sway when it sang. Or at least it would if the main gearbox hadn't been jammed by a loose cog. [A very detailed schematic of the Ki-rin] Such problems are rarely obvious at first, so Li Shotay went from point to point along the musical apparatus and associated gears, loosening parts that might be too tight and tightening those that might be too loose. Some parts had clearly been thrown out of alignment by the primary malfunction and at least one needed to be replaced entirely. Meanwhile I began to dismantle the casing on the main gearbox to see if the problem might be there. Master Li, his hands sweaty and shaking, began to lose grasp of his tools, but not before he could help me remove a spring that would have taken five times as long with half as many hands. After passing my eyes over it a dozen times I finally found the cog but, uncertain how to get at it, managed to drop my pliers into the gearbox in my haste and nearly displace a half a dozen other gears. I anxiously retrieved the pliers and checked that no further damage was done. Then, very carefully, I removed the cog and set it in place, more securely and properly aligned. Hoping that we had found the root of the problem, I returned in sequence each part from the small pile we'd carefully laid out, set the gears in motion and closed the back without fully sealing it. As the sun rose over the edge of the wall and flecked the leaves with gold, the Ki-rin reared back slightly and let out a soft, low, lilting croon. Swaying its neck in motion with its tune, it called forth to the dawn with rising joy that became a true overture. Li Shotay and I sat back and watched Princess Kimusa's tears fade into silent wonderment. At the time I could not have imagined a sweeter song. [B]LATER THAT AFTERNOON[/B], well after the Ki-rin had faded back to silence and Princess Kimusa had taken her leave of us, after we had resealed it completely and returned to rather more mundane maintenance tasks which we approached with such ease as we could afford, I was accosted by Slavemaster Chang. "For the past several hours, the Emperor's favorite daughter by the Niyonari Empress has been singing the praises of a particular Northerner slave to anyone she comes across. I am to understand that you have repaired Princess Kimusa's favorite creature of the Floating Gardens in time for a proper sunrise and that for this you are to be suitably rewarded." With that, my heart skipped a beat as he removed from a pouch at his side the amulet that Mullod had given me. He continued, "Know that your status is unchanged and what has been most graciously given for exemplary service can as easily be taken away in punishment." I lied and promised Chang only the most satisfactory behavior. Receiving the amulet from him I gratefully slipped it over my head, and everything in the Palace was different. [/QUOTE]
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