Post by Naylor on Dec 11, 2021 22:35:26 GMT 10
Outside of tower residents and personnel, with a few exceptions, Lumina hasn’t been seen in months. Work orders and supplies come in, products and requisitions come out. She works exclusively in the Gnomish Alternate Design high-energy magic lab, the facility she has been pouring whatever money comes in from her products, designs, or consultation work. Many in the tower are unsure if it is in the basement or some pocket plane, but all give the Archmage her space.
If one were to see inside, they would see the textbook exemplar of someone on the verge of becoming a “Mad Scientist”, the fate of Gnomes for whom space and time become disconnected with thought and reality. There is a clash of Order and Chaos. Her works and chalkboards are many, but they don’t yet have the scrawling, completely incomprehensible (even to those with knowledge of the arcane), near-rantings of madness. A pile in one corner of the room stands testament to broken gizmos and devices, charred materials and objects with unsettling physical properties. Another corner keeps a bed and small kitchenette – she still sleeps, but to those who ask she has often said that she “tires of dreaming” – an almost upsettingly normal addition to a laboratory full of strange machines and devices. Near the bed, a writing table, stacked with letters and envelopes, many with designations that they were unable to be delivered. Some to Highforge, of course, but others to places like The Territories or even Karond Kar.
The bulk of the lab is a maze of machines powered by strange energies. Some lay dormant, while others never seem to cease. It is quite possible that reality gets a little “bent” in this lab, and dimensions do not always exactly work as they would even in a place like Threshold. Time too, seems a bit funny here to the few guests the shuffling Gnome will allow. Sometimes a substantial visit may take no time at all. Sometimes a quick visit will end up being many minutes more than intended. But it is all fine, they are told, as Lumina shuffles around the facility. A by product of these forces acting near those devices. Yes that collection of Khoronusian iconography was probably always against that wall…
But there can be no mistaking the focal point of the chamber. A cylinder made from the finest diamond-infused magic glass. Cables and wires run from the cylinder along the roof and snake away to various points and machines in the laboratory, some of them of greater diameter than Lumina herself. Powerful and deadly wards seem to try to protect from a near-paranoid number of possibilities. Odd runestones make strange orbits around the device, twisting and glowing in strange patterns. However, the heart of the lab, the heart of the device, is a woman. Floating inside, always bathed in gentle light, is a red headed Traladaran warrior. She wears a dress, all white, vaguely reminiscent of a wedding dress. Her eyes are closed, she is still. Frozen.
Night must fall everywhere, and for everyone. So too does the lab wind down from time to time. The hums and buzzing and cracks of lightning fade to a dull background white noise. If one was to gently to crack open the door at such a time, they might hear a small voice weeping in song. The languages change, but the song is the same:
[OOC: picture is just an approximation but I think it captures the feeling]
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
If one were to see inside, they would see the textbook exemplar of someone on the verge of becoming a “Mad Scientist”, the fate of Gnomes for whom space and time become disconnected with thought and reality. There is a clash of Order and Chaos. Her works and chalkboards are many, but they don’t yet have the scrawling, completely incomprehensible (even to those with knowledge of the arcane), near-rantings of madness. A pile in one corner of the room stands testament to broken gizmos and devices, charred materials and objects with unsettling physical properties. Another corner keeps a bed and small kitchenette – she still sleeps, but to those who ask she has often said that she “tires of dreaming” – an almost upsettingly normal addition to a laboratory full of strange machines and devices. Near the bed, a writing table, stacked with letters and envelopes, many with designations that they were unable to be delivered. Some to Highforge, of course, but others to places like The Territories or even Karond Kar.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
The bulk of the lab is a maze of machines powered by strange energies. Some lay dormant, while others never seem to cease. It is quite possible that reality gets a little “bent” in this lab, and dimensions do not always exactly work as they would even in a place like Threshold. Time too, seems a bit funny here to the few guests the shuffling Gnome will allow. Sometimes a substantial visit may take no time at all. Sometimes a quick visit will end up being many minutes more than intended. But it is all fine, they are told, as Lumina shuffles around the facility. A by product of these forces acting near those devices. Yes that collection of Khoronusian iconography was probably always against that wall…
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
Supplies in, products out.
Gold in, requisitions out.
But there can be no mistaking the focal point of the chamber. A cylinder made from the finest diamond-infused magic glass. Cables and wires run from the cylinder along the roof and snake away to various points and machines in the laboratory, some of them of greater diameter than Lumina herself. Powerful and deadly wards seem to try to protect from a near-paranoid number of possibilities. Odd runestones make strange orbits around the device, twisting and glowing in strange patterns. However, the heart of the lab, the heart of the device, is a woman. Floating inside, always bathed in gentle light, is a red headed Traladaran warrior. She wears a dress, all white, vaguely reminiscent of a wedding dress. Her eyes are closed, she is still. Frozen.
Night must fall everywhere, and for everyone. So too does the lab wind down from time to time. The hums and buzzing and cracks of lightning fade to a dull background white noise. If one was to gently to crack open the door at such a time, they might hear a small voice weeping in song. The languages change, but the song is the same:
[OOC: picture is just an approximation but I think it captures the feeling]