Post by Solomon Moon on Feb 8, 2019 7:21:25 GMT
"So, Lord Commander..." Said the somewhat mousy woman, peering through her round rimmed reading glasses at Sol as if they were the window into the enclosure of some dangerous beast, and she was not entirely certain of their integrity, "How does Beacon compare to the Atlas Academy?"
Sol's golden eye seemed to laze in the shade beneath the beak of of his parade cap, and it swiveled languidly about, surveying the scenic view afforded by the panoramic bay windows set along the perimeter of Beacon's central tower.
It seemed very much to Sol, that whoever had designed the academy must have had a great love for the castles of antiquity, and had endeavored to construct such an edifice using mostly modern materials and techniques. Tall tapering towers and steeples rose up on every side, having every appearance of a bed of thistles in their volume and apparent disorder, whilst between ran the steeply pitched roofs of abundant halls and galleries that were tallest near the center and grew more squat towards the edges, giving the entire construct the appearance of a melting and pooling about itself. The confusion of flying buttresses that served to shore up the utmost extent of the construction seemed hardly practical to Sol if they were purely decorative, and a notable structural weakness if they were not. Everything was soft, and circular, from the approximate footprint of the building, to the halls and towers within, with everything advancing outwards in orbiting rings that had a curious resemblance to the large astrolabe suspended in the central tower, beneath the floor of where Sol now stood. The orb itself was a reoccurring motif, with large balls impaled grimly on the spires that capped most of the towers, and stained glass windows cut to convey the three dimensional shape in their contours. To Sol's bemusement even some of the trees in the ringed gardens below were pruned into perfect spheres.
While simulating a castle's shape, as an actual fortification Sol found it far too embellished and unwieldy to be viable, and would sooner have dug himself a trench than tried for an earnest defense of the structure against a capable or cognitive adversary. This was less of a fort and more of a monument to the profound wealth of Vale, and the maturity of it's artistic traditions. It was decadent, and the longer he looked at it from this height atop the central spire, the more it seemed to subtly spin around him, until he had the most peculiar sense of vertigo as he looked down on the expanses of green grass that surrounded every building.
He couldn't look away, mostly because he'd never seen anything else quite like it.
Compared to Atlas, Beacon was the Valenese Day to the Mantlian Night. Atlas itself had none of the vision that Beacon had, at least none of the artistic vision. Atlas Academy was a grim place for a grim people in a grim age. It had more likely than not been designed by a military engineer, to make the most efficient use of the space and materials available, said materials being all military grade without any consideration of aesthetic. The central building of Atlas Academy was a block, crenelated at the top, squatting beneath a tall central control tower that directed the ever present escort fleet that surrounded the flying fortress. It had every appearance of being a toy village made out of cinder-block by a not particularly imaginative child. Walls were sheer and plum and roofs were flat and level, and the corners were each and every one a regulation ninety degrees.The walls were blank, made of materials' easily replaced, and bare of adornments save for the banners of Atlas. The cube ruled at Atlas, between the squat blocky buildings, the square windows in concrete frames, and the crenelations atop all the structures.
As a fortification, Atlas was beyond rivaling. It was a flying well defended citadel, with every inch of it erected with the purpose of constructing kill-boxes, maximizing sight lines, and allowing a small garrison to hold each structure against a massively superior force. The walls were thick enough to repel even the most deadly of modern artillery, and every student there lived with the understanding that they might be called to defend her walls. It perfectly simulated the shape of a prison. Atlas was constructing with the single mindedness so typified by Mantle and it's people, without subtlety it was by first glance exactly what it seemed to be.
Atlas had always made Sol feel small when he stood at it's base and looked up at the brooding grey face of it's buildings, and as if he stood alone in the crowds of dutiful students and professors that milled about it's paved walks.
"It's warmer." Sol replied, cutting the words off so curtly, that there was no question that it was as much as he intended to say on the subject.
The mousy woman must have taken this for rudeness, and seemed to think she had offended Sol somehow with her question, when the answer had been too obvious for Sol to bother with. Truly the two academies, at least as far as aesthetic went, did not compare at all, it was like trying to compare the wind to the river, or an arrow to a sparrow.
"I... Uh... Apologize for the Headmaster being unavailable to meet you, but with the Vytal Festival coming so soon..." She stammered out, but Sol cut her off.
"They were too busy to accept my donation to the arts program in person..." Sol finished for her, in a tone so smooth and flat that were it not for the actual content of his words, it would have been impossible to guess at his actual mood on the subject, "and you get to give me the grand tour instead."
"y-yes..."
Sol's eye rose from the view below and before him, drawing deep a breath to steady the nerves and allow for L’Appel du Vide to pass as he looked towards the west, and where he imagined Mantle might be in the distance beyond the horizon. Then, as if responding to an order only he heard, he snapped around a parade perfect about face, to the great startlement of his companion, whilst sending his long navy blue riding cloak flapping excitedly in the rush of air as she fumbled with her clipboard. The heels of his knee high jack-boots rang out a chorus of rhythmic clicks as his long strides carried him towards that spiral stairwell the lead back towards the main level of the tower, silvery accents of his uniform, and the lacquered blue finish of his serpent scale breastplate twinkling in the easterling sun. The sword at his belt, resting quietly in it's gewehrscheide, rattled gently against his hip, the overlapping red heat shields giving it the appearance of a friendly snake who was hitching a ride. His immaculately white gloves made his big hands stand out at the ends of his long sleeves.
The mousy woman, whose name Sol did not know, and who he imagined was a low ranking secretary who had drawn the short lot when it was decided who would accompany him through Beacon today, followed behind a cautious distance, and seemed to focus all her energies towards surviving the next few hours.
Some time later, the pair arrived in the only part of the complex which interested Sol more than the overall strangeness of it's design.
"These are the training arenas..." The timid blonde secretary said as she pretended to read something on her clipboard in an effort to not have to look at the stylized silver moon that leer at her from the embroidery on Sol's cloak, "S-state of the art... Climate controlled... reinforced... We don't want the students to feel like they need to hold back here."
Sol nodded as he passed through the arched doorway into the first of the enclosed training grounds, observing the domed interior whilst noting several scroll interface screens and holographic targets that had been left running. Some evidence of training was present, scorch marks, spent dust shells littering the floors, a faint odor of sweat and ignited dust in the air. Further in could be heard the sounds of training in progress, grunts, and cries, and cheers, and the thudding of heavy footfalls. Sol smiled a crooked grin that did not touch the right side of his face, and made his way towards these sounds.
Sol's golden eye seemed to laze in the shade beneath the beak of of his parade cap, and it swiveled languidly about, surveying the scenic view afforded by the panoramic bay windows set along the perimeter of Beacon's central tower.
It seemed very much to Sol, that whoever had designed the academy must have had a great love for the castles of antiquity, and had endeavored to construct such an edifice using mostly modern materials and techniques. Tall tapering towers and steeples rose up on every side, having every appearance of a bed of thistles in their volume and apparent disorder, whilst between ran the steeply pitched roofs of abundant halls and galleries that were tallest near the center and grew more squat towards the edges, giving the entire construct the appearance of a melting and pooling about itself. The confusion of flying buttresses that served to shore up the utmost extent of the construction seemed hardly practical to Sol if they were purely decorative, and a notable structural weakness if they were not. Everything was soft, and circular, from the approximate footprint of the building, to the halls and towers within, with everything advancing outwards in orbiting rings that had a curious resemblance to the large astrolabe suspended in the central tower, beneath the floor of where Sol now stood. The orb itself was a reoccurring motif, with large balls impaled grimly on the spires that capped most of the towers, and stained glass windows cut to convey the three dimensional shape in their contours. To Sol's bemusement even some of the trees in the ringed gardens below were pruned into perfect spheres.
While simulating a castle's shape, as an actual fortification Sol found it far too embellished and unwieldy to be viable, and would sooner have dug himself a trench than tried for an earnest defense of the structure against a capable or cognitive adversary. This was less of a fort and more of a monument to the profound wealth of Vale, and the maturity of it's artistic traditions. It was decadent, and the longer he looked at it from this height atop the central spire, the more it seemed to subtly spin around him, until he had the most peculiar sense of vertigo as he looked down on the expanses of green grass that surrounded every building.
He couldn't look away, mostly because he'd never seen anything else quite like it.
Compared to Atlas, Beacon was the Valenese Day to the Mantlian Night. Atlas itself had none of the vision that Beacon had, at least none of the artistic vision. Atlas Academy was a grim place for a grim people in a grim age. It had more likely than not been designed by a military engineer, to make the most efficient use of the space and materials available, said materials being all military grade without any consideration of aesthetic. The central building of Atlas Academy was a block, crenelated at the top, squatting beneath a tall central control tower that directed the ever present escort fleet that surrounded the flying fortress. It had every appearance of being a toy village made out of cinder-block by a not particularly imaginative child. Walls were sheer and plum and roofs were flat and level, and the corners were each and every one a regulation ninety degrees.The walls were blank, made of materials' easily replaced, and bare of adornments save for the banners of Atlas. The cube ruled at Atlas, between the squat blocky buildings, the square windows in concrete frames, and the crenelations atop all the structures.
As a fortification, Atlas was beyond rivaling. It was a flying well defended citadel, with every inch of it erected with the purpose of constructing kill-boxes, maximizing sight lines, and allowing a small garrison to hold each structure against a massively superior force. The walls were thick enough to repel even the most deadly of modern artillery, and every student there lived with the understanding that they might be called to defend her walls. It perfectly simulated the shape of a prison. Atlas was constructing with the single mindedness so typified by Mantle and it's people, without subtlety it was by first glance exactly what it seemed to be.
Atlas had always made Sol feel small when he stood at it's base and looked up at the brooding grey face of it's buildings, and as if he stood alone in the crowds of dutiful students and professors that milled about it's paved walks.
"It's warmer." Sol replied, cutting the words off so curtly, that there was no question that it was as much as he intended to say on the subject.
The mousy woman must have taken this for rudeness, and seemed to think she had offended Sol somehow with her question, when the answer had been too obvious for Sol to bother with. Truly the two academies, at least as far as aesthetic went, did not compare at all, it was like trying to compare the wind to the river, or an arrow to a sparrow.
"I... Uh... Apologize for the Headmaster being unavailable to meet you, but with the Vytal Festival coming so soon..." She stammered out, but Sol cut her off.
"They were too busy to accept my donation to the arts program in person..." Sol finished for her, in a tone so smooth and flat that were it not for the actual content of his words, it would have been impossible to guess at his actual mood on the subject, "and you get to give me the grand tour instead."
"y-yes..."
Sol's eye rose from the view below and before him, drawing deep a breath to steady the nerves and allow for L’Appel du Vide to pass as he looked towards the west, and where he imagined Mantle might be in the distance beyond the horizon. Then, as if responding to an order only he heard, he snapped around a parade perfect about face, to the great startlement of his companion, whilst sending his long navy blue riding cloak flapping excitedly in the rush of air as she fumbled with her clipboard. The heels of his knee high jack-boots rang out a chorus of rhythmic clicks as his long strides carried him towards that spiral stairwell the lead back towards the main level of the tower, silvery accents of his uniform, and the lacquered blue finish of his serpent scale breastplate twinkling in the easterling sun. The sword at his belt, resting quietly in it's gewehrscheide, rattled gently against his hip, the overlapping red heat shields giving it the appearance of a friendly snake who was hitching a ride. His immaculately white gloves made his big hands stand out at the ends of his long sleeves.
The mousy woman, whose name Sol did not know, and who he imagined was a low ranking secretary who had drawn the short lot when it was decided who would accompany him through Beacon today, followed behind a cautious distance, and seemed to focus all her energies towards surviving the next few hours.
Some time later, the pair arrived in the only part of the complex which interested Sol more than the overall strangeness of it's design.
"These are the training arenas..." The timid blonde secretary said as she pretended to read something on her clipboard in an effort to not have to look at the stylized silver moon that leer at her from the embroidery on Sol's cloak, "S-state of the art... Climate controlled... reinforced... We don't want the students to feel like they need to hold back here."
Sol nodded as he passed through the arched doorway into the first of the enclosed training grounds, observing the domed interior whilst noting several scroll interface screens and holographic targets that had been left running. Some evidence of training was present, scorch marks, spent dust shells littering the floors, a faint odor of sweat and ignited dust in the air. Further in could be heard the sounds of training in progress, grunts, and cries, and cheers, and the thudding of heavy footfalls. Sol smiled a crooked grin that did not touch the right side of his face, and made his way towards these sounds.