07.01j: The Seventh Winter (Dinner with Dragons)

[Joshua]

Oberon ponders. "I'm not sure. I've never seen such. Maybe Dworkin would know? Or Harrune?"

He hmmms, "Importing more mages would be easier. We could probably find some place having a magic renaissance and see who wants to visit."

[Wyvern]

"When Dworkin led me here, he created such a path before him - and took it down behind us; it took me no effort to follow him. Making that permanent... I'm certain he could. I'm equally certain that if I suggested such a thing to him, he'd tell me to walk one of the Patterns and do it myself." Alys shrugs. "Which would not be a bad thing for Amber, all in all; it would at least ensure that such a project took adequate precautions with respect to the defense of Amber."

"Importing more mages might still be a good idea, though I would not want to rely on that for the long term; better to have mages who grew up and were trained here."

[Joshua]

"Leading others through shadow is something we can all do. It's... like riding in the wake of a boat. It wasn't a path, more a bubble that you were inside that moves with him as he walked." Oberon thinks. "Although I guess it leaves a similar trail that some people can follow."

"The problem with mages who grew up here, is the city needs to survive that long. These are problems that exist now. Even imported mages, will train new people here in the long term."

[Wyvern]

"I would hope that that was not in question. If it is... most of my attention has been looking at more long-term issues; tell me, what do you see as the most immediate problems?"

[Veyska]

While Alys and Oberon banter back and forth, Asai busies herself hopping up over the back of the chair and amuses herself for a moment settling into a reasonable approximation of a man-like sitting position, her tail curled over atop her legs.

[Joshua]

"A seven year old city of almost a quarter million people?" Oberon asks. "What isn't an issue? We don't have a proper legal system. There are no checks or balances of the leaders barring one of use personally doing it. We have a lot of people at the bottom, a dozen people at the top, and do not have a stable middle. That includes laws, rights, importing food, workers, buildings, waste management..."

[Wyvern]

"Hm... I'll admit, my experience is much more slanted towards running a city that was well established. I'd think a good priority at this point would be a unified legal system..."

Alys ponders a moment, and then asks, "How fast-time a shadow can you find? It might be worthwhile for us to go found a few cities for practice."

[Veyska]

Asai wrinkles her nose at this notion. "Once maybe twice might be interesting, but then it would grow boring. It's one thing to get some university off somewhere in shadow tangled up in an interesting research project, finish it, and then vanish leaving them confused but the better off... Next time around it would be an entirely different set of ideas, rather than the same ones all over again, even if in a different locale. That same sense is part of why I haven't bothered seriously trying to set up firebreaks all over the city. That, and the fact that doing so would immediately drive land prices along those narrow strips of lands up sky high and I could just see some of the upper crust relocating and then trying to charge toll to pass through deny the 'lesser folks' permission to cross their lands. Either would get squashed in fairly short order, but for as few serious fires as we've had it all seems like too much trouble. I've stepped in once or twice for a few fires that threatened to get out of hand, for now that seems to be satisfactory."

With a tilt of her head, she'll return to the more recent topic. "I can't speak for how common they are, but there are at least some relatively fast shadows out there. There are even variably timed ones. Look hard enough and you can most likely find what you seek, though sometimes it ends up finding you instead."

[Joshua]

Oberon will blink. "I'm not sure about doing a quick city reformation. I mean, how much time do you expect to have? Age yourself to dust?"

[Wyvern]

It's Alystrakos' turn to blink in surprise. "What, you're attuned to a Greater Power and that doesn't protect you from minor things like time?"