In the City

OK, given some of the things that seem to be happening with the dimensional portals, maybe I shouldn't say exactly where we were. (I checked the portal to Quaverel while I was in London. It's not functional but ... I somehow got more the feeling that it was warded than that it was dead.)

I took Erynne through a different portal to get to the Tower area. It takes a bit of nerve to use that one, and maybe I was trying to impress her - but I enjoyed Erynne's reaction to seeing London from that far above.

In this age it's a strange hotchpotch of styles. Wren churches, as exquisite as Faberge eggs, hide in the shadow of glass and concrete monstrosities. From our vantage point, we were looking down from far above the railway.

The buildings are a mixture of styles, now. Some of them had me worried about whether we'd come down in the wrong dimension after all!

There was a huge, stark matt-black tower with what looks like the silhouette of a giant, hooded figure, looking broodingly out over the busy city. (There was no way to smoke over to see what was really there. I was quite grateful when a local told me it was the Natwest Tower. The Mordor effect was kind of bugging me.)

I was looking at a thing like a vast, decorated glass cigar when Erynne nudged me too hard for comfort. She'd spotted Tower Bridge. The Tower of London lay behind it, looking almost like a child's toy fort from that height. We could see into the courtyard.

The Tower of London was to be our next stop, but I could see the roof of a bar I knew. I decided that we might as well stop off there, first.

Updates..

I guess I'll always be updating late. My kind of gigs don't benefit from publicity while they're running. I'll miss Guy Fawkes Day in England - instead, Halloween in Sunnydale, and that's the day the bads don't walk...

Anyway, might as well upload the notes I took in London.......

We'd been taking a look at the city from about the height of cloud nine when I thought I'd seen a bar I knew. Maybe I should say that I used to know it. Once I saw the place close to I wasn't sure whether it was the "Old Bull and Bush" at all.

Inside it was neon and chrome, with a small cluster of people who could have been Hollywood wannabes, but for the accents. The small stage was in the right place, but the singer was a poor copy of Elton John.

So I cast the mojo - with a twist, and not the Twist and Shout kind. The singer started to belt "Roll Out The Barrel" - that was more like it used to be.

Erynne looked through the menu for meat meals and I got started with Bar Snax. The singer got onto Victorian Music Hall songs.

There was a ghastly woman with dyed red hair and a laugh like a hyena, right near the stage. Every time she yelped it cut through the singing. It was getting on my nerves so I cast a glamour that took twenty years off her age and made her look like Helen of Troy.

A guy at the next table took a good look and they left together within about five minutes. I wondered how he'd react when they got out of my range or the illusion wore off. Erynne looked up when I laughed, but the waitress put down her plate and distracted her.