A drawing of a lamp. Hardly seems like an exciting way to start off my travel journal of Gateway, but when I saw it, it seemed oddly appropriate. I guess it's because so many things in this city are more than "just a lamp", like they often are back home. The uncommon is common here in Gateway, a city that teems with creatures and beings and people from an unknowable variety of places.
This lamp is in the lobby of the pension that I checked in to this morning after a very long and "tricky" journey here. The old lady who runs the place, her name is Szerta I think, tells me her grandfather bought it from a travelling junk salesman in the Nathru-Val. She says they used to be very trendy a couple of centuries ago…. I don't know if you can see it in my drawing, but when you turn the light on, a bit of smoke comes out of the cigar on the little face in the middle… there were, apparently, a variety of lamps like this that had little smoking faces…. I guess it's no weirder than the wall-mounted singing fish that were popular back home several years ago…
It's just one of the many bizarrely intricate and fascinating things that I seem to be finding around every corner here. I consider myself very lucky to have been given this opportunity to come to Gateway and draw what I see.
My mysterious benefactor/client has made sure I have enough time, money, supplies, and resources to really dive deep into life in Gateway, and record it for curious types back home. Although I have planned to be here for about a year, I can see how it would really take a lifetime to truly explore this unbelievably vast and intricate city, maybe two lifetimes.
So, I am going to unpack, study some street maps (no easy task, I assure you) and plan my route for tomorrow. I will try to post these as often as possible, but, as you can imagine, it's tricky getting information back and forth. Wish me luck!
