Except: Overseer in the Jet Labyrinth

 (C) 2023 Kyrinn S. Eis  All Rights Reserved.

From here, he chose to proceed beyond in the continuation of the alley turned street.  This was lined on either side by elegant shops of bespoke goods: tailors/seamsters, crafty artisans, book-binders, body-artists, smokables and chymists prescriptions, and on as money or influence permitted.  The apartments above these shops were often, but not always let by the shopkeeps or owners.  Their scalloped balconies took inspiration from the fountain, and the sinuous lines and dark colouration of their constituent stones made the two bancs of flats a dark mirror -- so close the flowerboxes as to cross-pollinate with merest touch of the rarified seaborne zephyr.  To look up from the street was to witness a profound mystery.

At the end of the street were a bespoke publishing house: Nurvneat Ad Anexrion ~ 'Fearless Industry Wed to Allpowerful Ink '  Their mirror-mate, a paper and leather crafter who specialised in bespoke book covers and corresponding slipcases.  It was in this fashion that Fountain Street functioned: this for that, shop after shop.  Now early morning rays graced the Labyrinth, one of only three times in daylit hours the sun could find slip and make its barred presence known.  A right hand turn would bring him to an open air qaphae already peopled by the most elegant and refined of Jet's citizens.  To the left, however, would bring new challenges as an unbroken rock spire forced all streets conform to its will.  All streets were stepped as they steeply declined, while all alleyways were of necessity switchback boulevards host to potted trees and gardens which had long runs across or down the way.  Yards between the bights were public parks with interconnected tunnels, while the central green was a memorial park home to the eldest families and heroes of times past.  The necropolis of the founders, three siblings: Dragon Lord, Dame, and Lady, were entombed and this for centuries a shrine.  The same black rock was carved from a spire.  Overseer loved to pass this way to refresh his natural essence from this powerful font of Blackest magics.  The surround of four quadrants were seasonal orchards; Winter's fruit was a blue-white ellap which tasted of sweet effervescent pepper and turned one's lips a numb blue.