Aslan’s skyline rises like stacked miracles—needle-towers linked by glass bridges, terraces hanging over terraces, lanterns drifting in lazy orbits along invisible spell-lines. From the lakeward side, the air tastes clean and wet, and the distant roar of docks and sky-carriages is softened by a thousand little warded silence-charms.

The restaurant is built into a cantilevered balcony halfway up a vertical district-spire: The Ascendant Spoon, an upscale place that pretends it isn’t upscale by using words like “taste atelier” and “casual wizard fare.” A ribbon of illusion starlight drifts under the awning, rearranging itself into constellations that don’t exist anywhere in the real sky.

At the entrance, the city’s threshold-barrier makes itself known as a faint pressure on the skin—like a hand hovering near the collar, polite but ready. A pair of carved guardian statues flank the doorway: tall, leonine figures in ceremonial armor, eyes dim as banked coals.

Then the door swings open.

A greeter steps forward with immaculate posture, a crisp vest, and a smile that is technically welcoming.

The only problem is that the smile is too wide, the eyes are too delighted, and the tail—no, surely that’s a fashion accessory—flicks once behind the vest.

[center]Greeter[/center]
[center][img]https://ik.imagekit.io/maxxo/Greeter.png[/img][/center]

“Good evening, valued patrons! Welcome to The Ascendant Spo—” The greeter clears their throat with grave dignity. “—Spoon. Your reservation is under…?”

They produce a ledger and ink-quill with the practiced flourish of someone who has done this a thousand times.

The quill squeaks.

The greeter stares at it, offended on principle, then tries again with even more flourish.

The quill squeaks louder.

From somewhere deeper inside, a muffled voice calls out, [b]“Burenyuu—!”[/b] followed by the unmistakable sound of something being flambéed that was never meant to be flambéed.

One of the guardian statues’ eyes brightens by a hair’s breadth, then dims again—as if reconsidering the value of movement.

The greeter leans in conspiratorially, lowering their voice to what they clearly believe is a professional whisper.

“Please ignore the ambience. It is… curated.”

A beat.

“And if you see another member of staff who looks exactly like me, no you didn’t.”

They straighten instantly, all poise again, and gesture inward toward a dining room of floating table-lamps, slow-rotating illusion murals, and diners pretending they aren’t fascinated.

“Right this way!”