The little house had three stories—no, wait, two and a half—and gave Hill a strange sense of familiarity... Tall, narrow doors and windows; two exterior staircases connecting distinctive, gallery-like porches and balconies that ran the full length of the building; and a steep, towering hipped roof that extended right over the balcony.
Dense clusters of silver crystals replaced the roof tiles.
Most importantly, though each floor was only a little over three meters high, the ground floor had been built as a half-basement, rising just one and a half meters above ground. The entrance stairs connected to the porch led straight to the second floor.
That tall porch was really meant to be a second-floor balcony. Before setting the house down, they would have to dig out a basement two meters deep.
Hill blinked at the peculiar architectural style. He rarely saw anything like it in a fantasy world.
He turned away with a quiet sigh, then looked back at the house and asked cautiously, "Purvi, don't the silver patterns on that house look like maple leaves?"
"What kind of maple leaves do you mean?" Purvi asked earnestly. "They're different in every world!"
Hill silently sketched a leaf in the air: five lobes spread like a hand, with a heart-shaped base.
"That's exactly what they look like!" Purvi said firmly.
"Doesn't Toril have red maples like that too?" he asked curiously. "Why are you so surprised?"
"Ah... the leaves aren't really the important part. It's the style. It reminded me of William," Hill said, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, his voice unsteady.
It was Montreal's distinctive French colonial architecture, paired with a pattern beloved by Maple Leaf Country... So was this someone from his old world, or someone from that country?
Probably not someone from his old world, right?
A