Breathing vents

Within the buildings of Levis, air circulation is often required. With the warm months of most of the year, the buildings often need a way of circulating trapped air when windows alone won't do.  

It's like their buildings breathe, that steady stream of creaking wood, expanding and contracting and not quite letting you know if it will all collapse

— A freshly over human to a friend

  The construction of the living buildings in the settlements of Levis from their root stock to their full completion is a process worked by Gardeners and maybe an architect or two, coaxing a root stock to reach for the infinite sky. As it does so, various amenities are woven into the building - including the lungs of the house - the breathing vents.   Most locals to Levis do not even notice them, the motions of the building a steady sway that they have grown used to, as wood expands and contracts and the bellows set into the foundation of the building acting as lungs that draw fresh air from around the base of the building and exhale up a series of expanding slits within each settlement building.   With the breathing of houses and communals, the candles and fire-blossoms flicker and sway with the movements of the building, giving an eeriness to the natural swirling of air currents through the houses and businesses of the realm.  

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There is a natural sway to the buildings of Levis, not unlike the rolling of the ocean. Some grow their rooftop vents with curved covers, protecting against the outside rain, while others accept the incoming damp as a natural sign, the growing building then absorbing the water inside as well to swell its endless growth - for while magic enhances the start of its growth - the buildings of Levis are ever living, beings affected by the weather same as any other thing.   Demons find the rock of the buildings of Levis strangest of all, used to the rigidity of iron, the sureness of solid ground beneath their feet and the roiling metallic skies above their heads.   (to be continued)