Art of the Octangle (5)

Moving away from the Squilltemper Building and towards the Unseen University's Octiron doors, one passes through that curious corner of the octangle, shadowed by the Battlement Balcony, and that is enjoyed by the wizards of the Octarine / Last Order persuasion:

Here on the eastern side of the Octangle, a great shadow looms.  It's the Battlement Balcony, extending an architecturally implausible ten feet outwards from the top of the wall between the University and Sator Square, and keeping the rain off the statue of Archchancellor Niklaus Roxby that sits on a carved granite bench against the wall.  A broken plinth squats next to it, still looking somehow menacing.

In the protective shade of a chestnut tree cuddles a greenish-purple octarine oak bench, and when I try to sit on it I get the following message:

You sit on a greenish-purple octarine oak bench.

> The bench suddenly springs to life, tips you onto the ground, then shuffles off deciding that now is a perfect time to run a quick lap of the octangle.

You stand up.

The bench returns from its light jog around the courtyard.

One doesn't quite get a statue of the archetypal Last Order wizard here, but what you get is even more telling:

In principle, there should have been a statue of a Last Order wizard here.  However, it quickly became a target for Last Order wizards to practise their offensive spells and the smouldering ruins were gingerly removed for extreme thaumic decontamination.  Only a battered plinth carved with knives and fireballs remains, glowing balefully with the remains of thousands of curses, hexes and thaumic assaults.

Another statue can be appreciated, smuggly seated on a stone bench:

Archchancellor Roxby sits here on a carved granite bench, one hand upraised as though to declaim from the book he holds in his other.  A prolific poet, he left a generous bequest to have his collected works released in a luxury edition and his papers filed forevermore in the Library for the delight of wizards of generations to come.  The resulting handsome calfskin-bound edition of one copy now resides in the Obscure and Hazardous Literature Collection under lock, key and magical binding, and it is not known where the then Librarian filed his papers.