title: Charas: The Improbable Dome Builders
author: Syeus Mottel
description: The premise of Syeus Mottels delightful, disorienting CHARAS: The Improbable Dome Builders is the stuff of retro-futurist fantasy. (<i>Artforum</i>)
zlib_text: > _C H A P T E R   T W E N T Y - F I V E_  
  >  Gnomeplans  
  >  
  >  The gnomes divied into two groups. The first group, which consisted of
  > Stutts, Flash, Wingover, Sighter, and Birdcall, was to study the problem of
  > breaching the walls of the obelisk. The other four gnomes had as their task
  > the safe removal of the contents of the tower, including Cupelix himself,
  > the Cloudmaster, Sturm, and Kitiara.  
  >    The Micones returned with the night half gone, and on the dragon's
  > orders, leveled out the dirt rampart they'd piled up some days before.
  > Because there were more than fifty of the powerful giants at work, the land
  > around the base of the obelisk was soon smooth and passable again. Kitiara
  > and the Breaching Group (as they called themselves) went outside to survey
  > the structure.  
  >    "The walls at ground level are marble no less than eleven feet thick,"
  > Stutts reported, reading off his calculations.  
  >    "With the best steel picks and mattocks, it would take a digg