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Room 2: The Archives - Towering tapestries stretched from floor to ceiling, their threads impossibly vibrant despite their apparent age. Each depicted civilizations unlike any found on Earth. Some showed familiar constellations above unfamiliar landscapes; others portrayed cities suspended beneath oceans of stars, or kingdoms ruled beneath enormous crystal moons. No two scenes appeared to belong to the same world, yet together they felt like fragments of an impossibly vast shared history. Toward the back of the gallery, the mood shifted. The woven scenes became darker. Figures that appeared wholly ordinary slowly transformed from panel to panel into twisted, monstrous shapes beneath the shadow of an immense crowned being whose face had long since faded from the fabric. Nearby rested ceremonial masks, broken staffs, and a blackened crown from unknown worlds. None were labeled, and they seemed a little out of place despite being paired with the tapestry. Whether they commemorated myth, history, or something in between was left entirely unanswered. One thing was certain: the universe has always had monsters. And someone had made them.
Oh, I am in heaven, Nis thought as she entered a tapestry filled room and slowly approached the first. Pausing to carefully study the layout of the room and how things were arranged, she paced through the room, taking her time and enjoying examining everything. She would have loved to have gotten up close and personal and touched some of the tapestries, but manners kept her from doing do. One simply did not start pawing at the exhibits. She paused before one tapestry that still looked clean and colorful. Oh, Almadel had outdone himself with this!
"I should have brought a camera," she murmured. "I wonder how many senshi are whipping out those phones of theirs to snap pictures."
She'd decided to do a circuit of the gallery to take in everything first before going back to the start to really begin to understand the stories being told. As the subjects became darker and more twisted, she found herself shuddering. This was grim stuff made even grimmer by the inclusion of seemingly random items. The blackened crown in particular gave her the heebies.
The Space Cauldron
