Session 120: A Guided Tour Through The Fall Of An Empire
Previously, Across the Horizon...
Alterna holds many trials and tribulations for the unwary traveler, and for the wary traveler, it still holds them, and it still uses them most liberally.
A set of ornate empty armor, abandoned outside the museum, turned out to be a Guardian Force just waiting for the right trigger to lay waste to any intruders.
In stark contrast to the other Guardian Forces the adventurers have encountered thus far, this one proved to have plenty to say, unleashing verbose declarations alongside its terrifying attacks, wielding sword alongside its words.
Through their combined efforts, the adventurers proved victorious, with this new mask joining the others in Yves's care, no doubt a welcoming armory (or soapbox) in its future.
It is with a fresh set of cuts and bruises, and a newfound respect for the power of oratory, that our brave adventurers climb the stairs to their next curious destination in the seat of power of the ancient Alternan Empire...
**
Much of the museum looks intact, despite the destruction of the city around it. While the current building in no way lives up to the image that flashed through four of their five minds, the grandeur still comes through. Cracked columns are still columns, after all.
The iron doors, twenty-five feet high, no longer fully close, so there is nothing but good sense that will keep the adventurers from gaining access to this relic of forgotten knowledge.
Bast gives the space a pleased once-over. "Gotta say, this held up better than I would have expected from that mess outside. All the stone, I suppose."
Yves, mind untouched by the image of ancient grandeur, makes appreciative noises at the existing cracked columns all the same. He also seems to be keeping up a murmured commentary toward the contents of his shoulder bag, like a tour guide who carries the tour around with him. (If the tourists in question were a variety of notebooks, pens, masks representing the not-quite-dead yet reduced physical form of primal beings, and possibly a cinnamon roll. His bag holds a lot of useful things like that.) Looking up from another bit of description whispered to his bag, he looks at the iron doors thoughtfully. "That looks like the place to go, right?"
Linnet slips through the doors without a second thought and cranes her neck to the ceiling. She whistles appreciatively, listening to the echo.
For a museum dedicated to the history of the greatest empire to exist on Ducorde, the entry hall is smaller than expected. Two doorways bracket a shredded tapestry on the opposite wall, the ode to Alterna’s splendor aptly destroyed along with the city itself. A long gray table warped into eclectic art sits under the tattered remains of the centerpiece, lined with baskets of faded pamphlets, roof debris, and fetid water. The rightmost door bears an ENTER sign, while its counterpart’s sign no longer exists. Overhead, a banner proudly welcomes all visitors to The Imperial Museum of Alternan History.
"Oo!" says Yves. "Pamphlets!"
Linnet wanders over to the tapestry and floats a bit to inspect more of its height. "This was glorious once..." she murmurs.
"Broadly applicable statement," Isa observes.
Yves beelines toward the faded literature, the better to find out how this museum is supposed to be appreciated and/or looted.
Bast narrows his eyes at the foreboding lack of signage on the left door - sure, it might not be significant, but this is Alterna and it is trying to kill you even if it's not immediately obvious - before examining what little is left of the centerpiece.
"Welcome, travelers, to the Imperial Museum of Alternan History!" chirps a disembodied voice from somewhere in the air overhead. "This museum showcases the founding of our great empire through the stories of items, from the most sacred of treasures to the most innocuous of curios, to better help you, our wonderful citizens, know all of what your home has done."
Linnet hops backward in the air in surprise, then cranes her neck to see where that voice might be coming from. "A recording?"
Yves twitches, dropping a pamphlet on the floor with a faint smell of ozone as sparks start to crackled at his fingertips.
"I am an Aetherial Guide," says the voice in a far flatter tone. Shifting back to the original bounce, it goes on. "I will be leading you through this journey through time! Take your time to gather your party before venturing forth!"
"Tell me it's a figurative journey," Isa says.
"Of all the things to survive this long..." Bast gives the ceiling a vaguely annoyed glower as he lowers his crossbow.
"...oh!" Yves hastily de-electrifies his fingers, and scoops up the dropped pamphlet. "That's excellent news. I think that's excellent news. It's certainly news, in any case, and I'm leaning towards excellent, assuming that this doesn't suddenly turn into violence, and even if it does, which it probably won't, that would probably still be informative, wouldn't it? What sort of journey through time is this going to be? Literal, or more of the informational-slash-metaphorical version you get in most museums?"
"Uh, thank you. Do you offer this service to everyone who comes through? And if so, how do you manage big asynchronous groups and crowds?" Linnet is still talking to the ceiling, for lack of a better target.
"Time travel is not among our many exhibits." Flat as a sketchbook. "All museum tours are guided tours."
"I suppose if it's not guided, it's not really a tour so much as a hopefully informative wander," Yves muses, while attempting to gingerly flip through an ancient pamphlet without destroying it. He adds to the contents of his bag, "Let me know if you want to come out and look around in person during the tour, okay?"
"Guess that was too complicated a question." The sylph drops back to the ground with a bump, running her hand over the destroyed tapestry. "Well, shall we follow the helpful chirpy disembodied voice?"
"Could have an invisible body, or a body that's not immediately apparent, or simply a distant body using some auditory transmission device," Yves notes. As always, the spirit of helpfulness in circumstances like these. However these circumstances are best classified.
"Might as well." Having found nothing to keep his attention in the entry hall, Bast is the first to go through the doorway on the right.
"Before proceeding through the rightmost door, please select a Hero's Crystal from the box on the desk!" the guide chirps. "At the end of the tour, you'll be able to scan your crystal to see what fate awaits your chosen hero from Alternan history!"
Isa steps over to the door and looks for a desk, or a box, or a crystal. "Curious to see what's survived, at least."
Yves is ready to grab a Hero's Crystal from a box. If there's still a box. Or crystals. Or a desk.
The pamphlet box has, among other bits of rubble, crystalline pendants partially submerged in murky water. Six of them. The crystals themselves bear no resemblance to an actual Job crystal, and instead are flat rectangles, four inches by seven inches, no more than half an inch thick. One is dark green with two yellow triangles on it, one is slate gray with two rows of two white circles, one is orange with a blue square, one is silver with two parallel red vertical lines, one is purple with a single green X in the middle, and the last is yellow with two black diamonds in the upper left and lower right.
Isa picks up the red-lined silver without thought or hesitation.
Orrey grabs the purple one. For no reason in particular...
The door doesn't quite swing shut when a furry hand grabs it from the other side, pulling it back open. "Those aren't just trinkets? Huh." Bast lingers just long enough to grab the dark green crystal and eye the rest thoughtfully before going back through.
After some thoughtful noises and much staring, Yves shoves a hand into the murky water and fishes out the gray rectangle with those white circles. A monochrome hero? That's practically made for him.
"Do the Hero Crystals represent real people. A.G.?" Orrey asks the helpful voice. "Also do you have a name and would you share it?"
"Each Hero Crystal represents one of the legendary figures from Alternan history!" The last syllable rises four notes. "My name is Fayth, and if you have any questions at all during the tour, please let me know! Could I have all of your names, please?"
"Hi, Fayth! My name is Yves, and I'm probably going to have lots of questions, because of late I'm starting to really regret not paying more attention during the history classes I took at uni," Yves says. "So it's nice to know I can correct some of that now, I mean, for the kinds of things that were history already when this place was set up, anyway? But that's still history! Maybe..." He looks thoughtful. "Maybe I should go to a modern history museum some day? Huh. Modern... history museum. Sounds sort of oxymoronic, but there must be some. I'm sure I've seen signs."
Linnet picks up the yellow crystal, wipes her hand on her jeans, and waits for Yves to catch his breath. "Yves and friends, that'll do."
"Do you record the names of everyone who visits, Fayth?" Orrey asks. "I'm Orrey, by the way," he adds.
"Yes!" sings the voice. "Every guest that comes to visit the Imperial Museum is important to all of us here in the capital."
"Isaline," is the only name Isa gives.
There is a muffled "Mognathorpe" from behind the door.
"Who was in the party previous to ours?" Orrey asks, curious to know if Fayth will share such information.
"No," comes a flat reply.
"How do you know how to speak our language? We're not speaking Alternan..." Orrey asks a little suspiciously.
"I know how to communicate in over a dozen languages, and can learn more automatically through exposure to high-aspected speakers. As you have a sylph in your party, this process is accelerated by seventeen percent."
Yves makes a little impressed sound, and starts taking notes on a fresh page of a notebook.
"That's amazing! All right, what's up first?" Orrey asks, heading towards the door.
(Linnet just shrugs and follows Orrey.)
"Why do sylphs accelerate the process?" Yves asks, as he proceeds forward. "Does it depend on the type of sylph? Do any other types, like moogles or viera or cactaurs, have particularly different effects on the language learning? How does automatic language learning work, anyway? ...I may need more pamphlets, especially if you have any in better condition."
They step through the door into the first room of the full museum (where Bast has been exploring for a solid seven minutes on his own now).
“In the beginning, a world in flux,” the narration intones. “A land teeming with wild, untamed chaos and ceaseless madness.”
Fire rages in the first room of the Imperial Museum of Alternan History. Three gouts of flame from floor to ceiling, burning endlessly, unencumbered by barricade or safety measure. The fires dance and coil, but no embers escape their columns or ravage any of the other fixtures in the exhibit hall.
Yves makes another little impressed sound. He's probably going to be doing that a lot on this tour.
"Please keep your hands and your children's hands out of the flames!" chirps the voice. Is there a tone of do-I-actually-have-to-say-this in there? Hard to say.
"Are those flames dangerous?" Orrey asks.
"Not that I can see?" Bast answers, apparently stopped from chucking one of the other exhibits through the flames to test the containment by the appearance of the rest of the party.
"They really don't make museums like they used to," muses Yves. "Presumably? Don't remember all the fire from the ones I saw on school trips."
The path winds back on itself, between the first and second flame, directing the viewer into a corner long since lost to decay, holes in the walls revealing the faded sky outside. “These relics of a pre-Alternan age show the world how it used to be; fraught and foreboding. Those humans that dared to challenge the furious wild struggled to exist generation to generation. The peerless researchers at Brasge University have found evidence of terrible droughts that claimed countless lives in the years before our great Empire rose, and those years that saw the land cooperate, the legions of malevolent life in Ducorde rose up instead. What you see before you is the jawbone of a Brachioraidos, one of the most fearsome creatures of this old world. They roamed the land in packs, leaving naught but destruction in their wake. Untold lives were lost beneath their bulk.”
("Oooo.")
There is no jawbone in this corner. There is only some dust, and grit, and wet sand pooled in the corner.
Yves looks at where the jawbone used to be appreciatively anyway.
(Linnet mutters to Isa, "Right, watch for weird reanimated dinosaurs.")
Isa gives Linnet a distracted nod.
"How big were they?" Orrey asks.
"An adult Brachioraidos could reach thirty meters in length, and the largest known sighting is estimated to have weighed sixty-two tonnes."
"That's a lot of bulk," Isa says, impressed.
Orrey's eyes widen in shocked excitement. "Seriously, yeah, let's not meet one of those without an airship to escape in."
"Oo!" Yves gives the jawbone-free corner a slightly wistful look. "My grandmother would probably get along with one of those so well." Ivan/Bast — 09/21/2022 "Be a bit tight for them in here, I think," replies Bast.
Between the second and third blazing columns the path leads, guiding the visitor to a painting of a verdant wilderness missing the right half of its frame, its contents spilling out into the rest of the exhibit. “This painting by Master Artisan Theremin Arrowny shows what this forbidden paradise looked like before our Empire rose. Marvel at how the painting draws you in the closer you get, and how Arrowny hid the dangers so elegantly between the brushstrokes. Due to her unparalleled skill, the painting feels larger than its frame, as if the world itself struggles to be free of its confines.” Indeed, without the complete border of the frame, the painting has burst through the opening on the right, the painted forest spread out to encompass the right path. The left path continues to the rest of the room, joining once more with the right to loop around the third and final flame.
Yves steps up to poke at the unparalleled skill of the painting, where it has in fact freed itself from its confines. "Ooo."
Orrey pulls out his sketchbook and colored pencils to capture the painting's current look.
Linnet just cocks her head and tries to piece together how this much painting ever fit in that much frame in the first place...and decides that it didn't. "Is this painting growing?"
"I need to learn how to paint like that!" Orrey says, sketching away.
"Find an Artisan," Isa suggests.
"And maybe somewhere to practice other than our base." Linnet shakes her head. "Okay, so what's next?"
Bast looks mildly stunned. "...h'about we don't have this kind of scenery on the ship. In case it gets bored."
Yves is still trying to prod the painted expansion. "Now, this approach would solve my water feature issues..."
Linnet runs through several responses to that statement and settles on "Next time, honey. I'll look for a book on Arrowny when we get home. So, Fayth, what are the dangers?"
She squints at one particular section of the painting, but it's like staring into a Magic Eye: every different way you squint changes the view.
"Orrey, you seem like something has caught your eye," sing-songs the guiding Fayth, in response to Linnet's question.
(Linnet shakes her head and wanders off.)
Is Yves attempting to find a way to peel a frond of painted vegetation off the wall, to take home and transplant to a nice painting of a pot? .......maybe.
"You could get lost in there. Like, IN the painting. It might be a gateway to another world," Orrey says. "And there be dragons."
"...what, really?" Yves pauses in the midst of frond-bothering. "Like, to one of the worlds that the eidolons came from? How would we go through? Can you find a way to open it?" He begins prodding the faux forestry with more determination.
"Watch out for the creatures hiding in there. They're looking at us hungrily," Orrey says, still drawing away.
"Yves," Isa says with warning resonating in her voice.
Yves turns enormous viera eyes on Isa. "...but if this painting is growing, it's effectively a plant species, and an endangered one. Probably thought extinct."
Bast, with a glance at Yves' new preoccupation, finds a spot of floor with enough room to do some fixing and tweaking on his much-abused flamethrower turret.
"You did hear the part about it being hungry, right?" Isa points out.
"Understandably, given how little sunlight, water, and nutrients it's likely to be finding in here over the last several centuries." Yves is unbudging.
"You could just test the existing ones," Linnet points out to Bast, then turns back to trying to read a much-abused wall plaque.
"You figure out how to direct them, be sure to let me know," Bast mumbles around the screwdriver in his mouth.
Orrey glances up after finishing his drawing, picks up a bit of detritus and tosses it at the painting.
(Linnet's plaque tells the story of an armadillo with six-centimeter-thick spiked plating that is also, inexplicably, poisoned.)
Yves turns around in place, gaze on something no one else can easily identify. "Oh," he says, sounding immensely pleased with himself, "so that's how it works. Though--no, I suppose I still don't know how it works, only that it did work, I should take notes on this before something else tries to eat me..." He suits action to comment, jotting down comments in his notebook.
The bit of gravel Orrey threw disappears into the underbrush with a leafy rustle.
At that, Linnet jumps. "OKAY we're moving on now. Hup-two, let's go, let's go."
"Whoa..." Orrey says, looking over at Isa. "Think there's anything worth hunting in there?"
"...something else?" Bast looks up from the fuel line he's reconnecting, checking that Yves still has all the pieces he came in with.
Yves crouches down, and picks up something. "Hey, you all should come in here and see this," he shouts.
"Gang, can we please move on before another bit of the scenery tries to eat us?" Linnet realizes her appeal to logic has fallen on deaf ears, sighs, and walks up to Yves. "The heck are you looking at, Thunderbun?"
Yves looks to be holding a bit of gravel. He digs into his bag, and comes out with a small, sharp knife, with which he approaches a bit of wall. "Now, this is for your own good..."
"The only thing likely to be hunted is us," Isa says, temper fraying. "YVES!"
"Yves, you're about to stab a wall in a building that's watching us. Are you sure?" Linnet runs a hand down the Akademia Deck strapped to her leg.
"Is anyone else going to come in?" Yves calls. Yeah, he's probably about to stab that wall. For... its own good?
"Yves, it's customary to give your team a more explicit warning before unleashing Alterna upon them." Bast gives the fixed-up turret a solid smack and nods to himself as it smoothly collapses into a disk. "What are you trying to stab in there?"
Isa sighs and reaches for the collar of Yves's coat, to drag him away from acts of ill-advised science.
"He might need help getting out of there...and Isa's on it." Orrey says, nodding approvingly.
Yves makes a tiny squeaking noise as he's dragged. "Wait--oh! There you are." He blinks owlishly (vieraishly?) at Isa. "You should have stepped in to see. It's very interesting, and I don't think I can do a cutting from out here, but--oh, well, on the way back, maybe. That would make more sense. Less change of damaging anything, or it just drying out from pillars of fire nearby and such."
"It's a wall, hon. What was in that cinnamon roll?" Linnet shakes her head and leads the way into the next room.
Isa follows, but stays within extraction range of Yves, just in case.
Orrey mutters "hell of a painting" and nods his head admiringly.
"It's a gateway, just like Orrey said..." Yves trails after Linnet, not attempting to explain further. Of course no one else wants to walk into the Danger Forest, there's a whole museum to explore. Well. Tour.
Bast just shakes his head as he makes the compacted turret disappear somewhere about his person and brings up the rear.
"Where to next, Fayth?" Orrey asks.
“Humankind never would have survived were it not for the actions of a single person. One brave woman took up her staff and her sandals and plunged into the heart of darkness, seeking out a true future for her people. Without her peerless bravery and unconquerable spirit, none of us would be here today. Gaze upon the face of our founder, Empress Laurent, and follow the path forward to witness her fated rise to power.” Spotlights shine on an empty pedestal. The statue that once stood here may as well have never existed.
"...her sandals?" Linnet blinks.
"We Earthbound Ones are very fond of footwear," Orrey says, showing off his boots.
"Walking barefoot is a lot harder, so it's probably more inspiring that way," Yves hazards. "So she picked them up, and... hm. No, I don't remember this from class. I should've taken better notes, back then."
Isa nods, using the butt of her spear to indicate her own steel-clad tootsies. "Sharp rocks in the heart of darkness, I bet."
(The path leads on into the next room of the Imperial Museum.)
"I'm just not used to hearing about heroic sandals. Were they significant in any way other than belonging to Empress Laurent?" Linnet twists around to study her own much-abused shoes.
“Without Empress Laurent, the Alternan Empire would not exist,” Fayth narrates as they enter the second exhibit room. “Without Empress Laurent, humankind would have gone extinct long before their time. Instead, thanks to her bravery and benevolence, we thrive in a tamed world, and our magnanimity stretches throughout all of Ducorde. But who was the First Empress? Who was the Mother Of Us All?”
Blue and silver dominate the room, the colors vibrant despite the years and the fractured ceiling. The cerulean carpet squelches underfoot with generational water damage. Of the surviving exhibits within, four stand out; a regal ball gown, a jeweled scepter, a dazzling necklace, and a silver box laden with precious stones.
"Not that everything ought to be domesticated," Yves murmurs to himself. "...she did know how to do jewelry, though, that's for sure."
Orrey heads over to the scepter, eyeing it to see if there's anything guarding it.
(Linnet, seeing no sandals, hovers above the carpet and admires the dress.)
Bast peers closer at the scepter. "Seems like a solid upgrade to her walking stick."
"Think it's ok to touch the exhibits?" Orrey asks Bast.
"Oh I'm sure they left the imperial relics completely unguarded. Honor code and all that," Isa says drily.
"Which makes me wonder..." Yves raises his voice as if the tour guide is a little hard of hearing. "Fayth, what about the sandals? Did she get golden sandals, or upgrade them to closed-toe shoes, or what? What was the ceremonial footwear of the First Empress? I'm really not clear on what sort of shoeing would be appropriate for that position. I suppose it depends on how much walking or sitting or posing or kicking came with the job."
"Empress Laurent's sandals were entombed with her after her passing," Fayth replies so evenly that it's impossible to know if the Aetherial Guide is winding Yves up or not.
"Ooo." Yves' impressed noises do seem to be sincere. Still.
“Empress Laurent’s coronation gown inspired a burgeoning nation,” Fayth proclaims. “Woven with the finest silk from twenty thousand silkworms, this elegant ensemble accented the Empress’s incomparable beauty on the day she founded Alterna and declared its future to the world. Inscriptions bearing blessings from the Twelve are cleverly folded into the design, ensuring that our country would grow under the grace and protection of the gods. “ Unlike the shawl to its immediate left and the bracelet to its right, the coronation gown escaped the passage of time with nary a thread out of place. Pristine white fabric beneath sashes of azure and pine, it sports a halter neckline and an extended train decorated with feathers of white and gems of silver and gold.
Linnet inspects the enclosure in wonderment, and also with the critical eye of a beginner archivist.
Instead of replying to Orrey directly, Bast glances up toward the ceiling. "Hey, Fayth. Are these the originals, or do you have those boxed up somewhere?"
Orrey wanders over to look for the inscriptions.
It is exceptionally difficult to read Isa's mood, what with the giant helmet. Resorting to trying to gauge her body language as she stands taking in this room, it's...pride? At least, satisfaction.
"These are the original, genuine treasures," Fayth replies. "These are not simple recreations." ("Oo," from Yves.)
"How do you keep burglars from stealing such precious items?" Orrey asks.
"Burglars?" Fayth says.
"Never mind. Were these all only worn once?" asks Linnet quickly.
"Those who would appropriate wealth for themselves." Orrey says, undeterred.
"Or pirates," Yves supplies, in case a synonym is needed. Who knows how well the language acquisition has worked so far?
"Thief?" Orrey says with a capital T.
"...kids, let's not teach the aetherial guide about capitalism, please," Linnet mumbles into her hands.
"No Alternan would steal from the Museum," comes the reply.
"What about people who aren't Alternan?" Yves asks.
"No foreign visitor could steal from the Museum within Alterna."
"Yeah, that's what I was asking about. How do you make that impossible for foreigners?" Orrey asks.
"If you have questions about museum security you are encouraged to speak to the museum director," Fayth replies in a much less welcome tone.
Orrey nods and sighs.
Linnet drops back to confer with Bast and Isa. "I don't know whether it saw him by the flames or just had that programmed into its speech, but if we're going to test this concept, it probably shouldn't be all five of us."
The sketchbook comes out again, and Orrey works to capture the items in the only way possible.
Yves stands in front of the cases, admiring the fancy jewelry. Maybe not quite as silver and black as he usually goes for, but still, he can appreciate a bit of ostentatious metallic body decoration. "Are there reproductions of any of these in the gift shop? ...is there a gift shop?"
"You will have the opportunity to take home mementos from your journey at the conclusion of today's tour!" chirps Fayth. ("Ooo!")
Isa clears her throat, which creates an interesting ringing noise. "I think it's miraculous that these artifacts, of all things, have survived so long and so well here, and we should respect that."
("Oh, they're gonna regret saying that," mutters Linnet.)
"By which I mean respect that."
Yves gives Isa a slightly puzzled look, but nods agreeably enough. "Sure. That's... ethical? I bet it is."
Closer to Bast...
“The staff Empress Laurent took up to the peak of the world came to be known as Eulabeia.” Carved from marble and topped with a sapphire the size of a moogle’s pom, the five-foot staff bears interwoven lines of diamond and emerald, dancing around each other for the length of the staff. The secondary gems sit flush with the surface, so the staff is smooth and graceful without a single notch or unsightly bump. “Every ruler of Alterna holds it in their hand when accepting the mantle of leadership, after which it is returned here so that all of Alterna might feel her radiance and mercy.”
"Huh." Bast takes another look. "So it's the actual walking stick, upgraded? Unless she was daft enough to take that up into the mountains..."
A brief pause. Then, “The staff Empress Laurent took up to the peak of the world came to be known as Eulabeia. Every ruler of Alterna holds it in their hand when accepting the mantle of leadership, after which it is returned here so that all of Alterna might feel her radiance and mercy.”
"I think you confused it. Onward?"
"Oh..." Bast looks up with a downright evil grin. "...I suppose."
"Later, Mognathorpe." Linnet takes particular annoying pleasure in drawing out the name. "What's the shiny box?"
Orrey checks out the ornate box with Linnet. "Quite lovely."
“It is said within this simple, unadorned box lies the key to Alterna’s future itself.” The ‘unadorned’ silver box, just large enough to be held comfortably in two hands instead of one, boasts emerald filigree and delicate stenciling on its lid. “The box has never been opened according to official record, hundreds of years after our dear Empress left us. So complete were her instructions and so clear her directive that this final treasure has never been needed.” In the corner of the box, down at the bottom, there is another tiny etching separate in style from the others.
Linnet crouches to make out the tiny etching.
"Well hello," Isa says.
"And we're respecting this very respectfully too, right?" Yves asks Isa.
Isa says, "Of course. What are we, if not Alterna's future?"
Orrey sketches the writing larger on another page of his book, then reads it aloud. "My...eternal...apologies. Apologies?"
Yves steeples his fingers in front of him. "So we're respecting it... from a distance, or from very up close? Just so that we're all on the same page, here."
"Wait, what? The box is full of apologies? Did we step into a myth all of a sudden?" Linnet looks confused.
"Someone who does not know how to engrave etched that into the box," Orrey says. "But someone with impressive handwriting wrote it."
"How in the heck can you tell all that from a tiny ilm-square glyph?" Linnet asks, impressed.
Orrey asks Fayth, "How is the successor of the Empress chosen?"
"The Great Crystal," Fayth replies.
"Wonder who's trapped in that box," Yves says to himself, almost under his breath.
"And since the Great Crystal was destroyed, how is the next successor to be chosen?" Orrey asks.
Linnet freezes and looks up, in the direction of Fayth's voice.
"I don't think it knows about that..." Isa begins.
The exhibit hall falls deathly silent.
"Rude," Yves says to Orrey.
Orrey looks surprised at Yves. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to be."
"I mean, I just feel it's probably a sensitive topic!"
A scraping sound rings out through the room, and then a sound like wheat stripping on a wide-toothed gear.
"I see what you're saying now. Fayth, I apologize for my rude behavior." Orrey says. He glances around at the noises, then looks to Bast and Isa for direction.
“Without Empress Laurent, the Alternan Empire would not exist,” Fayth narrates. “Without Empress Laurent, humankind would have gone extinct long before their time. Instead, thanks to her bravery and benevolence, we thrive in a tamed world, and our magnanimity stretches throughout all of Ducorde. But who was the First Empress? Who was the Mother Of Us All?”
"Maybe you could tell us more about this exhibit," Yves says encouragingly toward the ceiling.
"...or we could move on to the next exhibit!" Yves makes hand gestures to his coworkers that are probably trying to convey some complex idea. Either Don't create epistemological lockup by talking about that or I hope the museum restaurant is coming up soon, I'm getting peckish, hard to say which.
Linnet hands Yves another cinnamon roll.
"I think it might be time to move on," Isa says, but she faces Bast briefly and then tips her head toward the box. Unfortunately, her expression remains unreadable.
"NO EATING IN THE GALLERY SPACE," proclaims Fayth. ("Oops, sorry.")
Yves, startled, drops the cinnamon roll on the floor. "...sorry! I'll just... I'll..." He picks up the roll and shoves it into his bag, where, with any luck, it is not giving horrible offense to a mask.
Orrey watches everyone else but Bast walking down the path to the next exhibit, then reaches out towards the box with the end of a pencil to see how close he can get without being yelled at.
"Please do not touch the exhibits, Orrey," Fayth calls him by name.
Orrey doesn't stop moving the pencil closer...
"Orrey? You coming?" calls Linnet over her shoulder from the next room.
Yves has already followed Isa away, respectfully and everything. He's trying to surreptitiously wipe smudges of frosting off his fingers on the inside hem of his coat.
Orrey gently taps the outside of the box with the eraser on the end of the pencil.
Orrey ceases to exist.
"He'll catch up," Isa says to Linnet as they walk on.
Upon not hearing anything from the previous room, Linnet turns back around and pokes her head in. "Orrey? Where'd we lose you to?"
"He'd probably be shouting if he walked into a forest like I did," Yves agrees.
Bast, back in the room with Orrey, blinks slowly.
"...did you see him?" (Linnet keeps forgetting Bast's alias and is trying not to blow his cover.)
"He...just disappeared?"
Somewhere else...
Orrey floats in an endless expanse of green and black lines, eternally reticulating. Above and below are a sea and sky of unblinking eyes.
Why did you not listen? asks Fayth.
Curiosity, says Orrey.
Curiosity, Fayth repeats. Humans and curiosity. A refusal to follow clear instructions solely for fleeting pleasure of the self, irrespective of the effect it has on the society. Was the instruction obfuscated in some fashion?
Orrey shrugs. The instructions were clear; the consequences were not. The possible value of these items for our world far outweighed any perceived potential danger. The Twelve have sent us here for a reason. These Alternan artifacts could be what we were sent for, Orrey says.
Alterna holds many trials and tribulations for the unwary traveler, and for the wary traveler, it still holds them, and it still uses them most liberally.
A set of ornate empty armor, abandoned outside the museum, turned out to be a Guardian Force just waiting for the right trigger to lay waste to any intruders.
In stark contrast to the other Guardian Forces the adventurers have encountered thus far, this one proved to have plenty to say, unleashing verbose declarations alongside its terrifying attacks, wielding sword alongside its words.
Through their combined efforts, the adventurers proved victorious, with this new mask joining the others in Yves's care, no doubt a welcoming armory (or soapbox) in its future.
It is with a fresh set of cuts and bruises, and a newfound respect for the power of oratory, that our brave adventurers climb the stairs to their next curious destination in the seat of power of the ancient Alternan Empire...
**
Much of the museum looks intact, despite the destruction of the city around it. While the current building in no way lives up to the image that flashed through four of their five minds, the grandeur still comes through. Cracked columns are still columns, after all.
The iron doors, twenty-five feet high, no longer fully close, so there is nothing but good sense that will keep the adventurers from gaining access to this relic of forgotten knowledge.
Bast gives the space a pleased once-over. "Gotta say, this held up better than I would have expected from that mess outside. All the stone, I suppose."
Yves, mind untouched by the image of ancient grandeur, makes appreciative noises at the existing cracked columns all the same. He also seems to be keeping up a murmured commentary toward the contents of his shoulder bag, like a tour guide who carries the tour around with him. (If the tourists in question were a variety of notebooks, pens, masks representing the not-quite-dead yet reduced physical form of primal beings, and possibly a cinnamon roll. His bag holds a lot of useful things like that.) Looking up from another bit of description whispered to his bag, he looks at the iron doors thoughtfully. "That looks like the place to go, right?"
Linnet slips through the doors without a second thought and cranes her neck to the ceiling. She whistles appreciatively, listening to the echo.
For a museum dedicated to the history of the greatest empire to exist on Ducorde, the entry hall is smaller than expected. Two doorways bracket a shredded tapestry on the opposite wall, the ode to Alterna’s splendor aptly destroyed along with the city itself. A long gray table warped into eclectic art sits under the tattered remains of the centerpiece, lined with baskets of faded pamphlets, roof debris, and fetid water. The rightmost door bears an ENTER sign, while its counterpart’s sign no longer exists. Overhead, a banner proudly welcomes all visitors to The Imperial Museum of Alternan History.
"Oo!" says Yves. "Pamphlets!"
Linnet wanders over to the tapestry and floats a bit to inspect more of its height. "This was glorious once..." she murmurs.
"Broadly applicable statement," Isa observes.
Yves beelines toward the faded literature, the better to find out how this museum is supposed to be appreciated and/or looted.
Bast narrows his eyes at the foreboding lack of signage on the left door - sure, it might not be significant, but this is Alterna and it is trying to kill you even if it's not immediately obvious - before examining what little is left of the centerpiece.
"Welcome, travelers, to the Imperial Museum of Alternan History!" chirps a disembodied voice from somewhere in the air overhead. "This museum showcases the founding of our great empire through the stories of items, from the most sacred of treasures to the most innocuous of curios, to better help you, our wonderful citizens, know all of what your home has done."
Linnet hops backward in the air in surprise, then cranes her neck to see where that voice might be coming from. "A recording?"
Yves twitches, dropping a pamphlet on the floor with a faint smell of ozone as sparks start to crackled at his fingertips.
"I am an Aetherial Guide," says the voice in a far flatter tone. Shifting back to the original bounce, it goes on. "I will be leading you through this journey through time! Take your time to gather your party before venturing forth!"
"Tell me it's a figurative journey," Isa says.
"Of all the things to survive this long..." Bast gives the ceiling a vaguely annoyed glower as he lowers his crossbow.
"...oh!" Yves hastily de-electrifies his fingers, and scoops up the dropped pamphlet. "That's excellent news. I think that's excellent news. It's certainly news, in any case, and I'm leaning towards excellent, assuming that this doesn't suddenly turn into violence, and even if it does, which it probably won't, that would probably still be informative, wouldn't it? What sort of journey through time is this going to be? Literal, or more of the informational-slash-metaphorical version you get in most museums?"
"Uh, thank you. Do you offer this service to everyone who comes through? And if so, how do you manage big asynchronous groups and crowds?" Linnet is still talking to the ceiling, for lack of a better target.
"Time travel is not among our many exhibits." Flat as a sketchbook. "All museum tours are guided tours."
"I suppose if it's not guided, it's not really a tour so much as a hopefully informative wander," Yves muses, while attempting to gingerly flip through an ancient pamphlet without destroying it. He adds to the contents of his bag, "Let me know if you want to come out and look around in person during the tour, okay?"
"Guess that was too complicated a question." The sylph drops back to the ground with a bump, running her hand over the destroyed tapestry. "Well, shall we follow the helpful chirpy disembodied voice?"
"Could have an invisible body, or a body that's not immediately apparent, or simply a distant body using some auditory transmission device," Yves notes. As always, the spirit of helpfulness in circumstances like these. However these circumstances are best classified.
"Might as well." Having found nothing to keep his attention in the entry hall, Bast is the first to go through the doorway on the right.
"Before proceeding through the rightmost door, please select a Hero's Crystal from the box on the desk!" the guide chirps. "At the end of the tour, you'll be able to scan your crystal to see what fate awaits your chosen hero from Alternan history!"
Isa steps over to the door and looks for a desk, or a box, or a crystal. "Curious to see what's survived, at least."
Yves is ready to grab a Hero's Crystal from a box. If there's still a box. Or crystals. Or a desk.
The pamphlet box has, among other bits of rubble, crystalline pendants partially submerged in murky water. Six of them. The crystals themselves bear no resemblance to an actual Job crystal, and instead are flat rectangles, four inches by seven inches, no more than half an inch thick. One is dark green with two yellow triangles on it, one is slate gray with two rows of two white circles, one is orange with a blue square, one is silver with two parallel red vertical lines, one is purple with a single green X in the middle, and the last is yellow with two black diamonds in the upper left and lower right.
Isa picks up the red-lined silver without thought or hesitation.
Orrey grabs the purple one. For no reason in particular...
The door doesn't quite swing shut when a furry hand grabs it from the other side, pulling it back open. "Those aren't just trinkets? Huh." Bast lingers just long enough to grab the dark green crystal and eye the rest thoughtfully before going back through.
After some thoughtful noises and much staring, Yves shoves a hand into the murky water and fishes out the gray rectangle with those white circles. A monochrome hero? That's practically made for him.
"Do the Hero Crystals represent real people. A.G.?" Orrey asks the helpful voice. "Also do you have a name and would you share it?"
"Each Hero Crystal represents one of the legendary figures from Alternan history!" The last syllable rises four notes. "My name is Fayth, and if you have any questions at all during the tour, please let me know! Could I have all of your names, please?"
"Hi, Fayth! My name is Yves, and I'm probably going to have lots of questions, because of late I'm starting to really regret not paying more attention during the history classes I took at uni," Yves says. "So it's nice to know I can correct some of that now, I mean, for the kinds of things that were history already when this place was set up, anyway? But that's still history! Maybe..." He looks thoughtful. "Maybe I should go to a modern history museum some day? Huh. Modern... history museum. Sounds sort of oxymoronic, but there must be some. I'm sure I've seen signs."
Linnet picks up the yellow crystal, wipes her hand on her jeans, and waits for Yves to catch his breath. "Yves and friends, that'll do."
"Do you record the names of everyone who visits, Fayth?" Orrey asks. "I'm Orrey, by the way," he adds.
"Yes!" sings the voice. "Every guest that comes to visit the Imperial Museum is important to all of us here in the capital."
"Isaline," is the only name Isa gives.
There is a muffled "Mognathorpe" from behind the door.
"Who was in the party previous to ours?" Orrey asks, curious to know if Fayth will share such information.
"No," comes a flat reply.
"How do you know how to speak our language? We're not speaking Alternan..." Orrey asks a little suspiciously.
"I know how to communicate in over a dozen languages, and can learn more automatically through exposure to high-aspected speakers. As you have a sylph in your party, this process is accelerated by seventeen percent."
Yves makes a little impressed sound, and starts taking notes on a fresh page of a notebook.
"That's amazing! All right, what's up first?" Orrey asks, heading towards the door.
(Linnet just shrugs and follows Orrey.)
"Why do sylphs accelerate the process?" Yves asks, as he proceeds forward. "Does it depend on the type of sylph? Do any other types, like moogles or viera or cactaurs, have particularly different effects on the language learning? How does automatic language learning work, anyway? ...I may need more pamphlets, especially if you have any in better condition."
They step through the door into the first room of the full museum (where Bast has been exploring for a solid seven minutes on his own now).
“In the beginning, a world in flux,” the narration intones. “A land teeming with wild, untamed chaos and ceaseless madness.”
Fire rages in the first room of the Imperial Museum of Alternan History. Three gouts of flame from floor to ceiling, burning endlessly, unencumbered by barricade or safety measure. The fires dance and coil, but no embers escape their columns or ravage any of the other fixtures in the exhibit hall.
Yves makes another little impressed sound. He's probably going to be doing that a lot on this tour.
"Please keep your hands and your children's hands out of the flames!" chirps the voice. Is there a tone of do-I-actually-have-to-say-this in there? Hard to say.
"Are those flames dangerous?" Orrey asks.
"Not that I can see?" Bast answers, apparently stopped from chucking one of the other exhibits through the flames to test the containment by the appearance of the rest of the party.
"They really don't make museums like they used to," muses Yves. "Presumably? Don't remember all the fire from the ones I saw on school trips."
The path winds back on itself, between the first and second flame, directing the viewer into a corner long since lost to decay, holes in the walls revealing the faded sky outside. “These relics of a pre-Alternan age show the world how it used to be; fraught and foreboding. Those humans that dared to challenge the furious wild struggled to exist generation to generation. The peerless researchers at Brasge University have found evidence of terrible droughts that claimed countless lives in the years before our great Empire rose, and those years that saw the land cooperate, the legions of malevolent life in Ducorde rose up instead. What you see before you is the jawbone of a Brachioraidos, one of the most fearsome creatures of this old world. They roamed the land in packs, leaving naught but destruction in their wake. Untold lives were lost beneath their bulk.”
("Oooo.")
There is no jawbone in this corner. There is only some dust, and grit, and wet sand pooled in the corner.
Yves looks at where the jawbone used to be appreciatively anyway.
(Linnet mutters to Isa, "Right, watch for weird reanimated dinosaurs.")
Isa gives Linnet a distracted nod.
"How big were they?" Orrey asks.
"An adult Brachioraidos could reach thirty meters in length, and the largest known sighting is estimated to have weighed sixty-two tonnes."
"That's a lot of bulk," Isa says, impressed.
Orrey's eyes widen in shocked excitement. "Seriously, yeah, let's not meet one of those without an airship to escape in."
"Oo!" Yves gives the jawbone-free corner a slightly wistful look. "My grandmother would probably get along with one of those so well." Ivan/Bast — 09/21/2022 "Be a bit tight for them in here, I think," replies Bast.
Between the second and third blazing columns the path leads, guiding the visitor to a painting of a verdant wilderness missing the right half of its frame, its contents spilling out into the rest of the exhibit. “This painting by Master Artisan Theremin Arrowny shows what this forbidden paradise looked like before our Empire rose. Marvel at how the painting draws you in the closer you get, and how Arrowny hid the dangers so elegantly between the brushstrokes. Due to her unparalleled skill, the painting feels larger than its frame, as if the world itself struggles to be free of its confines.” Indeed, without the complete border of the frame, the painting has burst through the opening on the right, the painted forest spread out to encompass the right path. The left path continues to the rest of the room, joining once more with the right to loop around the third and final flame.
Yves steps up to poke at the unparalleled skill of the painting, where it has in fact freed itself from its confines. "Ooo."
Orrey pulls out his sketchbook and colored pencils to capture the painting's current look.
Linnet just cocks her head and tries to piece together how this much painting ever fit in that much frame in the first place...and decides that it didn't. "Is this painting growing?"
"I need to learn how to paint like that!" Orrey says, sketching away.
"Find an Artisan," Isa suggests.
"And maybe somewhere to practice other than our base." Linnet shakes her head. "Okay, so what's next?"
Bast looks mildly stunned. "...h'about we don't have this kind of scenery on the ship. In case it gets bored."
Yves is still trying to prod the painted expansion. "Now, this approach would solve my water feature issues..."
Linnet runs through several responses to that statement and settles on "Next time, honey. I'll look for a book on Arrowny when we get home. So, Fayth, what are the dangers?"
She squints at one particular section of the painting, but it's like staring into a Magic Eye: every different way you squint changes the view.
"Orrey, you seem like something has caught your eye," sing-songs the guiding Fayth, in response to Linnet's question.
(Linnet shakes her head and wanders off.)
Is Yves attempting to find a way to peel a frond of painted vegetation off the wall, to take home and transplant to a nice painting of a pot? .......maybe.
"You could get lost in there. Like, IN the painting. It might be a gateway to another world," Orrey says. "And there be dragons."
"...what, really?" Yves pauses in the midst of frond-bothering. "Like, to one of the worlds that the eidolons came from? How would we go through? Can you find a way to open it?" He begins prodding the faux forestry with more determination.
"Watch out for the creatures hiding in there. They're looking at us hungrily," Orrey says, still drawing away.
"Yves," Isa says with warning resonating in her voice.
Yves turns enormous viera eyes on Isa. "...but if this painting is growing, it's effectively a plant species, and an endangered one. Probably thought extinct."
Bast, with a glance at Yves' new preoccupation, finds a spot of floor with enough room to do some fixing and tweaking on his much-abused flamethrower turret.
"You did hear the part about it being hungry, right?" Isa points out.
"Understandably, given how little sunlight, water, and nutrients it's likely to be finding in here over the last several centuries." Yves is unbudging.
"You could just test the existing ones," Linnet points out to Bast, then turns back to trying to read a much-abused wall plaque.
"You figure out how to direct them, be sure to let me know," Bast mumbles around the screwdriver in his mouth.
Orrey glances up after finishing his drawing, picks up a bit of detritus and tosses it at the painting.
(Linnet's plaque tells the story of an armadillo with six-centimeter-thick spiked plating that is also, inexplicably, poisoned.)
Yves turns around in place, gaze on something no one else can easily identify. "Oh," he says, sounding immensely pleased with himself, "so that's how it works. Though--no, I suppose I still don't know how it works, only that it did work, I should take notes on this before something else tries to eat me..." He suits action to comment, jotting down comments in his notebook.
The bit of gravel Orrey threw disappears into the underbrush with a leafy rustle.
At that, Linnet jumps. "OKAY we're moving on now. Hup-two, let's go, let's go."
"Whoa..." Orrey says, looking over at Isa. "Think there's anything worth hunting in there?"
"...something else?" Bast looks up from the fuel line he's reconnecting, checking that Yves still has all the pieces he came in with.
Yves crouches down, and picks up something. "Hey, you all should come in here and see this," he shouts.
"Gang, can we please move on before another bit of the scenery tries to eat us?" Linnet realizes her appeal to logic has fallen on deaf ears, sighs, and walks up to Yves. "The heck are you looking at, Thunderbun?"
Yves looks to be holding a bit of gravel. He digs into his bag, and comes out with a small, sharp knife, with which he approaches a bit of wall. "Now, this is for your own good..."
"The only thing likely to be hunted is us," Isa says, temper fraying. "YVES!"
"Yves, you're about to stab a wall in a building that's watching us. Are you sure?" Linnet runs a hand down the Akademia Deck strapped to her leg.
"Is anyone else going to come in?" Yves calls. Yeah, he's probably about to stab that wall. For... its own good?
"Yves, it's customary to give your team a more explicit warning before unleashing Alterna upon them." Bast gives the fixed-up turret a solid smack and nods to himself as it smoothly collapses into a disk. "What are you trying to stab in there?"
Isa sighs and reaches for the collar of Yves's coat, to drag him away from acts of ill-advised science.
"He might need help getting out of there...and Isa's on it." Orrey says, nodding approvingly.
Yves makes a tiny squeaking noise as he's dragged. "Wait--oh! There you are." He blinks owlishly (vieraishly?) at Isa. "You should have stepped in to see. It's very interesting, and I don't think I can do a cutting from out here, but--oh, well, on the way back, maybe. That would make more sense. Less change of damaging anything, or it just drying out from pillars of fire nearby and such."
"It's a wall, hon. What was in that cinnamon roll?" Linnet shakes her head and leads the way into the next room.
Isa follows, but stays within extraction range of Yves, just in case.
Orrey mutters "hell of a painting" and nods his head admiringly.
"It's a gateway, just like Orrey said..." Yves trails after Linnet, not attempting to explain further. Of course no one else wants to walk into the Danger Forest, there's a whole museum to explore. Well. Tour.
Bast just shakes his head as he makes the compacted turret disappear somewhere about his person and brings up the rear.
"Where to next, Fayth?" Orrey asks.
“Humankind never would have survived were it not for the actions of a single person. One brave woman took up her staff and her sandals and plunged into the heart of darkness, seeking out a true future for her people. Without her peerless bravery and unconquerable spirit, none of us would be here today. Gaze upon the face of our founder, Empress Laurent, and follow the path forward to witness her fated rise to power.” Spotlights shine on an empty pedestal. The statue that once stood here may as well have never existed.
"...her sandals?" Linnet blinks.
"We Earthbound Ones are very fond of footwear," Orrey says, showing off his boots.
"Walking barefoot is a lot harder, so it's probably more inspiring that way," Yves hazards. "So she picked them up, and... hm. No, I don't remember this from class. I should've taken better notes, back then."
Isa nods, using the butt of her spear to indicate her own steel-clad tootsies. "Sharp rocks in the heart of darkness, I bet."
(The path leads on into the next room of the Imperial Museum.)
"I'm just not used to hearing about heroic sandals. Were they significant in any way other than belonging to Empress Laurent?" Linnet twists around to study her own much-abused shoes.
“Without Empress Laurent, the Alternan Empire would not exist,” Fayth narrates as they enter the second exhibit room. “Without Empress Laurent, humankind would have gone extinct long before their time. Instead, thanks to her bravery and benevolence, we thrive in a tamed world, and our magnanimity stretches throughout all of Ducorde. But who was the First Empress? Who was the Mother Of Us All?”
Blue and silver dominate the room, the colors vibrant despite the years and the fractured ceiling. The cerulean carpet squelches underfoot with generational water damage. Of the surviving exhibits within, four stand out; a regal ball gown, a jeweled scepter, a dazzling necklace, and a silver box laden with precious stones.
"Not that everything ought to be domesticated," Yves murmurs to himself. "...she did know how to do jewelry, though, that's for sure."
Orrey heads over to the scepter, eyeing it to see if there's anything guarding it.
(Linnet, seeing no sandals, hovers above the carpet and admires the dress.)
Bast peers closer at the scepter. "Seems like a solid upgrade to her walking stick."
"Think it's ok to touch the exhibits?" Orrey asks Bast.
"Oh I'm sure they left the imperial relics completely unguarded. Honor code and all that," Isa says drily.
"Which makes me wonder..." Yves raises his voice as if the tour guide is a little hard of hearing. "Fayth, what about the sandals? Did she get golden sandals, or upgrade them to closed-toe shoes, or what? What was the ceremonial footwear of the First Empress? I'm really not clear on what sort of shoeing would be appropriate for that position. I suppose it depends on how much walking or sitting or posing or kicking came with the job."
"Empress Laurent's sandals were entombed with her after her passing," Fayth replies so evenly that it's impossible to know if the Aetherial Guide is winding Yves up or not.
"Ooo." Yves' impressed noises do seem to be sincere. Still.
“Empress Laurent’s coronation gown inspired a burgeoning nation,” Fayth proclaims. “Woven with the finest silk from twenty thousand silkworms, this elegant ensemble accented the Empress’s incomparable beauty on the day she founded Alterna and declared its future to the world. Inscriptions bearing blessings from the Twelve are cleverly folded into the design, ensuring that our country would grow under the grace and protection of the gods. “ Unlike the shawl to its immediate left and the bracelet to its right, the coronation gown escaped the passage of time with nary a thread out of place. Pristine white fabric beneath sashes of azure and pine, it sports a halter neckline and an extended train decorated with feathers of white and gems of silver and gold.
Linnet inspects the enclosure in wonderment, and also with the critical eye of a beginner archivist.
Instead of replying to Orrey directly, Bast glances up toward the ceiling. "Hey, Fayth. Are these the originals, or do you have those boxed up somewhere?"
Orrey wanders over to look for the inscriptions.
It is exceptionally difficult to read Isa's mood, what with the giant helmet. Resorting to trying to gauge her body language as she stands taking in this room, it's...pride? At least, satisfaction.
"These are the original, genuine treasures," Fayth replies. "These are not simple recreations." ("Oo," from Yves.)
"How do you keep burglars from stealing such precious items?" Orrey asks.
"Burglars?" Fayth says.
"Never mind. Were these all only worn once?" asks Linnet quickly.
"Those who would appropriate wealth for themselves." Orrey says, undeterred.
"Or pirates," Yves supplies, in case a synonym is needed. Who knows how well the language acquisition has worked so far?
"Thief?" Orrey says with a capital T.
"...kids, let's not teach the aetherial guide about capitalism, please," Linnet mumbles into her hands.
"No Alternan would steal from the Museum," comes the reply.
"What about people who aren't Alternan?" Yves asks.
"No foreign visitor could steal from the Museum within Alterna."
"Yeah, that's what I was asking about. How do you make that impossible for foreigners?" Orrey asks.
"If you have questions about museum security you are encouraged to speak to the museum director," Fayth replies in a much less welcome tone.
Orrey nods and sighs.
Linnet drops back to confer with Bast and Isa. "I don't know whether it saw him by the flames or just had that programmed into its speech, but if we're going to test this concept, it probably shouldn't be all five of us."
The sketchbook comes out again, and Orrey works to capture the items in the only way possible.
Yves stands in front of the cases, admiring the fancy jewelry. Maybe not quite as silver and black as he usually goes for, but still, he can appreciate a bit of ostentatious metallic body decoration. "Are there reproductions of any of these in the gift shop? ...is there a gift shop?"
"You will have the opportunity to take home mementos from your journey at the conclusion of today's tour!" chirps Fayth. ("Ooo!")
Isa clears her throat, which creates an interesting ringing noise. "I think it's miraculous that these artifacts, of all things, have survived so long and so well here, and we should respect that."
("Oh, they're gonna regret saying that," mutters Linnet.)
"By which I mean respect that."
Yves gives Isa a slightly puzzled look, but nods agreeably enough. "Sure. That's... ethical? I bet it is."
Closer to Bast...
“The staff Empress Laurent took up to the peak of the world came to be known as Eulabeia.” Carved from marble and topped with a sapphire the size of a moogle’s pom, the five-foot staff bears interwoven lines of diamond and emerald, dancing around each other for the length of the staff. The secondary gems sit flush with the surface, so the staff is smooth and graceful without a single notch or unsightly bump. “Every ruler of Alterna holds it in their hand when accepting the mantle of leadership, after which it is returned here so that all of Alterna might feel her radiance and mercy.”
"Huh." Bast takes another look. "So it's the actual walking stick, upgraded? Unless she was daft enough to take that up into the mountains..."
A brief pause. Then, “The staff Empress Laurent took up to the peak of the world came to be known as Eulabeia. Every ruler of Alterna holds it in their hand when accepting the mantle of leadership, after which it is returned here so that all of Alterna might feel her radiance and mercy.”
"I think you confused it. Onward?"
"Oh..." Bast looks up with a downright evil grin. "...I suppose."
"Later, Mognathorpe." Linnet takes particular annoying pleasure in drawing out the name. "What's the shiny box?"
Orrey checks out the ornate box with Linnet. "Quite lovely."
“It is said within this simple, unadorned box lies the key to Alterna’s future itself.” The ‘unadorned’ silver box, just large enough to be held comfortably in two hands instead of one, boasts emerald filigree and delicate stenciling on its lid. “The box has never been opened according to official record, hundreds of years after our dear Empress left us. So complete were her instructions and so clear her directive that this final treasure has never been needed.” In the corner of the box, down at the bottom, there is another tiny etching separate in style from the others.
Linnet crouches to make out the tiny etching.
"Well hello," Isa says.
"And we're respecting this very respectfully too, right?" Yves asks Isa.
Isa says, "Of course. What are we, if not Alterna's future?"
Orrey sketches the writing larger on another page of his book, then reads it aloud. "My...eternal...apologies. Apologies?"
Yves steeples his fingers in front of him. "So we're respecting it... from a distance, or from very up close? Just so that we're all on the same page, here."
"Wait, what? The box is full of apologies? Did we step into a myth all of a sudden?" Linnet looks confused.
"Someone who does not know how to engrave etched that into the box," Orrey says. "But someone with impressive handwriting wrote it."
"How in the heck can you tell all that from a tiny ilm-square glyph?" Linnet asks, impressed.
Orrey asks Fayth, "How is the successor of the Empress chosen?"
"The Great Crystal," Fayth replies.
"Wonder who's trapped in that box," Yves says to himself, almost under his breath.
"And since the Great Crystal was destroyed, how is the next successor to be chosen?" Orrey asks.
Linnet freezes and looks up, in the direction of Fayth's voice.
"I don't think it knows about that..." Isa begins.
The exhibit hall falls deathly silent.
"Rude," Yves says to Orrey.
Orrey looks surprised at Yves. "Oh! Sorry, I didn't mean to be."
"I mean, I just feel it's probably a sensitive topic!"
A scraping sound rings out through the room, and then a sound like wheat stripping on a wide-toothed gear.
"I see what you're saying now. Fayth, I apologize for my rude behavior." Orrey says. He glances around at the noises, then looks to Bast and Isa for direction.
“Without Empress Laurent, the Alternan Empire would not exist,” Fayth narrates. “Without Empress Laurent, humankind would have gone extinct long before their time. Instead, thanks to her bravery and benevolence, we thrive in a tamed world, and our magnanimity stretches throughout all of Ducorde. But who was the First Empress? Who was the Mother Of Us All?”
"Maybe you could tell us more about this exhibit," Yves says encouragingly toward the ceiling.
"...or we could move on to the next exhibit!" Yves makes hand gestures to his coworkers that are probably trying to convey some complex idea. Either Don't create epistemological lockup by talking about that or I hope the museum restaurant is coming up soon, I'm getting peckish, hard to say which.
Linnet hands Yves another cinnamon roll.
"I think it might be time to move on," Isa says, but she faces Bast briefly and then tips her head toward the box. Unfortunately, her expression remains unreadable.
"NO EATING IN THE GALLERY SPACE," proclaims Fayth. ("Oops, sorry.")
Yves, startled, drops the cinnamon roll on the floor. "...sorry! I'll just... I'll..." He picks up the roll and shoves it into his bag, where, with any luck, it is not giving horrible offense to a mask.
Orrey watches everyone else but Bast walking down the path to the next exhibit, then reaches out towards the box with the end of a pencil to see how close he can get without being yelled at.
"Please do not touch the exhibits, Orrey," Fayth calls him by name.
Orrey doesn't stop moving the pencil closer...
"Orrey? You coming?" calls Linnet over her shoulder from the next room.
Yves has already followed Isa away, respectfully and everything. He's trying to surreptitiously wipe smudges of frosting off his fingers on the inside hem of his coat.
Orrey gently taps the outside of the box with the eraser on the end of the pencil.
Orrey ceases to exist.
"He'll catch up," Isa says to Linnet as they walk on.
Upon not hearing anything from the previous room, Linnet turns back around and pokes her head in. "Orrey? Where'd we lose you to?"
"He'd probably be shouting if he walked into a forest like I did," Yves agrees.
Bast, back in the room with Orrey, blinks slowly.
"...did you see him?" (Linnet keeps forgetting Bast's alias and is trying not to blow his cover.)
"He...just disappeared?"
Somewhere else...
Orrey floats in an endless expanse of green and black lines, eternally reticulating. Above and below are a sea and sky of unblinking eyes.
Why did you not listen? asks Fayth.
Curiosity, says Orrey.
Curiosity, Fayth repeats. Humans and curiosity. A refusal to follow clear instructions solely for fleeting pleasure of the self, irrespective of the effect it has on the society. Was the instruction obfuscated in some fashion?
Orrey shrugs. The instructions were clear; the consequences were not. The possible value of these items for our world far outweighed any perceived potential danger. The Twelve have sent us here for a reason. These Alternan artifacts could be what we were sent for, Orrey says.
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