The walls are covered with cloth, every direction you turn. You're no connoseuir of fabric: you know enough to tell the difference in the types that you wear, so no one can rip you off, and you know what sort of fabric ought to go in certain clothing. You've never bought a suncloak made of chiffon, unlike some trolls.
But you find you aren't sure what some of them are made out of, which is strange. What you do know is that they're old. Some of it is obvious: the threads are worn or loose in many places, the stains are long-set, the burn-marks on many, the places where bugs must have feasted. But some of it is less so. Most of them are decorated like burial shrouds, and the styles used on them look ancient.
Not centuries old, but millenia - which might be a mere wrinkle in the vast cloth of the Empire's history, but it's certainly old to you. A seadweller looks down at you from the tapestry nearest to the recuperacoon, her sickles crossed and her horns chipped and carved with the designs common prior to the adult's evacuation, and it's appalling to see it just hanging on the wall.
Selling even one of these would set you up for perigees.
There's more, as you progress slowly down the corridor. (It's set up like a room, but it's narrow enough that you could stretch your fingers and touch both walls.) One tapestry shows a trolls quadrants, and a bust of their face in the symbol: another shows two moirails embracing, an ancient lowblood and his seadweller partner. A third is of a hive, and that one must be older than the rest, because the cloth is rough, obviously hand-woven, and you don't recognise the style at all.
There's more than just tapestries, of course. The hall is crowded with shelves, and junk that's been accumulated along them. Most of it's too dim to see, the illumination cast by your psionics ending a few, scarce inches from your nose: old knives and shields, a sword, two sticks connected by a chain. Masks, all mounted above a desk, and prosthetic horns, sanded and glossed.
You passed by a boarded up door, but you tried not to pay attention to that. There's no other exit, that you can see: just pipes, over in the corner, but there must've been a way for you to have been brought in. There's no holes in the ceilings, but there are niches in the wall, indentations that you mistook as part of a shelf.
There's one right beside you, actually, and you lean in, reaching in with a hand to feel for a knob. The light from your eyes catches a glimpse of something white, and you grab it, hopeful: maybe it's a knob!
It turns in your hand, because, as it turns out, it's not attached to anything at all. You pull it out to examine it, holding it close to see, and...
no subject
But you find you aren't sure what some of them are made out of, which is strange. What you do know is that they're old. Some of it is obvious: the threads are worn or loose in many places, the stains are long-set, the burn-marks on many, the places where bugs must have feasted. But some of it is less so. Most of them are decorated like burial shrouds, and the styles used on them look ancient.
Not centuries old, but millenia - which might be a mere wrinkle in the vast cloth of the Empire's history, but it's certainly old to you. A seadweller looks down at you from the tapestry nearest to the recuperacoon, her sickles crossed and her horns chipped and carved with the designs common prior to the adult's evacuation, and it's appalling to see it just hanging on the wall.
Selling even one of these would set you up for perigees.
There's more, as you progress slowly down the corridor. (It's set up like a room, but it's narrow enough that you could stretch your fingers and touch both walls.) One tapestry shows a trolls quadrants, and a bust of their face in the symbol: another shows two moirails embracing, an ancient lowblood and his seadweller partner. A third is of a hive, and that one must be older than the rest, because the cloth is rough, obviously hand-woven, and you don't recognise the style at all.
There's more than just tapestries, of course. The hall is crowded with shelves, and junk that's been accumulated along them. Most of it's too dim to see, the illumination cast by your psionics ending a few, scarce inches from your nose: old knives and shields, a sword, two sticks connected by a chain. Masks, all mounted above a desk, and prosthetic horns, sanded and glossed.
You passed by a boarded up door, but you tried not to pay attention to that. There's no other exit, that you can see: just pipes, over in the corner, but there must've been a way for you to have been brought in. There's no holes in the ceilings, but there are niches in the wall, indentations that you mistook as part of a shelf.
There's one right beside you, actually, and you lean in, reaching in with a hand to feel for a knob. The light from your eyes catches a glimpse of something white, and you grab it, hopeful: maybe it's a knob!
It turns in your hand, because, as it turns out, it's not attached to anything at all. You pull it out to examine it, holding it close to see, and...
Oh, god.
It's a fucking skull.