I didn’t expect the prehistoric space robot to gasp in surprise or stumble at me having known who he was, but I couldn’t help but be disappointed when he just tiaring at me with those lifeless green eyes of his.

  “Curious,” he murmured, speaking in low gothic. He tapped a floating s in front of him. Annoying tin bucket, you kidnap me then act like I’m just a fancy piece of furniture.

  I decided to see how strong his fancy tai field was, so I pulled on some soul energy and pushed. The green energy wobbled, forced back away from my skin before snapping back as I let up.

  Humm, hum, that was just a gentle push. I might be able to force my way out of this, making a tiny hole and telep through should be more than doable. Though it might just result iting thrown bato his pokeball before I could do so.

  At least it got his attention. I grinned as he dropped the floating window which turned out to be some gss tablet; he near frantically fiddled with some switches and then I felt the green coiling energy strict around me and gain in power.

  “What is it?” Selene asked my other avatar, which was still happily boung around. “What happened?”

  “I regained e to my kidnapped avatar,” I said. “Let’s hope he doesn’t put it bato the box. I shouldn’t scare him too much.”

  “What did he do?” she asked. “He isn’t disseg you or something, is he?”

  “Nope,” I said. “… he just has me tied up in a spread eagle like some wall decoration.”

  Selene just stared at me, frowning. Then a flush ran up her cheeks.

  “Naughty,” I rolled my eyes. “Ah … I might be a bit distracted for a bit. Feel free to jolt me awake if there is something!”

  “Sleep well … I guess?”

  With that said, I flopped over the bed aurned my focus to the avatar in Trazyn’s BDSM dungeon.

  “I would appreciate it if you refrained from repeating that,” he said stoically. “I would hate to be forced to return you into the Tesseract Labyrinth after just a few minutes.”

  “That would be regrettable indeed,” I nodded, doing away with the empowered voice thing. “You could certainly work on your hospitality though.”

  “It is an unfortunate sequence of our circumstances,” he said.

  “Hmmm,” I squi him. Stupid evasive rust bucket. “Why did you kidnap me?”

  “… I have never seen anything quite like you,” he said after a moment of sideration. “It would be a shame if a unique being like yourself was lost to time. Here, you will exist iuity as a part of my … museum.”

  “I know of your Infinite Galleries, Overlord Trazyn,” I said. “o dance around the subject.”

  “A wele surprise.” The 60 million-year-old alien murder robot preened like a cat. “I would offer to give you a tour … as I have learned not to let dangerous people near my prized exhibits.”

  “I don’t suppose I could vince you to resider?” I asked. “Believe it or not, I am quite ied in your museum.”

  “I’m afraid it would be too much of a risk,” he said, tapping a metal finger on his . “I hardly even figure out what manner of a creature you are. Though if you could enlighten me … I might be able to craft a tai with which I would be fortable letting you take a stroll through the less important exhibits?”

  “That’s a tough question,” I hummed. “You see, I’m not quite sure myself. Nor am I willing to disclose all of my weako you. What I will tell you, is what you have here tied up is what I call an ‘avatar’ and I have more than one of them running around.”

  “That would plicate things,” he said with a nod. “I suppose, seeing as how agreeable you’ve been so far, you are not hellbent on delivering some misguided revenge on me for having misappropriated your ‘avatar’. Or are you?”

  “I do have some simmeriment, I admit,” I said with a grin. “Which wasn’t helped by waking up naked and tied up in a basement.”

  I waited a moment before tinuing. “That said, it is as you say. I’m sure we could e to an agreement. I wouldn’t even be opposed to you keeping this avatar around for an exhibit if you pensated me for the loss. Avatars are energy intensive and taxing to create.”

  “Or so you say,” he hummed. “As, I have ireated you like one of the narrow-minded humans. You have my apologies for that, whoever you may be.”

  He actually apologised and even sounded sincere from what I could tell. Those stuck-up mops in the imperium could learn a thing or two from this old Ne. What a weird gaxy, the crazy space skeleton is more respectful than the humans.

  “Ea,” I said. “I might not know what I am, but I do have a name.”

  “Well met,” he said in that creepy buzzing voice of his. “Ea.”

  Before anything else, I shifted my body around a bit. I wasn’t too embarrassed being naked in front of a Ne, but it wasn’t a good look. I covered my skin in nice white scales I took from some lizard and removed the erotic bits from my body.

  Trazyn stared at me in fasation, which was making me feel kinda weirded out. I gave a mental sigh. Another damned iation.

  In the end, it took almost an hour and some testing from the old collectors part until I was semi-freed from my bondage. I might have zoned out midway through and just went to autopilot.

  Whatevs! I stretched my newly made very fragile human drone which was trolled by the still tightly tied-up avatar floating up above.

  Trazyn was still running some ss over the droo make sure I hadn’t snuck a nuclear bomb into it or something — I hadn’t — and then I would get a tour of the pce with the possibility of further trade down the line.

  I could tell the archivist was ied in my ability to perfectly replicate biological anisms just from a sample, but he made no offers for doing some restrus on his somewhat crashed exhibitions. Likewise, I didn’t bring up taking a bit out of some of his prized exhibits, yet.

  “It does seem to be airely normal human female,” he said thoughtfully. “The signs of brain activity seem strange, but I suppose that is uandable. As discussed, the moment I sense any foul movements from you, your avatar is getting locked in a Tesseract Labyrinth.”

  “Yes, yes,” I shrugged. I had a pretty good idea where exactly Solemnace was in the gaxy by now. If Trazyn locked me away or was an asshole, I was going to pay him an explosive visit in a few weeks.

  Plus, I was about 60% sure I could force my way out of the tai before he could react. Though he might just throw one of his pet a horrors at me if I did so. The ensuing battle would surely ruin quite a few of his exhibits and sour our followiionship, which I didn’t want at the moment.

  “Let us begin then,” he said, striding forward and motioning for me to follow, which I did. “It has been a while since I had a receptive audience.”

  I hummed nonittally. Truth be told, I was gettied. I did enjoy museum visits even ba Earth and I was just about to see the greatest museum of this gaxy with stuff older than any civilization I knew back then.

  Plus, Trazyn was going to guide me through it. I never got into the painting miniatures part of the hobby, but my shelf did sport a tiny replica of the old archivist in his full glory.

  Even if it re-painted — don’t bme me, I had the artistic skill of a drunk monkey, and I probably still do.

  He led me through winding tunnels and up a few elevators. With a masterful application of willpower and a show of unparalleled self-trol, I didn’t start humming some elevator tune as we stood in silence.

  Just how damned deep was that basement dungeon he keeps me locked up in? I wondered.

  After a few eternal minutes spent in silehe door opened up in front of us and I saw a well-decorated hallway expand before me. If I didn’t know I was in space, I could have mistaken the pce for the insides of the Louvre or the British Museum.

  Paintings, statues, and smaller art pieces stood by the walls, pced at equal distances from each other and as if to stand guard at the sides of the occasional rge archways opening up to other rooms.

  Trazyn had items out here that would have been worth building museums of their own around. I would have thought he was disrespeg the a art pieces, but I khe main attras were his prized Prismatic Galleries. Holographic dispys recapturis from history deemed worthy of preservation. These galleries were not poputed by mere sculptures but by scious living beings transmuted into the holograph themselves.

  I supposed my fate would have been something simir, or more along the lines of pced into simple time-stasis and put out on a pedestal like a living statue.

  “How nostalgic,” I said. “It reminds me of a museums on Ear- *cough* I mean holy Terra.”

  “Is that so?” he sounded pleased. “This se is dedicated to early human relics I’ve mao rescue. Since I myself haven’t been able to see early human architecture, I could only work off of hearsay and ruins to design the decor.”

  “I believe you did quite well at it,” I said, only to stop and gape at a particur painting. I didn’t know whether to ugh or be horrified.

  Trazyn noticed me stopping and turo stare at me curiously as I stepped up to the tiny frame and the painting inside. I ignored him in favour of iing the painting.

  It was frozen in time, I could feel the spatial disturbance of the stasis-field even in this basic human body.

  Following a few seds of stupefa, I let out a snort. Back when I was a teenager oh, I somehow got into a tour that took me on a month-long journey arouern Europe with other kids.

  Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, London, and Vienhe main stops ae only having spent a few days in each capital, I remembered staring at this exact same painting in the Louvre.

  This crazy fucker had the Mona Lisa out in the hallway like it was some kid’s scribbles. The hallway expanded into the distance, splitting just a few hundred metres away and I could see at least another fifty paintings and dozens of statues pced with about the same care as the most famous painting oh — in my time that is.

  Then I remembered a little tidbit from the lore and broke out in cackles.

  “How did you get this?” I asked him. “Ah, sorry for being so forward. But I was uhe impression that this … “I poi the painting. “Was one of the most prized possessions of Malcador the Sigillite.”

  “Ah, I see,” he nodded. “I wasn’t aware of its ins unfortunately, it art of some imperial governor’s colle along with most of the other paintings you see in this hallway.”

  I shook my head ruefully. “I’m not sure if you check for the authenticity of a painting, or for its age. But if this is the inal, then it is more than 40 thousand years old.”

  That seemed to stump the old Ne. “Truly?”

  He walked up to it, gently motioning for me to move aside, which I did. He then took out a slew of sers from god knows where and waved them around for a mihe stasis field messes with temporal signatures, so I ot be sure until I run some detailed ss, but it does indeed seem to be around thirty-five to forty millennium old.”

  “Do you perhaps have a paintiing sunflowers that came from the same governor’s museum?”

  “Sunflowers?” He asked back distractedly. “I’m afraid I am unaware of that particur species of flora.”

  “Well,” I said. “They are rge flower-like pnts with yellow leaves.” I stopped, realizing how little that narrowed dowions. “The painting I’m curious about supposedly depicted a handful of the flowers in a vase with a somewhat … etric style.”

  I could have thrown up an illusory replica of the painting quite easily, but locked in this flimsy body as I was and without drawing on any soul energy, all I could do was use words to describe it and sequently make a fool of myself.

  I wasn’t an art girl, alright? Nor did I know how to describe damned pnts accurately. You didn’t o be either to just enjoy art and nature though.

  “Perhaps,” he said. “I just might. But if I may, why do you ask?”

  “It was the only other piece of art the Sigillite mao protect from the ravages of time … aside from this one.” I oward the damned Mona Lisa. “Both of them should be a reli the seillennium of Holy Terra.”

  “I see,” he nodded. “Well, I suppose I will just pn our tour so we walk by all the possible didates for that painting.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Would you care to share what you know of these two paintings?” he asked after a moment. “I would be loath to not have the inal artist’s name uhem at the very least.”

  “Sure,” I smiled and started to enlighten Trazyn about the Renaissand the lives of Leonardo da Vind Vi van Gogh.