October 21st, 2023

11:05 PM EST

Alastar

Just walking down to the basement and selecting the knife had taken over an hour. The simple act of keeping everything in its place while still doing what his quest said was… difficult for Alastar. Sure he could have done a lot of other things, but there was a part of him that felt it was the right choice. Even if he might get labeled a thief in a few days, if this all turned out to be a flight of fancy or prank of some kind.

Walking out of the stacks wasn’t too hard, all he had to do was get into the lower level and get up to the first real floor. As he walked out of the job only doors, he past the lunchrooms he remembered sitting in every time a class had a school trip to the Museum, which had been a few times. His memory made everything tinged with nostalgia fond even if it hadn’t been great at the time.

Passing by the food court on his left, and the subway station to his right, Alastar took the same elevator that he’d taken all the way to the top earlier that day. This time, however, he only wanted to go up one floor. He needed to get a good look at everything, at least until something caught his eye. As he walked out of the elevator he decided to go around where the elevator was and walk into the nearest Hall, the Hall of North American Mammals.

The Hall itself was beautiful, it was his happy place. Each of the taxidermized animals, lovingly cared for by professionals for nearly a hundred years, all placed in their cases that showed their environment as it was in the wild untainted by humanity. There were many who considered the animals there to be a bit morbid, but he always saw them as the stalwart protectors of knowledge past. Some animals had gone extinct, or nearly so, and yet they were still here to be studied and at least known by future generations.

Wolves hunting in freezing temperatures at midnight. Bison walking the plains as they did before settlers eliminated them down to near extinction. Brown Bears towering over you as you walked through the hall. It was intimidating, but a freeing sense of nature that Alastar really loved. Yet, he doubted anything taxidermized would be the most valuable. Still, he kept an eye out to see if anything caught his eye.

On the other side of the large hall were groups of smaller mammals, in much smaller dioramas. Wolverines and adorable Armadillos. Alastar grinned as he looked at the little babies, even if their death was sad it wasn’t senseless. The little placard underneath it caught his eye. It said that armadillos only had children as identical quadruplets. He supposed that sibling rivalry must be a weird process for them.

Turng through the next hall made him even more excited. Maybe the most valuable thing could be from here. The Northwest Coast Hall, a room filled with Totem Poles and masks from the Native American communities in those areas. One time he’d gone to the Penn Museum in Philadelphia, their hall was so very different from this one. Where this hall was dedicated to the past and history of the peoples, and their living cultures, the hall at the Penn Museum was dedicated to the voices of those communities including modern handicrafts and video recordings. As he walked through the hall he wondered if one was better than the other.

The next hall was a Gallery, designed in the manner of an art gallery, and mostly filled with statues and smaller fossils. With a glance he knew they weren't what his quest was asking form. While trilobites were cool, they were some of the first really common fossils due to the sheer number of them and their hard shells. These were great examples, but he doubted their overall value.

Continuing from there he passed through a hall that was really good for people, but held nothing of historicity. The Hall of Human Origins. It was filled with models and images, not Fossils. Though he wondered if an early human fossil would be valuable to the system, he was sure that these models weren't. Still, it was a deep look into everything that it means to be human and the history of humanity.

Stolen novel; please report.

The next room was more possible. As he walked in he thought a small thing glowed for a second, but when he glanced at it he saw nothing. It was filled with rocks from space. Meteorites, both small and large. Some even from Mars. Even Moon Rocks, which seemed to glint in the light, which had to be the most valuable thing he’d seen so far… if only for the sheer effort it took to acquire them. Traveling hundreds of thousands of miles to grab the rocks and prove that they could.

The next room, the Hall of Gems and Minerals, was even more promising. Massive geodes the size of a chair, massive chunks of ore, and walls lined with all kinds of small rocks. Even the extremely beautiful slice of Redwood tree that had been turned into a stone. That was some pretty petrified wood.

One of the weirder little exhibits was a chunk of rough cut rock. It was held prominently, even more so than actual gemstones, and as he walked over he looked at it. “The subway garnet?” He muttered to himself. “It looks like one of those objects people hate picking up in Skyrim.” He giggled a little to himself. He was drawn from there to the centerpiece of the room, a large alcove with some of the rarest gemstones around. A giant chunk of perfectly formed emerald, the iconic Star of India sapphire, and even a butterfly of gemstones.

As he looked away he swore he saw the Star Sapphire glowing, but when he looked back it was gone. So he simply moved on. He decided to ignore the newly made Insectarium and similar exhibits, simply deciding that they would not be valuable enough and he didn’t want to stick is neck out for mounted bugs.

On the second floor he similarly avoided the Butterfly Exhibit, knowing they were probably asleep anyway, and retraced his steps but on the second floor. He ignored the classroom areas, they weren't a part of what he was looking at anyway.

The hall of South American Peoples was similar to those of north american downstairs. It was filled with Incan pottery, statues, and jewelry. There was even a Llama which looked to be made of solid silver. While he thought it would be funny if he told the system he thought Llamas were the most valuable, that simply wasn’t true.

The hall of Mexico and Central America was similar. The most impressive pieces were ancient Maya and Aztec, mostly made of stone. Including the impressive Aztec Stone, one of the pieces that inspired the modern idea of the Aztec Calendar despite not being one of the actual calendars. Sadly, that wasn’t here, this was instead a model. Still it was impressive, and Alastar bowed his head to it in respect.

The Birds of the World collection was nice, but nothing there caught his eye. Not the forest birds, nor the penguins, so he was forced to make a choice. He should probably go both ways, but he had to decide whether he would go through the hall of Asian Peoples, or of African Peoples. In the end he decided he would go through African because it would lead him to his absolute favorite exhibit faster.

The African Peoples hall was really interesting. In the center it was filled with Artifacts, just like the areas he’d just walked through. Yet in some sections there were dioramas, wax figures doing things in their cultural environment. A part of him loved to see them, because it was a really interesting depiction of how people acted and lived. Another part of him, that had worked at the museum and knew the growing politics, knew that there was a growing tension with the idea of keeping dioramas of people in the same context as those of animals just a few steps away. He supposed it wouldn’t come to matter in the future, not with the Apocalypse. He doubted the museum would last long with monsters around.

The next room was the Hall of African Mammals, and it was right next to the peoples hall. There were no artifacts here, just taxidermized animals, but it was still fascinating. So many animals were here that it had balconies with extra exhibits, all of which lovingly cared for and showed a recreation of their natural environment. There was only one exhibit that wasn’t, which admittedly would have been hard to pull off. In the center of the room, the true centerpiece, was a set of Elephants. Some were calm, while others were angry, and according to the exhibit he was looking at a stampede about to happen, in just the way described by Roosevelt.

As he turned away there was another glint in his eye. He almost pushed it off as childish fancy again, planning to go into the halls of Asian Animals and Asian Peoples. However, a part of him made him look back. As he did, he saw that one of the Elephants had a glowing tusk. It was the one to the farthest north, the right side. “Huh. Is that real, or am I daydreaming again?” He asked himself, trying to rub his eyes.