IC Date: 07/30/2025
Passing through the tall bronze doors, Tempesti was surprised to see a subtle glow from several of the lanterns hanging from the antechamber ceiling. They weren’t sufficient to cast light of any particular use, but the change was enough to catch her eye and pull a smile across her face as she walked over to her small base of operation, tapping on her camping lanterns as she went.

The table she’d set aside for her maps sat to the side of her bedroll, both surrounded by the little plastic light sources that allowed her to carry on her work past sunset. Updated maps she spread across the surface bore countless notes and markings identifying each new landmark she’d discovered during her exploration. Most of the palace complex remained unexplored, as much due to her near zealotry for restoring the Primordial Tower as the debris that obstructed so many paths. She had every intention of discovering the palace’s secrets, but to focus on anything but the tower and its shrines felt like an inexcusable betrayal of the planet itself.

Snapping shut her notebook, she pulled herself to her feet and headed up the graceful curve of one of the staircases, kicking aside small pieces of debris with each step until she reached the doorway leading to what appeared to be a throne room. Though still blocked significantly by centuries of rubble, she could just see what looked like a grandiose audience chamber. A crumbling structure sat at the far end of a long walkway, its shape resembling an ornate chair carved of stone in a room lined with chairs and benches, where supplicants no doubt waited to grovel before whatever self-important b*****d sat in that piece of overwrought furniture. Shoving aside the shadow that threatened to root her in place, Tempesti resumed her trek to the tower’s door.

Her renewed sense of purpose found itself sidetracked a second time, this time by an open entryway to what was clearly a library. Slender pillars supported the round chamber’s elegant and ornately vaulted ceiling, with a single thicker pillar concealed within monumental series of rounded stone bookcases. Countless bookcases carved into the stone lined the walls, forming concentric circles with the others in the room. Within the smallest circle sat a series of stone tables and the splintered remains of what once may have been chairs and couches for the use of visitors. Examination of the shelves revealed only fragments of crumbling paper, bits of gilded wood and leather as the wisp bounced around between the aisles with far more enthusiasm than she could muster for what was left here. A disappointed sigh hissed forth from the senshi as she wondered if they could be restored with the rest of the palace. Without them she doubted she could gain any real insight into the ancient civilization in which she once lived. Well, in which a long series of dead versions of her had once lived. Frustrated with the knowledge that even touching these remains would further pulverize them, she turned away from the room and made her way down the palace’s winding corridors.