With my new loot in hand, I go back to my hiding hole in the storage area and climb up the ladder into the small room. There, I stash my loot and take a look at the little lizard I found earlier. Looking down into the box, all I can feel is disappointment, staring at the hole the lizard chewed through and presumably escaped from. But I don't dwell on it too long—probably best I didn’t take it with me, as both me and Monty wouldn’t have time to take care of it.
Climbing back down, I make my way back through the war history exhibit and walk up to the mace I left sticking out of the shattered tile floor.
“Might as well take it with me.”
Grabbing the handle of the two-handed mace and giving it a tug does little to dislodge it from the floor. It takes me a bit of lifting and prying, but eventually, I get the mace unstuck. With the mace back in my hands, I move down the stairs into the maintenance hallway and end up back in the entrance. Now, there are no more archers shooting at me—but two new guards have been posted at the door to prevent me from leaving.
Just like the one Monty and I once fought out in the dungeon, these two are both larger than the normal lizardmen and are also decked out in gold. As I look further, one of the guards appears to have a horn-looking thing on its belt. I try to sneak over to them, but quickly abandon the idea, as sneaking with the mace is too much of a hassle, and I begin to rush them.
They notice me nearly immediately, and I can see the one with the horn begin to fumble, trying to unhook it from its belt. But when he gets it loose, it's too late—the mace smashes both the horn and his hand to pieces. The other guard springs into action, draws a dagger, and tries to stab me. To his surprise, I move closer to him—his stab misses, but I’m now in grappling range.
He doesn’t get time to form a new plan as I dump half of my mana into my new skill and turn my hand into a powerful taser. As he goes down, I bring my mace up and swing it down onto his head, killing him. Now the only problem is the guard with the mangled hand.
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Turning towards it, I see it pull out what looks like a bronze gladius. Taking a few steps back to create some space, I watch to see what it's going to do. I don’t know what it’s planning, but the moment I make some space, it puts away its gladius and rummages through a bag at its side. Whatever it's planning, I don’t like it—I pull my revolver and put two rounds through its chest.
As he falls, his hand slips out of the bag along with some unknown bottle of orange liquid. I quickly take the bottle and sprint deeper into the museum. As I run through one of the hallways, I find a door with a “Personnel Only” sign on it. I carefully open the door and find I’ve just entered some type of electrical control room—it has many blinking lights and is uncomfortably warm.
I feel at the wall to find a light switch, but can’t. So I take the enchanted lighter I found out of my pocket and light it. With a bit of light, finding the switch is easy—I flick it on. Turning around, I notice two things: one, that this is a server room, which explains why it is so warm in here; and two, I am not alone.
Between the server closets are hammocks, and in those hammocks are lizardmen. Because of course the lizards would sleep in the room that is always warm. As the first lizardman begins to wake from its sleep, I’ve already fled out the door.
While fleeing, one lizardman notices me. Luckily, it’s one of those small feral ones, and kicking it felt as easy as kicking a football. The small witness flies through the air and crashes into a trashcan. Seeing as it’s not getting up, I keep running.
I follow the signs toward the space exhibit but run into a problem when I enter the exhibit. Standing over the dead feral, with my crowbar still in its maw, is the large lizardman that was getting berated by the queen. The only reason I know this is because it is muttering something in the same broken English as it had been a couple of hours ago. Being curious, I use Identify on it:
