The Portrait Gallery

Texture: Pudding ice block x microbead x microsequin swirl

Scent: canvas, linseed oil

*please note that there is the potential for fallout with any bead slime. Fallout is more likely with inflation and aggressive play styles.

The tale of the Portrait Gallery...

There is an old tale about the portraits that line the hotel’s second-floor gallery, a story that has been passed from one generation of staff to the next.

The oldest portrait in the collection is of a young woman in a dark green dress, painted shortly after the hotel first opened. She was the daughter of the hotel’s original owner and, according to the story, spent much of her time in the gallery waiting for her fiancé to return from war.

He never did.

Weeks turned into months, and eventually the family stopped expecting him to come back. The young woman continued to wait, often sitting in the gallery late into the evening, watching the front drive from the tall windows at the end of the hall.

One winter night, she disappeared.

The hotel searched the grounds and surrounding roads, but she was never found. Her family commissioned the portrait shortly afterward, placing an empty chair beside her in the painting. It was the chair where she had so often sat waiting.

For generations, the portrait remained unchanged.

Then guests began noticing that the woman did not always seem to be looking in the same direction.

Some swore that her eyes followed them as they walked past. Others claimed that, late at night, she could be seen looking down the gallery toward the hotel entrance, as though still waiting for someone to arrive.

The strangest accounts came from guests who stopped to look at the painting after midnight.

They said the chair beside her was no longer empty.