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====The Garden of Beasts====
The floating, tropical swampland city known for its wild and open sprawl across the deadly watery wilderness. Large and genetically modified serpents, salamanders, and other amphibious creatures use strutting, bony growths on their backs to ferry the strange and colorful denizens of the Garden to and fro between bulbous, floating plant-like buildings. The people live and work in these massive lotus flowers and upon lilypad platforms, each emitting a soft, bio-luminescent golden glow through their transparent membranous walls as the diverse and dangerous fauna patrols the waterways and buzzes lazily through the humid air. Many of the creatures and people of the Garden of Beasts are born in these waters, birthed from egg sacs in spawning pools and preyed upon by hungry predators. Priestly scientists armed with spears do battle over theory and theology in public spectacles upon the backs of great shelled beasts, while gene-editing designers string up corpses and organs through the open air upon the boughs of glowing willow trees as they search for inspiration for their next designs. The Garden of Beasts is the seat of power for the zealous and militant Vein of the Hydra, one of the major clans in the Children of the Vein, known for their heavily apparent bio-modifications, extensive drone production, and advanced bioshell designs.
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I was looking down upon swampland. It was just another feature of the sprawling, deadly environments of Helocytus, different from the rest in the way that a jungle may be different from a plain, but still, I was certain that what I beheld before me was little more than wilderness. Then the craft began its descent. “This… this is the city?” I asked, incredulous.
“No,” replied my guard, “this is no city. This is the Garden.”
For the health and well-being of my readers, I must preface this section of the Traveler’s Guide to Helocytus with this: I cannot in good conscience recommend that anyone foreign to this world ever visits the false city of the Garden of Beasts. However, for those that find themselves here by necessity, circumstance, or daring, I only pray that you come armed. The Garden is a violent and dangerous place in the embrace of a deadly wilderness where hungry predators lurk in dark waters… but it is, perhaps, the people that call this place home that you must be most wary of.
Apart from a dangerous encounter with a particularly nasty Hellwasp, we were accosted by the local denizens three times between the morning of our arrival and our departure on the following day. Twice, those encounters escalated into violence… and once, it ended in death. I’m not one known for martial prowess, and at the time, my use of apparent cybernetics attracted undue attention from some of the more zealous locals. Fortunately, my guide and guardian was a former resident of this place, and what’s more, she was a champion of the Games. After that third, deadly confrontation, it seemed we had earned some respect among the more violent elements and were largely left alone for the rest of our stay.
It is important to regard the cultural elements of the people of the Garden of Beasts, which would also be a remark on some of the lesser known and unseen elements of the Children of the Vein at large by extension. Several Vein clans have a presence in the Garden of Beasts, but it is the Vein of the Hydra that claims the Garden as their seat of power. To those involved at the highest levels of state in the greater Beacon Space sector, they may be familiar with the Hydra’s diplomats, who play a significant role in preserving the interests and values of the Children of the Vein within the competing space of interstellar politics, but beyond that, the Hydra largely operates outside of the spotlight of Children of the Vein’s medical tourism, missionary work, and trade networks. Nevertheless, the Hydra is a major power in this burgeoning polity: they are the warriors, the priests, and most important of all, the monster-makers.
The Vein of the Hydra leads a radical fundamentalist bloc that eschews electronics and conventional technologies on Helocytus entirely, believing the purpose of every technology or scientific innovation can be accomplished with bio-engineering - and thus far, they haven’t been proven wrong. The large bulk of the Veins sail through the void on living ships that resemble sea creatures more than conventional starfaring vessels, they build living drones of blood and bone in place of machines, they join in symbiotic union with sentient, hulking organic monstrosities they call bioshells in place of the mechs of other empires, and all communication and media is serviced and provided through organic alternatives. The Vein of the Hydra is self-assured in its righteousness, and they back up that sentiment with a fanatical martial pride - survival of the fittest is everything to them, and in the Garden, you must earn your survival.
So you may be wondering, is murder illegal in the Garden of Beasts? Well, that’s a complicated question, but the simplest answer I can give is no. There are conditions, of course, as one might expect - challenges and duels over any number of matters, but especially those of philosophical differences, are commonplace here. The spectacles of violence between theologians often draw crowds seeking affirmation in their beliefs, and achieving victory through the death of your challengers is respected. One is also free to use their own abilities to defend themselves against sudden attackers with the use of deadly force, but a cowardly, hidden attacker is looked down upon, and if their name becomes known, the justice of Beasts will surely see them dead in a week.
Despite it all, I would be remiss not to tell you that the Garden’s wild beauty is really something to behold. The way the proud and colorful people travel along the waterways across the Garden on the backs of magnificent amphibious ferry-beasts is quite a sight to behold, it is how the Garden of Beasts truly earns its namesake. However, the feral beauty of this place only really reveals itself when it comes alive at night. The floating swampland megaflora upon which the denizens of this place make their homes and live their lives unveils their brilliance in the dark as their soft, golden bioluminescent glow paints a stunning picture of a shining garden offering shelter in the darkness. Night is the time of carousal and merriment for the otherwise severe residents of this false city, every night a colorful celebration of life and freedom as the hunters haul in great, massive beasts for the communal, nightly feasts. Even a heathen and outsider like myself was invited to celebrate along like family, sharing in some of the most savory and delicious meat I’ve ever had, our differences by day forgotten and forgiven by dusk, only to be remembered again in the morning.
Though I hesitate to ever visit the Garden again, it will remain as an experience that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
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