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The Crystal Garden (2): The Crystal Garden takes up the majority of the Event Hall and is an expansive collection of hand crafted crystal flowers created specifically for this event. The garden is impressive and magical; while there is little effort to make identical replicas of the flowers used for inspiration, each cut of crystal seems to capture the light and make the flowers glow. Many of the flowers are easy to recognize and are true to life in size and shape, but there are sections of the garden with flowers that come in fantastical sizes and shapes. It feels like stepping into another world. During the daytime, the natural light from the glass windows and sunroof makes it easy to see fine details, and when the sun goes down, the artificial lighting spreads beautiful rainbow prisms across the ground and walls. No matter what time of day you visit the garden, you’re guaranteed a beautiful sight. There are several locations specifically designed for photographs you can take on your own, but the venue has also hired professional photographers to help you capture yourself in the moment.
Contributing artists are credited along the back wall, and if players have characters with glass or crystal skills they are permitted to have donated to the display. If your character is a professional photographer, you can also play them as employed at the venue.


It was the crystal garden that attracted her to the function in the first place. Her little red mary janes clicked on the floor as she handed off her ticket for the Gallery, and slipped into the exhibit hall with little fanfare. Her glamour held strong, though she had to remind herself to keep her tail firmly curled around her thigh under her skirt so she didn't hit something with it. She was dressed in 'semi-formal' which meant a Qi style lolita dress that hung to her knees, in a muted red color with accents of white and gold. Her curly white-gray hair spilled over her shoulders in gentle waves, accented with a red hibiscus floral pin.

Sonya let her yellow eyes settle on the shimmering sculptures and gasped softly.

Her first two years living in Destiny City had been a mixed bag. She'd helped Alabster with his world - proving to herself that the Chaos could be expelled from a world - and tried to help deal with the bank heist. The Negaverse was nefarious on this world, much like Chaos had been on her own. Though they certainly seemed to be more at a stalemate here. She supposed it wasn't a terrible thing; it certainly meant the Earth wasn't falling to Chaos. Didn't mean that Earth was safe, either, though.

The sunlight flickered through the sculptures, refracting bands of color over the room. Each flower shimmered as she looked at them, gentle curves of glass and crystal glinting. Crystal flowers... a frivolous use of crystal, her advisers would say. 'Artisans are just as valuable to our economy as technologists,' she would have replied. One could only export so many robots, after all.

A gloved hand gently touched a crystal rose, and she smiled. This crystal was not tainted, was not charged to eat away at the world it was on. It simply existed, in this form, as though the flower was crystalized mid bloom. Eternal, unchanging, and forever. A moment frozen in time.

Sonya continued her slow walk around the garden, both captured by the sculptures and terribly sorrowful in seeing them. She thought of her world, of the sickly purple crystal that overtook it and tainted it all. The singular dais of clear blue crystal, shining where she'd slumbered. How she'd not returned to Terebellum since arriving her.

She was doing her world a disservice. She knew this. She should be out there, fighting Chaos and trying to find out how to cleanse her home. Every minute she spent here was one less minute her world had. One more minute that Chaos won.

The problem was, she was terrified of what she'd find. The memories were hazy at best, and all but gone at worst, but the end had been... bad. Murders, deceit, war. All fueled by Chaos and ancient power imbalances. All things she couldn't stop, she couldn't end, she couldn't pacify.

In the end... her world bound her crystal as it all crumbled around her.

The young woman stopped in a small alcove with a bench and gently swaying crystal vines. They chimed softly around her as she watched the other people in the garden.

It was a long time before she left the little alcove, shoes clicking softly on the floor.

[WC: 545]