Poison City

The further they followed the woman in a silky white dress, the more obvious to them that the walls were glowing and radiating some kind of gentle light purple glow. And at the same time, it became somewhat obvious to them that something was actually not right with the passageways they were in earlier - the walls appeared to be more fragile and weathered, and less pristine than what they were seeing now.

The woman disappeared around the corner once again. When they made it past the corner, they found themselves in front of a stone arch, beyond which was a giant garden. Flower rows, tall stone stands, dangling baskets from stone pillars, everywhere they can fix their eyes on, they saw flowers and vegetation they had never seen before. And on the far side of the garden was a tall, wide, clean wall with a relief sculpture on it - a male warrior wearing an elegant helmet, wielding a lance with his left arm.

The woman in a white dress was sitting on a stone platform, beside a larger stone stand shaped like the mouth and neck of a vase, pruning the flowers and grass growing in it. The flowers in this stand all had light purple and light orange petals with some kind of golden lining along the edges of each petal and each leaf.

The woman in white dress took a look at them, her pupils glowing in orange. Yet the rest of her face was covered by fog, making it so that they could only see the outline of her face but nothing in detail. A faint, tranquil but still slightly unsettling singing voice surrounded the entire garden, echoing from wall to wall. Marcus listened closer, and found that the humming sounds came from the eight broken pillars standing in different corners of the garden.

Marcus walked in first, Gloria followed him.

“You are here.” The woman’s voice had a certain elegant tone to it, perhaps the accent, or perhaps the expressions on her face. “Good - good. But could be bad - could be bad, or it could be worse - maybe…”

“This is the Lady in White.” Gloria whispered to Marcus.

“Lady in White - you mean THAT Lady in White?” Marcus’ eyes twitched. 

“Yes.” Gloria nodded: “Be careful - my friend told me - she’s not actually dangerous - if you behave.”

“Behave is a weird prescription for a couple of warriors, fighters who defied common wisdom and came all the way here. Bearing unpredictable fate with you as well.” The woman chuckled and stood up: “Come in here. You want to leave, you need to step inside first.”

Marcus took a deep breath, exchanged looks with Gloria before walking into the garden step by step. They came in closer to the woman as well as the wall with the sculpture. His eyes opened wide as he glanced at the wall once again. The relief sculpture only had his left arm. It showed his right shoulder, but no arm connected to it.

With this shocking realization, Marcus’ eyesight blurred for a moment. He looked around again, this time paying additional attention to the patterns on the decor, patterns on the stands and flower pots. There was nothing clearly indicative, but from the general styles, he could tell that they were indeed of styles from the olden days.

“This is - this is probably a memorial garden for the One Armed Knight.” Marcus whispered to Gloria under his breath.

“Yeah, it makes sense. The old ruins are said to be from ancient times, some say they’re from even before the formation of Lake Aqiu.” Gloria nodded and whispered back: “But - let’s ask when there’s a chance just to be sure.”

The lady in white, still with the mysterious fog on her face, walked down from the platform. With them coming closer, they saw that there were several rows of flowers hidden behind the tall stand, all glistening in different colors. 

“Lady - can you be so kind as to enlighten us on who you are, and where we are?” Gloria did not wait but ask with a slightly hastened tone: “We are in dire need of your guidance and your assistance, because the entire city is in great disarray - ”

The Lady in White simply waved her hand, and Gloria’s voice was instantly sealed. She kept talking, her mouth and throat kept moving, but she did not make any sound. Marcus tried to ask as well, but the same thing happened to him.

“You might think that since I am here, stuck and isolated, I may have turned a blind eye toward the entire city, and the world.” The Lady in White walked past them, heading towards the center of the garden. Her hands slowly glided through the air, over the flowers by her side. When she reached the center of the garden, she raised both her hands above her head, tiny sparks flashing in her palms and above her fingertips.

Lines of light green and light blue glow grew from the top of the walls and the pillars, they arched in the air, they folded and merged into one another.

Marcus took a deep breath to calm himself down, as he marveled this incredible display of power and - art. The glowing lines formed a holographic picture of what this open air garden would have looked like, if the magnificently built and meticulously decorated ceiling of the entire garden remained and would have provided shelter and shading for anyone staying here.

“This garden, this place, was once called the eye of the land, a place for those who yearn to see, for those who want to memorialize those we lost, and of course, for war and campaigns.” The Lady in White snapped her fingers, and the “walls” made up of glowing lines of light turned to screens. Like projection screens, they showed live visions of different corners in the city, the historical towers in the South-Eastern District, the shiny and high-tech buildings of the South-Western District, and the bell towers standing beside the trading centers of the Northern District. “It is as if by fate that I am here. And it's becoming the last bastion against the corruption consuming and chewing away the city.”