Garden of Dreams

Come and relax, let your dreams be pleasant and true, just for a while.

Combining aspects of an artist commune, a temple complex, and an opium den, the Garden of Dreams is the principal headquarters of the Inward Path. Here, the secrets of the human mind are explored with a hope to unlock the path to the world within it. Until then, even they have to eat, and they have turned their talents and resources towards making the Garden a place of unearthly delights, both mundane and mystical.
In the Prime, the Garden of Dreams is a series of colorful buildings - a splash of life in the grey sea of concrete that surrounds it. A city within a city, it formally exists as a sort of commune for artists, outsiders, hippies, and outsiders. Their continued existence is justified as either a protected place of art or that it isn't worth the taxpayer's dime to drive them out. Of course, with the Inward Path watching the Garden against those who would harm it, neither police nor drug dealers seeking new markets find any purchase here.

Those who insist sometimes go missing, and the Veil buries even the memories of them.

by Pixabay

For those who come in peace, the Garden is a friendly place - there's a cafe, a bar, various art exhibits and galleries, a performance forum, and plenty of cozy out of the way spots for sex workers to ply their trade. Narcotics exist, but only those provided by the Inward Path, and frequently free of charge. These are usually 'soft' or relatively safe drugs, with any mortal found trying to peddle anything heavier than that suitably chastised.
This part is all most ever see of the Garden. A pleasant, if idiosyncratic, community of vibrant art and easy-going people. Sure, there are whispers of a cult running the place, and all the strange things they do when the lights are out. Stranger still are some of the visitors that come from time to time, whenever magi pay a visit.

And let's face it, most Magi are pretty damn strange.

Deep in the heart of the Garden lies its true purpose. In gently illuminated rooms filled with greenery, cultists and supplicant lounge beneath a haze of perfumed mist that takes them to great and wonderful dreams. The narcotic fog in these rooms can keep the occupants asleep for daze, and their dreaming-visions go to feed the Mind-Shadowed Lotus that the Inward Path grows here.
Within the Shadow, the Garden becomes a sprawling temple where cult-magi and their half-aware minions live and work. It is a mirror of life in Prime, with gardens and brothels, galleries, and drug-dens, but with a touch of wonder. The Inward Path grow Reagents here, watch over Gates to other parts of the world, and practice their magic without the limits imposed in the Prime.

There are even chambers where daring Magi can participate in a sort of consensual possession by spirits from the Beyond, an experience said to be liberating and thrilling in equal parts.

Friendly magi are readily welcomed here, and for a price can enjoy any number of these pleasures on either side of the world. More esoteric delights have a higher price, usually in the form of other reagents or some form of magical assistance, but most who visit regularly feel it is well worth it.

by Rawpixel.com (Freepik)

The Shadow

The Shadow lies atop the mortal world, like a veil of oil on water. It's where things that go bump in the night hide when the sun goes up, where magic dwells, and where wizards and witches live away from prying eyes.
It's a plane of existence that mirrors the world. From here, people in the Prime are like insubstantial shades. It isn't quite a 1-to-1 translation of the real world, but close - though the Garden has seen considerable alteration by its cultist owners.

Mind-Shadowed Lotus

First plucked from the dreaming fields in the Beyond, the Mind-Shadowed Lotus is a flower that offers a gateway into the human mind. No mere illusion, those who walk the path of the Lotus are transported, flesh and blood, into a world of thoughts and memories. There, mortals journey through corridors of their own pain and emerge healed - or not at all.

by Visnezh (Freepik)