GARDEN OF THE ROCK PIGEONS

 

Hook: The seaside plain stretches for miles and miles, in all directions... Pleasant ocean wind rushes through the unobstructed expanse... sighing and washing over everything like gentle surf... Eventually, you see something in the distance. A dark smudge on the horizon... The pleasant day passes pleasantly as you make your way toward it. You busy yourself keeping eyes out for smoke or other signs of life. It's not long before you find a sprawling ruin in the grass... You stood for a time at a carved, ruined gate made of sandstone crumbled almost to nothing resembling their former grandeur, but, still high enough not to see over, marvelling at the spectacle, wondering about its people... This was old Mezokian culture... Small and strong, cooing, rock-coloured birds half the size of chickens watch you from all the highest places they can reach. The ruins are covered with their waste... Moving on, you soon find yourself among low walls worn smooth by relentless plainswind seeking unobstructed passage... You're wandering through a maze of sand-stone alleys and thoroughfares in a complex network of architectural planning long since faded from glory... Another sight arrests your attention among the sandy hills that greeted you shortly after entering the city... State buildings and old ziggurats litter the hillsides and hilltops, showing you a land and people the likes of which you, or anyone, have never seen... Then, suddenly, nestled into a dry vale between a ring of hills, you note a bright, azure smear glistening in the sun on the valley floor far below you... There are more of the strong gray birds, here, too... They fly from the direction of the cliffs and gather on the walls, rarely lighting upon the ground unless they seek food... They regard you passively, dumbly, almost as if they don't see you at all, beyond a kind of bored, momentary curiosity... When you finally stand before the bright walls, you note there is a moat around it, and it's entirely symmetrical. The edges of the crystal clear water are protected by carved, new-looking sandstone. The walls, lifting up out of the moat like a giant, blue fortress, are made of mud bricks painted a deep azure blue. Carvings come alive along the middle of them, between the large, crenellated square towers. The friezes dance with painted images of elephants and war scenes and a beautiful array of wildlife in jungle landscapes... You see spotted, large cats hunting reptilian, dragon-like lizards, and red-skinned people with spears doing battle in bright, feathered regalia... all in stylised, geometric shaping. Magical beasts wander and fight with heroes and each other. All friezes between the towers show different, repeating scenes. The birds watch from the high walls, so thick they form black lines of cooing observers. The ground at your feet is almost white from their droppings, but, strangely, not a blemish can be seen upon the walls... Eventually, you reach the massive gates, all patterned with repeated mosaics of a giant warrior with wings and a head like the birds you see on the walls. Two massive bronze statues of the man, wings expressed, armed with a curved sword and round shield and spear, flank a sandstone bridge leading to a set of bronze doors each emblazoned with the bird figure, facing each other. The cool air is strangely silent in the shadow of the arched gate but for the cooing of the birds... This was your destination... The old wizard wanted one of the Zamazian flowers from it, rather than visiting the deepest jungles and its many horrors... It's supposed to be on the Ziggurat of the Nameless Queen. Well... now, how to get in?

Details: The Garden of Im Zaboia was built during the height of an old kingdom that thrived in days when the region was a rich, lush island of rivers before the arrival of the Black Continent and the Fire Desert. The rivers have since dried up...

Im Zaboia sought an exotic wife to please his love of novelties. He found her as a slave among the serving girls of one of his kinsmen. Taking her as his queen, he made her his prised possession. She was a quietly wild woman who pined for her homeland, the verdant Jungles of Zamaz. Seeing his very young bride so distraught, Im Zaboia stopped at nothing to please her. After executing countless poets, musicians, dancers, and artists for being unable to entertain his child wife, he finally discovered she desired to return to her home... Unwilling to part with her, he found a powerful wizard who knew the runes, magic, and ways of the gods. He paid exorbitantly, taxed his people for it, and had built a wondrous garden the likes of which no one had seen. He dedicated it to the warrior rock dove god of his people, Ashtar, a petty god of love, death, and war... In the garden were wondrous animals Im Zaboia had his men search far and wide to obtain... They could not escape the garden, but, served as beautiful specimens to entertain... Im Zaboia's wife would wander the walls of the garden, but, never go in it... It was too wild... Too dangerous... Men from the city and neighbouring city-states, hunted there, to impress the child, knowing she was watching with the pigeons...

Eventually, The Nameless Queen (for she would never speak her name) threw herself from the walls into the inner moat with the crocodiles and hippos, and was consumed... Im Zaboia, so distraught by this that he could think on nothing else, wasted away. He erected an obsidian block of stone with a poem dedicated to his beautiful, child wife written upon it, and eventually took his own life before it. The city fell to draught when the rivers dried up, but, the Garden of Im Zaboia remained, as did the animals in it who survived the years... The magic of it maintains the place, and feeds the mundane animals. Every bird other than the local rock doves cannot escape. They fly into a magical barrier all animals brought there are bound by. The doors to the garden will open only for those of the ancient city-state's bloodline. Bronze statues of Ashtar dot the interior, as does a special sculpture of 3 rock doves, each facing out, carved in the blocky, square style of old Mezok. One dove of white marble, one of black, and one of yellow, each with ruby eyes. They are each ten feet long, eight feet tall, and will come alive to defend the place from anyone not of the bloodline of the ancient people who built the place. The dangers in this garden are many, but, so are the wonders... Plants, animals, etc. The ziggurat was converted into a tomb after The Nameless Queen's death, with a single chamber that contains all that remains of her, her golden circlet. The various levels are 20' deep colonnades where various animals lair and wander. Each is lined with narrow strips of palms and bright flowers and wild, wide-bladed jungle plants from Zamaz. The garden without contains plants and animals of Zamaz, but, also beasts and plants from many other places. Each area represents a region, but, the animals wander freely, and settle where they will... The moat around the walls is a clear acid that eats through and dissolves anything that touches it.