The Night Garden

Description

The Night Garden, a Great Citadel, is a truly titanic ship carved from a single branch of Heart God's Avatar, a Divine tree.^[1] Because of this, the hull appears to be without seams, whilst the ship itself seems narrow with a width of 1 kilometer from port to starboard^[2], about twelve kilometers in length^[3] and about 3 kilometers high.^[4] Its sheer size makes the alloy behemoths of the First Evacuation Army seem like tiny toy ships. Yet, despite its titanic stature, The Night Garden still seemed elegant and graceful – the flowing lines on its hull emanating a feeling of harmony.^[3]

It almost seemed as if the ship seemed to possess a presence of its own, as well. Whilst its shadow was one from something that was alive, not dead. Indicating that the ship was not an inanimate object.^[3]

The ship is like a city in and of itself; dozens of decks stacked on top of each other like layers^[3]and with tall pagodas and beautiful palaces built on its surface. In its holds, meanwhile, there are wild groves, rushing streams and deep lakes.^[2]

Furthermore, the Night Garden's masts are as tall as mountains – rising multiple kilometers^[5] into the sky like gargantuan trees, whilst their beams spread like branches.^[3]The ship has no sails, however.^[6] The tallest pagoda, for example, was build around and inside the main mast of the Night Garden, surrounding the lower part with tilted roofs and terraces filled with gardens and emerald grass. Its summit, meanwhile, was a grove with swaying old trees and a pond. The trees there bear golden fruits and contained a few lanterns here and there.^[5]

In preparation for the journey (and race) to Eternal City, Sunny had made 24 cannons to improve the ship's defenses. These cannons, 12 per side of the ship, were made from obsidian taken from the Shadow Realm and engraved with no other function but to make the cannons look pretty. Each cannon is 12 meters long and 2 meters in diameter.

Charging the cannons is merely a matter of quantity essence-wise – which is why an Awakened crew can operate one – yet, for the cannon balls, the quality of the essence matters too. Hence why Sunny implemented a particular solution; namely that the cannons were designed to be able to consume soul shards as well.^[7]

"Let me tell you Crow Crow... those daemons all had a thing for unnecessarily huge structures. Why are all their Citadels so stupidly huge? No, really, what where they compensating for?"
– Sunny, Chapter 2586, "Crow's Nest" ^[8]

The Night Garden is depicted in the lower left corner of the map shown below.

Geography

The Night Garden, similar to the Ivory Tower, is not beholden to a single place. However, the Storm Sea could be considered its favored environment due to the way the Night Garden is 'alive'.^[6]

The ship is unique in the way it functions; it uses its masts to attract – and subsequently absorb –lightning, whilst it uses its hull to absorb and digest basically anything that makes contact with it. This method of absorption grants the Night Garden the ability to collect essence, resources or materials to restore itself within an almost inexhaustible capacity^[6] and potentially rid itself from clingy foes who try and use its hull as a foothold, as well.^[9]

The two main sources of 'food' for the Night Garden remain Lightning and Nightmare Creatures – hence why the Storm Sea and its brutal storms are a great environment for the ship. It can, however, absorb almost anything; the list given below helps illustrate this phenomenon.

• Starlight

• Ambient Spirit essence

• Natural floating debris (i.e. seaweed, coral).

• Energy of the elements (i.e. the waves hitting its hull, the wind pushing against its flanks).^[6]

The Night Garden absorbs sea water as well. Desalinating it before storing the salt – some of it is used to supply other Citadels – and fresh water separately.^[11]

"The Night Garden had absorbed the Black Water, just like it would any other Nightmare Creature or source of sustenance."

– Chapter 2587, "Forces of Nature"^[12]

Components

Dream Gate Component

The Night Garden's primary Component is that it grants its owner the ability to anchor a Dream Gate inside the same realm it is rooted to. Meaning that a Dream Gate connecting two different parts of the same Realm – rather than one part being in the Waking World with the other part being in the Dream Realm, as is usually the case – can be created and placed right in front of the Night Garden.^[13]

"It is a Component of the Night Garden... why, you did not know?"

– Ki Song, Chapter 2211, "Wielders of Power"^[14]

Minor Teleportation

Aegis

The Night Garden possesses an invisible shield that protects it decks from outside elements such as the wind or rain.^[11] Furthermore, the shield, or aegis as it can be called, is also capable of creating a dome strong enough to weather the water pressure at the bottom of the Storm Sea, and airtight to the point the Night Garden's residents could survive in the vacuum of space.^[17]

Movement

The way the Night Garden moves is not mundane either. It, of course, does not have sails – nor can it be moved by rowing due its size – whilst its runic circle, though much more elaborate than the one on the Chain Breaker, does not connect to a runic array anywhere on the ship. Meaning that neither a mundane nor a traditional sorcerous (i.e. runic) method of propulsion seems to be in place. Instead, it moved with the help of the Divine sorcery left behind by the Demon of Repose – Rime^[18]. Allowing for the Night Garden to move simply because its master wills it to.^[19]

Captain's privileges

Being the captain of the Night Garden comes with a certain amount of additional privileges granted by virtue of the shared connection between ship and captain. Connecting to the helmsman's runic circle located in the bridge is what allows for this connection to flourish.^[19][22] The known additional privileges bestowed upon the captain are listed below.

• The captain shares a sense of awareness with the ship, subsequently allowing the captain to sense what is happening around the Night Garden.^[19]

• The captain is bestowed the ability to read the stars and thus navigate the Storm Sea.^[23]

• When giving instructions, the captain's voice can be clearly heard.^[24]

Points of Interest

The Bridge

The Night Garden, like all ships, has a bridge from which the captain steers the ship. In this case the bridge is located at the front side of the main mast, in the great pagoda that is build in and around said main mast. It is a vast room with elegant arched windows which stretch from floor to ceiling and grants – thanks to the great height at which the room resides – a view of most of the ship and its surroundings.^[19]

As one can probably expect, the bridge also happens to be the place where the helmsman's runic circle resides. An elaborate runic circle etched into the floor that allows the one that connects to it to become the Night Garden's captain, lighting up briefly when one does so.^[19]

The Reservoir

At the bottom of the ship a vast reservoir spans the entire length of the Night Garden, functioning as both a water reservoir and a means to control buoyancy. The latter can be achieved by forcing the Night Garden to absorb and subsequently fill this reservoir with water. Furthermore, there is a shore of white dunes made of salt, whilst enchanted lanterns were scattered across the ceiling.^[11]

The Dream

The Night Garden, because it is a living thing, dreams like any other. And – as one might expect – in the Night Garden's tranquil dream, it is a thriving tree. A tree similar in size to the one that grew at the center of Ariel's Game and stood upon the surface of a calm sea; bathing in starlight. The branches were brimming with young buds and fruits – representing those of higher Rank that lived aboard. Whilst the leaves, meanwhile, account for the remaining passengers.^[25]

Inhabitants

The Night Garden was originally built by the Demon Repose – Rime – who then fashioned it into her home and used it to sail the seas of the Storm Sea, among other things.^{[14][6][28][29]}

When the Night Garden was lost is unknown. However, in the wake of the Doom War, and after Rime herself had been absorbed by The Spell, it was ultimately reclaimed by Nightwalker. Who then, eventually, ended up founding the House of Night – using the Night Garden as their base of operations and place for their clan members to live.^[6][3]

History

Trivia