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Description
On Xanadu, Adelaide Hart found not just a new world but a new freedom - an escape from the corseted expectations of Victorian society. Here, her mind and ambition could soar as high as the mysterious alien constructs that punctuated the planet's skyline.

Adelaide was studying Natural Sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge, when the Benefactors landed in Lincoln's Inn Fields on an otherwise unremarkable night in 1897. A series of short, brutal wars followed, in which the British Empire conquered the entire planet on behalf of this alien civilisation, employing advanced military technology borrowed from their new patrons. The Benefactors shared the secrets of interstellar travel with the British as a reward for their collaboration, and helped them establish a colony on a distant planet named Xanadu.

After completing her degree, Adelaide joined the many adventurers, traders, travellers, missionaries, scholars and explorers flocking to the alien world. She bought equipment and supplies in Coleridge, the bustling heart of the new colony, and set out into the unknown, drawing and documenting the alien flora she discovered on her travels. Her passion for botany became an obsession, and she devoted every waking hour to studying the fascinating plant-like organisms of the alien planet.

Her work quickly gained recognition as she compiled the first comprehensive catalogue of Xanadu’s plant life, collected and published as Flora Xanaduana. Adelaide's illustrations captured the hypnagogic beauty of the planet, with meticulous notes on the properties of each specimen. The alien plants she depicted were not only strange and beautiful but also possessed remarkable, almost magical qualities. Many had psychoactive or narcotic effects, none more so than porphyranthus oneiroi, the purple dreamflower, which induced lucid dreams and prophetic visions, allowing the user to slip into a trance and glimpse other realities.

Highly addictive, porphyranthus oneiroi became the most sought-after commodity in the colony, the botanical equivalent of gold. The plant found its way into London society, where it became known simply as dreamflower. Its influence was pervasive. The upper and middle classes ingested dreamflower for recreation and social status. The poor used an adulterated form sold in underground dreamflower dens to escape the squalor and misery of their daily lives. Even the clergy encouraged it, as a way to bring worshippers closer to God.

Adelaide, whose botanical studies had inadvertently introduced dreamflower to the human race, watched the unfolding crisis with a mounting sense of guilt and despair. She tried to raise the alarm, but nobody seemed willing to listen. When the effects of the flower became more apparent - hallucinations, mental breakdowns, a rise in crime and insanity - it was too late.

She began travelling far from the colony in search of a cure or treatment for the addiction, venturing deep into the unmapped regions of Xanadu with nothing but her trusty Perambulator for company. She slept beneath unfamiliar constellations and encountered plants that sang with the wind and streams that glowed with the colours of the aurora borealis. Adelaide recorded every encounter, every discovery and revelation in her notebooks, filling them with her intricate and beautiful sketches, accompanied by meticulous annotations.

But the further Adelaide ventured from Coleridge, the more dangerous her expeditions became until, one day, she set out into the alien wilderness and never returned.

The Perambulator managed to make its way back to Coleridge a few months later, limping into the settlement with one of its four legs missing. Adelaide's battered notebook was discovered inside its storage compartment, in which she spoke of stumbling across a hidden valley, surrounded by steep hills, through which a fast-flowing river ran, filled with dreamflower plants twined with blue flowering vines. Her last entry hinted at something extraordinary, some kind of discovery that would change everything, but the entry ended abruptly, in a smudge of ink. Many launched expeditions to retrace Adelaide's journey, but the elusive valley was never found.

Created using Dall-E 3, Leonardo and Krita

Description
On Xanadu, Adelaide Hart found not just a new world but a new freedom - an escape from the corseted expectations of Victorian society. Here, her mind and ambition could soar as high as the mysterious alien constructs that punctuated the planet's skyline.

Adelaide was studying Natural Sciences at Newnham College, Cambridge, when the Benefactors landed in Lincoln's Inn Fields on an otherwise unremarkable night in 1897. A series of short, brutal wars followed, in which the British Empire conquered the entire planet on behalf of this alien civilisation, employing advanced military technology borrowed from their new patrons. The Benefactors shared the secrets of interstellar travel with the British as a reward for their collaboration, and helped them establish a colony on a distant planet named Xanadu.

After completing her degree, Adelaide joined the many adventurers, traders, travellers, missionaries, scholars and explorers flocking to the alien world. She bought equipment and supplies in Coleridge, the bustling heart of the new colony, and set out into the unknown, drawing and documenting the alien flora she discovered on her travels. Her passion for botany became an obsession, and she devoted every waking hour to studying the fascinating plant-like organisms of the alien planet.

Her work quickly gained recognition as she compiled the first comprehensive catalogue of Xanadu’s plant life, collected and published as Flora Xanaduana. Adelaide's illustrations captured the hypnagogic beauty of the planet, with meticulous notes on the properties of each specimen. The alien plants she depicted were not only strange and beautiful but also possessed remarkable, almost magical qualities. Many had psychoactive or narcotic effects, none more so than porphyranthus oneiroi, the purple dreamflower, which induced lucid dreams and prophetic visions, allowing the user to slip into a trance and glimpse other realities.

Highly addictive, porphyranthus oneiroi became the most sought-after commodity in the colony, the botanical equivalent of gold. The plant found its way into London society, where it became known simply as dreamflower. Its influence was pervasive. The upper and middle classes ingested dreamflower for recreation and social status. The poor used an adulterated form sold in underground dreamflower dens to escape the squalor and misery of their daily lives. Even the clergy encouraged it, as a way to bring worshippers closer to God.

Adelaide, whose botanical studies had inadvertently introduced dreamflower to the human race, watched the unfolding crisis with a mounting sense of guilt and despair. She tried to raise the alarm, but nobody seemed willing to listen. When the effects of the flower became more apparent - hallucinations, mental breakdowns, a rise in crime and insanity - it was too late.

She began travelling far from the colony in search of a cure or treatment for the addiction, venturing deep into the unmapped regions of Xanadu with nothing but her trusty Perambulator for company. She slept beneath unfamiliar constellations and encountered plants that sang with the wind and streams that glowed with the colours of the aurora borealis. Adelaide recorded every encounter, every discovery and revelation in her notebooks, filling them with her intricate and beautiful sketches, accompanied by meticulous annotations.

But the further Adelaide ventured from Coleridge, the more dangerous her expeditions became until, one day, she set out into the alien wilderness and never returned.

The Perambulator managed to make its way back to Coleridge a few months later, limping into the settlement with one of its four legs missing. Adelaide's battered notebook was discovered inside its storage compartment, in which she spoke of stumbling across a hidden valley, surrounded by steep hills, through which a fast-flowing river ran, filled with dreamflower plants twined with blue flowering vines. Her last entry hinted at something extraordinary, some kind of discovery that would change everything, but the entry ended abruptly, in a smudge of ink. Many launched expeditions to retrace Adelaide's journey, but the elusive valley was never found.

Created using Dall-E 3, Leonardo and Krita