Lilly has many secrets. One of them is what she affectionately calls the Crystal Garden. Guarded by the cerberus Nanna, Rana, and Chanda, the underground vault is home to her collection of crystallized victims. A section of it is topside, but this is only the tip of the iceberg, with the majority of the subjects hidden behind thick walls and heavy doors.

Mostly women, they come from all walks of life. Lilly has captured many mages, wizards, and sorceresses, but it's not just spell casters she has in her collection. Alchemists, craftsmen, historians, artisans, programmers, and so much more fill out the remainder, providing her with quite the roster of skills among her specimens.

While she does use them as decorations, some trapped together, the Crystal Garden’s denizens serve another purpose. Lilly has long since developed the means to view the memories of those she has trapped as statues; she can also interact with them in an illusionary world of her own making. Through her golden bracer, she can also channel their skills, using their craft as a shortcut to aid her in the development of her countless inventions. She can all channel their magic, helping her cast spells she lacks an affinity for.

One of Lilly's abilities is something she has dubbed "Overcharge." The crystals allow her captives to replenish their mana over time, even if they aren't aware of it. Lilly can bathe in their mana, charging it far beyond her normal limits. She can only do this with "living mana" and is unable to exceed her normal limits from potions or æthernite. She can use this excess power to supercharge herself. However, there are some drawbacks. For one thing, she can't collect the mana while away from home. Another thing she is unable to do is generate mana like she normally would, as her normal production seeps out of her body much like how it would when she's at capacity. As a result, every spell she uses eats away at her stockpile. Finally, her overcharge form is short-lived and once it's used up, she only has her normal mana levels until she can return home. As a result, she often relies on the Calypso armor and similar power suits over her own internal supply.

More recently, she has found a way to channel certain innate powers belonging to her captives that are compatible with her own abilities. However, they are largely limited to information-based abilities and she is only able to channel one at a time, selecting her power of choice with her bracer. Unfortunately, infinite mana is not a compatible power. It's also not without its side effects. She can adopt certain personality traits and mannerisms while channeling them, something Lilly is not exactly thrilled with.

Not everyone is down there because of their mana, innate abilities, or even knowledge, however. Ruka is an ordinary girl who had gotten her hands on a protective amulet, a silver wing necklace, which ironically got her into trouble. It had a number of functions, namely alerting her to ill will and repelling lesser evils. It will protect her mind and soul all the time, even keeping her sane and calm if she is conscious during petrification. It acts like her guardian spirit in a way, to the point of repelling Lilly's collar if an attempt is made to physically fit her with one. Having formed a bond with Ruka, the amulet will teleport back to her if it gets too far away.

Its habit of restoring Ruka from petrification after a while became annoying, but also intriguing. Lilly treated it like a puzzle; no matter what material she turned Ruka into, be it stone, crystal, gold, or glass, it would return to her and hours later return her to the flesh. It wasn't as helpful against mundane bondage, which Lilly naturally took full advantage of, tying up Ruka largely for fun in unnecessarily restrictive bondage and latex. Eventually, Lilly found a workaround; she forced the necklace off of her and before it could return to her, she encased her pretty captive in crystal. The necklace was trapped mere inches from her neck, unable to return to her. This gave her all the time in the world to study the necklace, as cumbersome as its current state was.

Ruka was displayed in Topaz Tower for months with no change to her state. Eventually, Lilly chose to move her to the lower section of the Crystal Garden, hidden away in her personal collection. While the necklace protects her mind, Lilly was able to find a way around it so she could view Ruka's memories. She learned everything she could about the necklace; everything that Ruka knew about it, anyway. Someday, she hopes to learn how to make them.

I was inspired by Star vs. the Forces of Evil and Sekikumo's Elf-Hunter Slime to create the Crystal Garden. The episode “Crystal Clear” had Rhombulus capture Star and Marco and take them to where he had encased countless people and monsters in crystal, who he believed to be evil. Seki also had slimes that would drain the mana from those they captured, which, because of the mechanics of his world, would turn them to stone. I mixed them a bit, with Lilly's captives able to replenish their mana, which she would use to power her enchantments. Over time, I came up with a few other functions for it. I have debated how much of it she would allow people to access, because what's the point of having a collection of beauties in crystals if you don't show them off?

started a Patreon a few years back and one of his incentives was a monthly wallpaper. At the time. we would gather a few topics or themes and the Patrons would vote for their favorite. Once the theme or setting was chosen, they would submit characters to be featured in the wallpaper. This could be anything from love dolls to statues, or even a wild west bar shootout. However, the amount of characters submitted meant it took a while to draw and eventually, he switched to simpler wallpapers with fewer characters, letting the Patrons pick it on rotation.

Back when voting was still an option, I was able to get Lilly's Crystal Garden to win a poll. I even colored pictures of existing OCs to give Dvega reference pictures for it. Granted, it didn't quite come out the way I was picturing; I prefer six-sided crystals over four, and I never pictured it with stairs like this. Still, it did make it easier for him to draw. This was back in June of 2018, and enough time has passed that he has allowed me to post it. You can find the full size version on his Patreon.

The center of the image is Lilly transporting a new woman into her collection. Ruka was chosen because of her magic necklace, something Lilly would want. Largely, Lilly would keep magic users and those with useful skills in the garden, but I'm not that strict with it. That's likely how Blue Pixie ended up in there, as even after I thought of Lilly channeling powers, she wouldn't be able to use her super strength or plasma breath.

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