The Gardens of Mercury The Seed of Fire The colony ship Ariadne descended slowly through the burning skies of Mercury, where the sun filled half the horizon like a golden furnace. Few dared to live here, at the edge of survival, yet the underground domes of Caloris Basin were said to hold something unique: gardens unlike any in the Solar System. Elara Vey, a botanist and xenobiologist, arrived with a single mission: to study the impossible. In the shadowed caverns carved beneath the scorched surface, whole ecosystems thrived where no life should exist.