This chapter is inspired by... The concept of justice, but also of what constitutes justice, and what is true vengeance and many other things that are conceptual and if I ever delved to deeply into, would likely have me talking to several psychiatrists. But I never use it because of a fundamental ideology of my own person. "It's not what a person says or thinks that makes them good or bad, it's what they do." In other words, actions speak louder than words.
Now. With the actions happening within the 25th chapter sparking a fire of indignation, hatred, and retribution within me, I've created a concept within the said chapters comments for a goddess backed dungeon. But I also had a second idea, which spawned from it.
You see, in long ago days there was a book, this book was considered terrifying, nightmare causing, it was an epitome of the description of terror. And no it's not the necronomicon.
I speak of... DANTE'S INFERNO. this book spoke of hell hell being separated into 9 rings, for various sins, crimes, and punishments. And apparently either the original or a reprint at a later date, utilized the description held within this tome of fear to now include images and portaiture depicting the punishments held within each and every ring of hell.
So I thought... What if you made it a dungeon? What if you took the concept of a 9 area prison for They Who Hath Committed Grievous Err? And so I've gained my inspiration.
With the dungeon being named the 9 Circles of Hell, it needs 9 of something. 9 floors? Oh no... No that's to easy.
It gets 9 layers. Each layer can have several floors. But as the entrance of this dungeon is via teleport, you start at the bottom, and you climb your way up through hell to try and escape. Obviously the bottom floor is the easiest. The end has the greatest treasure you could want after getting out. Freedom.
The bottom floor is the largest, and the entire dungeon would have an inverted circular step pyramid cavern, leading to this tiny little spot in the cieling from so far below, letting you always see sunlight, always see the exit. But it would have antiflighy enchantments, and various ranged enemies everywhere. There is no winged angel escape from the 9 rings. Oh no.
The first layer is the largest, a normal, stone cavernous like area. Middling enemies, but so many debuffers. Poison, fire, dot is the name of the game in this hellhole. The way up is through tunnels in the walls, it leads you higher to small caverns, and hanging islands in the hells... And each layer shall be worse, and have a gimmick. The second layer immediately cranks it up to 11 as it sends hordes of weaker enemis in tight enclosed spaces. Fighting over the first layer on stone bridges, some that crumple under your feet, with enemies that can fly in the dungeon, climb across all surfaces, and can fire from range. Imps and hellwraiths, spawns of hatred.... Maybe even toss in a shoggoth. Just to be really mean.
The third layer starts having islands, smaller ones supported by bridges, some hanging from the cieling with stalagtite pillars, some from other islands with pillars. Some breakable, some half scaleable, some smooth and slippery. The fourth layer the islands are held by chains, giant swinging chains from the cieling, where massive onis and ogres are fused into the walls, holding chains that seem to come out of their chests, their eyes following the creatures below them, shaking these chains and swaying the chain birdges that creatures and criminals must cross, never having stable footing, sometimes raising and suddenly dropping islands. The more irritable and angry spit fireballs upon islands, splashing pools of lava about, melting stone, heating chains and making everything hot as hell should be.
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The sixth layer cross crosses between being as hot and unbearable as the fith layer, and being as cold and freezing as the seventh. Caught between the war for supremacy between firespitting flame breathing ogres and onis, and ice wielding Giants, blizzard blowing atronachs, frozen to the cieling higher up, and in the very islands themselves. Crossing between bridges of chain, or bridges of rope, swaying at the mercy of the powerful oni, or the blustering blizzard of the atronauchs. This layer is a testament to the criminals who have passed this challenge.
The seventh layer is an icy hellscape, a sheet of ice clear as crystal covers the entire area, with islands frozen in various spots within, equal, above, or below the ice sheet line, swift frozen tundra hunters cross this slick surface with claws of ice, never leaving a scratch to Mar the surface, as the ice Giants wield icy spears, and sometimes chucking glacial hammers, shattering the sheet when they see fools crossing their path, large semi frozen ropes come from wounds held within their chest, showing to those who gaze into the ice behind them massive harpoons that just into the ice and rock. Breaking the ice sheet reveals a new platforming hell of slippery unbalanced rope supported sheets, some with bridged that had been frozen within coming to use, or finding they broke, brittle with age in their icy slumber.
The eighth floor is darkness, the light of the escape so close only able to be seen, above and below you see the seventh and ninth layers, even down to the first layer... But the eigthe layer is naught but a ring of shade, shadow abounds and within it you hear whispers, bump into objects that when you reach for, are not there, hunted by what can only be known as an amalgamation of eyes, glowing golden eyes in the dark, sometimes at a distance, sometimes it's upon you before you can realize. The only true descriptor of the eighth floor is it is blindness, but hearing screams... Always screams. From near and far, and the end comes when you run into something... And you turn and see a giant yellow eye... And then a grizzly mas full of gore. How one escapes is said to be luck or skill, those who have passed never speak of it, never say how they got through, never speak of what they sensed within that shadowy hell where you can't even be certain you have your limbs, for it feels like the shadow saps all sense of feeling but the feeling of rough hewn boards beneath your feet, some say stone, others say it's the ice again, some say burning hot coals... None can ever truly agree on what it was they felt. But those that can Peirce the gloom, never speak of what they SAW.
The ninth floor is a spiral leading inwards, a gauntlet... But for the mind as much as the body, because as they go up the nine rings, it is ever visible, even from the bottom, even if it makes no sense how they should see through the eighth floor... But once inside... They say it comes alive, no one ever sees it move from below... Never wary of the trap that it is, how the walls move, how things change, and how you may walk in circles and never realize the truth. But once you reach the center, bloody, battered, broken and insnane, gibbering about the whispers of the walls, the eyes you see from around the corners, the traps, the blood, and somehow the lack of danger until you put your guard down. You don't walk out of there. You crawl, you drag yourself into the center, you are then given a choice of sacrifice. End your life and allow an innocent creature to go free, or slay the beast by dropping it into the bottom of the nine rings and gain your freedom. They who give in to temptation, find themselves to be slain before they ever realize. Those who give up on life find it handed to them and they escape, to find soldiers guarding the area. But if you have made it out alive... You are allowed to go free. But of the teens who escaped of millions over the millennia, only one ever walked away without a word. The rest begged forgiveness, asking for repent, demanding a chance to right their wrongs.
This... IS THE NINE RINGS DUNGEON PRISON.