“Although thousands of explorers, both guild sponsored and not, have tried their hands over the years at discovering the Abyss’ many secrets, it is estimated their efforts have barely scratched the surface of what the dungeon truly holds.
The bulk of the Abyss’ structure lies below ground, like an ever reaching, multi-limbed behemoth. Occasionally the tip of one of its many tendrils will break the surface providing entrance, for the brave and the foolish alike, to try their luck at plundering its depths. Recorded instances of these entrances have shown they can take many forms, from regular doors, to arcane portals, to rips in the very fabric of time and space. Certain gateways have even refused ingress until certain conditions are met, implying that someone or something may be in control of the dungeon’s inner workings.”
Professor Oliver Lambourne, Direst for the Guild of Explorers.
Suddenly there was a stampede of footsteps on the metal balcony outside his door before a pair of eyes appeared at the tiny window. They swept the room, narrowed in on Arahn then crinkled in a grin, though Arahn doubted it was a good sign.
“Hey there, kiddo. Looks like someone’s gotten themselves in a big mess, eh?”
Arahn didn’t reply. He wasn’t going to give these lowlifes the satisfaction of getting to him.
“Want to know why you’re in there, instead of out here?” the man continued undaunted. “That’s because these cells are for the death row guys, you know, the real monsters. But you don’t look like much of a monster to me. You look like some little brat who’s in way over his head.”
Several other voices outside the door laughed. Arahn chuckled bitterly, still furious with the entire farce that had been his trial.
“The walking dead are kept up here cause the guards don’t want you accidently getting shived down there in the cages in the middle of the night, at least not before they can wrap a rope around your neck.” The others laughed again and Arahn felt sick. “We’ll enjoy seeing you dance when the time comes—”
“Oi! Get away from there!” roared a new voice and the prisoners scattered.
A helmeted head appeared at the slot in the door, narrowed eyes making a sweep of the cell to make sure nothing was going on. Satisfied, he closed the sliding door over the door slot, before clomping off again, leaving the cell in darkness.
Arahn let himself flop sideways on the mattress, his mind swimming with fear and regret. He was so tired. Physically. Emotionally. Why couldn’t he have just lied, just gone along with whatever his lawyer had been trying to do for him? Why did he have to stand up for himself, insist that he was innocent? Sadness and panic welled in his chest, and he fought down a sob. He was going to die.
Somehow, despite the noise from the yard, Arahn’s full-body exhaustion caught up with him and he fell into a fitful slumber. In his dreams his landlady was making him dinner, but everything she touched got covered in the blood that was dripping from the side of her head. She kept apologising to him as she tried to clean up after herself, wiping up the blood as it started to pour profusely from her wound, like a faucet being turned slowly up to the maximum. All Arahn could do was sit at the table and watch her struggle, reassuring her it was alright, even as the blood started to lap at his ankles.
Arahn woke with a start at the sound of someone banging on the door of his cell. He sat bolt upright with an incoherent cry, staring around disorientated. Where was he? After a moment the memories of the previous day slipped back in and his shoulders slumped. A second knock on the door made him flinch. The slot on the door was open again, bleeding the morning light into his cell.
“You want breakfast or not?” a man on the other side snapped.
Arahn’s stomach growled furiously and he staggered to his feet, brain still sluggish from sleep and approached the door. As soon as he was within reach of it, a chipped wooden tray was shoved through the door slot at him. It was all he could do to grab it before it slipped and fell to the floor.
The meal was minimal, a small rye bread roll, a ladle-full of watery pottage with, if he was lucky, maybe four pieces of boiled chicken or were they potatoes, he couldn’t really tell and a cup of water on the side. Arahn’s family had never been rich, but they’d at least been comfortable, both his parents working so this was easily the worst meal he’d ever had in his life. The bread was as hard as a rock and took real effort to tear into pieces so he could try and soften it by soaking it in the flavourless pottage. The water was room-temperature, and tasted faintly of clay. All in all it was a miserable experience.
About half-way through his meagre breakfast a loud commotion rose from outside. At first it was just some raised voices, but they soon grew more agitated. Arahn set his meal down and crept towards the door, hoping to spy what was going on. He couldn’t see much of the yard from the door slit, but there was a rough queue of prisoners snaking around the central platform. They were all looking in the same direction shuffling from side to side, the line bowing out in places as people tried to see what was going on up ahead. Suddenly there was the sound of a fleshy impact, like a sharp push or a punch, then a massive clang, which made Arahn jump, as something big and metallic got knocked over, followed by a sharp sloshing of thick liquid.
There was a beat of silence then all hell broke loose. The prisoners in the queue swarmed forward, disappearing from Arahn’s view under the edge of the balcony, yelling and screaming in rage. He could hear more punches making contact and loud cries of pain, followed by deep enthusiastic laughter.
“All right!” the voice belonging to the laughter roared. “Bring it, if you think you’re hard enough!”
A moment later several heavy footsteps stampeded passed Arahn’s door, authoritative voices rising amongst the din, ordering for calm to be restored. The deep voiced man was still laughing and the commotion underneath the balcony seemed to only be rising in ferocity. Arahn could still see the tail end of the crowd poking out from the lip of the balcony. There were several stragglers hanging back nervously, looking unsure about joining the commotion. Their hesitation was eventually rewarded as they jumped back to avoid a large body flying towards them which bowled over several people standing in front of them.
A gunshot rang out and a hush fell over the yard. In the sudden silence Arahn could hear two people conversing near his cell.
“I want a roll call,” came a distinguished male voice, anger lacing his tone.
“Yes sir!” replied the woman with him and Arahn could imagine her snapping to attention before her booted steps clattered away across the metal balcony.
A moment later a loud clanging bell rang throughout the prison and a thunderous storm of groans echoed from the yard.
Arahn nearly jumped out of his skin when a pair of glaring eyes appeared before his.
“Get back, boy!” snarled the guard outside and Arahn rushed to obey.
With a creaking crunch the iron door was opened and the guard stood aside. When Arahn didn’t immediately move the guard barked at him to get going, his fat hand going to the wooden truncheon at his belt. Arahn flinched and rushed from the cell.
“Hurry up!” snarled the guard shoving Arahn towards the stairs before moving to unlock more of the upstairs cells.
Not wanting to get himself in trouble and risk an appearance of the guard’s truncheon Arahn hurried downstairs into the yard. Immediately he noticed what had caused the commotion. Underneath the balcony a massive metal cauldron lay on its side its contents, a watery looking white stew, was soaking into the dust of the yard.
Arahn looked around. The yard was full of prisoners of all shapes and sizes, rugged looking bandits and brawlers, shifty looking thieves, and everything in between. They were all gathering around the central platform where the gallows stood, but there were a few that stood out.
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The first was like nothing Arahn had ever seen before. An absolute mountain of a man, his bald head towering over most everyone else by at least a foot, even those who were already quite tall themselves. He was standing beside one of the picnic-style tables that were scattered about the yard and though it only had one occupant, he didn’t seem interested in sitting down. Shirtless, his stony grey skin was stretched over bulging muscles, and covered in strange rounded flat protrusions on his shoulders and elbows, like there were stones embedded in his flesh. He had small tusks at the corners of his mouth, which was currently twisted in a kind of bored frustration. He looked like someone Arahn didn’t want to mess with and as the other prisoners were giving him a wide berth, it seemed they agreed. Feeling uneasy, Arahn started fiddling with his earing again.
Sitting on the other side of the table, as far as she could physically get without falling off the bench, was a girl that looked to be about Arahn’s age, with long dark hair pulled back in a messy ponytail and brilliant green eyes. She was slender, waifish almost though womanhood seemed to be coming up on her quickly judging by how ill-fitting the prison clothes were on her. Arahn averted his gaze. It wasn’t gentlemanly to stare and besides the poor girl seemed to be getting more than her fair share of leering glances from the prison lowlifes. Maybe that was why she was sitting so close to the giant man, when everyone else seemed unwilling to get near him.
The crowd, who’d up until that point been conversing rowdily, stilled and went silent. An elaborately dressed but severe-expressioned man, with greying hair, and a sharply trimmed moustache and beard had appeared at the edges of the crowd. He was flanked by two large, dark-skinned gentleman carrying spears and Arahn expected them to start pushing their charge through the throng like a celebrity at a meet-and-greet. The moment the man stepped forward however, the prisoners parted before him like scurrying insects, his pose’ trailing behind him. The man strode confidently up onto the gallows platform, and casually ruffled the fur collar of his long coat before folding his hands behind his back. He slowly paced back and forth on the platform a few times looking out over the crowd as the gallows ropes swung ominously behind him in the slight summer breeze. Finally he came to a stop and when he spoke, Arahn recognised the voice from the man who had spoken outside his cell during the short-lived riot.
“Order,” he said slowly, his voice barely above a whisper but no one in the yard failed to hear his words. “Requires discipline, first of the self and then, through the self, the society as a whole. The cultivation of personal responsibility, self-discipline and the maintenance of the social order requires strong commitment and conviction.” He paused, and swept his gaze over the yard. “This is not something every individual is capable of excelling in however and when the fabric of social discipline breaks down, crime and suffering follows. So it falls to those in authority, your police officers, your judges, your wardens.” He smirked and Arahn knew he was referring to himself. “To take those of weak moral fibre in hand and reinforce proper discipline.”
For a blessed moment Arahn thought the man might be finished but he just took a breath and kept going. Arahn looked around. Though everyone in the yard was paying attention to the warden’s words, the exasperated expressions on their faces suggested they’d heard speeches like this many times before. It was true they seemed rehearsed but the warden clearly meant every word he was saying with an almost religious reverence.
Arahn picked the least intimidating person in his immediate vicinity and leant as close as he dared before murmuring. “Is he a follower of Kia?”
“That obvious is it?” rumbled the other prisoner out of the corner of his mouth.
Arahn leaned back and considered the warden as he continued to speak. Now that he was paying attention he could see the gold triangle shaped pin on his collar. It was a simple design with corners sharpened to a fine point, its flat surface polished to a mirror shine, the gold blinking in the sun whenever the warden moved. The simple triangle had been a symbol of Kia, the patron god of Order, almost since His church’s founding.
Kia was one of the old gods mostly forgotten in the modern day, his place subsumed by Lord Tarius and Lady Mariel, a pair of gods representing the principals of Justice and Mercy, while a third, the Judge Leimirra, balanced their ideals before passing final judgement on human souls before they moved from the mortal world into the next. Kia had no such power over departed souls so it was easy to see why he had fallen out of favour in comparison. The Trinity preached an understanding of mortal and spiritual rehabilitation, and redemption from wrongdoing, allowing the meting out of appropriate punishment to the guilty and unrepentant, but allowing mercy to the innocent or those in special circumstances.
The old laws of Order had always been more black and white, with no differentiation between those guilty of a crime and those merely accused of one. The top point of the triangle pin worn by members of His church represented Kia Himself, the lower section, his followers. Each point of the triangle represented Kia’s values, Law, Discipline and Obedience, while the shape itself reinforced the idea that the rule of law flowed downwards, and was a thing to be dictated, not discussed.
Arahn’s mother had once joined her local Order circle but had left after only a few days, the shortest he ever remembered her being with a church. He remembered her complaining about all the arbitrary rules. It seemed every last thing had some rule or regulation about it, from your dress, to your hair, to what you ate and what you were allowed to read. Practically a bibliophile the thought of having someone tell her she couldn’t read what she wanted sent her running from the congregation, or so she used to joke. Arahn’s father had once mentioned as an aside that the church had been very insistent from the moment she joined that she start bringing her family in as well and that was the real reason she left. Arahn’s mother had never told her husband or her children what they should believe, only encouraging them to keep an open mind about what could be out there.
Arahn looked up from his thoughts just as the warden finished his speech and motioned to one of his entourage. The man handed his spear to his partner then took a scroll from where it was attached to his belt with a loop of leather and unfurled it with a flourish.
“Troll!” he snarled. “We’ll start with you!”
“Oi, I’m only half troll,” whined the massive stone-skinned brute next to the table but he stepped forward regardless, the crowd scrambling to move out of his way.
Arahn’s mind boggled at the idea of anyone being half-troll. Trolls were monstrous beasts, some growing up to 20ft tall and all but the shy and solitary cave troll were known for their vicious nature and their taste for fresh meat, whether animal or man, it didn’t seem to matter to them. Many a late night scary tale designed to keep young children on the straight and narrow starred the brutish thugs, the perfect villain for warning young ones against wandering too far from home. The thought that anyone could stand the presence of one long enough to romance them and produce a child turned Arahn’s stomach. It was no wonder everyone avoided the man.
The troll stepped up onto the platform and moved to stand in front of the warden who, though reasonably tall himself, was completely dwarfed by the giant man. They stared each other down for a few tense moments before the troll held his hands out palms up, with a taunting smirk on his face.
The warden reached for his belt and unsheathed a switch made of a shiny black wood with a tightly wrapped leather handle. He looked between the troll’s upturned hand and the smirk on his face, then shook his head and gave a humoured exhale of breath.
“You smile because you think your hard skin will protect you from the consequences of your actions.”
The troll shrugged a condescending smile on his face. “Worked so far.”
“Perhaps,” admitted the warden. “But your continued disregard for the rules does not shine well on the length of your sentence. Some would say there is sufficient reason to not just increase your term, but remove your poor influence from the rest of the population who are trying to rehabilitate and better themselves.”
“Alright,” said the troll. “You get back to me when you figure out how to hang a rock.”
Though it was clear most of the watching crowd feared the half-troll, they laughed and jeered in response to his taunt, more than happy to take the opportunity to make fun of the prison authority.
“Silence,” said the warden, and though he hadn’t raised his voice, hush fell quickly upon the crowd. “No man or beast is immortal. One day your end will come and you will go, unmourned, to the other side.”
The troll’s eyes narrowed while the warden looked satisfied. “Given the circumstances I believe a different punishment will be appropriate. You destroyed a great deal of food with your violent acts. Enough for the mouths of nearly four hundred men. I think it appropriate then that you should skip your next four hundred meals.” He turned to one of the guards. “Make note of that. This one is not to be fed for, let’s say the next hundred and thirty days, until he has paid back every last prisoners stolen meal.”
“Yes warden,” said the guard, snapping to attention.
“Good,” the warden turned back to the troll. “You’re dismissed now.”
The troll looked furious and Arahn half expected him to wrap one of those massive hands around the warden’s throat and break his neck, but after a moment of staring the shorter man down the troll turned and stomped off the platform. His rage was palpable and the crowd of watching prisoners scrambled out of his way like mice before a stalking lion. He reached the table and punched the corner, splintering the wood and making the girl still sitting nearby jump. He mumbled something Arahn couldn’t hear then stormed off to one of the cells bordering the yard.
On the platform the guard had his scroll out again and had started reading off names. One by one the called prisoners filed up on stage and begrudgingly held out their hands. Then the warden would take his wooden switch and whip the men harshly across the palms, their cries of pain muffled by pride and gritted teeth.
Then came the moment when Arahn’s name was called. It didn’t seem fair. Whatever had transpired in the yard had nothing to do with him. He’d been locked in his cell the entire time. How could he be held responsible for what had gone on? He climbed up onto the platform, trying not to think about the fact that one day, likely soon, he would do so for the last time as he was led to the noose.