Open Chronicles A Hell On Arethil

[VigiloConfido]

The halls of Blackgate as bleak as they ever were. Oppressive like a drab boot on the throat, crushing down. A mocking certainty in their monolithic standing: there was no hope of escape. Forever was the looming leer cast upon the prisoners from the soulless stone.

Yet Anima did not give the walls their familiar power, their tyrannical reign. She stared down at the floor as it seemed to move all of its own accord as she was carried and her feet once again dragged. Her breath warm and husky inside her muzzle. Yes. The taste of black tea still permeated her tongue, her mouth. That small trace of Kalavan. The receding tide of his eternal night flowing just beneath her skin.

It had been far too long. The ultimate delight of basking, hers again. And it had proved elusive, had it not? Oh yes. A powerful foundation, indeed.

The Black Templar carrying her stopped. She heard them talking to another Templar. Words that rippled and distorted behind comprehension, like a thing glimpsed under unsteady waters. She could have listened to them. Paid them heed. Understood. But she deigned not to. This wilting euphoria born of Kalavan would not last, and like nectar it would be a grand shame if it were allowed to spoil unenjoyed.

The Templar carried her. And carried her. Moved her through the halls and through vestibule doors and iron gates and all manner of secure constructions.

Until at last they came to a heavy metal door. Markings adorned it. Similar markings from all about the prison. Secrets of the Black Templar.

Upon the door a word Anima recognized, as she at last decided to lift her head and see: VISITATION.

The Templar opened the door and carried her in and there in the large room a simple and singular table. Mismatched chairs on either side. One comfortable, one a rigid contraption with straps and metal hoops with the chains of manacles threaded through. Two other Templar already in the room, one with a mancatcher like out in the yard, another with a drawn sword, sternly etched along the blade. A thin and slanted column of daylight through the barred window.

Anima was sat down in the rough chair. Secured via the straps and the manacles about her ankles and wrists. The iron of the mancatcher loosely clamped about her throat once more, above the collar she was forced to wear. Yet at any moment that vice-grip could tighten.

Anima waited. And waited. Not knowing why she was here or what the purpose of the room happened to be. Her thoughts wandered. Back to the closeness and the brief touch of Kalavan's lips to her neck. A wry smile behind her muzzle and a brief chastising. She should have ran her hands through his hair. At least once. Missed opportunity. Another thing, proving elusive, desired. There were on rare occasions wondrous times when starvation became a feast.

Three hard knocks on the Visitation room door. Loud and firm.

 

[Rowan Burnes]

He didn't look up from his spot, instead waiting for the fervor of the templars to ebb and die. They didn't move if you didn't give them reason. Or at least he thought that was the truth of the matter.

"They move with ruthless efficiency." He stammered, feeling the gaze of a templar on them.

"Don't know how many you'll get to help. But there ought to be a few mad enough to try." Rowan explained, uncertainty filling his expression. He dared look up in time to see the visor pointing there way, and the man couldn't help but swallow the lump that had formed in his throat.

 

[Talus]

Talus nodded as things in the yard slowly seemed to return to normal.

It seemed that the prisoners were almost used to that sort of thing happening. Every now and again someone would get antsy and try something, and the Templars would of course crack down almost instantly. It was the way here.

His fingers tightened, scrunching into fists before he spoke quietly. "The Elf they took."

An Elf was rare here, that much he had already surmised by himself. The man had to have been here for a long time, and that meant he likely knew much about the prison itself.

"Where would they take him?" Talus had only been here for three days, and that meant he'd never seen the lower level. To the Templar he was just some Rogue mage, brought here by a baron with a bit too much coin.

Rowan Burnes | Anima | Kalavan

 

[Kalavan]

Kalavan was taken back down the unlit shaft. Through the narrow corridor lined with metal doors. Past his cell. There was a single door, wooden, at the end of the hall.

He knew what came next.

An iron rod, its flat tip glowing red, was pulled from a flame. A chain was hooked through the stone gauntlets that bound the Elf's hands. A Black Templar unlaced his shirt, exposing fair, delicate skin, save for the collection of scars.

The heated iron would be pressed against his skin many times until the tip no longer glowed. Then, it would be reheated and reapplied. Then, for a third and final time, the tip would be brought to a brilliant glow in order to tarnish the prince's skin.

Although used to the routine, the sensation, Kalavan could never take it in silence, no matter how hard he tried.

Following the conclusion of his punishment, the prince returned to his cell but was not bound to the chair. Instead, he laid on the cold stone floor and stared up at the ceiling.

It had been an eventful few hours, at least eventful enough to keep his mind occupied until the next time he was granted time in the courtyard.

 

[VigiloConfido]

The Visitation room door opened. And in he came with a Black Templar as an escort.

He walked to the table. Sat down across from Anima. Looked at her.

And spit in her face.

Erik. The blacksmith from Alliria. Husband to the murdered Lydia, she who left the unopened letter in her passing, the mystery of which Anima had not been able to unravel and thus moved on. He looked sickly. Tired. But gravely determined.

"I should have known," Erik said. His voice quiet, simmering with a restrained rage (such inspiring the ghostly taste of raw, bloody meat upon Anima's tongue). "I truly should have known."

Anima said nothing. The glob of spit rolled down the side of her nose.

"But I didn't see it. I couldn't. Not then." Erik closed his eyes. Exhaled. Opened his eyes. "You took advantage of me for your sick pleasure."

A long pause.

"I don't know what you are or why you did it."

Anima said nothing. Stared. Intent.

"Belenor was a son of a bitch. It's true. He lied to me about my Lydia and I don't know why or how much he truly knew about her and about you. But I do know this..."

Anima said nothing.

"You were wearing Lydia's face. By all the gods..." He shook his head, his disgust and horror readily apparent, "...what manner of fiend are you?"

Another long pause.

Broken, this time, by Anima. "Lydia still loves you, Erik."

"DON'T YOU DARE CLAIM TO BE HER!"

Silence, save for Erik's labored breathing. The Black Templar merely kept their guard and watched in their dutiful vigil.

And Erik said, "I am blessed that others found me. They who yet live in the wake of your victims. You made some powerful enemies. And again, I am blessed. You may have cruelly stolen Lydia from Arethil...but I may yet see you punished for it." Pure disdain. "I don't know what you are, but others seem to. They know enough to understand that you laugh at pain and that you do not fear death. But they know how to make you suffer."

Erik leaned forward. His final words: "I will see you broken for the things you have done. For my dear Lydia. And for all the rest."

He stood. One of the Templar escorted him to the door and saw him out. And the door swung shut and the metal banished the sight of him.

And as the Templar unstrapped Anima from the chair and restrained her and lifted her and took her out of the room and started back down the halls toward her cell, all the while she could, so very faintly, feel the tender warmth of Lydia's love for Erik kindling in her heart.

The sweet taste of cherries.

 

[Rowan Burnes]

Rowan did not raise his head, did not speak for a long moment as he pilfered through the murmurs and things he had figured out just by listening to the others here.

"A dark place, no sunlight. Torches are needed for the place they take him." Rowan attempted to pull his limbs together, the chains making it impossible. "Metal doors and long hallways with pain and silence. Dark and secluded. A place with no one to hear you."

"Try your best to not go there. It is a long time before you get back out." He informed the other man.

 

[Talus]

Cells.

He supposed it made sense that prisoners would be taken to an even worse part of this prison. He himself had only been to the top area where the low level prisoners were kept together in almost a barracks like wing of the Fortress.

Yet if he wanted those prisoners who were a true threat...who knew about the way that the Black Keep actually worked...

His gaze flickered for a brief moment up to the walls and then towards Rowan. He looked at the Templar up there and then let out a sight. Slowly he pushed himself up to his feet and looked around.

Lips thinned, and he looked down at Rowan. "Sorry about this, deal still stands. Just gotta talk to some others."

Before Rowan could answer he would feel a fist connect to the side of his face.

 

[Rowan Burnes]

The other man standing didn't garner any movement from the werewolf. The words caught his attention, but didn't register in time to realize just what the other had in mind as he was sent sprawling to the stone floor. A red haze blurred his vision, his whole body tensing as anger and pain pumped adrenaline through his body.

Something in him howled with rage, and his rational mind tried desperately to push it back down. That thing brought pain from the gold and black templar's. Rowan couldn't do anything to move with the internal conflict however, realizing too late that it wasn't pain that could bring out a transformation.

It was anger.

All their poking and prodding had only brought fear and pain, never anger. Even the worst they had done with using silver and waiting for a full moon had never brought about what they had called an unscheduled transformation.

The helms snapped to them as the bell began to ring again.

His whole body shook with effort, chains and manacles making an ungodly creaking sound as the lithe's man form seemed to grow and flex. It was a strange sound that escaped his lips, half scream and half howl as he struggled to keep calm, to maintain control. It was a precarious slope, and he was quickly losing the battle.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima was sent back to her cell. The stifling muzzle removed, and the door closed and locked. The cold and stark walls her only company.

But that wasn't true, was it?

No. Not today.

For she understood the why she was here now. Though it was delicious to see that Erik, sweet and earnest Erik, had a sadistic streak in him, he and those others he mentioned sought to make her suffer. And they knew how to do it.

Loneliness. Hence, the solitary cell. Hence, the increasingly rare allowances to walk freely in the courtyard and simply be in the presence of others, let alone bask; faint glimmers of hope always intensified the pain of torture, the magnification in the brief taste and the subsequent taking away of it. Cruelty had no claws without hope.

But this time, she had been given a gift, hadn't she?

Anima trekked to the corner of her cell. Sat down slowly against the wall. And in her mind she danced with Kalavan, drinking in his sorrow and he drinking in hers until they were both indistinguishable. Inseparate. One. Joined hand-in-hand and falling together. And there in her mind's eye she ran her hands through his hair and heard his heart beating in her ear.

She would not be alone. Not until the ghost of recent closeness drifted from her skin and the fog of memory distorted the view of her lovely jewel, her brief time with him.

And Anima would eagerly await when next she was allowed into the courtyard.

 

[Kalavan]

There was a clamor. A rush of steps, the rattling of armor. For two incidents to occur so closely together was rare. It seems there would be an addition to the occupants in the underground unit. Kalavan leaned against the door, ear pressed against cold iron in an attempt to hear what was beyond. All he heard was the barking of orders.

Whoever would join him in the prison's underbelly would experience a unique hell. The elf stood there, listening closely. He waited and waited to see who would be brought down.

 

[Talus]

Talus found himself being dragged away by the Black Templar as Rowan began to shift and transform before his very eyes.

"Holy shit!" The Apprentice said out loud as he stiffed a laugh. Before he could bark out a chuckle one of the Templar's struck him hard in the stomach, the wind quickly knocked out of him as he found himself violently pulled from the coutryard.

Even as he passed through the far gates he could see Rowan struggle, the fight inside of him appearing on his very flesh.

Talus recognized it for what it was; Lycanthropy.

Only weeks ago he and Ademar had faced that plague head on. To be stuck in here with a wolf now? Well he couldn't help but find that funny.

Of course, his laughter found no exit as he was dragged into the depths of the Black Keep and deposited within it's darkest depths. Violently Talus was thrown into a cell just opposite Kalavan, his body crashing hard against a wall.

 

[Rowan Burnes]

Rowan found himself missing bits and pieces of memory after beginning the struggle for control. Chains tightened, his body pulled against them uselessly. A blink had him snarling and roaring with a semi human voice in pain as the templars pulled him down.

Something was put in his mouth, wood, steel, he couldn't rightly tell at the moment slipping in and out of conscious thought. A harsh crack made the world go black finally. His head throbbed after he came to, the taste of blood on his tongue as his eyes spun for a moment to figure out where he was.

It was dark, but that wasn't a big surprise there.

Something was wrapped around him, and the chains were still on him. Arms bent outward while his wrists were pulled close, his legs curled slightly as whatever covered him kept him tightly wrapped.

 

[VigiloConfido]

((OOC: Anima locked in her cell until later))

 

[Kalavan]

There was silence for some time, then an incredible groaning noise as the lift returned with the whelp in stow. The elf stood there, his face pressed against cold iron. Unnaturally golden eyes watched the boy up until he was tossed into his cell.

The Prince was silent until the guards cleared. He remained silent still.

Soon, the cub's limp body was dragged down the hall. Chains scraped against the floor up until he too was tossed into a cell nearby. It wasn't long before he, too, stirred.

Kalavan stared at the door across from him. He stared for far too long as if he expected it to swing open at any moment.

"Welcome to Hell," The elf finally spoke to the door across from his own.

 

[Talus]

Talus pulled himself up to his feet, chains rattling as he shifted and found purchase with his boots. A smile crossed his features.

It had not been easy predicting what the Black Templar would do. They were a highly trained bunch, and he'd half thought they would throw him in a different part of the Prison. Yet he'd calculated they'd want to make an impression.

Thus he ended up here.

Exactly where he wanted to be. "Colder than I thought."

The young Dreadlord commented as he slowly began to look around. There was really no more sophistication to this level of the prison than any other, the only real difference being the an odd pale blue set of gems set into the walls.

"How long have you been here?" He asked the Elf.

 

[Kalavan]

“It does betray what one would expect of Hell,” The elf smiled.

“So young, as if just squeezed from the womb.” He ignored the human’s question for the moment. “A shame, no? All you will know from now on are these dreary walls.”

The boy had already gained his attention. It was rare to be so young and imprisoned within Blackgate.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima awoke. Her pleasant dreams evaporating in the harsh reality of quiet and oppressive stone around her. Kalavan and his luscious hair dissolving beyond the reach of her mind's eye.

Still she sat in the corner of the cell. Her back and arms and legs and rear end aching from having slept in so uncomfortable a manner. That dull aching like a sweet glaze without a baked treat upon which to spread it. Ultimately unfulfilling. Even the truncheons of the Black Templar would have sufficed. There were other things which would have been better still, things beyond the simple ecstasy of pain. Things unattainable here. Things which Erik and those others he mentioned surely sought to deprive her of.

Slowly, something began to intrude on her thoughts.

Anima glanced to her left. Glanced to her right. The last light of day filtered in through the small and high window of the cell. A window so small that only two fist-sized bars were necessary for it. A window so high that she--when such whims carried her--had to jump with her arms extended up to grab said bars. Seeing outside was incredibly awkward and difficult.

The intrusion became worse.

Anima stood. Looked around with a renewed sense of urgency. Her bare feet made soft pattering sounds as she walked carefully to the center of the cell. Looked around again. The stone of her cell surrounded her. Quiet and looming. The door of her cell locked shut.

The intrusion weighed upon her.

She brought a hand to her chest, just below her neck. Breathed audibly through her parted lips. Her eyes dilated. Horror at the edge of them.

She froze. Her body stiff and rigid, facing the door of the cell. Slowly she looked back over her shoulder.

"Can you...see me?"

The quiet stone.

"What sacrifice?"

The dimness of the cell.

"Yes. It is remembered." A mere whisper. Tiny against the monolithic stone.

She turned around slowly. Very slowly. Faced the small window from which the dying light of day spilled.

"Forgiveness always awaits the seeker."

And Anima, upon saying the words, collapsed to the ground. As if struck dead.

 

[Talus]

"I don't plan on being here for long." The words were more than a little arrogant, something that he was self aware enough to know.

Yet they were true.

No one had ever escaped from Blackgate, but that didn't mean that no one could. A part of the way this prison worked was separation, stopping the prisoners from working together, stopping them from moving as one.

"There's a way out." He said quietly. "One the Templar's don't know about."

It was a lie, but Talus needed to start putting the pieces together.