In the kingdom of Talingarde, many crimes may send you to Branderscar Prison, but the sentence has but one meaning. You are wicked and irredeemable. Each of you received the same greeting when you arrived. You were held down by rough hands and branded upon the arm with a runic F.
The mark signifies ‘forsaken’ and the painful scar is indelible proof that each of you has betrayed the great and eternal love of Mitra and his chosen mortal vassals.
Condemned, you face at best a life of shackles and servitude in the nearby salt mines. Others might await the “gentle” ministrations of the inquisitors so that co-conspirators may be revealed and confessions extracted. Perhaps, some of you will be spared this
ordeal. Perhaps instead you have come to Branderscar to face the final judgment. In three days, the executioner arrives and the axe falls or the pyre will be lit. Through fire or steel, your crimes will be answered.
You have all been chained together in the same communal cell dressed in nothing but filthy, tattered rags. Manhandled and mistreated, any finery you once possessed is either ruined or long lost. No special treatment has been given any prisoner – male or female, commoner or noble – all of the forsaken are bound and imprisoned together. Your feet are secured by iron cuffs tethered by one long chain. Your arms are secured to the wall above by manacles. A guard is posted right outside the cell day and night. Little thought is given to long term
accommodations. At Branderscar, justice comes swift and sure.
Escape seems hopeless. You have all been well searched and every attempt to conceal anything on your person has failed. And if you could somehow slip your bonds and fly out of this prison, where would you go? Who from your former life would want anything to do with the forsaken?
Despised, alone and shackled – all that you can do now is await your doom.
For each of you, your old life is over. For each of you, hope is a fading memory. For each of you, justice will be fairly meted. And who can blame fair Talingarde after what each of you has done?
A tall, dark haired woman eyes the dark cell, stopping every once in a while to look through the bars with her piercing blue eyes. Muscles flex and stretch taut as she tests the shackle's strength now and then.
How did I end up here? Where did I fail!?
Slumping against the wall and sliding down, letting the chains take her full weight, she lowers her face. Slowly, a smile spreads as she looks back out beyond the cell into the hallway, the lone guard posted outside.
"As if these bars could contain my wrath. Executing me like a dog will not stop me," she growls in a barely audible voice, firm with conviction.
She closes her eyes, listening to the faint whispers barely perceived by her woken mind, searching for salvation. Or revenge.
Slevin breathes deeply as he reflects on his situation.
Manacled to a wall in the most famous prison in Taligarde, shackled to others who no doubt were scheduled to suffer similar fates.
This couldn't get much worse....until the executioner arrives.
Sighing to himself he opens his eyes, red pentagrams glowing slightly in the gloom of the cell as he takes in those he is chained to.
Three women. Interesting.
"They are relatively sure that none of us will ever see the light of day again." his raspy voice joins the discussion.
Sitting quietly, chained up as well, what appears to be (at first) a little girl, surely a mistake, for what possible crime could an innocent child have committed to warrent a breif stay in this place.
But as eyes get accustomed to the lightm, and the shadows around where she sits slink away, the little girl is not so young. her red hair, her burning eyes, theodor of smoke and flame. this "child" sits listening to the others, quietly singing a tune... ending her tune with a little laugh. and a smal wave of heat eminates from her little body, like getting to close to a campfire.
As in clip, but at the end change to..
"They're all gonna burn."
surely this little one is a little crazy. after her song Has anyone seen my bear? the look in her eyes and the expression on her face, is a little creepy.
"Mitran dogs always liked their parades," Lisbeth spits out in contempt, still watching the guard in the hallway.
"Did she say bear?"
There is the shuffle of something moving outside briefly, but that's about it. The dungeon continues to drip, the silence to stretch with only their vengeful muttering to fill it.
"So what brings you all to this..fine establishment?" Slevin asks, the sarcasm dripping from his words.
"Killed a Paladin's father. He didn't take too kindly to it. He wasn't too fond of me killing the dozen lunkhead guards he sent after me either." Slevin says, shrugging before gruntinhg in pain from the position the chains kept his shoulders in.
The shuffling about outside becomes more pronounced, and turns into what is clearly footsteps approaching. There is a buzz of muffled voices outside, and the door opens.
On the other side is a portly watch sargeant in the blue and gold Mitran colors with the emblem of the prison on his tabard. He has a sort of blank smile on his face.
"If it isn't my favorite band of miscreants," He booms in his obnoxiously loud voice. All of the current occupants of the cell recognize him as the overseer at all of their individual brandings. He seemed to enjoy the process then.
Slevin's eyes narrow slightly. "Welcome back, we were just saying the ambiance was missing a healthy dose of Fat Bastard. Your timing is impeccable as always."
"What do you need, goon? Spit it out, already. As you can see, we haven't all day," Lisbeth growls, looking into the man's jowly face.
The little girl was sitting no response to her question, but then again, most don't.
as the guard enters, the girl lets others say their peace. be careful, you really want to play with fire? you might get burned. she says with a little smirk.
"You there!" The guard gestures behind him, and waves them towards Slevin, "That's the scum! Get'm unshackled. If any of the rest of you cause trouble, you'll get a thrashing."
As Slevin is wrestled out of his restraints by two of the other guards, he continues,
"Its your lucky day, scum. You've got a visitor ... how you ever warranted such a fine lady is beyond me. Seems she wants to say goodbye. Now step lively. We wouldn't want to keep her waiting."
Givcing the guards manhandling him a murderous glare for a moment, the mask of sarcastic calm once again slips over his face.
"What can I say? I'm unforgettable." he says with a grin.
The guards haul the inquisitor down the hallway outside. You pass several other cells but its hard to tell if there's anyone in them as you are pulled / pushed along. Finally, he is pushed through a wooden door into an almost totally empty room. There is a chair, and a table, and that's it. They push him roughly into the chair.
The guards haul Slevin out, and then check to make sure everyone is still manacled.
"Oh dearest!" She cries as soon as he is in the chair, "I'm so relieved you're alive!"
She quickly turns to the portly guard, "Could we please have a moment alone, for pity's sake?"
The sargeant looks blank for a moment, then nods a little mechanically, "Of course, m'lady ... for you it is no problem." Then he gestures, and the rest of the guards and he leave the room.
"Not that I'm complaining because.....well...look at you. But I'm pretty sure I'd remember if we met luv." the Inquisitor says quietly
"Have you forgotten me, dearest?" All pretense of crying seems to be gone, and she straightens a bit, business-like.
"Call me Tiadora. We possess a mutual friend who would like to meet you and your fellow cell-mates. Unfortunately, you friend is unwilling to visit you in your present ... mmm ... shabby ... accomidations, so it seems you must escape."
She chuckles softly and drifts away, examining her cuticles with a lazy sort of disinterest.
The Dark Lord uses such finely crafted tools
"I'm all for moving to a better part of the city, and I'm sure the invitation would be prefereable to the alternative for the others, it's just the matter of our present hosts might...take offense to our just walking out." he says with a smile, eager to hear the plan for thier escape.
"If you manage that, cross the moors on the outskirts of town. On the old Moor Road you'll see a manor house with a single lantern burning in the second story. There our mutual friend waits. That's all I know."
It seems that Tiadora is expecting them to figure out their own escape plan. She frowned slightly, then seemed to remember something,
"Oh yes. He did want me to give you this." She whipped the veil off of her face, and wiped away a few fake tears with it, affecting a little sniffle before smirking in a downright wicked fashion. Then she presses it into Slevin's hand, "Something to remember me by, dearest."
She gives him a moment to look her gift over.
"It would appear our goon is merely a puppet in some bigger show. I wonder who pulls our puppet's strings..." Lisbeth muses.
For those in the cell, the guards stump back to the door once they're sure that everyone is still secure, just watching warily, hands on longswords. They seem to be waiting - presumably Slevin and whatever lady came to see him won't be long.
again a perfect picture of grief. “No, I can’t bear to leave you!”
She gives Slevin a kiss on the cheek. The kiss is ice-cold and feels somehow alien and inhuman.
The sargeant shakes his head. “I’m afraid it’s time, miss. ”
She looks deep into his eyes and says, “Thank you for
letting me say good-bye. There’s no need to search my dearest. You are such a good friend for letting me see my dearest one more time.”
“Such a good friend,” he repeats back, voice almost mechanical. Then the watch sergeant seems to snap out of it and bows politely. “A pleasure, madam,”
She leaves unveiled.
Her eyes meet Slevin's one last time and she briefly gives him a wicked smile.
“Three days,” telepathically echoes in his mind.
“Don’t disappoint me, dearest,”.
The visitation concluded, Slevin is taken back to his cell by a cadre of guards and shackled to the wall once more.
Then they troop back out, though there are two moving shadows visible under the door once they're gone.
"I didn't realize you and our goon puppet were such good friends," Lisbeth remarks when Slevin returns and is reshackled.
"The goon is no friend, but my visitor may be a friend to us all." Slevin says quietly. "Anyone care to get out of this hole?"
"It appears that our particular....skill sets are in demand. However the one seeking to make use of our talents would like, an audition of sorts. Namely, walking out of this $#!+hole." Sleavin says quietly, looking at each of his fellow cell mates in turn.
A turn of evnts, how interesting. the little gnome says in a hushed voice.
she struggles a bit with her chains attempting to get more comfortable, she has remained rather quiet most of the time. listening to the others, learning about them as they talked.
but her small stature has allowed her to elude any real attention. and that just may be the way she likes it.
"Oh? That's it? When you put it that way, it sounds so simple. Shall we? Let me get the door for you," Lisbeth mutters, still shackled to the wall.
Slevin chuckles at the unbridled sarcasm. ”Well it seems that our benefactor has seen fit to provide us with a few tools.” he says, opening hid closed hand to produce the veil.
”Magic. “