Whatever people may say about the Guard and its stance on magic. They are nothing compared to the horrible that was and is Ronerawth. Ronerawth actually got worse if you can believe that, back in the day they were just leery of magic users and more apt to lock them up at the drop of a hat. Now they are just locking them up by default. Sure they call the place "Sanctuary" and claim that its for the good of the magic users so people don't assault them or use them for experiments or something, but a cage with gold bars is still a cage (and I know a thing or two about cages). How this relates to my current telling of the past, I'm getting there!
The steps down below felt like stepping into some new hell, there was a bounty of smells that made me long for the shit river around the internment camp above. Smells like that shouldn't exist in this world, they are terrible beyond apt desciption. I came down the spiral stone steps into rows of cells, hard iron doors engraved with anti magic runes, the cells themselves looking no bigger than small hallways. Occaisional sounds came from within, Looking in the first couple I could see they were corrupted. I don't know if they were originally corrupted or became that way from the years of imprisonment (when a normal person goes crazy they just go crazy, when a magic person does it, they normally go corrupt in a digusting way). I was kind of mystified as to why they had these people down here. I mean I kind of understood, maybe they were particularly awful magic users? But there wasn't anything written down near the doors, I saw no guards. Its like they just brought them down under the camp, locked them up and threw away the key.
The hall way seemed to just stretch on, each cell being the same group of shambling half corpses in the throws of slowly dying. Some of them were dead and had not been removed, I was shocked there were no guards at all. I was wondering if perhaps the people up above had been the only guards? I guess this explained why no food shipments came here. What a horrible way to die. It seemed like the cells closer to the stairs were for the older inhabitants and further in were new ones. I didn't exactly want to know why such a dungeon existed to begin with. Towards the end of the hall I found someone who still seemed to have a grasp on her faculties.
"Please sir just kill me, don't let me remain in this cage." Her clothing was getting ragged, she was also thin, almost made the shorties up above look healthy.
"I'm not your jailor lady, I'm looking for a," I sighed trying to think of a term to properly call Morley, "A friend as it were, where are the guards? Or anyone for that matter?"
"They all left a couple days ago during I think night time, I don't know I can't tell down here anymore." She had a way of talking overly fast, I couldn't see that she was corrupt, but something seemed off.
"And they left you down here to rot?"
"That was the point to begin with, just when they were here they'd torture us to start, now thats gone at least, for now, might be back later finish the job, maybe, maybe they already did." She turned her head away from me faced the wall. Whatever damage had been done to these people I don't think I was going to be able to fix any of it (not that I was in the business of fixing anything as I've shown many times before).
"Do you know where they went?"
"Calibrary, a ship in a harbor somewhere, sometimes they'd take someone there, they never come back from it." She had been useful, and for that I was grateful. I couldn't see a normal way to open the door from my side, but with the the proper amount of fire directed at the lock (sigils were scrolled to trap magic from the other side, not mine) I was able to melt the proper mechanism and the door slid open. She charged me, I don't know if it was out of fear, hate, or just wanting to end it all. For my sad part in this play I made it quick, my blade slid through her ribs and stuck out her back like some gross meat on a spit. I could almost hear thanks in her final moments.
If I was a good man I'd have killed the rest, but I'm not, nor did I want to risk one of the creatures doing more than just lunging at me. I was puzzling how I'd actually get out of this hole since the hallway just ended in stone and the huge iron door had locked me in when I heard a loud explosion. Followed by Leland and a squad of shorties wielding confiscated weapons.
"Don't come any further I'll come to you." Leland and his group were about to get to the first cells and I held them back.
"Sorry about the delay in rescue, door was too heavy for us to open."
"On the contrary you were just in time, now do you know of any harbor nearby?"
"I think so, but its pretty old and disused from the war with the Red Hand."
"Perfect, Leland can you do me one more favor and show me where this is?" And so I left the hallway of the dead and damned. As I said this was when Ronerawth was better, I'm sure that doesn't exactly inspire confidence with how far they've fallen does it? And the worst part, Ronerawth is one of the better governments around. Let that shit sink in for a half a second and realize how horrible this world really is (well other than my continued survival in it).
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