01. Dungeon of Penance

[katzepaw]

(Starts at 1:03:12 to 1:17:35)

Caleb is led to the Dungeon of Penance, a grim prison far below the city of Rosohna by the Shadowhand of the Krynn Dynasty, Essek Thelyss. As he travels deeper into the dungeon, the feeling of time and space closing in is suffocating, as he feels the strange magic that guards this prison come over him. Essek leads him to a cell in the prison. Glancing through the small hole in the doorway, Caleb can see a female figure sitting in the room, arms bound behind her back. Chains are affixed to her arms and each leg and drow elf guards are monitoring her around the clock.

“Would you trust me enough to enter the cell with her,” Caleb asks Essek softly.

Essek looks to the guards, who nod, and then looks back. “I just would recommend nothing funny. For should such things occur. . . “

“I would not jeopardize our place here in the Dynasty,” Caleb says.

“I would hope not, and you seem like an upstanding practitioner of the arcane arts with interests in the greater mysteries of life, that you would not throw your life away so quickly.” Essek quirks a confident smile at the veiled threat, and then orders the door opened, gestures for Caleb to enter.

The woman inside is facing away from the door, head down, straggly, greasy hair in her face. She is a human woman, but it seems as though she’s been down here in the near pitch darkness for some time. She looks as though she has been treated roughly, tortured and interrogated, and she is emaciated and pale. The smell of festering wounds and filth is strong in her cell.

Caleb enters the cell cautiously and sits in front of her, a few feet away, his heart heavy and conflicted. Jester and a disguised Caduceus follow behind him.

When Caleb speaks, he speaks in Zemnian so his friends and the Krynn guards do not understand, stiffening his resolve for this decision. “I’ll confirm what you already know. I am Bren Aldric Ermendrud. Do you want to tell me your name?”

Without moving, in a low raspy voice, she says, “it doesn’t matter, does it?”

He considers that for a moment, answering slowly. “Well, you will be dead in a few days, but I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t matter.”

There’s a cynical smile in her voice. “Do you have a way of getting me out, ‘friend of the Dynasty?’”

“I don’t know,” says Caleb, “but I do have something to offer. I’m curious. You’ve done a lot for the Assembly. I know that you’ve killed many enemies of the Empire, of the throne. I am very curious to know how it would affect you if you knew that some of those you robbed of their breath were innocent, completely innocent. As loyal as you.” By the time he gets to the end of this statement, his voice is shaking slightly, cold with anger. “What would that do to you?”

At this point, her head slightly moves and peaking through a sliver of greasy, dark hair, one eye looks up at Caleb. “We both trained under the same man. You know the answer to that. There are things bigger than innocence.”

His voice hoarse, Caleb responds, “It doesn’t haunt you at all to know that some of the deeds you’ve committed were predicated on lies?”

She laughs very softly. “I had my heart beaten out of me a long time ago. Now, it’s about guiding history. It always has been.”

Caleb sighs heavily, swallows the pit in his throat, and looks away from her. Her answer seems to make him bitterly sad more than anything else. “I don’t know how my brothers and sisters could stomach wearing that mantle of loyalty, knowing that it was woven so thoroughly from sin. And I am very sorry for you.”

The smile in her voice is back. “Good men don’t conquer. They die and are forgotten. I’ll die and be forgotten, but at least I know some of my deeds will have changed the course of history.”

He looks up at her again, scoffs in disgust, derision plain on his face. “You’ve certainly learned your lessons by rote.”

“You still have a few to learn too,” she whispers back. “I’m sure he’ll find you.” Caleb can’t help the fear that comes over him when she says this; he knows it to be true, but the weakness only seems to encourage her to push harder. “He’ll be happy to finish what he couldn’t. He doesn’t like it when people don’t do as he says.”

Caleb stares back at her for a moment, meeting her eyes, and then his expression dissolves into open disgust and hatred. “I’m sure it galls him very much.” He stops, pauses for a moment to collect himself, but keeps going. “Do you know, I think I’m a better friend to the Empire than the lot of you? You didn’t have to have this. You shouldn’t have had this.”

She laughs again. “It’s a shame. So much potential and so little foresight.”

He knows he shouldn’t ask, but he can’t help it. “Did you know Astrid and Eodwulf?” Swallowing, he adds, “Still alive?”

“Hmm.” She smiles, just a little. “I know them better than you do.”

That crushes him, just a little. In a whisper, “that’s probably true.” He sighs. “It was folly thinking I could change your mind, I know. Why would i?”

“What do you want?” she asks him. “Why did you come here? None of this is surprising. What do you want from me?”

He takes a breath, his heart sinking a little as he struggles for the words to find the answer. His voice trembles a little when he decides to answer truthfully. “Maybe if I could talk plainly with you and see one inch of change, then I wouldn’t believe we’re all damned.”

“Well,” she says softly, “I hope this lesson has been very useful.”

“It has.” He can’t help but look at her and see her the way he did when he first saw her in this prison cell, seized with the irrational fear that once he looked at her face, it would be Astrid’s. After fifteen years, she would be no different, would she? “You’ve made what I have to do very plain.” He shakes his head, blinks away some of his grief for this stranger. “I don’t know if you want it or not, but I’ll be staying around for the end. I consider you a sister, even if you don’t share the sentiment.”


She leans against her chains, and then there’s the sound of straining and rattling. “Well, I’ve always been a little impatient.”

There’s a whip of motion as one of her chains goes slack and her arm arcs towards Caleb. He hurries to try to cast counterspell, but there is no spell. In one of her hands where a chain has been wrenched free, she is clutching a pointed piece of metal, and thrusts it into Caleb’s clavicle and throat. Blood begins to spray from the wound; weakly he reaches for the stone he keeps in his pocket and tries to strike her with it, but can barely manage to harm her. Jester cries out, rushes forward and bashes her with her shield, shouting for Caduceus, who runs in after her and grabs Caleb, starts to drag him out.

The guards all load their crossbows, but Caleb, on the ground and bleeding heavily from the not quite fatal wound, shouts, desperately - “Wait!”

She begins to rise from the ground in her chains as Essek glides into the room, one hand out of his cloak, lifting her in the grasp of his gravitational magic. She is choking, and blood is pouring from the corners of her mouth and her eyes, but he looks at Caleb, not finishing her off just yet.

Caleb stands, still bleeding, unsteady, and walks to her, six inches away, and stares into her eyes, his expression dark. And then to Essek, he raises a fist and clenches it. As Essek clenches his fist as well, finishes the spell, there is a crunching sound, her entire central torso crushes inward, the chains go taut, and some of the metal bends as the chains pull and break before she is dropped to the ground limply, a disfigured corpse. Jester watches Caleb worriedly while Caduceus heals his wounds.

The group examines the body, try to learn anything they can, before filing outside, where Essek is interrogating the guards about the broken chain. Essek glances back. “Well, it seems these Scourgers, these Vollstrecker are well-trained.”