by Floyd Fiftynames, Licensed Bard
The conditions in Sector 6 in the Prison of the Tantus Valley could at best be described as inhumane, and at worst, torture. As it had been explained to Lothar on multiple occasions, the prisoners kept in this lockup were among the worst the world had to offer - murderers, thieves, rapists, and somehow, worst of all, magicians. The powers that be overseeing the Regian faith put quite an emphasis on the evils of sorcery and wizardry, and they seemed to make little, if any distinction between mages, druids, and practitioners of holy - even healing - magic.
Lothar had not been raised to be disrespectful to men of the cloth, but his childhood friends, and dearest companions would be magicians in the eyes of the church, and he knew them well enough to know they were not evil, and it didn't make sense to him that the practice of sorcery could be inherently evil if it could be used in virtuous pursuit by good men such as he knew. Therefore, he could not condone the wholesale condemnation of these prisoners if their only crime was the unrepentant practice of magic.
And it was the magicians who received the worst punishment, who were subjected to the worst atrocities. Their hands bound, their mouths gagged, for what - the duration of their stay? And their sentences could be indefinite. In truth, few were likely to see release due to the intense psychological trauma they endured here, which made them all the more dangerous as criminals, and created a self-fulfilling prophecy for the authorities who locked them up in the first place.
One of the worst single examples the heroes encountered was a druid who had been locked in a concrete box, cut off from the natural world. This elderly fellow - Ward was his name - became the first of a small group of prisoners who offered to fight alongside the prisoners in exchange for their freedom (to an extent; Ward, due to his age, his physical frailty, and the amount of time he had been cut off from his abilities, left him unable to participate in combat). Xavier, a cleric, and Phillip, a Gnomish Thief, also joined up early.
It was too early to tell if these men would be honest and true, and worthy of their salvation. It was too early to tell if these three, or any of the others, would be long-term allies and friends. Nonetheless, it was more than Lothar would have expected the day he first set his eyes upon the Tantus Valley.
FF
