CARCERI

We appeared back in Curst, but all that was left was ruins. Oddly, the rubble that was lying around could only account for a tiny fraction of the buildings that had made up Curst. Even more strangely, there were no bodies, not even of animals.

The gate to the prison plane of Carceri still existed, as I found out as we wandered through the ruins. As I approached, the rotting heads on the gate began to speak to me, chanting words back and forth between themselves to form coherent sentences. "Gone, gone. Lost to the betrayer, lost to the light."

"What happened to the town?"

"Gone on the wind, swept on a tide of evil. Through the gate, gone, gone. The town, gone, lost to its own hatred. Through the gate, into the Red Prison, the prison plane... Carceri."

"Do you have any idea how to get there or get it back here?"

"Through the gate, into the prison... no return from the prison, no return. Go through the gate, go through the gate... your destiny awaits you there."

"What do you know about my destiny?"

"The deva awaits you." The heads fell silent, and did not react to further questions.

We passed through the portal, into Carceri. We stood in the new home of Curst; I could hear people near by, but only because of their shouts and screams. A scruffy old man walked around a corner, and hailed me. I recognized him as Kyse, the former keeper of the Curst town dump.

"Stranger! Bide a moment! I must tell you what has happened to this place!"

"What happened?"

"You have returned to a town of calamity, stranger. The deva rises triumphant above the wreckage, having dragged us here to our dooms. There is only one way to return - and that is to strike the deva down, to cause the town to recant its treachery and deceit. The stronger the belief of the town in forgiveness, the weaker the deva."

"Trias did all this?"

"The deva rose from the ground and condemned the town's iniquities. A great confusion arose as the buildings tumbled around us - and then we arrived. There is only one way to combat Trias - and that is to weaken him by good deeds and turning the townsfolks' minds away from chaos and evil toward goodness. Otherwise, he shall surely triumph." He looked about himself. "I have work to attend to. Should you require resting, seek the old barracks or the distillery."

We moved about town. The citizens blamed one another for what had happened. I tried to convince any we met that they had to work together, that it was their only chance for Curst to return to the Outlands. A few gehreleths had already entered the town, sensing victims. We destroyed those we found. We were also forced to kill those citizens of Curst who refused to stop fighting one another.

As we approached the administration building, a figure approached, a hermit who I had last seen in the tunnels beneath Curst before freeing Trias. The dirty man, hunched and crabbed with age and darkness, his lank, greasy hair flying from his shoulders as he looked around, blurted out, "Kyse the caretaker told me you'd be along. You've done a fine job of weakenin' him... the town's chaos is subsidin' and his plan ain't workin' so well. Head up and finish the job." He was referring to the administration building.

"How do you know this?"

"I can *feel* him up there, waxing and waning like a burning moon. I can *hear* him wondering when you will come. He aches for confrontation."

<=Previous | Contents | Next=>