In previous posts I’ve mentioned that the Prison keeps to no one’s semblance of sanity when it comes to layout, but I’ve never discussed the inside might look like. Here’s what you’re most likely to see when you enter the main foyer of a place of madness and disdain for the mortal world.
To begin with, the Prison’s two main doors are several stories high and made of stone, bound in a strange, diamond like material. The bands give off a faint trace of malice, as if they have some ill intent for all those who look on them. To gain entry to the main hall, one must make contact with the Sath (pronounced with a long “a”) or one of their proxies. If the doorman deems appropriate, he will open one of the huge doors a crack, and those wishing to go in may do so, if they squeeze. Once inside you see the only part of the entire structure that remains static at all times. This is the Fiil Mear, or Grand Hall in a forgotten tongue. The sheer size of the room is enough to gape at, but the feeling the doors gave off is like a light breeze compared to the gale force winds of hatred this place exudes. Men and women of holy bent often fall to their knees and must be escorted to a “waiting room,” from which they never leave. A strange green light shines from ceiling mounted lanterns on two hundred foot chains. There is a eerie stillness to the lanterns and the light does not flicker.
A total of fifty pillars add a strange shadow play to the green illumination, and they bear no scenes of torture or triumph, no images of gore, demons or strange alien creatures. The pillars are smooth from bottom to top, and the malevolent aura seems to abate for a few feet around each. For this reason, those who can endure the feeling within the Grand Hall tend to move from pillar to pillar as they seek the door to either their desired cell block or the lifts thereto.
The floor of the Fiil Mear is much like the pillars that “hold up” the roof, except that there are simple designs spaced randomly about the surface. The images are of no one particular style, and some are much higher quality than others. A few have initials or sigils that appear in the bottom corner to identify the artist. If asked, the Sath may or may not explain that their better behaved inmates are sometimes allowed to spend some time in the Fiil Mear creating art on the floor. This allows them to the opportunity to create something that is not drawn on walls in blood or other bodily materials. Though the Sath don’t seem to care for it, etchings of the better pictures here sell for tidy sums in the obscure art communities on the surface.
The walls of the Grand Hall are more complex than either the pillars or the floor, as they contain the lifts and entrances to the various cell blocks. There are also more mundane openings for the Sath to come and go. The Sath have mundane office space and common areas nested in the walls of the room, and they come and go at a regular pace. No one know if the Sath live in these spaces or if they somehow connect to the various cell blocks. There’s some debate as to whether or not these spaces are really just for show, or if they’re functional. As for the appearance of the walls themselves, they are free of impromtu art, instead playing host to elaborate rune work. The runes completely cover what would otherwise be empty space, and all the runes are of the same strange, flowing script. Those who’ve seen, studied and left the Prison with rubbings of these runes can make neither heads nor tails of them, and the Sath are, as with most things, rather coy with information.
What no one ever sees, as the darkness is absolute from one hundred feet and upwards, is the ceiling of the Fiil Mear. It is there, in the topmost portions that the meanings of the two words Fiil and Mear separate. While collectively they translate to Grand Hall, individually they mean Nowhere and Everywhere. The Sath would never admit it, but not one of their number has ever gone up to inspect the ceiling of the entrance to their domain. They know the two definitions and some might even know what could wait up at the roof of the Grand Hall, but none have said and none even consider finding out. There are no books on the subject, no tablets in the Sath’s many holdings throughout the structure, and all but five inmates know for a fact what that ceiling looks like. These five, of course, are chained in such a way that there is no way they will ever get out and no way any being, mortal, divine or infernal, could ever reach them.
