Fire-Hollowed Souls
Summary: Agnar checks in on the single prisoner currently occupying a cell beneath the Cathedral of Kherillim. What he learns is about to turn his entire world upside down.
Words: 1,827
Warnings: Disturbing imagery, suffocation, claustrophobia, pyrophobia, panic attack, undead. I think that covers it, but if I've missed anything let me know.
Tags: @druidx @homesteadchronicles @sparrow-orion-writes , @blind-the-winds, @odysseywritings, @writeblrsupport,@freedominique
Note: So we're carrying on with the whump/angst train here. Please note the warnings above and keep your arms and legs inside the train at all times.
It was a cold and damp night down in the dungeons beneath the cathedral. The guard on duty wrapped his thick, woollen cloak more tightly around his shoulders as he checked on the one prisoner currently held in custody, squinting through the bars of the cell. The young dwarf on the cot rolled over with a shudder and small whine, the thin blanket she’d been provided currently twisted around her legs and half-falling off. Agnar’s face pinched into a worried frown as he took in the sheen of sweat on the girl’s face, only barely visible through the hair that had come loose from its braids. His ears pricked as she began to mumble incoherently under her breath, an unsettling chill seeping into his bones at the sound.
~*~
Meredith hacked out a cough as she stumbled through the smoke-filled streets of the Trading District, trying her best to push through the panicked crowds of dwarves that were running for their lives away from the inferno that burned behind them. She didn’t know how the fire had started, only that it had quickly engulfed the entire mountain below her.
“Da! Da!” she called, trying to fight her way towards her father’s smithy, only to be pushed back by a whoosh of air filled with smoke, ash and embers as a part of the ceiling far above collapsed. Meredith stared at the charred and smouldering rock that now barred her way… wait. That wasn’t rock. It was metal. Charred and sooty, and still very much on fire, but it was unmistakable. Meredith backed up and craned her neck to get a better look at it. It looked almost like part of…
Meredith’s heart seized as she realised what she was looking at, her gaze slowly tracking upwards to the hole in the ceiling. Thick, green-tinged clouds roiled high above her, raining down more of what she now knew to be pieces of the Anvil of Souls. Moradin’s Anvil. Without thinking, Meredith reached for her Holy Symbol, only to remember she no longer had it on her person. Shaking her head, she bowed it and muttered a desperate prayer. Nothing. Terror gripped her as she tried again, desperate to feel the reassuring warmth of the presence of her god. An empty hollowness gnawed at her heart. Dead. Moradin was dead. Before the realisation could crush her utterly, Meredith felt herself being dragged away, back towards the front entrance of the mountain,
“Come on we need to get –” the voice was cut off by a thundering rumble emanating from the depths of the mountain below. The earth lurched unevenly, causing Meredith to stumble to her knees as more of the ceiling collapsed. Hacking out another fit of coughing as smoke filled the air once more, Meredith pulled herself up, only to find the way entirely barred by rubble. She turned back the way she’d come and ran as fast as she could to find another way out, only to find that this direction, too, had been cut off.
Meredith sank to the floor, shaking uncontrollably, trying not to allow the despair of the end overtake her. Slowly the ringing in her ears abated as she looked at the people around her who had already succumbed to the smoke or had been crushed. Well, it wouldn’t take long for her to join them at least, though where they would go now that Moradin was no more…
Booming laughter echoed through the rubble, only barely audible over the roar of the flames that were overtaking the area outside of this collapse. Meredith had only barely registered it when the dead around her suddenly erupted into discordant screams. She clapped her hands over her ears at the sound, somehow aware that every last dwarf in the mountain was screaming at the same time. Meredith scrambled back to her feet as ashy, cold hands grabbed at her. She tried to bat them away, but it was getting so hard to breathe. Her limbs were getting too heavy to move and the heat was suffocating. The cleric only barely registered the green-yellow embers floating past her eyes and the distant roar of the fire and booming laughter before the darkness finally swallowed her.
~*~
Agnar’s frown deepened as he watched the supposedly most dangerous dwarf in the mount toss and turn in her sleep, whimpering and mumbling as she did. While he had orders not to enter the cell under any circumstances, he knew he couldn’t leave things as they were. His training as a Cleric of Moradin bade him help those that were in need, and the girl clearly needed help. Agnar sighed as he gently touched the runes inlaid into the wall next to the cell’s door to deactivate the antimagic field before pulling out the key and unlocking the door. He quietly stepped inside and closed it behind him, hoping that Grimbeard wouldn’t notice the antimagic field had been turned off just yet. He crept over to the side of the cot and, as carefully as he could manage, lightly touched the girl’s shoulder.
Meredith awoke with a startled, strained gasp, fighting against the blanket that had now become thoroughly entangled around her. Agnar’s hand glowed with a soft golden light as he laid it more forcefully on her shoulder,
“It’s alright, hen, ye’re alright.” he soothed, noting with worry that his prisoner was utterly drenched in sweat and was now shivering violently. Was it just the apparent nightmare, or was she running a fever, he wondered. He was brought back to his senses as Meredith choked out a sob, her hands scrabbling desperately for a holy symbol that wasn’t there any more. Aganar’s frown deepened. Grimbeard had told him and the other Inquisitors that the girl was no longer a devotee of Moradin, and yet, here she was trying to find the Holy Symbol that had been taken from her as a source of comfort. Was it just out of habit? Had she finally come to her senses and realised the error of her ways? If she had, then she shouldn’t need a Holy Symbol to feel Moradin’s grace, He could reach His most faithful no matter the circumstances. Either way, the girl was clearly becoming more distraught, her breathing becoming ragged and wheezy. Cautiously, Aganar pulled his own Holy Symbol over his head and pressed it into the girl’s hands.
Meredith hiccoughed as she tried to find the one way she knew she could connect to Moradin. While she normally didn’t need to have her Holy Symbol to feel His presence; since Grimbeard had come to talk to her, Moradin had become ever more distant to the point that she wasn’t sure that He could even hear her. She was only barely aware of the figure who had come into her cell. At least until a familiar, metal shape was pressed into her hands. Warmth immediately flooded into her, the connection reestablished. Meredith immediately bowed her head to the Symbol and muttered out a prayer, the one every dwarflet was taught the minute they could speak, relieved almost beyond thought that Moradin yet endured.
Agnar’s mind reeled as his own Holy Symbol began to glow in the prisoner’s hands. It was rare enough for a Dwarf’s Holy Symbol to do so in their own hands unless it was being used to channel a spell like Turn Undead, it took an incredibly deep set faith in order for it to happen with just a prayer. For it to happen with a Symbol not your own? It was inconceivable. It just did not happen. And yet, here he was, watching a scared young woman making his Holy Symbol glow in her hands with just a prayer.
“What in all the hells are we doing?” he murmured, “Ye’re no heretic at all.” Agnar slumped back, eyes wide at the sight in front of him. What kind of Heresy had he been a participant in to have been deceived into believing that a dwarf so clearly Marked was the one in the wrong?
Meredith finally looked up at her visitor at his mumbling. She smiled hollowly at him,
“It’s what I’ve been tryin’ to tell ye.” she sighed, her voice hoarse, “I don’t know what our enemies have planned. All I know is that, currently, they’re winning.”
Agnar stared at Meredith,
“How d’ye even ken they are?” he asked. Meredith shook her head and handed the Inquisitor his Holy Symbol back,
“Because they’re driving Moradin from the mountain. Have ye even noticed how distant He is?” she asked. When she only received a befuddled stare in response, she snorted, “Of course not, that would require ye to pay attention to anything outside o’ what ye’ve been told.” she muttered. Agnar looked down at his currently inert Holy Symbol, then back up at Meredith,
“The statues in the Contemplation Chamber.” he murmured, "I'm guessing a glamour was cast over them just before we got down there…" he trailed off as Meredith shook her head,
"The glamour was keeping their appearance as statues of Moradin." She corrected, "They've been twisted into the shape of whatever Demon Prince is behind all this, though for how long I don't know." She admitted. The younger cleric tried to suppress her renewed shivering, the chill of the night finally seeping through her sodden clothing. Agnar grimaced, pulled off his cloak and wrapped it tightly around her,
"I'm not sure what I can do about the overarching situation for now." He said quietly, "But what I can do is get you a temporary secure transfer to the infirmary to get that fever taken care of."
Meredith was about to shake her head, when she felt a more feminine touch in her heart;
Those still faithful need to be warned.
The younger dwarf nodded,
"Aye, that would be appreciated." She murmured, yawning widely. "Ta, ye ken, for helping. You didn't have to considering my official status right now."
Agnar shook his head,
"I might be an Inquisitor, hen, but I was a cleric first. And Moradin's pretty damn strict about how we're meant to treat prisoners." He reminded her. He cast a critical eye over her, noting every visible ailment he could conceivably get away with describing, then pulling himself up, "Get what rest you can in the meantime." He added. Meredith nodded, curling up into the cloak in a vain effort to keep out the unnatural chill seeping into her soul. She was out even before Agnar closed the cell door behind him.
The older cleric huffed a stressed sigh as he walked back to the little office to contact someone about the situation. As much as he wished to inform the other Inquisitors of their mistake, he doubted he'd be believed. For now, all he could do was inform the infirmary, discreetly, about the condition of his prisoner and hope they'd pick up on the fact that the ailment wasn't necessarily physical.
