‘Authorized Personnel Only.’
The sign was explicitly clear. As clear as a charred, hastily re-hung sign could be: one with power in Ravenna had designated this room as being off-limits, even to those limited few allowed inside the Castello. Given that Caesennia had never received explicit permission to enter the room, it could only be assumed that she too was excluded. And of course, she had no legitimate reason for being there. None had given her the order to do so, nor could she cite any true source on the matter. She opened the damaged door and gazed beyond out of curiosity alone.
That, and to confirm the words of a man she had no reason to believe.
The room was nearly bare; the only decorations were scattered lanterns so charred they would not have produced the slightest speck of light even if they were lit. That, and the remains of what seemed to be wooden handrails. The walls bore large burns, and had ash lightly dusting their orange-brown bricks.
Caesennia walked forwards a few paces, before stopping abruptly before the gaping pit just beyond the ruined railing. She peered down into the darkness, grabbing the lantern off her hip and hanging it before her. Wherever the bottom was, darkness swallowed the lamp’s light before it could reach it. Caesennia glanced around for some means of traversing down, her eyes quickly finding a ladder installed into the bricks themselves.
Do I really want to do this? The centurion considered. There’s nothing down there. She told herself. If there was, this place would still be guarded. Somehow, the centurion’s logic didn’t provide significant aid to an innately illogical fear. But, after psyching herself up and wrapping the armor of bravado around her, she managed to start down the ladder, hating how she was forced to keep her greataxe stowed on her back as she did. The dame was moments away from deciding the trip wasn’t worth it, before a floor of rough orange stone greeted her from the edges of the lamp’s light. Part of her wished it had been just a few steps deeper. Then she could’ve excused herself for retreating back up.
Recklessly wishing to get off the ladder as fast as possible, Caesennia leapt down. She fell nearly thirty rungs before her aura threw itself to the stone below, softening the impact as she hit the rocky floor. The movement disquieted the still, stale air. She straightened herself up, before drawing the greataxe from her back and looking around.
The floor and walls of the mine were of rough, orange stone. A few paces in front of Caesennia, they morphed to take on brick-like shapes crudely carved into the rock. Like someone had insisted that the mines should at least try to resemble the Castello. All around were scattered, broken boxes, their once-held ore splayed across the ground. Along with several pickaxes, shovels, lanterns, and other items in such pitiful shape it was doubtful they would survive a day’s labor. Almost all exposed surfaces were coated in ash, to an even greater extent than the room above. Bars of degraded bronze laid embedded in the walls, acting windows to individual cells. A quick glance inside of one such cell revealed several brick slabs and nothing else.
This place seems more like a prison than a mine… the centurion noted as she began investigating the rest of the nearby rooms. All of which were baren, broken cells bearing no indication of former occupancy. No furniture, no plates, not even pillows for the prisoners to rest their heads on. Caesennia was moments away from wondering where their sleeping mattresses were, before realizing that the raised slabs likely served that exact purpose. A revoltingly desolate prison at that. You expect someone to maintain any semblance of health in these conditions? She shook her head. Such cruelty was expected of other domains—perhaps Keraxe—but to utilize labor like so in Ravenna? The very kingdom which claimed to be the height of culture in the War Seas? The kingdom which she called her home, and swore to protect with her life?
Oh, come now. She chided. Who’s to say these prisoners weren’t deserving of such treatment? Maybe they were murderous pirates, or from the Assassin Syndicate, or were some other form of brigand. I can certainly see why the legion would think Ketch just the same as them. After all, who was she to doubt the actions of the Bronze Legion’s higher-ups?
Proceeding beyond the cells, the centurion started proceeding into the mine proper. As her footsteps echoed endlessly through the caverns, she gave an involuntary shutter after turning around to gaze into the endless darkness enveloping the world around her. With the light from the Castello no longer visible, Caesennia was left with the slightest inkling of primordial panic. There was nothing natural about the area, no familiar sun, sky, or birdsong. All the usual comforts of the world simply did not reach this place buried deep within the earth.
Uuughh, what in Hades is that? Caesennia thought, a hand flying to cover her mouth and nose right as she started to proceed further. A sickening stench violated her nostrils in a fashion too horrible to aptly describe. Despite raising her lamp and squinting into the black abyss, the dame held absolutely no desire to know what produced such a smell. On the contrary, she hoped it was nothing more than dread tricking her body into reaction.
But it was hard to mistake the small pile of rotting corpses clumped into a rocky corner like swept dirt. Stripped of all possessions, mutilated like animals butchered by a sadist, and given not even the slightest respect. If anything, it seemed almost as if the fallen had been deliberately disrespected. Their limbs laid strewn over one another’s bare, decomposed bodies, their torsos were swollen with gasses, and their hallow eye sockets stared off into oblivion.
“Quomodo- per deos…” Caesennia stuttered, unable to force herself a step further. The horror before her and her hammering heart blocked out every other sensory input. Like the world had evaporated to leave her alone with the revolting, grotesque corpses. Yet something interrupted the stillness; an echo which simultaneously resonated beyond Caesennia and within her. A familiar aura approached, one which hung like suffocating smoke. She whipped around, leveling her greataxe at one in bronze armor, bearing a wooden mask bent into a sadistic expression.
The man gave a humorless laugh, before speaking in a rough voice. A voice Caesennia had never enjoyed hearing throughout her years as a soldier. “Nobody could ever sneak up on you, centurion.”
“Tullus?” Caesennia blinked. “What… why are you here?”
He inhaled deeply, as if the stale air carried fragrance rather than toxic rot. “To reminisce—of when these mines bore lanterns, and the ring of picks carried eternally down its caverns.”
“I take it you were the one heading this project, then?”
“Yes, yes I was.” Tullus replied wistfully. “The concept was so very simple: Ravenna always needs more bronze, yet our ungrateful civilians couldn’t be bothered to grant their hands to the glory of Ravenna. So, my father proposed that we repurpose several of our prisoners due for execution. I merely expanded on his work.”
Tullus circled around her, pacing over to the mound of corpses in the center of the cave.
“Yet the assassins of our fair king ruined everything I had worked towards.” He said, grasping the skeletal hand of a woman with black hair, stroking over her calloses like they were the only thing he admired about her. “The mine was blasted open, and when I awoke to face the intruders, the redhead did this to me.” He pulled off his mask, and Caesennia couldn’t help but gag at the sight. Tullus Revora had never once been accused of being handsome, but now his crimson face appeared akin to half-melted wax. Skin and flesh sloughed low, barely covering his cheekbones, and hanging off his jaw akin to a beard of flesh. One which bounced and stuttered as he breathed.
Not trusting herself to keep her lunch down, Caesennia swallowed, her mouth remaining tightly sealed.
“Perhaps I would not be so dissatisfied if my work had at least been complete by the time those savages broke in.” He murmured, gripping the woman’s hand so hard the rotted bones inside audibly cracked. “This one here still hoped for escape, still had a spark of rebellion within it. Even when I shot it as it ran, it still attempted to flee. My soldiers found it wheezing and coughing on its own blood. I told them to let it drown. But more than it, I regret that I had not yet broken that miserable blonde creature.”
“You… you mean Kad-”
“No, its name perished when nature brought it to me as a lesser being.” Tullus interrupted in a hiss, dropping the corpse’s now-deformed hand. “When general Julian carried it in, I was moments away from asking what he wanted me to do with a corpse. Yet the thing lived, recovered more quickly than any other I had seen, and started talking, then defying. Even with those chains the navy sent us, traces of its magic remained. I doubled the guard. In fact, I considered sending for you; one of the few centurions still in Ravenna, just to keep it contained.”
Caesennia looked around the dark mine again, trying to avoid Tullus’s gaze. Partially out of queasiness from looking at the corpses behind him. Partially because even the mere idea of being given such a task revulsed her.
“But I realized you were too soft.” Tullus spat. “You spend your days mingling with the worthless populace. You play with the children in the square, greet the shopkeepers like equals, and spend hours talking in the bathhouses. The people of Ravenna should respect and fear you; see you as an extension of our kingdom’s glory. Instead, you degrade yourself into being one of them. I knew you wouldn’t tolerate the assignment—more than that, I worried your weak heart might give and betray down here.”
You judge me for relieving my boredom, being polite, and bathing? Caesennia asked herself. No wonder you’re such a miserable excuse for a man.
“I tried to break the blonde creature’s rebellion.” Tullus said, running his hand down the back of a male corpse, along a series of scars visible even so long after his death. “Just as I did for this one. It was a deserter, one who left the legion. Oh, how I wanted to nothing more than tie it to a pillar and lash it for hours until it bled dry.” He gave a smirk, an expression absolutely unbefitting of his hideous face. “I admit it only disobeyed rarely, yet received the lash far more than the others. To go from a man so high to a creature so low… its mere presence disgusted me. Sometimes I humored myself by breaking small pieces of it, then watching as it struggled to mine the ore, nearly crying at every swing of the pick.”
Caesennia’s eyes flickered to the dead man, catching on his mangled hands. Each of his fingers were bent like snapped twigs, like the sticks children played soldier with.
The dame had heard—and seen—enough. What more was to be gained from listening to the recount of a sadist? She already would be sleeping uneasily tonight, and was seriously considering whether anyone would notice or miss Tullus if he never left these damned mines. Shaking her head in disgust, she began for the ladder leading to the Castello, trying to repress the shutter crawling up her spine.
“By the way… who was that man you were sparring with a month ago?”
Both the centurion’s heart and footsteps ceased. Her falsehood-practiced mind immediately supplied her with a simple answer that left little room for questions. “Think he said his name was Laurites, wanted to train in sword fighting with me because his father was too frail with age to do so. Why?”
Tullus gave no response.
“What? You looking for someone new to throw down here?” She asked, trying to maintain an even tone.
“Ha, no.” He replied, the fake laugh sounding so unnatural to him she wondered if he ever had produced a genuine one.
Caesennia knew better than to try and prompt further answers from him. Doing so would only seem more suspicious. She continued to walk forwards towards the mine’s entrance, trying to maintain a normal gait.
“So what were you down here for?”
“Eh, knew this place was no longer in use.” She said with a shrug, trying to ignore the sweat trickling down her neck. “And I wanted to see what was going on down here. Simple as that.”
“I’ve never known you to stick your nose into anything even slightly out of your way, Caesennia.” Tullus commented, his voice fading as the dame continued away from him.
“What can I say? I got bored.” She said, rounding the corner to the cell block. As soon as she was out of view of the other centurion, her pace increased nearly to a sprint as she began back up the ladder. Every few steps up the ladder’s rungs, Caesennia whipped around to glance behind herself, fully expecting to see the glimmer of armor and the shine of a bronze pistol pointed directly at her. Instead, there was only the empty blackness below her, and not a thing else. Like darkness had consumed all evidence of that place of misery.
When Caesennia finally hauled herself into the Castello, she left the restricted room immediately, making a beeline towards the front entrance. As she passed the new guards stationed before the broad doors, the sun greeted her with more warmth than ever before.
Trimmed around 500 words out of the original posted version, as I intended this to be a short in-between for Sparring the Regicide and my next Casenniapost.
As per usual, all comments, criticism, and the like are welcome.
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