| The Holds of Darkness The room you have entered spans before you, opening into a circular cavern of carefully worked walls in the same manner as the Prison Complex on the other side of the gate. The ceiling goes up very high and to a point far above your head. The floors are smooth and everything is solid with no joints or seams. Around this room you see many cubes cut into the walls, each of their sides being half the length of a Man. Within each of the cubes are shackles, and covering each is an iron gate, locked and barred. The cubes sit on two levels, stacked one above another going in pairs around the circle. In the center of it all is a shallow bowl cut into the floor where none may step upon pain of death. Within this bowl is a mosaic of the Lidless Eye, fashioned in such a way that each of the cells look upon it and from each cell it appears that the Eye watches them. It's malice hangs like a weight on all and none can escape it's view. Contents: Thorondur Remains of Gumbart Remains of Thrain II Obvious exits: Barred Gate leads to Halls of Dread--The Dol Guldur Prison Complex. Dubgub moves from the Prison Complex to join you in the Holds of Darkness. Dubgub has arrived. Guruok enters this section of the Prison Complex with his eyes cautious as to who might already be here... this is awfully close to those areas wherethe nazgul frequent, and no sane uruk would place himself at the mercy of one of those sadistic beings. Moving to the centre of the room, he kneel's before the lidless eye in the floor, pressing his face to the tiles briefly. Turning back, he looks to the one he entered with, the Snaga Dubgub. "Slave, I have brought you here because I may need your services, you are not to address either me or the human unless you are ordered to." Guruok is covered in blood, dry now, he appears to have been dipped headfirst in the life-giving fluid. Slowly his eyes wander the cell, taking in all, before coming to rest on the live occupant, Thorondur, the human who he helped capture earlier today. Smiling softly, he approaches the cell, coming to rest four or so feet away from it, smirking down at the human inside, enjoying his superiority. Within the cell -- folded in upon himself by the confining walls -- is chained a mortal Man, a noble Lord of the Dunedain. Pale and gaunt, the sorcery of Morgul has done its work upon him -- yet even here he retains some shred of dignity. Cloaked in it, like his tattered white mantle. With baleful eyes that blaze in blue, too bright, too bright for normal faculty, he glares at the Orcs without -- and says nothing. A pulse runs through the room, cracking the stone floor and checking the breeze, perhaps the human's heart as it pounds in his chest, perhaps something else, something unseen. Whatever it be the snaga, lowly and grovelling, does not ask, he knows the way by now. Instead his wheezing comes up from the shadows and hangs just in the background of all else as he watches Guruok through the red slits of eyes. Guruok grimaces down at the humbled man, once so mighty, now sickly and pale looking as he is oppressed by the walls and his captors. Slowly, Guruok voices words in a rasping voice "Well, Tark, see what becomes of those who would challenge the might of the lidless eye?" he drawls out cruelly, caressing every word with his tongue as he savours them. "Did you think that you would be allowed to challenge one of the dark masters, one who walks in shadow, one of the most favoured of the Great Eye himself, without being pulled down, shred, caught and devoured by our darkness?" You are indeed arrogant, little white lordling, to believe yourself high enough to be graced enough to even be allowed to lay your eyes upon his greatness. Your fate will be a cold one, without food, without water, without anything that you weak pathetic beings need, Stoked to a fire of ungodly fierceness, those sapphirine eyes burn angrily within their cell. "Spare me your demagoguery, worm," the Dunadan snarls. Like a moth, Dubgub flits cross the room to the orc's side and a patter and scratch of cruel claws marks his passage across the black stone floor. He is shorter than his cohort, exceptionally shorter, and without ducking his head he reaches close to the fallen human, rank and stinking breath hanging before his jaws. Guruok steps a little closer to the cage, a viscious grin on his face, his black tongue slowly licking his lips and caressing his cruelly pointed teeth. 'Still some fight within the lordling I see... well well, that shall be dealt with, yes it shall, as you will be stripped of your dignity, stripped of your manhood, stripped of the very things that make you who you are... you shall be taken apart in body and brain, shred to pieces and then put back together again.... The weak Tark, so sad... you will never again be who you were.' he motions the snaga back a few steps as he places himself directly at the bars, leaning foward slightly, and whispers something to the captive. "I will see to it that you become a shade of who you are, twisted and evil... you WILL belong to the lidless eye!" And still that angry glare, as if the Orc never spoke and these walls did not constrain him -- as if this room did not press down upon him -- as if the Eye did not stare up into the depths of his soul -- Then emboldened by a madness born of the Nazgul's own dark sorcery, the Dunadan speaks in the voice of command! "Bring me your master. Bring me Murazor!" Bit by bit, the snaga disappears back into the shadows and is lost a slow scraping of the pebbles across the floor is all that can be heard of his fleeting shape. The methodic, rasping, tearing wheezing commences again and another sound, like sand being swished about floats through the battle of words the snaga is withdrawn from. Guruok stares at the human before him, his blood red orbs focussed directly on him as he searches his memory for any knowledge of this Murazor character.... coming up with nothing, he lets his tongue loll out of his mouth, the snaga forgotten for a second. He then bursts out into hideous, spine tingling laughter "Murazor? Who is this Murazor that you speak of? If you came all this way in a vain effort to find this person, you have doubly thrown away your life! There is no Murazor in the whole of Mordor, be he uruk or dark master or olog, and never has! "Then leave me be." And so sure of itself, so certain is this voice, so deep and masterful -- that momentarily its speaker might even forget his precarious situation. If he has not already. A single cough, high and raspy, airy and scratchy floats from the thoughtless minded figure lost in the darkness apart from the cage. Guruok hisses to himself softly at the humans bold words in the face of such intimdating surroundings and company, for Guruok indeed is a impressive urukish specimen. "You wish for Murazor, do you? I shall show you Murazor.." with these words, Guruok dips a hand under his armor, coming out with a dagger, a jaged edged dagger with hooks and barbs on it that makes it far more an implement of pain than of death. "Here is Murazor, foolish Tark, Murazor the carver... would you like to be introduced to him a little more intmatly? I would be happy to oblige" Guruok says, flipping the dagger around in his hand, point to hilt and back again. No reply is to come from the cell. The Man of Gondor disdains to answer. Guruok waits a decent interval for the man to respond, but hearing none, he drops his voice to a deadly whisper... Tonight you shall be removed from this cell to be the prized object in our celebration of our upcoming victory over the weak northern and western lands, I doubt very much if you shall survive that, however, if you should somehow survive, I willo inflict agony beyond your wildest dreams, I shall cut open your skin and turn you inside out for the snaga to feast on.... count on this. With these words, Guruok turns, beckoning to the snaga, and begins to leave the cell. In silence. For no answer, no satisfaction will he get from the Dunadan... lost as he is within dark and sorcerous dreams. Before following Guruok, Dubgub rises and saunters forth toward the human. He is now upright, yet still less than three feet tall. Without warning, an immense uruk arm reels back and swings violently against the cage, rocking it and shaking it with fantastic clangs and bashes! The ringing is deafening as it bounces and echoes thousands of times over in the stone room! Yet as it subsides, the echoed, rasping laughter of the snaga bounces about too, as he turns to leave as well. |