Welcome to Carceri

Again, this is apocryphal to the continuity of my storyhour. This was also written as the header flavor text/fiction for a piece that was a general overview of Carceri. Since I'm not sure if that will ever be released and see the light of day, here's the fiction by itself. Short, but enjoy.

Karmishan Val’Parthek stood atop the bluff of broken reddish rock, a dim scarlet light pouring upwards from the ground casting a surreal, shadowless glow upon him and his retinue. The Ultraloth glanced to his right at the Arcanaloth scribe he had been assigned upon his arrival on the plane at one of the hidden Yugoloth citadels that littered the first layer of the Red Prison of Carceri. His slanted, oval eyes glowed a fierce orange, the intensity of their glow the only hint at the irritation he felt that failed to otherwise show upon his featureless, emotionless face.

            His telepathic voice burrowed like an oiled knife into the mind of his second where she stood next to him, fully conveying his feelings at the moment, “You had informed me that the Tanar’ri would be meeting us here atop the bluff. Yet nothing is here. If you have delivered us to the wrong location girl you will learn my displeasure quickly. The Tanar’ri are not always rational beings, but I expect my own to perform their duties as well as those advisors and servants I left behind on the Waste. It is enough that I must serve our cause here on this chaos touched plane without suffering the incompetence of lesser beings.”

            Shylara Akt’Atarm winced and looked away from the greater Yugoloth. One of her ears twitched and she reached up to scratch at the itch with a talon before turning her jackal headed countenance to face her superior.

“They assured me that they would be here my lord, it should not be much longer.” She nodded and stepped a few paces back in seeming deference as the Ultraloth continued to gaze out across the featureless red-litten plane of the orb. He did not register as the four hulking Nycaloths that served as his bodyguards, assigned by his hand picked scribe, fanned out to surround him and the Arcanaloth both atop the bluff.

            He looked up, registering the movement around him in a flurry, looking up at the smirk upon Shylara’s face and a dangerous emerald gleam in her eyes. “What is the meaning of this!?” struck out at her mind from the startled Ultraloth, and she reveled in the words soaked with alarm and fear as she grinned with a flash of ivory fangs.

            The Nycaloths leapt upon their doomed superior as Shylara cackled with abandon up into the ebon void above. A jet of black ichor struck her upon the face from the butchering of her commander and a psychotic gleam crept into one eye as she looked back down. Slowly grinning she approached the corpse and whispered into the fading light in Karmishan’s eyes as she stroked a hand across his blank face, “Welcome to Carceri…”