Oh, how the misery echoed.
In this place; this cavernous realm-between-realms. A realm of half-truths that did not wholly conform to the law of reality. A labyrinth of twisting, overlapping geometries. A sprawling city-realm that clung not just to the ground, but crawled up the walls, dangled from the sky, jutting forward at every available angle like a nest of blades.
Like so many knives, the vast towers of this place's dark masters stuck out. Like snapped bone pressing through skin.
And throughout, the noise.
Anguish, rage, pain. Amusement, ecstasy, lust. Countless millions of voices raised in fathomless, overlapping tangles of emotion. This was a place with a thousand-thousand different names. To everyone within it, this place was something different.
A seat of power. A hunting ground. A hell unlike anything thought of by even the most cruel of preachers.
But to most? It was Commorragh. The Dark City. The realm of the Drukhari; cruelest scions of the fallen Aeldari Empire. A place of unbound cruelty and hedonism. A writhing nest of vipers.
And it was in the very centre of this nest that some of the vilest of its denizens dwelt. In the very tallest and most wicked of the Dark City's spires. These jagged towers swept up for kilometres, cities in miniature unto themselves. In the darkness of their shadows were the slums of Low Commorragh, whilst the Middle Darkness between these realms of luxury and poverty were crowded by gangs of Hellions; outcasts even by the standards of the Dark Eldar.
Yet further ahead, that is where this tale is set.
In the lap of luxury sat a great arena. An ovoid structure the size of a small city upon any other world. A coliseum fit to seat many hundreds of thousands. Within, fighting day and night; the Wyches of the Cult of Mercy Denied. For the amusement of Commorragh's rich and powerful, these acrobatic gladiatrixes sprung from battle to battle. Fighting and dying for that which united them;
The consumption of agony. Of misery. Of souls.
Yet it was not always the Wyches themselves who spilled blood upon the crystalline white sand. Raids into realspace were always required to restock the supply of combatants; and on occasion, creatures of note were recovered. One such delicacy had found herself ensnared by Drukhari captors. Thrown into the arena, and expected to die, she had... Simply not.
And not just that! The creature had had the gall to not just survive, but to kill! Laying low a fearsome predator from some far-flung world, despite her lack of any kind of training. It had been delightful, the drukhari drinking in the shock, the indignation, of those who had wagered the souls of their finest slaves upon this captive's immediate, bloody end.
Dragged back down below, the captive had not been returned to the barren cell in which she had awoken the previous evening. Instead, she found herself alone in a luxurious stateroom. Walls of deep red, and floors paneled in a rich, dark wood. Curtains of a silk so supple that it defied comprehension enshrouded the large window that looked out over the arena, far below.
A bed dominated one wall, fit to contain dozens of bodies; if not more. Trays of fruits unknown to her sat upon a long wooden table. Crystal decanters containing vivid red liquid that may have been wine... Or perhaps blood?
For the first time since she had awoken, it was... Quiet. No screams, no voices... The silence was almost disconcerting. The solitude set her on edge.
Just what did her captors have in store...?
