The Prison's located in The Lady's Ward, the richest and most powerful in all of Sigil. It's a forbidding (and foreboding) structure fully seven stories high. Unlike a lot of Sigil's architecture, there's nothing very graceful or soaring about its roofline. Systematically placed guard towers are the only enlivening feature of the roof. The effect's somewhat dampened by searchlights that sweep the area constantly, day and night. (The searchlights consist of translucent gems on which continual light spells have been cast, with the resultant glow magnified through treated glass. - Ed.) Armed Mercykillers patrol the roofs walways at all hours; they lead packs of Aoskian hounds that bay the moment they scent a prisoner outside his cell.
The walls are slate-gray stones, completely regular and symmetrically placed. The structure's built on a ten-block square area of land, and from the outside it looks like a solid building. However, the Prison's actually built around an open square, where some of the prisoners are allowed to take exercise and others are forced to perform drills or work details. It's a bleak courtyard - treeless, shrubless, grassless, and generally devoid of any possible aesthetic relief. All that's in the square is a single wide pathway cutting across the center; only Mercykillers are allowed to walk on the path. All inmates must walk on the dirt, which can be a lot trickier than it sounds when Sigil's brown, oily rains turn the yard into a greasy pit
As grim and miserable as the square is, the interior of the Prison's worse. Save for a portion of the first floor that's devoted to business offices, the factol's quarters, and the like, the remainder of the prison aboveground is entirely given over to cells. All seven floors surrounding the square contain cells that house anywhere from one to four prisoners at a time, depending on how fast the Guvners can try the sods. Each cell is a tiny area, no more than 5 feet wide by 10 feet long, and perhaps only half have windows. ('Course, no one but a pixie could escape through these windows - and the pixies are held in a special cell just for them. - Ed.} All told, the Prison can hold up to 24,000 inmates at a time.
Though the cells are bitter and terrible, there's still a place that's even worse: the underground portion of the Prison known as the Cellars. Down there are mess halls, bathing rooms, and work rooms - all grim places the inmates must visit daily. And down there are also the Sentencing Rooms, where death or torture is meted out. It's even said that the Cellars are filled with "forgotten" cells that house an additional 8,000 prisoners. Inmates live in terror of being called to the Cellars, because they never know if it's to mend some overalls or to have their fingers lopped off for shoplifting. Facto! Nilesia has instituted some new procedures regarding sentencing, but the Mercykiller guards keep prisoners in the dark as much as possible. Nevertheless, word can't be entirely concealed in a place the size of the Prison. It's plain that a few lucky sods - a very few - have actually been set free. Others've been sent off to powers only know where. Few sods hope for the rumored pardons the factol's passing out - hope only makes their suffering that much worse.
The Mercykillers have always carted off "special" prisoners to Petitioner's Square, a public place where jeering crowds can watch a berk get hung, beheaded, or eaten. {For more information on such dubious gatherings, refer to In the Cage: A Guide to Sigil. - Ed.) But most of the inmates met their deaths in the deepest, quietest corner of the Cellars. By the time sods learned where the execution chamber was, they were already standing in line.
Now, though, Facto! Nilesia's mandated that the inmates be put to death in the open square inside the Prison's four walls. During her first month in office, she had a tremendous gallows built in one corner of the square, directly above a heavily guarded pit said to lead to the Cellars. Deaders get dragged underground and sent through portals to a special area in the Mortuary that handles executed prisoners. The daily hangings are mandatory viewing for prisoners. Each day, inmates from one floor of the Prison file out to the square. Under heavy guard, they're forced to witness the hangings of fellow inmates whose crimes fall under the death punishment in the new sentencing procedures. Nilesia feels the example will help them avoid making similar mistakes in the future.
Visiting the Prison
Most folks who enter the Prison don't come back out again - at least, not till their sentences have ended. But some cutters actually volunteer to set foot inside. Mercykillers visiting Sigil are strongly encouraged to work a guard detail in the Prison every other fortnight. Those Mercykillers assigned to guard duty have the run of the Prison, including the Cellars. {Other factions are another matter entirely; under no circumstances will outsiders be allowed to "help" patrol. - Ed.) Likewise, Mercykiller priests may enter the Prison once a fortnight to address the spiritual needs of the inmates. The priests enjoy free access to the Prison, savefor the Cellars.
Sometimes comrades of berks who've been locked away come to see their friends or petition on their behalf. In the past, they would have turned away, but Facto! Nilesia's instituted a few policies. All visitors with business at the Prison allowed to enter via the main door. They're to a large, dismal waiting area, sparsely furnished with wooden chairs and patrolled by armed Facto) Nilesia, surprisingly, attends to most visitors herself. Of course, she's surrounded by a number bodyguards and attendants, most of whom do the actual work. (Should any person attack her, anywhere from 20 to 30 Mercykiller guards will respond in fashion instantly.)
The factol's available at any the day or night for a short audience. She'll listen to pleas about wrongly incarcerated family members and friends; if there's any proof, she'll study the case and get back to the party involved. Nilesia also allows prisoners visitation privileges on the first day of every month. Of course, there are certain limitations: The prisoner is brought to a special holding room in the back of the visitors' hall and given all of 15 minutes.