AN: So, anyway, a fairly lengthy chapter is coming. This one part is about as long as a normal chapter, but it's only part of this one. :)

Chapter 43.1: Draconic Justice

Justice, a term many people use without thinking. Some people believe that it is blind. Some believe that taking something from someone who took something from you is justice. Other people might believe that a flat-chested woman is justice for reasons that seem quite arbitrary. However, there was one thing that Justice had to be that many overlooked. Justice, had to serve a purpose in making a situation whole once more. It is not simple the administration of punishment upon the wicked, but the judicious use of power to make things right.

Buried within the heart of the man who would presume to stand in judgment of others there must be a true sense for what is right, and what is wrong. In a world where there was no law save for the desire of those in power, the ability to judge others properly was of paramount importance. There were no rules to fall back on, no convenient laws to cite as a reason to bind one's hands and send a man to his death.

Several days had passed since the assault on the looter base. Secure in their own sense of superiority the men had easily fallen to the combined forces arrayed against them. No one who sided with the looters escaped death that night. However, death was no longer the absolute factor that it once had been.

Part of the plan for dealing with the fallout from the battle had been to send troops to every holy site within a ten mile radius. For one week after the battle, those troops had stood ready. Whenever someone respawned in the area, they were arrested immediately and then taken to a holding cell. People were reborn naked into the world, and in their own time.

In order to respawn nearby they would have needed to use up many tokens, most likely all of them when the timing of the attack was taken into account. Only twelve of the men slain had respawned nearby. The rest had either been without tokens or had opted to use fewer of them and take a chance of respawning somewhere else in the world. The latter option was a truly terrifying prospect as it was entirely possible to respawn in a holy site on a different continent. The likelihood of appearing somewhere uninhabited was high. The probability that the survivors in the new region spoke the same language as the newly reborn was much lower.

Scott and his team had not been idle during that week. Preparations had to be made. The men had already faced the death penalty, possibly the least effective punishment in the current world. They had to face a harsher and more useful penalty if such was warranted.

The Blackthorne Faction had taken control of half the ill-gotten gains from the looter's base, which included a surprising amount of money and goods capable of being sold for a good price in the dream world, mainly alcohol.

It would not be wasted. Scott had plans for the money earned from the looters. They sold what they did not need, and put the money to use in the creation of the next step of his master plan. A plan that was about to unfold, much to the horror of the twelve naked men gathered in the throne room of Black Dragon Keep.

Scott, stood before them not as a man, but as the Mahorela Abaivonin Blackthorne. The massive black dragon gazed down imperiously at the terrified men gathered before him. His draconic voice boomed through the air and carried with the merest hint of his aura of fear to inspire them to listen to his words with earnest ears. "In this world, death no longer brings absolution of your crimes. Each of you has either done terrible things or aided others in doing them. For those acts you were slain."

Blackthorne's eyes blazed intensely with a hellish red light. "You have one chance to confess to me your crimes." He unleashed a low threatening snarl, showing his dagger-like fangs. "If I sense you are telling the truth, you will be judged accordingly. If I sense otherwise... Worse than death awaits you."

The dragon tilted his head to the side. "You may also seek to explain the reason that you committed such crimes if you think it will help your case."

A man wrapped in simple robes was brought in as the first to be judged. He was bound in chains, and wore a bag over his head. Blackthorne gazed down at the man then deeply intoned. "Tell me of your crimes."

The man merely staggered around and moaned a little in response. His erratic movements made him seem like he was shaking his head.

Blackthorne unleashed what seemed to be a weary sigh. "Do you refuse to speak? If you do, I have no choice but to judge you in the only truly unbiased manner that I possess."

The moaning man merely continued to ignore Blackthorne and stagger around in a stiff and drunken manner. The black dragon inclined his head once. The hellish light of his glowing red eyes flared even more brightly, and then he spoke in a deep authoritative tone. "So be it."

He continued to speak in his deep authoritative tone of voice. This time, however, his words came in a slow and measured manner.

~ Death’s Embrace need not falter. Abominations of the wasteland return to thy eternal reward. ~

The twelve men huddled together stared in open shock as power skirled along the scales of the one who would judge them. The great beast opened his toothy maw and exclaimed, "Dark Judgment!"

Beneath the staggering man flames erupted from the ground then spread outward to form a massive burning circle. In the floor, no in the world itself, below the staggering man a hole was formed. A glowing red symbol rotated lazily beneath his feet, but the strangeness of that moment soon gave way to terror as jet black chains, instruments blacker than midnight, erupted upward from the portal below.

Those chains of purest darkness pierced the hapless man's flesh. For the first time he did more than stagger and moan. He screamed in an impossibly high-pitched tone. An eerie wail erupted from his unseen lips then something that looked like a human body made of light but coated in a sickening miasma of viscous fluid-like energy was pulled screaming from his body.

Down into the abyss went the soul of the insolent man who would not speak his crimes. Flames and light erupted outward then washed over the cowering group of men. Several screamed in absolute terror then attempted to make a run for it. However, their feet were chained together and they could not move quickly. Those chains were attached to a hook and rope system. Twelve of the Blackthorne soldiers were assigned to court room detail, and each one held onto the rope of one of the men. The men who attempted to flee were sent crashing to the ground when the soldiers yanked their ropes backward.

Blackthorne gazed down at the men cowering before him. Some of them attempted to crawl away despite the ropes binding them. One brave soul attempted to rush one of the guards, but was met with a quick series of non-lethal blows that broke several of his bones in the process.

"Bring that one." said Blackthorne, while pointing at the brave man who was now a mass of broken bones and bruised flesh.

The muscular man was easily held down now that his body was broken. Blackthorne loomed over him for a moment then said, "Confess your crimes."

The muscular man panted heavily. He started to speak then stopped. He looked away. "Where do... Where do you get off doing this?"

"Hmm?" asked Blackthorne curiously. "Where do I get off?"

The man glanced back up at the dragon then nodded. "Yeah... Yeah!" He pointed at the dragon. "What gives you the right to judge any of us! We're just trying to survive this shit."

Blackthorne gazed down at the man, his eyes seeing far more than his bravado or broken body. He bore witness to the man's very soul. Some areas were dark, twisted things. Others were surprisingly clear, even boring, to look at. His darker aspects were sickening to see. However, despite the fact that the man was clearly in possession of a wicked heart, he was not even as rotten as the dragon's own step-father.

"I see. So, your survival is an important thing?" asked Blackthorne casually.

The man frowned then said "Yes! Damn you."

"More important than the little girls that you chained up in the basement of your hideout?" asked the dragon in an even tone.

"That wasn't me!" The man closed his eyes and started to breathe heavily. "I don't do that shit."

"What sort of shit do you do?" queried the dragon.

"Does it matter? You're just going to send me to hell or whatever anyway..." muttered the man.

Blackthorne tilted his head to the side then narrowed his eyes. "If you want a one way ticket to the abyss I can grant it you. If you want a more reasonable, less eternal, sentence then I suggest that you answer my questions."

The man lowered his head then nodded. "Look. I'll steal and fight. I've killed people before, but it was always in a fight..."

Blackthorne bore witness to the ever shifting hue of the man's soul as he spoke. Some of the things that the man said were clearly close to an outright lie, but were not close enough to warrant banishment to the abyss. After a while, the man stopped speaking.

"If I were to release you. Would you be able to act like a decent human being and try to live ?" asked Blackthorne.

The man blinked then looked up at the dragon briefly before he turned his head to the side. He could not stand to look at the massive creature for long. "Yeah."

The stench of the lie on the man's lips made Blackthorne's nose itch. "Are you sure?" he asked once more. "Recall what I said will become of those who lie to me."

The man closed his eyes then tightened them slightly. It was little more than a whisper, but he said, "No..."

"I see." Blackthorne nodded slowly. "Take him to the nurse's station then relocate him to cell two to await his sentence."

"Cell two..." muttered the man. Jail certainly beat eternal torment in the abyss. He was taken away and the next man was brought over.

The process of justice in the new world continued for quite some time. Some men tried to lie their way out of the situation and were sentenced to cell one. Other men proved to be hardened criminal types, but willing to be honest. Those men were sent to cell two.

Out of all of the men gathered, only two were taken to cell three. Those men were the least offensive of the bunch.

Relatively young, and willing to work off their debts. They had claimed not to have raped anyone, and had basically fallen in line solely to survive. Those men were deemed to be more salvageable, and would be given lesser sentences.

Ashton went with Blackthorne, in his human form, to give sentence to the men in each cell. The men in the third cell were approached first. After he had their attention the black armored man said, "You will be placed on a combination of house arrest and community service. For the next two years you will work as part of the grounds keeping staff."

He took a breath then continued. "You will be granted food, clothes, and medical attention. Once per month you will be granted a small stipend and will be escorted into town to buy items deemed appropriate for your current status."

The men nodded, but then their jaws dropped when Scott continued. "You will be permanently barred from returning to Earth. This is not my choice specifically, as the dream world and Earth will be separated shortly. Make what you can of your life here."

"We can't go back?" asked one of them men wide-eyed.

"No." said Scott before dismissing the man's concerns. "Try not to fuck up your life here."

Ashton annotated what Scott determined to be the sentence for cell three. They then walked down the hall to the slightly larger group at cell two. Once gathered, he told them their sentence.

"You six men are determined to be too dangerous to allow on work release. You will be transported to the Prison Dragon Farm Dungeon to serve out your sentence. You will remain there for twenty years at hard labor. Your sentence may be lessened or extended based on your actions."

"Shit! Twenty years! Fuck that!" snarled one of the men.

"Would you like to appeal?" asked Scott.

"Damn right I want an appeal." said the man angrily. "There's no way..."

"Noted. Anyone who wants an appeal can receive one."

Scott turned to his escort guard, the same twelve men as before. "If any of these men want an appeal, take them from this cell and bring them to cell one. They will be judged in as fair and unbiased manner as I can judge them."

Of the six men in the cell, five wanted an appeal. The only one to remain was the first man who had been judged. Scott looked askance at him. "No appeal for you?"

He shook his head. "I would have gotten much worse in court for doing half the shit I did since the world went to hell. I'll admit I'm scum, but I'm not stupid."

"Fair enough." said Scott before nodding to Ashton. "Annotate his sentence. Reduce it to nineteen years, eleven months, and three weeks."

"Done." said Ashton after making the necessary notation.

Scott glanced at the men as they were being led from the cell. "You will be taken to cell one and given the same method chance those men will be given. If you are deemed innocent on appeal, you will be given work release. If not.... Well, it was your choice to appeal."

"What's that..." began one of the men. Scott merely ignored him then turned away. He led the group down the hallways of Black Dragon Castle's ordinary dungeon. Not a system generated special dungeon, it was merely the sort of dungeon one might expect in a castle.

When they arrived at cell one, Scott turned to the four men standing inside. "Gather up and listen close."

"Who the hell are you?" asked one of the men snidely. "Big gecko can't come check us out himself?"

Scott looked at the man. He had the smug look of a man who always thought he would get his own way. However, he did not deign to respond to the taunt. It would not matter in a moment. "You four men refused to tell the truth during your trial. As such, I will need to perform the only unbiased method that I have to determine your overall guilt."

"You, what... I told the truth!" snapped one of the men.

Scott stared at him. "You were warned that you had to speak the truth. You were each given a chance to recant. You continued to lie."

The smug looking man snorted then said. "Whatever. You're just looking for a scape goat.

"Continue to lie to yourselves if you want. It'll just hurt you in the end." replied Scott before his eyes began to blaze bright red.

"Hey, his eyes are just like..." said one of the men.

Scott raised his hand and pointed into the cell.

~ Death’s Embrace need not falter. Abominations of the wasteland return to thy eternal reward. ~

"What, this is...!" snapped the man who had mentioned Scott's eyes.

"Dark Judgment!" exclaimed Scott.

The men screamed in panic as the fires of judgment arose from the floor. Just as before a portal to the abyss opened beneath them. They screamed and begged for mercy, but there was none to be found. Chains made of misery and jet black hate shot out from the abyss and speared through those who could not be bothered to tell the truth even when such a fate was laid out before them.

Three of the men fell to the floor, their diseased souls were torn from their bodies and dragged shrieking to their final reward. The fourth struggled mightily. He was physically the smallest of the lot, but his chains were equally small.

The small man screamed and fought. He clawed at the ground until his fingernails were torn free and he bled profusely against the earth. "No!" he shrieked, as he desperately fought for his continued existence in the mortal world. One of his chains snapped in half then faded away. Soon, another snapped.

Though his body bled in a dozen places, he continued to fight. It was not a physical battle, it was a battle for his very soul. One after the other, the chains that bound him snapped in place.

Soon, however, he was on the brink of death. Blood pooled thickly around his body, though only a single chain remained.

That chain began to drag his soul from his body. The man cried weakly. "No... Please no..."

"Scott..." murmured Ashton. It was a disturbing scene, one she was not certain that she wanted to see.

The five men who demanded an appeal squirmed, but did not say anything. Suddenly, the idea of twenty years in prison did not seem so bad.

"Please..." whimpered the man before the light died in his eyes a little.

The single chain continued to drag his immortal soul from his mortal coil. Soon it was half out of his body and rapidly descending toward the abyss. "I'm sorry." he whispered.

Something strange passed over the dying man's face. At first it seemed like shock, but after a moment it was shown to be the physical sign of a personal revelation. "I deserve this..." he whispered.

The chain snatched his soul from his body, or rather almost all of it. He held on by a single finger. "Tell them I'm sorry. They didn't deserve it."

Just like that, the final chain snapped. Fire and energy washed outward from the center of the cell, washed over those present. Several of the people winced, including the guards. Only Scott was completely unfazed.

The soul of the looter slowly flowed back into his badly injured body. The color returned to the man's cheeks.

"Administer a restorative to this man, then take him to cell two." said Scott to one of the guards. He turned to Ashton. "Annotate that I have amended his sentence to five years instead of twenty."

Scott turned to the other five men. "Once the survivor has been cared for, you will have your chance at an appeal. If you survive, your sentence will be reduced to five years."

"Survive...? You want... That?" asked a man that Scott now recognized as the big guy with the high-pitched voice that he had terrified during the raid.

"What—What happened to them...?" asked another man slowly.

The prisoners were beyond shock. They had the look of men who had gone so far beyond terrified that they could barely operate as a human being.

Scott took a breath then said, "Chains forged from their own wickedness rose up from the abyss to drag their soul down into the dark. There they will suffer untold agony and torment until their souls will be stripped clean and the remainder is pure enough to rise up and be reborn."

"So, not... not forever?" asked the same man.

"It could last that long. It depends on how wicked they were, and how willing they are to come to turns with the evil that they have committed." Scott looked into the eyes of each man in turn. "It is a place where lost souls are tormented, burned in fires fueled by their own evil-minded bullshit."

Several of the men closed their eyes and began to tremble. Two of them merely looked away, but they were visibly shaking still. "It is a place each of you may end up going to when you run out of tokens. It exists as a place of redemption, where those who have fallen from the grace of humanity can gain understanding about the wickedness they have engendered in their life."

"I'll go there when I die?" asked one of the other men. "It's real.... all that church stuff?"

Scott looked at the man. He did not want to discuss religion with the man. Everything he knew about the abyss he simply [/i]knew[/i] somehow, or he had read in a book. "Death is just a transition from one life to the next. However, you carry the scars of one life to the next."

"If you have too much wickedness in your soul, you'll be one of those people that others claim were just born evil. You'll continue on your downward spiral and eventually become a deranged beast. The abyss exists to prevent you from becoming something far less than human, nothing more."

"You get off on this don't you, you bastard?" asked one of the other men.

"No." said Scott. He then nodded once, slowly. "All you, or any of the others had to do was tell me the truth about your crimes. Do you think I judged you harshly for a lifetime of criminal actions? If so, step into the cell and you can have your appeal."

None of the men moved. Scott eyed them impassively for a moment. "You cried out for justice, did you not? I was unfair. I misjudged you, and gave you a harsh sentence. You're a victim, right?"

The men closed their eyes one by one and looked down. Any semblance of fight that they had in them was gone. Scott continued. "The world went to hell. Instead of trying to protect people, or at least try not to be a burden, you did terrible things to other survivors."

"Did they beg for help or mercy when you beat them?" Scott asked the men.

"When an innocent boy begged you to spare his family, did you kick him in the face and shoot his dog?" asked Scott. One of the men flinched then started to cry a little. He knew there was no way out of his situation.

Scott stared at the big guy with the high-pitched voice. "When a little girl begged you not to rape her wheel-chair bound mother... Did you slap her across the face, call her a little slut, and tell her that she was next?"

The big man merely sighed then chewed on his lip. He could not argue with that even if he wanted to do so.

"Where was their justice when you were taking from them endlessly?" Scott's voice never cracked, nor did it hold even a shred of contempt. It was like a stone, implacable, and final.

After a moment of silence, he said. "No. I do not get off on being in my position. My preference would have been that none of you men had done the things that you had done. You put me in this position, by putting your own carnal desires and survival on a pedestal."

"I am not here to get revenge for the innocent. That's useless."

Scott stared at the men with a harsh gaze. "Justice is more than simply punishing the wicked. It's about making a situation whole."

He took a breath then continued. "I don't currently have the power to resurrect the dead. I can't just wave my hand and make everything alright, again. All I can do if I wish to truly enact justice, is separate you from the world and people that you harmed so deeply."

"I can then give you a chance to work toward bettering yourself, and provide a desperately needed service for humanity. While doing that you can take the time to reflect on what you have done. Perhaps, if you truly wish to avoid the fate of those who were sentenced here, you will find a different way to live." he said.

A few minutes passed in silence once more. Slowly, the men looked up at him one by one. Once all of them did so, Scott said. "I have killed you once and sentenced you to twenty years of hard labor. However, you can choose to have your appeal. Step into the cell and let your own soul be your judge. That is truly the highest court in the land."

In the end, one by one, each of the men asked to recant their desire for an appeal. None of them believed that they would manage to do what that one man did. For these men, the only option was twenty years in a dungeon prison, or a lot more time spent in the fiery depths of the abyss.