The Wizard Prison
The Wizard Prison
A windowless triangle of black stone on a bare rock in the open sea, barely visible from the shores of Arlanton on a clear day. It is where Arland sends the criminals it cannot hold anywhere else.
The name is older than the current building and comes from the security it was built to carry: measures meant for some of the most capable magical criminals in the country's history. Cells ring each floor and look inward onto an open shaft that drops the full height of the building, so that nothing can be done on any landing without being visible from every other.
It is always raining there.
The Joywraiths
For most of its history the prison was administered not by people but by Joywraiths: dark, shadowy, roughly humanoid things that never speak and are generally assumed to understand everything said to them. They feed on the joy of living creatures and leave behind something that is alive but no longer much of anyone.
A few years ago they were banned and removed, largely because students campaigned until it became impossible to keep them. It remains one of the reforms the older families in Arlanton complain about most.
Nobody has ever said where the Joywraiths went.
Now
A foreman and a staff of wardens run the prison in their place.