The Bastion
The Bastion is the official prison of Rime. Used exclusively to contain magically Gifted prisoners, the Bastion houses both inhabitants of Rime convicted of violent crimes and residents of the province of Northwind who were convicted of using dangerous magic. The Bastion was intended to be used for all of Northwind's Gifteds who were convicted of the use of magic outside the sanctuary city of Rime, but as time went on, and more and more Gifteds were found to exist, this became unfeasible.
The Bastion is now the place for the worst of the worst Gifteds to be held, as most who use their magic illegally are simply exiled to a life within Rime's warded walls.
Purpose / Function
The Bastion was constructed as a prison for Gifteds who used their magic publicly. It was the first building in the City of Rime, originally intended to stand alone along with the guardhouse that was later demolished and rebuilt into the Cohort's main offices
The City of Rime was constructed around it first as a temporary residence for construction workers, but remained as a secondary holding area, when families of the convicted moved into the vacated workers' huts.
Eventually, as the Bastion became too crowded for its intended purpose, the rulers of Northwind established Rime's wards and declared the city both an expanded holding location to be used for those who had comitted non-violent uses of magic, and also as a sanctuary city where Gifteds could freely use their magic.
Architecture
The Bastion is a circular tower that rises five stories above ground, with a sixth as an excavated underground basement.
The lowest story, underground, houses supply stores as well as the central furnaces that heat the building and their accompanying wood supply.
The first above-ground story house administration offices as well as (unofficially) holding accomodations for the few prisoners who can afford the bribes that allow them to live in single, well-furnished offices-turned-cells in the warmer stories near the furnaces.
The second story contains the visiting area as well as a washroom for prisoners, as water that makes it to that level via a manual pump system is theoretically still somewhat warm when transferred from the basement tanks.
The rest of the stories are divided into cells. The top floor is single cells for the prisoners considered too dangerous to be mixed in with the rest of the population, but every other floor is simply split into quarters that house prisoners in group accomodation.
Various floors are accessed by a circular central staircase.
A dumbwaiter system carries food and water up the central core of the building. Beyond the second floor all water is hauled up by the dumbwaiter, as any sort of pipe system is prone to freezing solid.
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