An article published in the Voice of Breland, dated 6th Vult, 999 YK.
Could Karrnath be sending political dissidents to Dreadhold?
For those unaware, Dreadhold is the highest security prison on Eberron. Located in the Lhazaar Principalities, Dreadhold takes up an entire island on its own, situated within a Lamannian manifest zone, which makes it incredibly difficult to damage. Owned and operated by House Kundarak, there has never been a confirmed case of anyone (or anything) escaping from Dreadhold. The House accepts payment from the Thronehold Nations to imprison individuals there, holding those individuals for as long as they continue to receive payment to do so.
Some of the wiser readers have already spotted a problem with this. House Kundarak has no requirement that those it holds in its prison be found guilty of breaching the Code of Galifar, the legal code that binds all of Khorvaire. If a wealthy enough individual sends in a prisoner with a fat enough coinpurse, the dwarves will hold them, no questions asked. Many of the prisoners in Dreadhold were convicted of war crimes by the Tribunal in Thronehold after the war, but the prison has been in operation for hundreds of years and holds all manner of individuals prisoner. We have it on good authority that some of the prisoners in Dreadhold may be fiends or undead that would simply reform if destroyed, and so the Church of the Silver Flame or various nations pay House Kundarak to keep them imprisoned as an alternative.
In general, House Kundarak makes no effort to protect the identities of those that have been imprisoned, and are not known for selling their silence in addition to their services. How curious, then, that there is a prisoner that nobody seems to know anything about.
Prisoner Deep Fourteen, nicknamed as such because they occupy the fourteenth cell in the Deep Ward, is a mystery. He is a human male, but beyond this very little is known about this enigmatic prisoner. Rumour has it that he arrived in Dreadhold in 995 YK on the order of King Kaius III of Karrnath, and was immediately escorted to his cell. His face is hidden under a steel mask that entombs his entire head, and it is sealed with magic that prevents the prisoner from removing the mask, or speaking. The guards are also under strict instructions that Deep Fourteen is never to be allowed near anything that he could use as a writing implement.
Just who is Prisoner Deep Fourteen? We managed to speak to some of the guards who used to work at Dreadhold when the prisoner arrived, and they told us that the guards don't even know the identity of this prisoner. The only things that are known for certain are that King Kaius wants him kept alive, and he is not to be allowed to communicate with anyone, under any circumstances. Could Prisoner Deep Fourteen be a political opponent of the King's? Someone who he can't have killed? Perhaps a patriot who rails against the king's attempts to build peace, who wants a return to war?
Regardless of the reason, that their king can just have someone sent to the deepest pit on Eberron without any accountability should be very, very concerning to everyone in Karrnath. We should all be thankful that such a thing would never happen in Breland.