"You aren't a rookie for a week before some dead-eyed veteran gives you the word. Don't ask about the farm at North Cross and Lennox. Don't even think about it. Go there, and you cease to exist. There won't even be a corpse. It's a place where very bad things have been going on for a very long time. Generations. Junior came by his proclivities honestly."
—John Hartigan, Sin City, "That Yellow Bastard"
"This is a bad place, this farm. People have died here. The wrong way."
—Marv, on that same farm, Sin City, "The Hard Goodbye"
Flies all green ‘n buzzin’ in his dungeon of despair
Prisoners grumble and piss their clothes and scratch their matted hair
A tiny light from a window hole a hundred yards away
Is all they ever get to know about the regular life in the day
An’ it stinks so bad the stones been chokin’ and weepin’ greenish drops
In the room where the giant fire puffer works and the torture never stops
The torture never stops
Prisoners grumble and piss their clothes and scratch their matted hair
A tiny light from a window hole a hundred yards away
Is all they ever get to know about the regular life in the day
An’ it stinks so bad the stones been chokin’ and weepin’ greenish drops
In the room where the giant fire puffer works and the torture never stops
The torture never stops
Hannibal: And how is Officer Stuart - the one who was first to see my basement?
Will Graham: Stuart's fine.
Hannibal: Emotional problems, I hear.
Will Graham: Stuart's fine.
Hannibal: Emotional problems, I hear.
Ted: I want to design a house that celebrates the landscape without overpowering it. You know, when Frank Lloyd designed "Falling Water" in 1935-
Client: Yes, yes, that's all fine. I'm sure you'll do a great job. What I'm really worried about is the basement; specifically, the laundry room.
Ted: The laundry room?
Client: I require a laundry room of fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Stain-proof ceramic tile from floor to ceiling. I'm a man who likes to do his own laundry, and sometimes, it gets messy.
[Flashforward to MacLaren's]
Marshall: Messy?
Ted: Messy.
[Flashback to mansion]
Client: Steel chains will dangle from the ceiling at a height of nine feet, and that is where my... laundry bags will hang, for three days and three nights, before I... clean them.
[Flashforward to MacLaren's]
Robin: Uh, Ted... it kind of sounds like what this guy is asking you to design—
Ted: [hollow] It's a murder house.
Robin: — it is, it's totally a murder house!
The room I had entered had but one purpose: the torture and execution of human beings for the sadistic pleasure of its engineer. Blood was splattered on every surface. The dread and agony of victims past still echoed through the lethal walls. A symphony of terror and agony filled the air. Then, from amidst the cacophony of screaming souls came the perverse laughter of the Vampire himself...
—Kain, Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain
Room into room, Jame Gumb's basement rambles like the maze that thwarts us in dreams. When he was still shy, lives and lives ago, Mr Gumb took his pleasure in the rooms most hidden, far from the stairs. There are rooms in the farthest corners, rooms from other lives, that Gumb hasn't opened in years. Some of them are still occupied, so to speak, though the sounds from behind the doors peaked and trailed off to silence long ago.
You can scream all you want: no one will hear you. Obviously, the basement is soundproofed. Believe me, girls with bigger sets of lungs than yours have tried before.
—Bloody Face, AKA Dr Oliver Thredson, American Horror Story: Asylum
The most notorious site dedicated to the Awakening of widderslainte is an unassuming little apartment building in the Lincoln Park section of Chicago. While not a Nephandic chantry per se, the Shuldiner Arms is maintained by and for Nephani, either as a temporary residence or a workspace. The top floor of the six-story building is devoted to what can best be described as "artists' studios," though the art in question is the inflicting of pain. Insulated from outside interference by thick walls and magical protections, Nephandi are free to do whatever is necessary to get the results they need.
And if it doesn't work out, Lake Michigan is only a few blocks away.
—Mage: The Ascension - The Book Of Madness
"Let's go down to the courthouse and see the room that they locked Boo up in. My aunt says it's bat-infested, and he nearly died from the mildew. Come on. I bet they got chains and instruments of torture down there."
—Dill Harris, To Kill a Mockingbird
