A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Tenth Day of the Seventh Month 293 AC

"Is this...?" Anya swallows, looking towards Hermetia, "is this how you feel all the time?" Spells of good fortune, of cunning tongue, and knowledge of tongues not their own you had woven over each of them, spells of every circle from the first to the eighth before tasking them to discover more of the mysterious solicitor.

"I don't think you could feel like me," Aradia replies, her words sharp though you do not think she means to be unkind. "Come..."

"Magic is magic," you answer in turn. "A tool in the hand, nothing more. As any tool it can be loaned out. Do not let the matter weigh too heavily upon your mind."

All the while Mia is watching the conversation patiently, as though trying to guess some hidden auspices in it, but she does not speak up.

"Yes, er... Your Grace," the former lawman replies, struggling to keep the awe from her voice.

"She's not used to it," Hermetia notes as the three young women fly off unseen and in Aradia's case unfelt, for she is little more than mist and vapor rising towards the sky.

"Yet," you finish. "She has the wits for it and more than enough courage given her deeds."

The silver-haired woman looks unconvinced but quickly turns her thoughts towards her own task. "So I am to set the Spicers at each others' throats, pulling whatever threads I have to, for the tapestry is soon to be woven anew."

"You should be a poet," you compliment her with a smile.

At that she laughs, a soft silvery sound. "Then let it be that my first poem be written in blood and poison."


After setting Dany to the task of finding as much as she can of the Westerosi envoy you rest your head for a brief hour until the wellspring of your magic is restored in full, then you set about forging the mask you are to wear, a thing not of brass or iron, not even of sorcery and glamour, but something more, something exotic to excite the interest and the greed of all those present. So is born Master Liu, a man speaking the tongue of Yi Ti after the manner of Qohor, perhaps an exile to those shores from some long-ago war, but certainly a man of great wealth and refined tastes. In silk you are veiled, the robe bedecked in golden thread, even the cloak you had torn from Mammon's hide veiled as golden silk.

By sorcery you speak the tongue, by sorcery the clothes were wrought. You feel him almost like a specter of the unborn in your mind as you turn about to present the final mask to the two Furies waiting for you to work your way through the part. "What do you think?" you ask, truly curious to hear the thoughts of those who had watched the intrigues of Dis with their own eyes.

"I know not the ways of these Yi Tish men you speak of, but you certainly seem a man not to be taken lightly or cast from one's door," she replies.

"Not too much so I hope," you reply, feeling a frown creasing your brow. "I am counting upon their greed to see me in to the manse. It would not do for them to see me as too formidable to make use of."

The Fury clicks her tongue against her teeth in thought, a startlingly human gesture though you would never say so to her face. "Walk more stiffly, then, less like you are master of all you survey and more like..."

"A trained monkey?" you ask in jest.

"I was about to say most mortal lords, but that is a fair point as well," she laughs.


Shadowbrook Manse does not at first glance stand out among others of its kind throughout the Disputed Lands, fortified enough to be all-but impregnable to rebelling slaves while not being nearly so strong as to hold against a determined assault by sellswords. However, where most settlements of its like count on elevation for their protection Shadowbrook is ringed by a moat of sorts, some fifty feet wide and deep enough that one can not easily glimpse the bottom. True lily-pads float upon its surface, yet still you wonder how many slaves were drowned in its depths.

You and your two companions walk slowly down the road, with neither horses nor carriage, not even a mule to tell how you had arrived so far into the Lyseni hinterlands. The slaves you see avert their faces as you pass through, and quiet murmurs follow you. Having no compunction about looking at them yourself to guess what manner of man their master might be, you notice at first little odd about them, in manner or dress, but something niggles at the corner of your mind. Not a single mark of a whip... no scars of sickness either. At first you had not noticed either as odd in your relief to not look upon the signs of bondage and cruelty, yet to see none of them at all is passing strange. True the Lyseni are less likely to maim or scar their slaves, but you see here field slaves bound to House Bartaris more healthy than free smallfolk on a Westerosi lord's lands.

At first you find no passage inside the manse. The gates remain stubbornly barred to you for the better part of an hour until finally a thin quarrelsome voice shouts from behind the burred door: "We're not taking visitors."

You speak with power, but with pride also of having traveled far to offer an opportunity to the master of the House, one that does not come with the cycles of the moon nor of the sun but the turning of stars themselves, as it is said in Qarth of those chances that come but once in a man's life.

Again you are made to wait, until in rising frustration, not all of it feigned, you explain that you know the master of the House is dead, but still you have offers yet to make of his heirs. At last reluctantly the door opens and you are greeted by an elderly woman, her gaze almost feverishly bright. "The numbers, the numbers... they are all wrong now, but if I don't let you in they will be even more wrong, won't they?"

The servant standing behind her, head bowed in respect, still has the look of a man who had had to deal with madness for quite some time.

What do you do?

[] Enter quickly and speak to one of the guests
-[] Write in which

[] Try to speak to the old woman
-[] Write in

OOC: Sorry, this took far longer than I anticipated since I had planned to have the morning for plotting out the arc, but I was busy in the morning and the afternoon too.