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

Tenth Day of the Seventh Month 293 AC

"So this is why they call it a wine sink," Valaena's voice was soft, but the disdain in it was clear just the same. "Because all the shit in the wine sinks to the bottom here."

Once Maelor might have objected to the description reflexively, just from hearing some haughty highborn get talk down to honest common folk. As the trio entered the 'Broken Whistle,' however, he had to agree that if anyone honest had ever set foot here it must have been by sheer happenstance. The thick dingy windows glittered like a sailor's glass eye in the dim light of the fire pit, and the smell of bubbling stew was mingled with other far less wholesome things. "Strange place to find a priest," he noted instead, looking over the faces of the patrons for their quarry. They did not even have enough to scry by, but the local gangs were unlikely to have lied to them after the demonstration Argo gave them.

"Not so strange if you are looking for a broken man," Valaena said. "All the pious ones are either dead or fled. That leaves the priests who have had their faith cracked at the foundation."

"So the ones that didn't get dropped too many times on their heads when they were little," Bronn jested easily, though his gaze was sharp and his hand ever upon the hilt of his sword. Ever since the brief ugly skirmish with the temple guards that had forced them to take on new faces the sellsword had resented the priests of the Black Goat. Even he had been disgusted at the raiders they had put to the sword, former temple guardsmen hunting slaves to drag to hidden altars in their own cities.

"That's him I think," Valaena called, discreetly pointing out a man in faded robes that may have once been the dark grey of a Deacon of the Third Crescent. From the number of cups and mugs in front of him it was clear he was only trying to drink himself into oblivion but doing a fair job of it. This then was the man who had mere months ago been the third most powerful priest in Qohor.

"He does not look in a fit state for theological debate," Maelor mused, still speaking speaking the Andal Tongue.

"Maybe we should dunk his head in a bucket first," Bronn offered seemingly in all seriousness.

As they watched the former priest rose from his seat, surprisingly steady on his feet for his state, and sat down with a trio of rough looking men throwing bones.

"So, is anyone feeling lucky tonight?" Maelor asked, already moving in the direction of the table, smiling widely.

"No, as a matter of fact I'm feeling really unlucky," came Bronn's reply. "Winners are usually in a right mood to talk, even if it's only to brag about their luck."

Eight games and sixty marks lost later, the sellsword's prediction did indeed come true as the old priest practically latched on to his unexpected triumph as a drowning sailor to a rope.

Maelor stepped up as a Myrish spice trader and part-time scholar with a fascination for Qohor and its ways. He smiled in all the right places and asked only the most flattering of questions, the mingling of a hand free with coin and an interest of that sort baited and hooked the erstwhile priest just as he had hoped.

It would be quite a while yet before old Terguros revealed the inner workings of the somber black-roofed temples that dotted Qohor like mushrooms and longer still until he whispered secrets of the Black Goat and its worship, but Maelor did not mind at all. He still had other plans to check on while this one ripened.

OOC: The rolls from Qohor were about as middle of the road as possible, so I kind of struggled with them. Hopefully the interlude works to establish something about the atmosphere in the city and its factions.