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

Previous Part

Sometime during the festival.

Xhanar looked flatly across the table at the young business woman as she sipped at her steaming tea.

"You didn't ask me to meet you here to simply exchange pleasantries. I'm thankful for you offer to help with my endeavor, but I don't know you, and i'd rather not involve other people if I can."

An expression of frustration flickered across her face. "Alright then," Ilaria put down the cup. "First and foremost. Tomorrow Xor is holding a performance. It's smaller and not being displayed on those mirrors. And although it's open to the public, you had to reserve a spot. The demand to see the King's own entertainers is rather overwhelming."

"So you think I would be able to wait in the area until I see her?"

"No..." Ilaria seemed to be debating something with herself, hesitating for a moment, "I had expected a slight different set of circumstances for this, but I reserved 2 seats, and I'd like to offer you the other."

Xhanars eyebrows rose in surprise, his hard expression softening slightly. "Well, I accept. What was the cost to attend this performance, I am willing to continue to work for you to pay it off if I must."

"There was no cost. I am not sure why, I think the King may be fronting a lot of the cost to help build his own legacy, if the choice of songs is anything to go by. Although Xor is also said to be particularly personable. Willing to talk to anyone that approaches. So It should be no trouble to do so after the performance."

"Well, not like that matters much anyway. My aunt would not be one to turn away family."

Ilaria attempted to hold back a frown, failing slightly. "That's another thing." She took a deep breath, as if steeling herself, "Xhanar, I do not think Xor is your aunt."

The good will that had been steadily leaching into his expression and body language vanished. "Oh? And why would that be?" His words were icy and short.

"Please understand me Xhanar, I really am just trying to help you." His face twisted at the second part of that phrase, but this time he wrapped himself in the void, pushing is emotions aside.

"Ok, then explain it to me." His face was blank, showing nothing that Ilaria could recognize.

She nodded. "The first time I saw Xor was in the circle. In the form of a Summer Islander, who I assume you think is your aunt." Ilaria was wary, and slightly disturbed at the utter calm that seemed to have taken over Xhanar. "Two days later, I went to see Xor perform again in the circle. This time it was a Westerosi man that performed."

"Could it not then be that multiple performers use the name?"

"I thought so too at first, but it was strange. I have been attending recitals, and performances my whole life. The way he moved, played, and his mannerisms while doing so. They were all the same as the Summer Islander before."

Xhanar simply stared, slowly contemplating this information.

"Ah also, my guides. They have been quite insistent that these people were the same. Apparently they have seen Xor himself a number of times." She indicated the two guides sitting at another table. Xhanar saw with enough room to give them privacy, but also to intervene if something should happen.

"Which brings me to the last point. I don't think Xor is even human." He felt the void around him ripple, his face twitched. Ilaria looked at him worriedly, and seem to shrink back into her seat. He noted Lockhorn shift slightly toward him.

"Then what is he? A demon? Or those things infesting Bravos, fey I think?"

Ilaria shook her head. "No something else." She looked distressfully at her guides. "My guides... and even everyone I've spoken to that lives in Sorcerer's Deep, they all told me the same thing. Xor is some kind of floating ball of flesh, with one big eye and a bunch of tentacles with smaller eyes." She looked horrified even as she said it.

The silence held for almost a full minute. Before Xhanar suddenly laughed. To Ilaria it seemed almost manic, like something had broken within his mind. Then without expression he said, "I'll see you tomorrow, then I'll see my aunt." And strode out of the cafe.


OOC: Poor Xhanar, he really does not want to give up on this. It's the first time he's felt anything like hope, or potential happiness since the night on the boat. And it's probably only going to get worse for him before anything gets better.

Twenty-Sixth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

Still veiled from his sight you look upon Garth with a careful eye, the enchantment that held him should be harmless with the devil bound in its timeless prison, but still some command may linger. Ser Erren's clasp, whatever that aborted wave of hellfire had been... twice now your foe has shown a talent for subtle sorceries, and as you look upon the Lord Seneschal of Highgarden you find a third—wrapped like a worm around his throat it is the magic of evocation, of primal forces.

At first you suspect it is meant to kill the hapless lord should he ever know himself free, but the closer you look the odder the spell seems—not fire, frost, or lightning, but sound. An alarm of some sort in case someone were to reach Garth by stealth and try to break his geas. No, that would cast all secrecy to the winds. A silent alarm would be better by far, unless of course your foe is planning for a circumstance such as this, in which it is killed, captured, or fled, but did not wish to award its vanquisher the triumph of the rescue.

No healer are you, yet from dreams of old you recall a spell oft used by the lesser flesh-crafters of Valyria to understand the works of others before they dare to work their own. With insight drawn from dreams of old you follow the lines of every vein, every pulsing organ until near the heart you find it, a tiny arcane beetle encased in lead, ready to silently sever Garth's arteries even as the second part of the trap would summon half of Highgarden here to find you either standing over the corpse or gone and leaving a trace a clever diviner might be able to follow by the very silence of the magic.

You might just have to congratulate the devil on her forethought before you drive the sacrificial dagger home.

Regardless, now that you can actually see both, it is a simple enough task to dispel the alarm and the heart-slayer beetle's faint magic, and once the task is done to finally cast off your glamour. "Your warning will no longer be needed, my lord. The danger is passed."

Relief and fear chase each other over his pale face. "I... what. How do you know? Why are you here?" He does not ask who you are, you note. Presumably your appearance is well known enough to make the question moot.

"I know because I have dealt with the devil who called herself Jeynne," you answer calmly, the better to still the rising dread you hear in Garth's voice. "As to why I am here I confess it is because I have many questions about the devil's plot the Reach and House Tyrell's doings, but first I would offer to ease some of the suffering of body and soul you have endured if you would trust me to do so."

The Lord Seneschal of Highgarden hesitates a long moment, aware of the political implications of your request in spite of his ordeal. Slowly, he nods. "I assume you want me to keep this secret?"

"Yes," you answer simply, knowing that anymore assurances will not serve. Either he is willing to entertain working with you or he is a lost cause, but you will leave content knowing you have at least foiled Mammon's scheme.

"Alright, I'll take the spell, and I'll hear you out," he reaches out with his left hand, fingers trembling slightly in spite of his best efforts to seem calm.

Garth gives a sigh of relief when your first question is nor particularly about his house but the devil's plans. Thus you discover that since falling under the devils' sway he had been compelled to work to effectively beggar Highgarden with poor investments and unprofitable loans both taken and given, helped along he reluctantly admits by his nephew's increasingly wide-handed spending in the hopes of matching fey elegance and grace. Though the devil who had enthralled him did not precisely share her thoughts with him, he suspects she ultimately planned to use the empty treasury and jealousy of the fey to spark a war to claim the treasures of the Feywild.

An impossible task for any mortal army of course, but that may well have been the point as far as the devil was concerned. Faced with the prospect of losing with no allies in sight, the Lord of Highgarden may well have been tempted to walk down a darker path. Varys' plans could well have been similar only with 'Prince Aegon and his dragons' in the place of the Nine Hells.

It is considerably more difficult to to get him to admit who he has been giving loans out to and little wonder. Aedon and his conspirators, prominent Volantene agitators within the Red Faith, even Ghiscari masters of the most militant sort, all of them your foes or a potential thorn in your side. Doubtlessly the Spider had also helped himself to Tyrell gold.

As to why the fey had not detected Garth's enthrallment earlier, the answer is ultimately quite simple—he was simply counted too uninteresting for any of the great lords and ladies of the fey to meet with, and the devil mage's wards had sufficed to deflect suspicion from those handful of petty sprites who had thought to investigate him. "That's me, staid and boring as week-old bread," his laugh is a painful, bitter thing. "Mother's Mercy, how I wish that were true. The things she threatened to make me do..."

"Threatened?" you ask, careful to keep any hint of judgement from your voice. A man not in control of his own body can no more be blamed for what is done with it than one whose knife had been stolen could be later accused of a murder committed with it.

"She said it wasn't really interesting for her..." Garth shudders again. "She offered me little freedoms if I would do things, make small sacrifices, first it was my own blood, then a dove's heart, then a lamb... I refused to kill the lamb since I saw the pattern, I realized the next offering would probably be a man and if I just stopped then she would just kill the sacrifice anyway to spite me."

"That was a remarkably brave thing you did, my lord," you answer sincerely. Quite a few would have stopped at sacrificing a fellow human, but not many would have the forethought to try and make a stand before that.

"Brave... ha," Garth says bitterly. "It was spite and fear of what I would turn into. Do I look the picture of the bold knight, my lord?"

"Bravery has very little to do with how well you hold a lance or ride a horse," Ser Richard interjects unexpectedly with the air of long experience.

What do you do next?

[] Ask questions about Highgarden and House Tyrell
-[] Write in

[] Suggest that you could help him right the finances of the House, and thus use the plots of your enemies to bind House Tyrell
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: The reason I stopped here is because Garth is actually quite loyal to his House, so it pays to be careful what questions you ask and how you pose them.