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

Seventh Day of the Ninth Month 293 AC

Phaerl Sharp-Eye landed on the roof of his modest aerie with the familiar thump of hardened leather Legion-issue boots on stone and a satisfied sigh for another job well done. This was certainly not what he would have imagined himself doing five months ago when he had handed in his resignation from the guard to try his luck at the Pendulum. It wasn't just the strangeness of the houses all around, with all the entrances on one level and the 'windows' too narrow to pass through or the endless along with the mass of stone and water he could see stretching out on all sides. He had expected to be a caravan guard, or perhaps a bounty hunter if he got lucky with well paying contracts he could stomach. Instead he was helping build an army, an empire, living a life not much different from the one he left behind, with one all-important difference. He would not have to look into Terzi's eyes and remember all the broken dreams and hollowed hopes.

You'll never amount to anything. The words were not as sharp in memory as they had once been. It had been weeks since he had thought of her, Phaerl realized with a start as he stepped past the silk curtain leading into his chambers. There was so much to do here, so much to teach and to learn. An insistent clinking sound called him from his thoughts, he looked over his shoulder with a fond smile: "What's set you abuzz, Zeph?"

Phaerl could swear the great gold-and-purple wasp could understand his puns sometimes. She certainly seemed to react to them with the same exasperation as most other people.


The gleaming many-faceted eyed reflecting his visage a hundred times over lowered slightly as the wasp motioned with one razor-sharp appendage towards another flyer heading for the roof... a shadowy faintly draconic being snaking through the sky. Phaerl wandered what it wanted with him.

As it transpired the drake did not want anything for herself. Instead she was a messenger for the mistress of the Scholarum who wanted him to bring some of his scouts for more structured courses in sorcery in order to help train... "What the Hells is a Greenseer?"

"They are the priests of the Old Gods, the keepers of their sacred groves. Surely you have noticed the great tree that is thrust through the hill yonder like a titan's spear?" the dragon-kin asked with the pride so common of its ilk, great or small.

"I've never met any Old Gods," the Avariel scout pointed out. Nothing good ever came of meddling with the great powers, they always wanted more of you no matter how much you gave.

"It is all nature magic or so I have heard," the drake hissed. "The Pale Ones are meant for great things... great things indeed. All the best training they must have."

Phaerl was still dubious about the whole thing but he was loyal to his contract, taking wing with Zeph darting behind until he reached the plinth of the Shadow Tower. That place always gave him a chill, at once endless and constrained.

He found Wisdom Teana, or rather her arcane shade pouring over some notes, though no sooner had she spotted him that she sighed: "Finally... Could you tell me how many mages you trained and precisely what their powers are? The Legion does not keep accurate count of that, but His Grace likes to keep abreast of things."

"Fifteen in all..." He paused, feeling almost embarrassed to call them or even himself 'mages' in such a place before the gaze of the sorceress. "They just know some tricks."


"And I just throw shadows on the walls with great skill," she snorted. "You know when people call this the Island of Sorcerers it is not without cause. Were you to take wing to the lands west of here you would likely be the greatest mage in a hundred leagues. Your wasp probably knows more about sorcery than most people east and west do. You are not 'just a scout' of the Legion, but a sorcerer, under the authority of the Scholarum and with the privileges derived therein."

"That's why I'm here?" Phaerl guessed.

"In part. I really do want teachers in as many different traditions as possible working with the twins. It is not often that the gods deign to offer a blessing of learning." She did not say the words 'gods' warily, more matter-of-fact.

Maybe it would not hurt to get out a bit more. "Er, alright, I can see that. Are there any books I could study in preparation?"

As it turned out there were quite a lot of them. He would be spending almost as much time in the reading room as on the field. Strangely he found he did not mind.

OOC: Phaerl just came out of a nasty divorce and threw himself into his work in a way that was not entirely healthy, but he is doing better now. Hopefully the small character piece works to frame the report.