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

Eleventh Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

A fel wind blows at your back, the breath of the foulness strapped within, but for how long? The caretaker knows not, beyond the fear that it will escape soon. Time is as precious as diamonds, yet haste can still kill. You do not have time to fight your way to whatever spirit might control the last of the facility's defenses, but you must kill the puppet before you can face its master, you cannot afford to fight both at the same time. "Find him!" you toss the Wayfinder to Vrath, glad that the assassin is not one for superfluous questions, nor hesitation in the face of even so mighty a foe.

The eight of you are already moving long before Vrath is finished, the words of spellcraft mingling with hurried calculations the the caretaker's explanation as to the layout of the structure. Once it was a double spiral coiling around the central shaft where the Spirit of Oblivion is bound, but aeons of earthquakes and the slow wear of the river have turned the elegant construction into a warren of ad-hoc passages, secret ways, and traps both intended and accidental. Some of the most direct paths across the facility are only accessible to the slimes that still provide its defense as well as what little maintenance can still be done.

"The greatest dangers here beyond the bound horror are sand and water," the guardian finishes, its form seeming to flow and melt like water as it rushes over broken uneven stone. "Both can kill unexpectedly if the supports give out. As for traps and devices that could harm a company as strong as yours, the incinerator perhaps if you slipped into its maw, for most of you at least. The surviving trio of Steel Amphisbaena perhaps, but they are slow, and..."

"Eight-hundred-and-thirty-six feet by three-hundred-and-eighty-three," Vrath's words cut off your conversation, motioning with his hands to indicate the direction.

"The armory," your guide stops abruptly. "No sense in trying to tangle him in a corridor now, he will have gained control of the golems, including the earth-mover, likely thinking to smash his way into the shaft. That would take several hours, but even the tremors of beginning such an endeavor could bring significant portions of the city down upon our heads. The only place I would count safe would be the armory, the library, and the hatchery itself."

Though the word library sends a jolt of almost sensual pleasure down your spine, you keep the discussion to tactics. "Is the armory secured against translocation?"

"No," the caretaker replies with a shake of its head that sends already melting scales raining throughout the chamber. Moments later a low booming sound like the grinding of great teeth against stone echoes through the depths. The puppet wearing the face of General Teassh had begun its gambit.

What do you do?

[] Attack the enemy while it is still within the armory where you can bring your full numbers to bear
-[] Write in plan

[] Wait for some of the shaft to be dug so you can attack by stealth from behind
-[] Write in plan

[] Write in

OOC: The complex is laid out in a double helix pattern like a strand of DNA with the Oblivion's shaft running down the middle. There used to be connecting tunnels on every level, but that was a good five-thousand years ago before the river shifted and earthquakes almost wiped out the whole facility. It is thus a matter of sheer random chance if you can find a quick connection on foot or if you have to take a very circuitous one. Sadly you guys rolled a 12 on a d100 for that, so the puppet made it to the armory well before you. On the other hand since you know precisely where he is you can just teleport there.

So, small Omake, not fitting to the situation at all:

Priest and Princeling

Long, long ago...

It was said in the village of Greenfallow, where the Reach met the Riverland, that the old Sept had seen many a strange visitor over the years. The strangest of these stories is still told today sometimes.

In ages past, after the coming of the Andals, though long before the Dragon Kings ruled, there was a wise and pious Septon who was beloved by all the villagers. He listened well and gave good advise to those who asked him for it, his preaching skillful and ever did he advise to keep the peace with the Fey of the land, for they were wardens of the land and the river that the people lived upon. Even though the Fey rarely came close to the village, he was well-liked among them, too, for many who lived here were a gentle folk who did not enjoy having to scare the mortals away from the heart of their forest and preferred the Septon keeping his flock safe.

So when one day a Princeling of Star and Wood came by Greenfallow he was surprised and enraged to find a demon of heresy wearing the good priest's clothes and face, revealed to his sight beyond sight. Afraid of the Fey Prince's wrath, the demon told her story, of how she was send by her master against other Septons, the current disguise only a matter of convenience, with no thought spent on the harm she would do to the people here by killing a good man and committing more foul crimes under his seeming.

And the Princeling was disgusted with the demon, for she had turned what she touched for the worse, even just in passing, as her kind always did.

It would have been easy to smite the creature then and there, but the thought came to him. What if he could change the ever-same story, the ever-same end the child of the Abyss would live out?

So he offered her a bargain, a way to avoid death and her master's punishment for failing her mission—if she stayed in the skin of the dead Priest for a lifetime, giving guidance and help as he would have. Yet should she turn a single soul to evil in her disguise, should any man, women or child in Greenfallow fall to a Demon's thrall under her watch, she would forfeit life eternal and be undone by the Fey Prince's curse.

Lightly she accepted, for she thought she could wait a few months until her mission was accomplished and flee under her master's wings, where the princeling would have no power over her. Yet as she swore the Fey drew a token from his Queen, calling her as witness to the Oath, and the Demon knew she would never get away with breaking it, even not in the heart of the Abyss.

So she lived among the people and often she was invited to home and hearth, for many were thankful for the priest's wise guidance. And many opened their hearts to her, because they trusted the one they thought her to be.

In the beginning it was hard for her not to twist those hearts to her will, as she had ever done, but with the skill that let her infiltrate a hundred different temples and the wisdom found in millennia of existence she could pretend to be wise and good and even clad her advice in words the Seven-Pointed Star would support.

And over the years of wearing this mask her heart began to open to those she helped in word and deed.

Was this not more pleasant then the endless struggle among Fiends? More peaceful than her Lord's court? More fulfilling than the spread of chaos and destruction?

So she grew to love the village that loved the man she pretended to be, and as the lifetime drew to an end she did not leave the world, but rather went on a last pilgrimage, only to return in a new, young disguise and care for the people's souls and soothe their sorrows for another lifetime.

And when she sometimes took her true form in the dead of night she could see that her white eyes had turned to the soft brown the Septon's eyes once had.

On his throne in wooded halls the Princeling sometimes still smiles when turning his eyes towards Greenfallow, for he had helped create a story that was truly rare, of ancient malice becalmed by human friendship and openness.


An: Well, I wanted to write something about a Lilitu infiltrating the Faith of the Seven and took an extremely weird turn, with the actual infiltration and target of it being less than a sidestory.