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

Eighteenth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

To say Lord Justice Malarys Vanor was merely displeased by the report he was hearing from the frost-touched girl who stood before him in the inquisitorial apartments in Lys would be critically understating the case, though one might be forgiven for not noticing the fact. Long and often painful expediences honing his craft in the courts of the Freehold taught him that showing anger, true anger in the exercise of his function, was at best distracting and at worst another weapon for one's opponent to grasp. "The Lyseni sold the rights to enact this 'Goblin Market' in the city for a hundred years and a day for sweet lies and barely magical baubles, and then they were all somehow lost in the chaos of the palace coup beyond even the knowledge of the dead to tell?"

"Yes, Lord Vanor, I tried speaking to the bones of the former archon, his family, even his valet, but..." she began, her voice trembling ever so slightly.

Perhaps I have not been as skilled in hiding my frustration as I thought, the mage lord thought. "Malarys," he interjected.

"Pardon?" the girl asked startled.

"We are both here as personal agents of the King, our skill in sorcery separated by the thinnest of margins, there is no reason to waste your breath and more importantly your attention upon ceremony." Such informality ran against his instincts, but he had seen it work and when one's instincts were contradicted by reality the latter must take precedence. "Moreover, your diffidence could easily lead others to a mistaken impression of your authority." Like when you walked into the Goblin Market for the first time without any support besides a disreputable old pirate because the Lys office of the Inquisition did not prioritize the action, he thought but did not say. Chastising her would harm more rather than help.

However, she seemed to hear the implication regardless. Taking a fortifying sip of tea she asked, "They can't really help that much with this anyway, can they? That is why the King sent us and the Harbinger, and I could not take him out when I took the lay of the land without declaring the intention to take the market by force then and there."

"In a sense, yes, I do not expect ordinary agents to be involved in any battles, nor to directly negotiate with greater fey, however being seen with an entourage has its advantages with fey perhaps more so then with mortals, bound as they are to play by a script in tales writ." the mage priest fell comfortably into a more didactic tone, though careful not to slip into condescension. That Rina Cox had a strong will and the pride that went with it could not be doubted given her history, it was only a matter of getting her to show more of it outside of life and death battle.

"I don't like risking people like that on my word..." she sighed. "That is a very silly thing to say, isn't it? They were expecting risks when they became investigators of the Inquisition."

"I would not say silly," Malarys words were soft but firm. "A child's fears are silly and it was not a child who wrote all of this..." he motioned to the reports in front of him, attesting everything from the frequency of the market's opening, the commonalities of passage locations, to the unfortunate fact that 'the Goblin Market' was not even a place one could claim with armed force, but more a state of mind for all the local fey built upon a fool's covenant that they would now have to undo or change to gain control of the exchange. "Your fears are understandable then given that by Westerosi custom you were never expected to hold true authority..."

"You said the word 'custom' like it's a curse," the young sorceress interrupted him unexpectedly.

"In a sense it is," the Lord Justice shrugged. "You were cursed by your upbringing to not trust yourself in commanding others, just as say a Dothraki warrior was cursed with an aversion to wearing armor in defiance of all sense. Habit all of its own without a spark of sorcery to it can have a frightful power."

"So I am not so much a child as a savage, Malarys?" Rina asked deliberately, leaving the mage priest scrambling for an answer, at least until he noticed she was smiling.

Ignoring the question he shuffled the parchments before him. "I think you should work with the local office of the Inquisition in collecting further testimonies from both present and former palace staff, seeking the tokens as well as others like this Rial who have experience in the making of fey bargains. An archway may be built of many stones but there can be only one keystone, if we can find whoever made the initial bargain with the city's mortal authorities we might get a hint as to where the tokens might have vanished to."

OOC: And this is how Malarys added a low-key desire to strangle Lord Cox to his much more urgent need to do list, the same to the dead Lyseni magisters who sold the right to form the Goblin Market in the city.