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

Twenty-Sixth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

Before departing the tailor's shop you search it from the dank basement to the narrow attic with the pungent evidence of a small colony of bats, looking for any sign of magic or the true Hogart. In the kitchen above the hearth you find a small shine of Ymeri hidden behind a lead-lined opening. Ordinarily you would take the implements of charred bone and flame-blacked iron to be manifest proof of her influence, but given the surprises you already had today you divine their origin. Pig bone, the red stains soaked into the back corner of the room where the light does not shine are evidence of no crime worse than hog-slaying as well.

"One must admit our enemy was quite thorough in his plots," you muse aloud as you divest the ritual items into your cloak on the off chance even such props might help you find the answer. Walking into the bedroom you pick out a few grey hairs from the pillow to deliver to the Inquisition along with a brief report once the more urgent threat has been averted.

"Whichever Inquisitor gets a note in your hand might be a touch discomfited, Your Grace," Rina notes when you explain your purpose.

A faint blush steals its way across Rina's cheeks. She still sees the crown before she sees you, the offhand reminder of the life you lived before you took it leaving her ill at ease. Yet she does not allow the awkward moment to linger, willing herself to smile. "Then you might leave them wondering just who Corlys is. Who knows how long they will search."

"I'll mark the ones who do for their skill and perseverance," you reply firmly, closing the door of the tailor's shop.


Twenty-Seventh Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

Ser Richard takes the news that you had fought in his absence again with a sigh and to judge from the not-quite inaudible grumbling a renewed conviction not to trust any spell as keeper of unvarnished truth. By contrast Malarys reacts with very deliberate calm, the mark of a trained investigator receiving a new lead, needing to set aside certain theories and alter others. Only the slight tightness around his eyes hints at the fact that he might be looking forward to interrogating your prisoner, but he agrees that it would be wiser to try and find out just what you had captured before unsealing the ember prison.

Thus the mage-lanterns are doused, the flames in the fireplace doused, and before the cold ashes you call forth the Orphne Lord, a king no more, but still master of shadows.

Twelve minutes expire past the chine of the twelfth hour of the night when he steps in, his dark gaze fixed from the start onto the tiny amber prison. "Where did you obtain that, Your Grace?" he asks, an odd mingling of disgust and what might almost be pity in his tone.

Though impatient for answers yourself you recount what little you know and the most likely of your guesses.

The former Orphne King listens intently, speaking not a word until your tale had run its course. "It was fortunate that you were not tricked into raising one of the Nameless into lordship, for I have little doubt that is what he sought. Ill it would have been then for mortals and spirits both."

"Nameless?" you ask. How does a Fey lose their name that they so jealously guard? you wonder.

"The existence of the Nameless is in the roots of all magic, but like most things so buried it does not easily come to light," he replies softly. "Consider, Your Grace, what would happen if you were to build a door so cunningly enchanted that it would be opened only by a single key, no other power great or small... and then you broke the key beyond all power to restore."

"The door would open," you answer at once, for on this the lessons of eldest dreams and the magecraft of Valyria are in accordance. "No spell is beyond breaking, no power in magic absolute."

"Precisely, no spell, no binding, no oath," the Lord of the Dark Fey continues, the words scarce more than a whisper. "Mortals oft call us sly or even wicked for fulfilling our word to the letter, though not to what you imagine its spirit to be. Were they to know the consequences of managing to simply break it they would not be so quick to judge. To deny our oaths is to deny our Name and most often our lives also, but magic is a fickle thing. Once in a great while, for what is already the height of madness, one of the Fey kindred will lose his name but not his power. Where once such a one could not break his word he would then be compelled to speak only lies, and great would be their skill in the telling, with with word, with spell, even the cold bones would lie. No honest love could they confess, no sincere fellowship enter. If a Fey spirit could be thought damned than it is they for certain."

Silence falls heavy upon the chamber and lingers uncomfortably in the shadowed hall. You had expected a hint that 'Dewchaser' might serve the Court of Stars, not an accounting of this Fey... malady. Still, whatever else the Sprite was he had presented an insidious danger. "How common is this denial of self and Name?"

"I am not a mortal of the Iron Bank to give out numbers sharp enough to cut like steel," the Fey Lord replies. "What I can say is that in all my years of existence this is only the second Nameless I have seen."

What do you do next?

[] Ask more questions of the Fey Lord
-[] Write in

[] Interrogate the prisoner
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Well here we are, half the answer to how our friend the Sprite managed his tricks.