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

Eighteenth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

The Ash Bloods were skilled at their trade. Thugs and cutpurses slipped in unseen through the back door and tore apart the shop looking for valuables like a swarm of locusts, that is if locusts had an almost reverential respect for anything that could be fenced for a profit. Silk curtains were drawn from their hooks without tearing the fabric and paintings taken off the walls with utmost care, even the jeweled hookah was taken off the shelf with barely a clink of glass and brass, though many of the bulkier pieces would have been harder to slip out of the shop without Bronn and Sarell's magic bags.

Fortunately, Agha did not hesitate more than a moment when Maelor made the offer. While it wasn't always true that there was no honor among thieves, when you were talking about people who were thrown together for one big heist, 'twas near enough Snake's own truth, but they weren't out of the shop yet, nor quite out of danger. One over eager sneak set off some kind of trap that cut off two of his fingers and poisoned the wound in the bargain. Once Maelor had read the cure to that off a scroll, most of the Bloods stopped eyeing him with suspicion. Sariq, if anything, regarded him with more of it.

Clever fellow, the young sorcerer thought. If I meant to sell them out the first thing I'd do is try to make them get their guard down. Of course he wasn't trying to betray them, unless you counted intending to let them take the fall if the Dervishes investigated the break in too closely, but that was just the normal price of doing business with strangers.

"Find anything good?" he asked Sarel, seeing the Baatezu checking the Fakir's body with skill that spoke of practice. He supposed devils weren't above looting stuff in the Blood War. That was how they became devils to begin with, the voice in his shadow whispered the one that spoke with memories of the Pit. They looted more than trinkets.

"The robes are worthy of a battle mage. I recognize the make," The fury replied, motioning to the objects one by one. "The ring must be of some worth, for one would not forge living fire thus for a trinket and the bracers are of fine enough crafting."

"What about this? Not worth talking?" Maelor ran his fingers though the talismans and rings of more common crafting. They held simple enchantments of warding and good fortune, and one very ugly knife that he couldn't imagine way anyone would enchant, much less why the fastidious Fakir of Fortune might be bearing it. Curious, the boy picked it up and whispered into its shadow, reminding it of the hand which last bore it. Better... but not as good as it could have been, he didn't have the craft, to use it fully.

"We shall be taking this one too," he proclaimed, then glancing back at Agha and his crew he added playing up the haughty mage. "Paying half again, do not concern yourself."


Alas, that the merchant proved otherwise as miserly as rumors told. No other work of magic within the shop proved worth taking, and the four Ifrit slaves who had fled to the upper floors were shaking in their boots at the thugs that had invaded the shop and killed their master. Maelor did not have to feign the look of disdain upon his glamoured features when he realized they would just wait here to be disposed like old pots and carpets.

The boy sighed. It was either convince them to run or slit their throats and he would really rather avoid killing them. He talked to them to freedom in his service, of how he was a great mage who could by bribe and trickery slip them from the City of Brass and and into gentler realms where they could serve him in peace. Unfortunetly they did not have anything to offer him so they would not belive sweet words even when leavened with demonic charm.

Then one of them abruptly proclaims, to the horror of his fellows: "I know where the master kept the Wyrd lanterns!"

Maelor nodded imperiously: "Show me," he commanded, though he had no notion of what a 'Wyrd Lantern' might be.

The slave approached a wall that seemed bare stone without a seam or sorcery that either Maelor or Sarel could see and explaiend: "Behind here, there is a hidden compartment. I could not hear the master speak the spell of opening..." His voice shook, obviously thinking that his service would be judged lacking.

Without a word, the fury drew her adamantine sword and ignoring the cringing ifrit, struck the stone, carving into it as steel carves into wood. A flash of some warding spell, too quick for Maelor to guess at its purpose, passed over her, but she shed it without harm, revealing among the rubble three lantern bright with blue green flame and in those flames storm spirits danced, as ethereal as specters. How did the lanterns hold them, the sorcerer wondered.


"Can you speak to them through that?" he silently asked the Fury.

"Yes, they long for the freedom of the Endless Sky, but perhaps they might be persuaded seek other realms..." the thought trailed off in uncharacteristic doubt. "Their minds are strange and without language, difficult to parse."

"Then let's not do it in the middle of a robbery," he replied taking the lanterns and handing them to Bronn. "We will be taking those, too."

So they passed from the shop and into the streets, no one the wiser for their theft for now at least.


OOC: You did not roll well enough on loot to get any relevant magic items besides the Fakir's Gear, but you got some interesting creatures to poke, assuming you can diplomance them. Not yet edited.