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

Second Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

"I had feared something of the sort," Benerro sighs after you and your company are seated in his private chambers, as plain and unadorned as ever but even more thickly warded, like a snail's shell built layer upon layer by diligent hands. "It was not an easy thing to erect the wards, nor without cost. The Lord of Light would not have demanded such lightly."

"What...?" Rina hesitates, unsure of how to ask the question, or even address the sorcerer-priest who seems so kindly yet even the proud Archon of Volantis greeted as a near-equal.

"The bindings around the Flame of Ymeri required blood sacrifices," Zherys explains calmly. "Criminals that would have been drawn and quartered in any case. In empowering the ritual, they at least served a greater purpose than to entertain the mob for a few brief moments."

"What were their crimes?" you probe, not from any intent to punish the deed, but it would serve as another measure for High Speaker and Flamer Keeper both, men of great power and influence in the city new-come under your banner.

"Ones that would have earned them a hanging under the laws you have set in place," the priest replies, his voice more sad than angry. "May they learn to forgive themselves as the Lord of Light forgives and step into the next life purified by flame."

It is on that somber note that the six of your leave the temple and head out onto the streets of Old Volantis, for once making no attempt to veil your passage or by glamour hide your true identity and purpose. Seeing the new lord of the city, the old lord and still governor, and the most respected of the Red Priests stride out together to snuff out the fire that has smoldered at the heart of the city for so long should go farther than mere words to assure the people of the peace and prosperity to come.

Assuming of course you actually win... The thought sends an unpleasant lurching to your stomach, like missing a step going down a flight of stairs in a rush. Even with all that you have learned and all the power you can now call upon this will not be a battle easily won, all the more so for taking part surrounded by the teaming streets of the Old City... "Wisdom, could we clear a few streets and the buildings nearby without causing panic?" you ask.

Zherys stops, staff tapping thoughtfully upon the smooth stone. "Most of the nearby mansions have been either left empty since the Day of Awakening or been given over to the stewardship of distant branches of the families whose desire to dwell in splendor in the Queen of Cities outweighed their fear of smoldering sorcery. A few of the more diligent stewards might protest leaving their charges, but they would not dare do so long,"

So saying the High Speaker draws from this voluminous robes a token of polished silver that seems at first sight a coin, but from the gleam of magic you suspect it to be more akin to the sending stones you bought from the Djinn, though wrought in a more inconspicuous form. "It will be done before we reach the ward-line..." Glancing around at the gathering crowds of onlookers, many of whom had given up all pretense of doing aught but staring, he sighs. "Likely long before."

The prediction is proven false however as the crowds hastily draw aside with your passage and thin out altogether as you turn upon the Street of Black Roses, renamed the Street of Black Bones by some after the Great Fire in a fit of black humor, close kin to weeping. There at last you see it, tall marble walls once gleaming in the sun now forever stained with soot, browned with iron spikes half the height of a man that come to deadly points. Waxen seals and graven images of Azor Ahai favored by the priests of the Lord of Light stand vidvil upon every third spike, eyed turned inwards while charms of clinking bone sway in the wind above the only gate.

"More sacrifices?" Rina asks almost in spite of herself.

"No," Teana's voice is distant. "The bones of those consumed by the Day of Awakening, those few who left any bones to gather at least. Though their spirits do not linger here, something of their will has been woven into the spell the Mysterium worked to keep in the the tainted flame." Do the bones of her kin rattle in the wind here? you wonder, wishing you could offer some comfort. Alas, there is none left to be found here unless it be the comfort of vengeance upon those who wrought it.

"Alright, no sense lingering," you proclaim.

Zherys steps to the right of the gate and Benerro to the left, and as one the ornate staff of the Archon of Volantis and the simple walking stick of the Flame Keeper of the Lord of Light strike the stone of the road and intone a Verse of Opening as old as the Freehold. There is no fire and no light to see with the eyes of flesh, but to the inner sight they glow with baleful spell-fire divine and arcane, like wishcraft woven from a thousand lesser strands.

The gates creak open to reveal a garden of ash and embers, and at the end of a long winding path a broken door filled with ugly brownish-orange light. The sickening smell of cooked meat wafts over all.

How do you advance?

[] Take the lead, you are the least likely to be harmed by fire, whatever its nature

[] Let Ser Richard step out first, that he might reflect any curse cast from ambush

[] Let Benerro step forth, the powers of a priest would be a boon against any of the lingering dead

[] Write in

OOC: I know you guys are going to do a write-in, but I felt the above vote options help encapsulate who is inclined to go first. Zherys specifically is not, as a mage he would rather be at the back. Also, could someone link me Zherys' sheet, I'm going to need it soon.