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

Twentieth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

"My deepest thanks for so gallant an offer, but I would rest easier knowing you and Yss both guard the Deep in our absence," you reply after but a moment's thought. Strange as the thought might be moments after the young god's ascension, you worry for his safety in the face of older, darker powers. "There is one thing I would ask you to look into, small perhaps but..." you sigh taking out the defiled thorn ring that you had also claimed in Gogossos along with the sword you had just sacrificed, perhaps the last that remains of heaven's roses. "Of all the powers I name friend to me and mine you alone remember it, however veiled. I thought perhaps you might be able to restore it in memory of beauty lost and hope for the future."

An unseen current like a spring breeze between your fingers lifts the ring and turns it around and around under the gaze of the feathered-serpent. "Devil's Work..." the words are sad, not angry, as ever they are when he speaks of Hell. "Their craft has at least the 'virtue' of precision, over that of other fiends. I might be able to mend this, but not alone, I would put too much of myself into the bloom. A task for my first Students in this new age." From the tone you suspect Student means something like 'priest' or perhaps 'disciple', though the word is chosen with care to avoid implications of lordship or control.

Speaking of priests and their shrines... "My realm has greatly benefited from your mere presence here in the Deep, to say nothing of the impetus you have given the academy. Whatever you may desire for a temple know that I am not one to lack in either gratitude nor the means to show it."

Zathir tilts his head, pondering the matter a long moment before replying: "Of old I did not have grand temples, for the works of mortal hands are best served to the betterment of their makers than my own. In a world with so many locked away from learning and study, their potential left to wither unknown even by themselves, I would rather raise schools than temples."

"Surely there is merit to one great school here in the Deep where you may teach your own students as Yss instructs his priests," Dany interjects reasonably. "A good education is based first and foremost on skilled educators."

"Sometimes I wonder where the little girl who would rather hear tales of adventure and magic than sit at her lessons went," you cannot help but ask in mock wonder.

"Very funny," she sniffs dramatically. "I'll have to ask mother about all the times you skimped on your lessons then."

"I will build this Temple School as you suggest, young Daenerys," Zathir proclaims, the the spark of amusement clear in his eye as he takes to the sky once more.

Building temples, however, is still a matter for the future, for Zathir wishes to seek out architects himself to patronize rather than ask for coin without even knowing the cost. Of more pressing concern are the messages coming in by brazier and messenger raven with every passing hour. It seems the rainbow heavens had not just been over Sorcerer's Deep, though they had lasted the longest here. At Castle Black they had lasted long enough for some of the more recent recruits to panic, at Pyke long enough for the Lord Regent to catch a glimpse of it out a window while the fleet in the Jade Sea had caught nothing but a flash.

While Diana and her sailors may not need much more than an assurance that the strange colors had not been the work of any foe and the people of your realm know Yss enough by reputation that you can trust the local authorities to spread the news, the leal lords of Westeros know less of magic and strange gods. Sending a single message to all would probably serve you well.

It is as you are dictating this later that you have an unexpected visitor enter your study, Xor, floating flow to the ground as is his wont when troubled. "We've been snared... er, that is we have hit a snare in Barrowtown," he explains tripping over the expression in his worry.

He goes on to explain that there are dark fey arising from the Great Barrow, and not just to perform the usual black mischief their kind are inclined to at their worst. They are seeking out victims with a purpose, mutilating them and collecting the parts which they then take down into the dark to awaken something, perhaps the First King, though they call him the Broken Lord. There the knowledge of their captives ended and there was nothing Xor and the others could find about the First King and why he might be a part of this grizzly work, they searched Barrow Hall's own library, they looked through the tomes in the Deep copied from the Wall, they even traveled as far as Castle Black in case there might be writings there that had been forgotten.

Yesterday Danar had even visited the Dreadfort, which earned him an offer of aid from Roose Bolton should there be any ancient dead to put to rest, partly due to the fact that Lady Dustin is the sister of his late wife and partly because in his own words 'the dead walking are the business of all the living'. Yet for all the grim proclamation the scrolls of the Dreadfort had not held any of the answers they sought. There was only one other place to look likely to hold accounts that old, Winterfell itself.

What to do you?

[] Allow Xor, Naria, Danar, Alysa and Sandor to go to Winterfell in search of answers

[] Go to Winterfell yourself
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: That was a lot of low rolls. Like I said earlier I was not really expecting this vote.