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

Seventh Day of the First Month 294 AC

"Weighty thoughts indeed that you have lain upon my mind, my lady," you muse, considering all she had revealed. Far sooner would you dare the depths of Sothoryos than walk of the path of Asshai's long ago builders, but still you are curious as to the latter. What other secrets wait in those shadowed halls hoarded as sure most dragons hoard gold?

"A fair exchange then considering all you you have left me pondering," she replies, the mask of long practice once more affixed upon her features though not perhaps as tightly as it had been when you entered.

"For now we aught to perhaps concern ourselves with a return to the keep and the rewards for a victory hard fought," you continue. "Gold and enchantment I can both offer, though with the latter I need first to know what spells you already bear. One at least I can guess from your imperiousness to mage-sight and others I have seen you wield, but gifts informed by guesswork make for poor giving."

"I am certain if you asked the captain of this ship she would say it makes for excellent entertainment..." Again the fleeting smile as her right hand reaches for the pendant at her throat, light spilling softly between her fingers.

And so she speaks and you listen, of long ago trails and quests to test mind and soul, of decades spent carefully weaving dreams of lost innocence into threads of shadow, of walking the broken streets of Sarnor in search of a relic that would allow her to freely drink the poisoned water of the Ash River, one test among many to learn the deeper mysteries of shadowbinding.

You can read the lingering anger in Melisandre's eyes burned down to a single ember, but never quite extinguished when she recounts the tale of an elderly priest of the Red God from whom she had learned much of healing and herbcraft slain in the end by a cruel master. "He knew no magic though he gifted me some with his dying breath, but after his passing I reminded his killer that fire too is the God's domain."

Her belt too is enchanted though it does not seem it at first sight, an answer to a challenge that one could not both walk in shadow and wield the Light of R'hllor. It was answered in full by the god's own blessing, though it seems a small thing beside the power of the ruby she holds as she speaks. A gift of the god himself given in the broken lands of Valyria where the Eternal Furnace burns close.

"Why the Last Ember?" you ask, considering the gem you now know rather than merely suspect to be the most powerful token of a god's favor you have ever laid eyes on.

"Because He said if all the world were to fall to darkness eternal beyond any hope of dawn it would be the last fire to go out," she answers simply.


For a long moment somber silence falls as you contemplate the weight those words must have placed upon the shoulders of the woman before you. Guessing your thoughts she adds: "That which could be last might also be first if light should triumph and dawn come again all the brighter." She shakes her head. "On to the concerns of the present that we may one day see that future. I confess I am interested in other enchantments to aid me upon the path, though I would not empty the treasury nor trouble your enchanters over much on my account. I am better prepared for the trials ahead than most."

What do you offer Melisandre in terms of equipment?

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OOC: The only thing up there that is a normal enchantment or close to it is the Tarnished Seal, everything else works for properly Melisandre and less so or not at all for everyone else. Because they are so personalized adding enchantments to them would take a minor research project. The Last Ember obviously would visit an agonizing fiery death upon anyone else who tried to make use of its powers and cannot be enchanted further by mortal hands.