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

Twentieth Day of the First Month 294 AC

You set down the report with a sigh, three more Wyvens gone, having taken more than their fair share of foes with them true, but the fact that the Efreeti commander escaped is one more reminder that you will not be running out of foes anytime soon. Ser Richard reads your mood almost as fast as you had read the piece of rice paper. "Who died?"

By way of answer you hand him the report to go over, ignoring the surprised looks from Danar and Alyssa. You had not exactly invited the two of them to your solar, then again you had not exactly not invited them either, and Danar had been curious enough to follow along after returning from the Arbor for dinner. His wife, you suspect, had followed along to keep him out of trouble.

"They died well and bravely," the knight said simply. "I know I'd rather take my chances with sword in hand than in a box of steel and quicksilver workings."

"A sentiment to which your sword no doubt agrees," you offer with a smile before noting down a quick response to the Djinn admiralty that you you would wish to look into this 'grey veil'. Perhaps it is just local curiosity not applicable to the wider workings of war, but if it is not so limited, it might be of utmost importance to share with both your allies.

Research is one place where the weight of arms matters little compared to the sharpness of singular scholars supported by the new but still growing Scholarum.


Turning your eyes to more earthly matters, the Lord who seems to you the most likely among the Reachers to pledge to your cause without too many unexpected hurdles is Armond Costayne of Three Towers. He supposedly has a reputation as being hospitable and niggardly all at once, and according to Lord Ashford he had taken the aid of the Court of Stars not to patrol his land for monsters, but to train wizards in his service, loyal first and foremost to him not the Star-Crowned Queen. Not only is that admirable caution but a sentiment you can work with. After all, the Scholarum is far more answerable to the law of the realm and the troubles of its lords than the Court of Stars in its remote fastness.

"What's wrong with cabbage?" Danar asks as you give your account of the man and his circumstances. "You said he has a poor reputation for feeding his guests cabbage, but it seems fine enough fare to me, lasts the winter too. Something to do with the Southern Gods?"

"Just the south in general. The Reach is a land rich in crops," Alyssa points out. "Lords are judged by the quality of their table and not just at feast time."

"Wiser to judge them by the depths of their stores. Any fool can lay out all his finest foods for folk to feast on when times are good." the bard says. That he abstains from any further comment on the wisdom or lack thereof of southern Lords only accounts for your own presence, you suspect.


Twenty First Day of the First Month 294 AC

As fate would have it, the son of Skagos and the tall cadaverous lord of Three Towers have more in common then their thoughts on what constitutes appropriate fair for guests at one's door. Having sent him ahead so as not to show your hand too soon to any fey who might be serving in the lord's keep by revealing your own presence, you find Lord Armond half convinced to swear to you by the time you meet him in the back room of a local tavern.

"I know what's coming, the winter of a kind none alive have seen, the fish-men rising, damn fools meddling with devils and their ilk," you suspect the lord just barely stops himself from spitting because Zavaenia had chosen to take human form for this conversation. "We'll need someone at the tiller better than Mace Tyrell with his mother whispering in his ear at every turn. Nothing against Olenna Redwyne, but she's old and stuck in her ways. Nothing against her son either, but he's an idiot."

The Lord of Three Towers managed to deliver the last insult in exactly the same weary tone as the rest of his ramble that has you nodding along thoughtfully right up until it registers and you have to stifle a laugh. If nothing else, the dinner conversation is likely to be better than the fare.

"Not as much of an idiot as he likes to pretend to be mind, but still enough of a one to be getting on with," he continues in like tone with only the slight twitch of his pale lips to mark that he had noticed your reaction, or Zavaenia's far less restrained giggling. "Now I have a pledge from the fey to train up thirty three sorcerers for my service pledged to me and not them, I realize you can't pull thirty three sorcerers out of that cloak of yours no matter what the stories say, but I could do with folk to find magic trouble and fix it before I have a whole village shrink down to half normal size and turn into cannibals. Something subtle enough that I don't have fey and king knowing me a dragon man for now, the more afterwards the better."

What do you offer to the Lord of Three Towers for his pledge?

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OOC: It's been a long time since we've heard anything from Viserys, but by the same token I know most people do not want to sit through the same old dance of getting this or that lord to the point of naming his price, so I rolled right through that. After all you did have Danar with you and he was a good fit for the job on top of not really having the chance to shine socially in Viserys' service before.