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

Fifteenth Day of the Second Month 294 AC

Sorcerer's Deep, Stepstones

"That will be all for today," princess Daenerys said to the sand speaker as the brazier's magic faded, giving him an encouraging smile. He was new on the job and thus unused to being party to a conversation between royals, but ultimately he would get used to it.

It just made sense to use braziers like this to talk to the army. She wasn't going to drag the brazier into some other room just for a bit of smalltalk, and confirmation that things were doing well on the march to Gornath since the rat attacks had been pushed back. Not that they could expect that to continue indefinitely given the foes arrayed against them, but every day the armies could march in peace was one day closer to putting an end to the madness of Sarnor and building something better for those who were still willing to live in peace.

For herself, however, the day would be filled with the artifacts of a people far older still, and she suspected far more dangerous. Dany had a staff to break and hopefully a soul to wake.


Arranging a ritual room was always something to be done with utmost care, from drawing lines of molten silver into the ceiling in the likeness of constellations of far off Sothoryos, to making sure all the dead man's candles burned with an even flame, and ensuring the bone dust was laid out properly... Don't sneeze, Dany, that's three days of work to start over. Thankfully, she did manage to hold it in, mentally adding 'sneeze-proofing spell' to her mental list of quality of life enhancements.

A loud knock resounded at the door, which was rather surprising given which door it was, then another along with the unmistakable sound of claws digging into the heavy ebony. That explained it. "Come in, Ysandryx. Carefully, though, I'm working with Deep Magic." A dragon, even one so young as the blue, would instinctively know the power and the danger embodied in those two words.

To Dany's surprise, it was not just the dragon who swept in on cerulean wings. Ysilla was on her heels and behind her Walda Frey in her initiate robes, though she did not have any regular classes in the evening. She had worn them to make some kind of point, like...

"We're here to watch," the auburn haired girl said cheerfully.

That.... Dany tried not to smile, she truly did, but this was so like something she might have done when she was younger that she could not help feeling nostalgic. It was probably one of Ysandryx's ideas. As bold as Ysi could be, ritual magic was not among her usual interests.

"The ritual magic lectures are dry as dust and Headmistress Teana does say you learn more by watching someone practice than by hearing about it second or third hand," the young Frey sorceress continued.

"And I would much like to see this dark dweller whose life and lore is so precious that she deserves incarnation from her prison of wood," the dragon added.

"And you...?" Dany trailed off, looking at Ysi.

"Well I'm training to be an inquisitor, aren't I? That's what we do, inquire," she shrugs "Curious to see what has you burying yourself in the library and napping in the middle of the day."

Truth be told, Dany rather objected to having her ad hoc dream-walking called 'napping', but she could not quite dispute the accuracy of the term when seen from the outside. "Alright, everyone stay back. Don't touch the magic and don't talk to her once she wakes, and Walda, I'm going to have to read you in on a secret."

"Already did," Ysilla chimed in. The small nod confirmed that it was just the basics about that Morwyn and Tuin were, not really a state secret, just something that would be best kept out of he front page of the Imperial Times or inquiries by the Voices. Walda's position covered that as long as someone with minor inquisitorial clearance or above vouched for her, and both Ysilla and Ysandryx counted.

"Alright then," Dany nodded with a smile that she suspected some might find a little too wide. "Watch this...."

The staff was held up between two slim Valyrian Steel supports ending in grips crafted from the finger bones of sacrifices threaded with silver wire. To a mage's inner eye opened to the fullest, it hummed with darkness and power gathered over the past seven days, almost more than the wood could hold. It was, she suspected, painful for the soul fragment trapped within. Not that it minded the sacrifice. It... she wanted out at any cost.

In fact, the princess suspected that had she been a demon offering a way out, the mind bound within would have accepted a bargain with her. She might even have been more comfortable with a denizen of the Abyss than 'a dragon pretending to be hairless ape' as she had eventually come to see Dany. That part she did not share with her audience.

Instead, she carefully opened one of the cupboards built into the walls of the room and took out the final 'reagent' needed for the ritual, a hollow body of the deep folk, the drow, grown on the basis of Tuin's blood. 'About as distinct in heritage as a cousin,' Qyburn had called it. Though it was technically alive and warm under her hands, it was a hollow thing, intentionally absent any mind or will that might interfere with the possession.

After maneuvering the body under the silver circle with the line of the staff above its heart, Dany quickly adjusted the black silk robe to lie more neatly.

"Aren't you a bit old to be playing with dolls?" Ysilla jested, earning an amused hiss from the dragon, though Walda didn't say anything.

She did look a bit green. I'll have to talk to her when this is over to explain some things, Dany resolved even as she raised an eyebrow to Ysi and countered. "You are only ever as old as you feel yourself to be."

With one final look to ensure everything was in alignment, she raised the adamant hammer enchanted for just this one ritual, with twinned sigils of breaking and of life, and struck the staff with all of the strength her magic allowed her to borrow.

A scream sharp enough to be painful echoed in the air and the mind until one bled into the other in a single note of agony, then an uneven breath and another. Crimson eyes opened for the first time to behold a world very unlike the ones the mind behind them had left.

In Hatred Ancient, a Soul Restored Complete 18/15


For a moment the woman did not rise to her feet, merely glancing about the chamber from Dany to Ysi, to Walda, and then to Ysandrys, craning her neck curiously to get a better look over the girls' shoulders. "Ah, I see you have brought your cabal to witness so momentous a deed," she said at last, her accent managing to make the tongue of the Pit almost courteous. "Tell me then, what need have you for this Fateweaver tangled in the threads of time?"

What does Dany reply?

[] Aid in the ruin of Lolth who abandoned you

[] Knowledge and sorcery lost to the ages

[] Wisdom and power in laying the foundation of a new age

[] Write in

OOC: Given that it is going to be days to Gornath I figured this might be a good place for the drow interlude. It also frees up Dany to go with the army which IC she would like to do so she would focus on getting the monthly project done. Not yet edited.