From Shade's Lips
Ninth Day of the Second Month 294 AC
Anya shifted uneasily in her seat as she watched the red woman gently run her fingers along the rune-etched bone, communing with the shadow of which it was bound. She didn't look worried. Anya had come to the understanding that Melisandre of Asshai never looked like anything other than what she wished to be, but it was taking her longer to receive the report this time. The shadows must have made it into the aquifer.
Excitement and fear coiled in her stomach, ye they were closer, but closer to answers meant closer to danger. She had not forgotten the first devil she had faced and his accursed dolls. Anya had grown more skilled with sorcery and steel, and all the tasks of the inquisition, but she had no doubt hell had much worse to offer.
As though answering her thoughts, the priestess spoke, "They are building an army down there in the dark, with stolen lore, with their Lady's' 'Blessing'. The Unsullied are being empowered by the bones and the sacrifice of their long dead fellows."
"Sacrifice?" Anya asked, leaning forward in her chair and keenly conscious of the fact that she had just made it creak. Speaking to the Lady Melisandre was a lot like speaking to the king , except she was less approachable, less warm if that was something that could be said of one who reflected fire in every facet of her form. "I haven't heard of Unsullied being sacrificed to their goddess."
"Not whole no, but in part, in the very moment they become of the Unsullied, their manhood is burned before the altar of their patron. The affinity born of blood and pain and loss endures unto death and beyond. I am no flesh-smith, but to the best of my understanding those who are subjected to this ritual gain something of the skill and the strength of their predecessors, they become more and less than mortal, the idealized Unsullied if something so hideous can be said to aspire to an ideal."
She paused for a moment as though expecting a response, but Anya was still trying to work though the implications.
How strong were they, how many?
Before she could ask either question, the red priestess continued, "There is a certain almost pleasing irony in the Masters of Slaver's Bay being devoured by the very monster they have reared, I suppose, but their death would help the enemy of all overmuch. Thousands of Unsullied have already been reforged, how many thousands I cannot guess from whispered conversations and I do not think we can afford to assume it is only happening here in Yunkai..."
Again she paused, though this time with a look of surprise, almost of worry flashing over her features.
A fire bloomed in the center of the room, tongues of light, crimson and gold, and from that fire stumbled the two killers, Tuin and Morwin, the latter with an arrow sprouting from his shoulder, before the blaze died out, leaving not a singe on the Myrish carpets. A spell of
safe passage, Anya realized, though one that was generally only the province of gods, for it allowed the faithful to briefly stride through their patron's domain to escape peril.
"My thanks, lady," The wounded assassin said, somehow managing a bow while blood dripped down his arm and side.
"It was not my power, I am merely the emissary," the priestess replied as she pulled the arrow free. Into the uncomfortable silence that followed, she added, "Gratitude is not faith, it is not even prayer, I thought I would offer the option for it."
"Fairly said," Tuin replied as the priestess healed his bother, though he committed to nothing behind the smooth smile. "We were able to find eight furies, a cabal of
Amnizu, the mind thieves, three devils strong and one of the clawed fingers upon the hand of Asmodeous, the
Ashmede. It was the last who spotted that there was something miss, though he could hardly guess what we were."
"All the more so as you escaped by the grace of R'hlor, the dragon king would not be the first suspected of this..."
"So then the judgement devil must be lord over the others," Morwin took up his bother's tale as he made himself comfortable on one of the study's guest chairs.
"No," Anya shook her head, a Scholarum lecture she had not thought about in what seemed like years. "Erinyes and Ashmede, warriors and executioners, do not often find common ground. There has to be someone with authority over both."
"Indeed," the priestess confirms, "We have not yet seen the true face of our foe, though to judge from the ones it counts servants they will not lightly be uprooted."
What next?
[] Shift attention to Meereen, to allow the heat to die down in Yunkai after the drow brothers close escape
-[] Try to find some of the altered Unsullied
-[] Try to find more trade connections ensnared by Baator, if they are trading in bonemeal they might be moving other things between the cities
-[] Follow up leads among the nobility from previous months to see how deep the rot goes there
-[] Write in
[] Press the attack in Yunkai
-[] Attack the aquifer, while it is unlikely to be the only place Unsullied are enhanced, one less such place can only be good
-[] Attack the temple, see what bites
-[] Write in
OOC: If you guys choose attack, it will happen after the battles people were already in this month, with the level ups, but without the certainty that they will survive it.