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

Twenty Fifth Day of the Third Month 294 AC

Arthur Reeves wasn't one at all for highfalutin about, hobnobbing with Magisters, trade magnates and nobles. Yet increasingly he found that his position required an unfortunate amount of mixing with throngs of high society's "best". Typically he could beg off meeting with those with noses so brown you could see the shit, but he was on the rolls for the Purse Club for Gods know what reason. Ah yes, he thought, that'd be why.

For you see, Arthur hadn't sported the sobriquet 'Dog of Justice' for no reason, nor something to pen after his given name until it became important for official documents that he be more easily differentiated from the dozen other Arthurs in the force. Though the Greycloaks of the current day were different than they were than when the Dragon came to the Deep, a beat serjeant had shimmied his way up the ranks somehow, until he'd been found serving as one of Ser Gerold's adjutants, now Lord Torchwood, or General Torchwood, depending on who you'd asked, and eventually Lawman.

He'd done just about everything, from thief catching to gaoling and commanding watches for the checkpoints in the early days when port authorities were more whoever could hold a quill steady rather than scribes and clerks, customs officials donning the uniforms of the Bureau of Trade.

The only reason he'd ended up as the damned Lawman after years running a gang was due to his stint as an investigator, now called Detectives, to better differentiate them from their ironically named counterparts in the Inquisition, who, he was privy to know, often counted among their number some of the people he'd been charged with putting away. Not that he upturned his nose at a criminal going legitimate or anything of the sort.

He wasn't a hypocrite.

Finally begging off yet more invitations from his so-called 'peers', he had the opportunity to catch up on his greatest enemy yet--paperwork. At least until the Whisper came over that some Spicer had gone and gotten himself splashed all over his city manse. He rushed over, having wanted to keep apprised of the situation when he learned it might be linked to a far greater, endemic issue.

"What have you got for me, Pyke?" The serjeant fell into step with Arthur as rain sluiced away from his shoulders and off his oiled cloak, even as the cordoned off villa on the edge of the city was currently being surrounded by yet more Greycloaks, their tell-tale arrival heralded by tinted witch-fire lanterns, warning off any gawkers.

Not for the last time the contrast between the New Force and the Old Guard was readily apparent. The men on the streets were straight-laced, former men-at-arms from the Reach and Vale who had better comportment than the odd Crownlander or Narrow Sea islander who typically made up the Westerosi segment of the Watch over a year ago. Or else second and third sons from merchants and guildsmen who were looking to spread their wings a bit and had the education to make the cut, if not always the physical fitness, which could be trained. He supposed these days training illiterate men or women to read and write wasn't as great at raising eyebrows as it used to be, though.

They rigidly adhered to the manuals sent down the line from the Lord Justice's office, until the Courts had been more firmly established and the local administration had grown in complexity to account for the fact that this wasn't a town with barely ten thousand people to its name, but instead a bustling metropolis with over two hundred thousand souls. And growing. Fast, almost too fast. They had a program to churn out men and boys and the occasional young woman who could meet minimum standards, people who took greater care to tidy their laces and shine their shoes brighter than his men ever used to concern themselves with. Hence, 'Shiny'.

"Two dead, one in the privy. Entrails hung all over. Must've been some real bad blood." Tally Pyke had a thick moustache and a twice-broken nose, and for a former raider cleaned up fairly well. But he was no Shiny.

"You got them sealed up?"

"Jarred and labeled for the diviners." Tally replied promptly.

"Good lad. Show me the stiff."

And speaking of Shiny, they were scrupulous, oh so diligent, all to the exacting specifications of the Mage Lord the King had gone and press-ganged into being his chief Justice, from what he'd heard. Men swaddled in Greycloaks and tall boots squelched over bloodstained floors, one with a clipboard carefully documenting everything in sight.

Frankly, Arthur didn't know what to think, sending most of the old lot to the King's flock of spooks and spies, and leaving him and a core of... interpretive thrill-seekers to tidy up a mess the Shinies couldn't blow a whistle to ward away.

The body of the villa's owner was... odd. All the gore had been cleaned up, the ragged sheet over the torso letting the nude man retain what little dignity they had left. Tally lifted the sheet so Arthur could get a brief eye full. "They been through here?" Arthur queried, to which Tally nodded. The man looked like a neat section of his chest had been scooped out, leave him oddly proportioned under the sheet. "Tell me about him."

"He's Guthrye Daeminos. Spice merchant, real up-and-comer head-turner. From what I understand, he had contacts all over the Hinterlands, and he was breaking into other things, recently." They both paused at that, sharing a knowing look. Usually when a merchant "broke into other things" in Sorcerer's Deep, nobody would ever hear about them because they had gone broke, crushed under the tides of trade and likely swallowed up by some administrative bureau who nonetheless had a use for a learned individual, even if they couldn't manage a ledger half as well as they could organize court documents or manage records at one of the bread doles.

Artifact and Occult Trafficking. One of the larger departments he managed. It was the number one source of woes for the Bureau at present, and what most of the criminal underbelly of Sorcerer's Deep smart enough, but not too smart, 'fore they caught the eye of the Book and Sword, cut their teeth in the capital on. Without being locked up quicker still.

It was too lucrative not have a staple influx of native and foreign sharks who sniffed blood in the water, and while the reach of the Law in the capital was long, it wasn't quite as long as it was in Mantarys, where apparently the smugglers would show up to the nearest depot and drop off any proscribed materials they found mixed in with still illegitimate, but usually safe goods, long before Customs would have been made aware of any discrepancies.

Arthur had the House of Mirrors within easy reach, and still the black market for illegal magic was booming.

"Have we torn the place apart yet?" Arthur asked Tally after they'd gone through the man's records, and while there hadn't been anything incriminating found yet, it was apparent the man was hiding something--probably something they could likely as not dig up right then and there, if someone hadn't covered his tracks.

"I'm afraid I'll have to stop you there," a voice broke in, firmly and yet with politely amused and urbane demeanor, prompting Arthur to squint through the haze of witch-fire tinting the room blue-green.

"The fuck are you?" Arthur eyed the man intruding on his crime scene suspiciously, sure as shit he wasn't supposed to be there.

The man shifted one shoulder, his black cloak sliding away to reveal a grey doublet with a silver broach at the lapel, the Book and Sword glinting and more than making up for the total lack of menace the man was sporting. "Investigator Raegel. This case is now under the jurisdiction of the Inquisition."

"Whatever the fuck for?" Arthur scowled, thinking he'd gotten a step closer to the smuggling ring he'd been chasing after for six months, ever since the aftermath of the Grand Festival.

"If it involves conjuring," the man replied dryly, "It's gone far over your head. Now get your men to clear out."

A dark cloud rode over Arthur's head all the way back to headquarters, least of all because of the storm overhead.

It had more to do with who was waiting for him there...

OOC: The very atmospheric omake and great characters once more come to us from @Crake. I just write in the title.

Twelfth Day of the Third Month 294 AC

The news that it was going to rain over some part of the island for the better part of two weeks thanks to Zathir's working in reforging the hammer of Anu-Simung is taken mostly in good grace by the people of Sorcerer's Deep, though unsurprisingly the closer one gets to court the less understanding there is. Your mother was even approached yesterday by a lady who wanted you to coax 'a little sunshine' out of Zathir so that she would not have to reschedule her Shepherd's Picnic. You are not entirely sure what that is besides the sort of event that would be improved from letting Glyra loose on it, at least in Dany's opinion.

Thankfully the world's mightiest and possibly most exasperating gremlin is busy scouting out minor courts in the Reach to no small effect. According to Ser Dregaire's lastest report over five hundred fey had shown themselves to be open to swearing to you, mostly sprites, fauns and calpinas with a love of new horizons, though with a few venturesome nobles formerly of the Green leading them. Of course, success did not come without a few hurdles of its own, chiefly that your agents could not spell out in so many words that you are planning an attack on the Court of Stars, so the fey interested in joining you are mostly those who would not object to sailing over the sea to Essos. You had hoped for spies and agents in the Reach ahead of the attack, but so far those sworn to the Voiolet Veil are not biting the proverbial hook.

18 Fey Troupes Loyalty Secured (Roughly 500 Fey)


Still, for all the gifts bought and future court locations pledged you would count that coin will spent not just to add a bit more arcane expertise to the various Scholarum branches, but also weaken the Court of Stars by like measure. Speaking of the Scholarum and fey lore, you are quite interested to see a meeting with Naria on your agenda for today. Seeing as it was not flagged as urgent you can assume it is good news about the more ephemeral of Imperial projects.

Lost 50,000 IM


"Once I actually convinced everyone that, yes, we were going to do this and, no, it wasn't mad, blasphemy or whatever silliness their studies had not shaken out of them yet, it was smooth sailing adapting the fey lore to rituals in service of the Empire," Naria began, after only the briefest of preamble. She wasn't quite as dismissive of courtly protocol as Aradia or Nuri, but it was especially close when she was excited, not that you can blame her. You are excited too.

She goes on to explain that designing a prayer for any specific repetitious task, be it grinding grain or filing reports, is the easy part. Most assigned to that sort of task will naturally want the wheels to run smoothly, not necessarily because they value the ultimate purpose, but because any snag in the wheels most often means more work for them, or the stress and tedium of upset superiors. 'About as impersonal a prayer as you can send out,' the incarnate calls it.

Unfortunately, while the new day to day rituals of administration do have discernible impact upon the souls of those practicing them, the resulting power is very diffuse, more like morning mist than water you can pass through a leyline, blood that can fill the arteries of a Hollow God of the Empire and serve as a reservoir to tap at need.

"We are going to need some kind of mechanism to condense the power into usable form before we move it anywhere, and before it can do any work for us," Naria concludes. "There is on idea to use the properties of weirwood leaves as a starting point, though since the Old Gods do not accept prayer even the druids I've talked to don't know if that will work. Alternatively, if we could use the Dreamlands properly to distill concepts down to their core, that might produce a usable stream of power..."

Tying the rituals of Administration into Imperial Deity base Complete (39/30) -> Project Distilling Dreams (Progress 60 Cost 120,000 IM) Unlocked

What next?

[] Write in

OOC: I realized just the progress report would not fill a whole update so I added another one. Hope it flows properly.