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

Twelfth Day of the Third Month 294 AC

Lorath, the Shivering Sea, Essos

Over the past half month, Rina's vague inquiries about 'divine lore' addressed to beings with no love of gods had been... rocky, filled with as many ups and downs as the Gulltown swells. The Wild Hunt did not trade in lore unless it pertained to some rare quarry. The Greenwood Fey had nearly turned on her from one part lingering suspicion as to her nature and one part mistaken impression that she wanted to act against the Old Gods, the same gods that had told her where to look. For the first time since she had woken herself again under the boughs of a Weirwood tree, Rina had been more frustrated at being greeted with suspicion than apologetic.

As she walked through the nearly deserted streets of Lorath, Rina wondered if it had something to do with the way she had... changed. After all, fey were prideful beings. Mostly she was just relived at the memory, less a weight off her chest and more a clanking manacle she had finally shed, reveling in the unexpected silence left in its wake.

The moon was bright above and the faint sounds of revelry still spilled out of open tavern doors, but for a wonder there weren't any thugs or worse yet, inebriated scions of 'good families', out here to ruin her mood. Perhaps the Hooded Lord saw thet the streets just beyond were free of loiterers.


Pricking her finger on the tip of her blue ice dagger, the sorceress quickly drew a crooked gibbous moon upon the door of that, from the lingering smells, must have once been a butcher's shop, though there was no light in the windows. When she pulled it open, however, it did not lead to some cobweb filled room, but to another winding alley with stops leaning impossibility over it, their roofs steeped in the manner of the city but painted in every color one might imagine, like a gaggle of brightly dressed ladies whispering together. The Goblin Market had come to town, her best chance at buying some of the lore she had been tasked in finding.

At first it seemed she would have no more luck here than in the Greenwood, which after all the annoyance had proved to know no more of gods than the Old Gods would freely share, but then the Hooded Lord himself directed her attention upon one who might have secrets to share that the Gods would wish hidden.

The stall was off among the bells, banners, and stuttering torches, a simple wooden board perched on a rough stone plinth. Behind it stood a white-haired fey woman who was doing a better job at Lorathi dress than most of her fellows, though the raven, black as the silk of her doublet, rather ruined the effect. A Norn, Rina would have known her for the weight of fate in her dark eyes even if the Lord of the Goblin Market had not warned her in advance, a shadow fey like the Orphne, though unlike them this particular being had not sworn to the king. She was merely obliged to follow the laws of the market, and thus by the Hooded King's oath the laws of the realm.


"Well now, there is something I did not think to see again until the breaking of the world," the fate-weaver said in a voice neither old nor young, but some odd admixture of both, one an alchemist might wish to bottle and sell as 'voice of wisdom'. "Come into the light, girl, I want to see you closer..."

"That is not my name," Rina replied, politely but firmly. Allowing herself to be 'girl' in the presence of this being would make of her a supplicant and that she would not be.

The ancient fey chuckled knowingly, the sound staying in the air for just a moment longer than it aught. "You have the will for it and the stiffness, more's the pity."

"What do you know that gods wish to hide?" Rina pressed, not allowing herself to be distracted.

"Upon my loom I have woven the fate of dead gods and seen the white light, beneath the blazing gold, even dead stars still shine, you know. For a while," came the strange reply. "I know of the keys to hollow halls and broken realms. I have read the fate of the divine in white dust and blood dried nearly black. They can come back, you know." For the first time the norn gave a strange smile. "Even a blind man can stumble his way back to the light, as this city well knows."

"What do you want?" Rina asked again. Knowledge of divine death could be invaluable when trying to craft a sort of near-birth and not something the gods themselves were likely to hand out, but she allowed only polite interest to show on her face.

"The left eye of the Golden Seer..." This time the smile was uglier. "Come now, don't be surprised. I can guess your lord has ambitions of reclaiming his birth right, all of it, and for that to happen the Seer must fall with the Queen. While I have no doubt you could find some use for the eye, I can have a better one..."

Behind the mask of frost and wards against the sharpest eyes, the ice fey wove spells of insight and foresight of her own. "No deal," Rina leaned forward just enough for the chill of her presence to tug at a strand of the fate weaver's hair. "I'm not making an open ended deal that requires me to kill an elder fey lord, and in such a way that their eye is salvageable. I am young, not a fool. "

"Fine then," the norn snapped. "You know you would be easier to judge if you did not hide yourself behind that trinket," she motioned to the warding ring on Rina's finger. "I require thirteen times thirteen black diamonds of the deep earth to do with as I see fit."

Trade on offer: Lore of Dead Gods (Likely to contain general divination knowledge in addition to main subject)

Asking price: 169,000 IM

Do you make the trade?

[] Yes

[] No
-[] Counter offer
-[] Refuse

OOC: I'm not going to reveal all the dice around this event, but I will say Rina did really well in the social challenge for someone without a social focus. Not yet edited.