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

Wilds of the Plane of Earth, On Route to Casterly Rock

Garin Drekelis was used to being the one scouting ahead, especially when Viserys or Dany were not present to dart ahead, but that did not mean he was inclined to scout alone. Down here in the dark, where the carefully planned routes of the trading caravans unwound into a tangle of tunnels and paths and rivers that bore everything from water to quicklime, there was nothing to blend in with but the shadows. No one would care for the strangeness of the Hunters. They could keep up with him easily, even outpace him over the rough terrain, and they were inhumanly good at slipping from shadow to shadow. You could not really train that level of inhuman dedication and focus, you had to live it... or be decanted from the birthing vats with it.

"Light ahead," Number 8 called from the ledge to his left. It would have a better vantage point from up there. The auguries had indicated that they wouldn't have to spend more than a few days down here after Marwyn had come upon the clever trick of faux-planning to set out with ever diminishing amounts of food and seeing when that would start to be a problem.

"What kind?" Garin asked back. Of the sorts of things that could make light down here, simple fire was among the most harmless. After all, fire at least required breathable atmosphere to feed it.

"Yellow..." came the mechanical reply.

Not yellow at all, Garin realized as he turned a sharp corner beside his guard. Gold, bubbling and flowing through the rock like fire glowing from within, like the veins of some protean godling shining with its own light. Enough gold to build the Dauntiless twice over, and more. Though he was beyond the grasp of simple greed, having no need to dig wealth out of the walls, the simple beauty of the moment still caught him, this hidden trove that spanned as far as the eye could see caught him.


The wisdom of the old Xorn guide alongside, with whom he had taken his first steps in the Dimwell Delving, seemed to whisper in his ear. The rarer something is, the more likely it is to be guarded by beings best left alone. Yet as he looked around, keeping to the edge of the shadow, he saw not a flicker of movement and heard not a whisper in the still air

"Stay," Garin commanded the constructs. He may not have been the magician some of his friends were, but over the years, the High Inquisitor had grown more confident in his particular blend of shadow-weaving. A hound of shadow formed under his hand, made in the image of a hunting dog he had seen once as a boy.

This creature needed no command for it served only one purpose, to follow a trail across bare stone or shifting rock. If something else had passed this way, it would be more skilled than his eyes alone at finding it. Alas, it scrambled in the dirt and found nothing. Wrapping himself in shadow even more tightly, Garin stepped forward... and almost fell into a pit of some nameless caustic brew when the path under his feet disintegrated like sand, kept aloft only by his enchanted cloak unfolding into blood red wings.

After briefly entertaining the idea of carrying the hunters over it with magic, he instead commanded them to stay here and guard the way back. There was no way to tell how many other such obstacles were along the path. Best save the translocation for when he had found the portal. He sent his assesment back to Marwyn at base just to be sure they would be on guard if something unfortunate happened. It would not do much for his reputation if he needed rescuing, but he would rather be embarrassed than dead.

Three hundred feet down, the tunnel split in two and then split again in three, but Garin continued following the shine of gold. It was, after all, the best way to track a Lannister, so why not their keep as well?

The quick tapping of many chitinous legs on stone alerted Garin first. It was coming from up ahead. Up ahead and... up. There, walking confidentally on the ceiling as though it were his own personal highway, was a strange being of glistening chitin and huge yellow eyes roughly in the shape of a man. Marwyn had not mentioned these.


Garin thought the proper name for ant folk was Formian, though what sort this might be he could not recall from his reading. Giant ants were not precisely high on the list of potential infiltrators the inquisition might have to face. Still, the three pointed spear it bore and the cunning watchfulness behind those many-faceted eyes marked this to be an intelligent creature, no mere beast of the tunnels like the wild elementals they had to fight on the way.

He considered abducting the guard to interrogate, but he knew enough of ants to guess that where there was one there might be more, and who knew, he might even be looking at future allies or citizens of the Imperium in the fullness of time. He had seen stranger things. Best not to make a poor first impression. He slipped by.

The patrols only got thicker as the tunnel grew more even and smooth and the traps only got more clever. It soon became clear that this particular pathway lead right into the heart of the formian hive and while he might be able to slip through, getting everyone else to do the same would be nearly impossible. He was about to turn back and look for another path when a familiar glint of black caught his eye. On the belt of a particularly large and formidable warrior lay a blade of Valyrian steel. The Formians were either trading with or raiding the Lannisters.

What do your agents do?

[] Seek a diplomatic meeting with the formians

[] Capture and interrogate one of the formians

[] Turn back and seek another path for your spies

[] Write in

OOC: This is not random monster encounter 1001, for anyone wondering. I've bene planning this as a potential meeting one way or another for a long time. Not yet edited.