The Artisans Pride XIV
Received on the Twentyninth Day of the Third Month 294 AC
May it please Your Majesty.
Within my humble duty, I have already mentioned to you in person, the creature whose knowledge I have subsumed had more to offer then arcane and psionic insights. As the creature had been working in solitude beneath Oldtown for a considerable time, it had begun to research and learn more about the political and social structure of the city itself out of pure necessity. While heavily biased by its clear and complete loathing of the human species, it recognized the value of the knowledge hoarded by the order of Maesters and took some efforts to have his servants identify potentially valuable targets among the vaults beneath the Citadel.
The criteria it used for these selections and the contents of the vaults it deemed worth investigating are in of themselves already valuable for offering insight in the thoughts processes of the Illithidae, and I would request permission to review the documents it sook out to see if they are indeed useful for further research into mind- and flesh-altering processes. A detailed accounting of its thought processes, it's targets and what it learned from its servants scouting attempts is attached to this letter as Appendix A. I have furthermore attached my commentary and all information I possess about its targets as Appendix B.
However, I pen this letter for a different reason. During my stay in the Citadel, I too have investigated the older, poorly maintained and sometimes outright forgotten vaults to rescue the knowledge contained within. During these excursions and studies, I have also learned a significant amount of trivia about the Citadel, its operations and history. I apologize for the rather longwinded explanation to follow, but I assure Your Majesty that this background is necessary for you to make an informed choice about my proposal.
As Your Majesty is likely aware, the office of Seneschal is held in low regard in the modern Citadel, the title seen as an annoyance by the current Archmaesters due to, despite allegedly signifying a leading role in the Citadel, it is only coming with the burden of various ceremonial and organizational tasks that would monopolize most of their time. Thus, the annual election for the position is done by drawing lots, with the loser of this game being required to take over these tasks. There have been rumours about this being done since the first time I entered the Citadel and Archmaester Marwyn has confirmed to me in person that this is the actual process used.
This state of affairs is likely the end result of the waning influence of the Seneschal over the centuries. I am afraid I can not sufficiently source this information, as I have no access to the Citadels libraries or the relevant stashes in the vaults, but from the information I learned over the years, the following seems to be the most likely course of events. According to documents from shortly after the formation of the Valyrian Freehold, which compared institutions of research and learning from Westeros to Ghis, the Seneschal used to be a title akin in power to the Headmistress of the Scholarium.
The Seneschal had full authority over all other Maesters, including the Archmaesters, being able to censure them for breaking the rules of the order or acting in ways that would damage its prestige or interest. He also commanded an organization called "The Stout Fellows" or "The Stout" for short, which appears to have been a mixture of menial servants and soldiers under the sole authority of the Citadel. Likewise, the title holder had also the full, and by some accounts sole, control of the wards protecting the Citadel from intrusion, while being able to bypass any lock and protection within their area by using an artifact called "The Keyring".
Further accounts spoke of the rivalry between the Seneschal and the Archmaesters, as some rankled over the fact that a man they deemed their peer had such unquestioned power over them, and with House Hightower, who saw the Citadel as a threat to their own power over area. The documents I've read implied that thus the power of the office was gradually eroded due to opportunistic alliances between factions among the Archmaesters, or between such factions and temporal lords, usually the Hightowers.
Over the centuries, the Citadel thus lost the right to tax travel on the Honeywine, most of their estates outside the Citadel itself, and much of its political influence in the area. Internally, the power shifted from the Seneschal to the Archmaesters, beginning with curtailing the Seneschals rights to censure members of the order, dissolution of "The Stout Fellows" and a gradual removal of his ability to monitor the activities of the Archmaesters within the confines of their own facilities and areas of expertise. This was aided by the Seneschals of these days often overstepping the restrictions placed upon them, some acting tyrannically and others cruelly to members of the order. It is merely conjecture on my part, but the evidence suggested that the Archmaesters intentionally elected ill-tempered and incompetent Seneschals to gain the pretext for further eroding the positions power.
Thus, the length of the term went down from the original 14 years to first 7 years, then being slowly reduced ever further. Likewise, the Seneschal no longer held control over the wards unless there was "pressing need", which in practice meant that he would only be granted control if the Archmaesters decided so. "The Keyring" was instead destroyed outright under the pretext of being a security risk. As the Citadel had been under the protection of the Hightowers at this point, the ritual to transfer control of the wards to the Seneschal was not invoked at all after this change and was lost entirely at some point. This too is mere conjecture, but I always assumed that the Archmaesters wanted nobody to be able to use the wards actively, and thus destroyed all accounts of the ritual on purpose.
In my years though, I found enough mentions and descriptions of the ceremonies that were performed upon instating a Seneschal that, given access to enough of them and the wards of the Citadel itself, I believe that the ritual can be recreated. When I was young, this was merely an idle thought, since the sources I had available were too few and there were so little mentions of the wardings themselves that it seemed dubious that there even was spellwork on the Citadel at all. Now though, the creature I subsumed has inadvertently provided me with the missing pieces.
There are a total of six vaults, most of them barely maintained, that the creature identified as holding mostly clerical minutia, chronicles, histories and similar information about the Citadel itself that it deemed worthless, dating back to the days before the Freehold, if not even to the waning days of the Age of Heroes. It is highly likely that all information needed to create the ritual can be found in those vaults, if not perhaps even a forgotten copy of the full ritual. Furthermore, the creature identified three very likely and four suspected anchoring points of the Citadels wards, which would allows me to study them in detail.
Therefore, I humbly request Your Majesty's permission and support to infiltrate these locations, with the goal of recreating and performing the ritual. As the new Seneschal of the Citadel, with the sum total of its magical defences under my control, I will be able to subdue all your enemies on the premises without needlessly risking the libraries and vaults. I will also be able to open the gates for the Legion to take control of the facilities and, with the authority of the position restored, begin the process of transferring all of value that remains in the order of Maesters under the control of the Scholarium.
Your Majesty will find a detailed accounting of my proposed plan and the resources I would require in Appendix C.
I have the honour to remain, my lord, Your Majesty's most humble and obedient servant,
Wisdom Qyburn
AN: Big infodump, but it's either this or following Qyburn and Marwyns antics without a clear accounting of what they are trying to achieve, so it had to be done.
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