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

Nineteenth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Subject: Expedition to the Southlands
Related Files: Farspawn Incursion; Malefactum Arachnid Entity; Malefactum Serpent Entity; Aberrant Fleshforging; Sothoryi Native Interactions; Sothoryi Fauna Encounters
Tertiary Subjects: Natural Fonts; Leyline Nexii; Wildmagic Phenemenon, Experiments A.1-D.3
Clearance Level: Crimson


It's become clear to me that we've all gone a little mad.

I've had to take extensive notes and establish a more definite timeline for the various events which have taken place, while this perhaps over-ambitious operation went underway and then made their landing at the aptly named 'Snake Port'. Our guides had an idea of certain paths which would lead the men, and Baelon, bleeding skies, generally angled toward what they were seeking out. Fortune in the Green Hell.

Fortune or death.

The natural fonts of magic and the coalescing of the elements in this virgin territory means that magically active reagents for a variety of uses can be found just about everywhere. Yes, not just those alchemically suitable varieties, but also those suitable for enchantment, are plentiful, though only in the sense that a forager would make off with a fortune akin to one man going gold-panning. Enough to make for one exorbitantly wealthy man in a single day, but that is not the same as flowing fortunes to rival trade empires, it doesn't have... consistency, as it were.

Yet there was some inkling these lands could be made suitable for growing more of them, Baelon had seemed equipped well enough to make a decent go of it at least. The problem isn't so much the painted lizards themselves--those can be killed with preparation, ore preferably avoided, as most of them are terrestrial animals rather than magically active beasts. Well over half of the dangers we've seen from them is from the herds of leaf-eaters who can't be deterred, merely avoided, making wide open spaces and beast trails just as dangerous as the enclosed spaces of the jungle canopy.

There are some places where the snake men dare not tread, and when they do not speak, sharply at that, of omen, doom and peril, they have increasingly become rather more prosaically inclined, merely pointing out the variety of painful, gods awful ways a man can die if they heed not their advice. Baelon, thankfully, puts great stock in the locals' knowledge, or we would all be dead by now. As it stands, Kraken's poor sense of humor not withstanding, Phantom's team has been performing exemplary... though their other man is still missing.

A week's travel inland, we had our first encounter with one of the upright walking terrestrial predators, ten thousand pounds of muscle, grit and bad temper. But these are no dragons, their hide is tough as plate in some places but there are weak points. While it was pitiful to see two dozen hard-bitten mercenaries piss themselves and take half a minute before the first scattering of bolts was finally loosed, the stormtroopers had arbalests on-hand at the time I suppose, as after Daemion and I softened it up with spell-fire, and to little effect at that.. they took care of things.

They at least put it down before it could actually eat anyone.

The vermin repellant and the enchanted shelters for the night are gods sent. We'd have bled away over half our number by this point to disease and insect swarming alone, to say nothing of the creatures no man alive has likely laid eyes on, or I should say no man of Essos or Westeros of contemporary origin. The Iaqari are like men enough that I don't begrudge their superstition, they are typically more friendly when we mention we serve a dragon--they are familiar enough with jungle tyrants to have some knowledge of powerful creatures with actual intellect beyond bestial instinct guiding them.

They do not seem to fully... conceive the notion of servitude to such a 'ruler' far enough away that our location couldn't possibly count as its hunting ground. Such interactions generally go smoother if we give them the impression that King Viserys is relatively close, too far away from them to worry about him suddenly demanding tribute from an undiscovered tribe eking out a pitiful existence, but close enough to give them his own blandishments if they come closer to the coast and join the communities there.

I'd hardly call it safe for them, but without all the corsairs enslaving them they might actually be able to form long-term settlements again, at least where there aren't any ruins or fishmen or similar ilk haunting the shores.

It seems... such a disservice to call them 'brindled men'. The ignorant in their bubbles of ignorance and sophistry call them savage and unintelligent, when they are much like any people you'd know given enough time to acclimate to their surroundings. What does a slave dragged away from the jungle and all they know understand of our civilizations? Our preconceptions of conventional intelligence asserts because they are strong in body and good at surviving in harsh conditions, but lacking education or common worldly knowledge of arts or crafts, that they are "ugly and stupid but good pit fighters"... and that's about as much as you see written in texts out of Old Town, parroting the fucking Ghiscari, just because that's the most convenient place to witness Iaqari in person for idiots with not the faintest ounce of critical thinking at hand, where they are tormented daily, bred to death and without remorse and surrounded by jeering crowds taking delight in their battle for desperate survival.

The stress hormones kill them before the gladiators do more often than not.

I have spent two weeks teaching one of their shamans to speak Low Valyrian, and even some shorthand writing, to further communications, and already they have invented their own code for marking territory and communicating more complex subjects than five generalities about what to watch out for when entering a new locale in their markings.

I have learned more about herblore and passed on more information to Baelon about what prospects might be had thereof simply listening to Gad'i Taha, than I would have if I had brought half a dozen scholars or Maesters along. Because they would be too fucking busy debating with each other their own absurd notions of what this means instead of just fucking listening to the poor man about the poison killing his tribe and how to find the counter agent for it, a task which Gyles has applied himself toward splendidly.

The men do not love the diversions, but they are tired and irritable and would not love us if I had introduced them to a temple filled with gold idols and Valyrian constructs bearing honey-milk teats.

A month and a half of surveying different locations and collecting samples, and we slew a forked-tailed wyvern with some limited form of flesh-warping conducted upon it. The wild magic zone which spawned it has been cataloged and an arcane-marked token handed to me by the King when he had visited the expedition briefly was left in a secure location nearby.

In addition, its lair had some arcane treasures, already collected by the expedition, though if one approached the leadership they might be amenable to trade some of the esoteric items in the collection, among other things collected thus far.

Two months and five migrations avoided, thirteen large predators slain, and I have noted some patterns. Magic items are attractive to all variety of the walking reptiles scattered about the jungle. Sometimes it can have adverse effects on their bodies. Other times they are inert enough to rest in their bellies and eventually wind up in their droppings that some of the men have gotten into the habit of rifling through traces with sticks, much to my amusement. Multiple raptors slain thus far, but only one item catalogued from such encounters.

After so many fortuitous warnings passing from my lips, and perhaps I have been taken a mite too seriously by the men after noting aloud my 'observations' with regards to their dietary habits.

Nine weeks into the expedition we killed another pair of drakes, though the treasures recovered from their lair were Serpentine in origin, and have already been remanded to Lord Rizz'nith's possession after I reported it up the chain via Whispering Sand. He took the time to leave more guides after exchanging additional supplies for them.

Three months, and twelve natural fonts located, as well as three delineated 'zones' of elemental convergence roughly mapped out, and we encountered a pod of Ekeketh, which nearly turned into a massacre--for us--before Tobyis brought cooler heads to the fore. They helped us navigate the river and drove off some predators. I have submitted a report with more details, a copy of which is attached below. I had plenty of time to rewrite it, with some funnier anecdotes the first one lacked.

Not a week later, our men were met with a four-armed giant ape, and saved by a band of trolls of all the damned things. My skepticism has long since curled up and died a dog's death when they offered to share the spoils thanks to, I shit you not, what a wonderful distraction and spot of entertainment our scouting party who nearly got clobbered by it had made for them.

I'm sending this with my last Construct Raven now, because I think I might be dying.

I have checked and rechecked myself for mental contamination, so it is at this point I've realized: if I can't trust my natural sense of paranoia with regards to my day-to-day mental state, even as I write this report, one who cannot convince themselves it's not all a fever dream... probably shouldn't be making official reports in the first place.

The original ones I conducted might have arrived intact by now, hells perhaps someone is alive out there to be debriefed still. Far as I can tell Baelon's expedition is probably fine, if Tobyis can keep them from looting the first ruin they come across now that my bleeding useless eye is off of them.

I fell into some kind of... cave system, while investigating magical phenomenon. In hindsight I'm starting to believe it was all a lure to bring me out here, as when I'd awoken I was missing my bag of sand and some of my equipment. The alchemical products are still at hand, or I would likely have been eaten by insects already. I've lost hope of surviving this night, however, because of the... things I've been finding, working my way deeper through this fresh hell.

Baedar stared down at the stack of parchment, the porcelain-shelled bird tilting its head up at him. "... rescue is coming," it finished, though the Investigator hadn't been paying it much mind.

It jerked its head toward the only source of natural light he had come across in days, a small opening in the rock, large enough for the bird to make its way through, but not wide enough for it take a rope up and secure him a way out.

"Will bring more people." It hopped off his leg, pausing, as if uncertain if it should really just... up and leave him.

Stars seemed to glitter up above in the brief break in the canopy, taunting him with the rare occasion that moonlight bright enough to illuminate graced him, just before the last gasp.

As a son of Braavos, that seemed almost... appropriate. He considered not moving from here, as fine a place as any it was, but if his bones ended up being recovered he wanted something more substantial to divine from, even if it meant for a less pleasant ending.

Even now, he had a duty still.

"Go on," he shooed them, covering it with a basic glamor of invisibility, enough to get them above the canopy and high enough into the air, should anything be waiting up there.

It went along.

He breathed in deeply, chest aching from his earlier fall, before pushing himself to his feet and forging onward.



It felt like hours, but could it have been days? The chamber ahead... it had strange geometries, irregular patterns, but some rhythm to them, however inhuman. He dragged himself before sundered idols and ruined altars, scourged it felt by the hand of their own supplicants.

There was, alchemically or otherwise, preserved frescoes deeper into the chamber he sat in, waiting for the sounds of scuffling nearby to move further away. It depicted an ethereal people, more silhouette than distinct figures, struggling perhaps, against a monster with a thousand limbs threading its way through the rest of the massive chamber's artwork, elaborate reliefs of savage violence mixed in with painfully beautiful and evocative scenery.

A bundle being handed off, so delicate seeming, one of the figures restrained as it was carried away by a trusted servant perhaps?

Baedar's tired eyes strained to make out the creature these people were killing, or fleeing, or hiding beneath its monolithic notice, scarcely could he imagine a leviathan like it would even pay notice to scurrying insects that were made of mortals by comparison.

But its form defied imagination, spread out across the entire chamber like some kind of grotesque godhead who forced all to find oneness within it. It would have sent a shiver up his spine under ordinary circumstances, but he found himself in quiet awe, that the art here could make the people bound under this situation seem... in of themselves, of desperately emotional import.

That they had truly mattered beside its awesome presence, their story straining at the uppermost limits of mortal skill, capturing the imagination of onlookers, what he could make out in the dark at least. Rather than overshot by the atavistic terror the presence in this room inspired.

How something so... alien, could inspire such feelings of raw majesty, he wasn't certain, much less with so limited a color palette.

He stopped when he realized he had wandered down a level while following the tale, having enough presence of mind to realize something... usual about these shapes hidden in the unnatural fog drifting from the bottom of this mausoleum.

Akin to cairns of the First Men for these lost ancients, perhaps, what burial rites did they follow, the Investigator pondered, hand brushing up against the smooth surface of the oblong statue in front of him. On a mad whim he realized he still had his earring, activating it to see an echo within an echo... threading outward in a thousand directions, above and below and beyond, through the thousands figures steadily becoming more and more inhuman the further he ventured into the... burial ground, it had seemed to him, given the context of the artwork. Growing many limbs, spindly and delicate and beginning to dance madly towards their destination, their doom? Or his?

He licked his dry lips.

The figure he looked upon was... not human. And not dead. It was stuck somewhere in-between... what little was declassified about the power of Dreams flitted through his mind. Mindful of the presence... it brushed against his mind and he saw it.

It was... not quite a beast. Something... in-between. But something seemed to grasp hold of the brief gasp of True Sight gifted by work of simple artifice, and he saw--briefly still, but what it lacked in length it made up for in sheer depth... their true self.

She was painfully beautiful... like a poisonous flower, nightshade replacing lilac and gooseberry from childhood memory.


Follow the trail of gold, something... she, Baedar realized, whispered, their form still unmoving he realized with a start, that brief flash either his imagination or... do not stray from it, or you will be devoured by the guardians.

"Who are you?" Baedar found himself quietly say, wincing as it almost seemed to echo, not in the chamber but in the depths of his own mind. Something had caused his throat to clam up... his own damned hand. "What are you?"

A true Dreamer lost in time, you know another of their like, the voice seemed to whisper even as he began to follow a path made of speckled golden motes and tracery in the path ahead... part of some kind of ward, perhaps, integrated into the artwork. Perhaps not much longer... look.

The voice was insistent, so Baedar turned his head, seeing the cracks forming along many of the oblong statues... not statues. Cocoons. Not quickly, and not all at once, but they were forming. The substance was not webbing from a spider, he saw then, but it was... almost too reminiscent of another substance for him to ignore. There's no time for you to linger for whispered secrets, you have been caught up in a web long forgotten, child of exiles.

What use to it, Baedar thought, will I not die even if I leave here? What even is this place? Baedar shook his head. What would he even tell his people about what he saw here? He was half-dead from thirst and possibly hallucinating most if not all of this.

Later, she promised, more urgency in her voice, straining, heed my plea, fool.

Baedar fled along the path, the tracery fading too quickly to linger any longer.

He heard fissures forming behind him, ducking out of the chamber and barely keeping up with the burning wisps of light flickering along walls and ceilings, some languishing arcane mechanism straining to perform an ancient function and obfuscate his presence as he slipped by looming, chitinous forms overhead without being given a second glance.

Baedar might survive this night yet, but would the expedition?

OOC: Another great omake from @Crake. I can't even claim an inventive title on this one, though I did make the encounter table poor Baedar and company stumbled through.