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

First Day of the Fifth Month 294 AC

The Ant-Folk are an industrious people and well inclined to hold to their given word, but warlike and grim in their endless toil. They claim to have been wrought as slaves to some nameless master whom they escaped by skill and diligence unparalleled, though no tale of ours stretches back that far through the ages. When the City of Gold was first raised, they delved through the secret places of the world and when the first Sultan lead us into the Vault they yet were there, gnawing at the edges of the realm to test if we were something to be consumed as the soft clay or avoided as veins of adamantine.

The words of the shaitan envoy come back to you as you descend into the tunnels beneath the Rock once more, and to the guarded door between the realms in the company of Ser Richard, always at your side in peril, Malarys for his skill at parsing out law and treaty should it be needed, and last though certainly not least, Lya for the sheer curiosity of meeting a folk yet unknown to her, wielding no doubt strange and intriguing magics.

Dany had drawn the proverbial short straw of staying behind in the Deep so that there would be someone to deal with issues in the wake of the coronation. Given how many folk of differing lands and customs had been gathered, such occurrences are almost inevitable. Hopefully, she won't have to deal with anything near as tangled as what the Yi Tish delegations had thrown into your lap.

"There are mage lights ahead," Lya calls out, pointing down the long straight tunnel. At Ser Richard's odd look she explains. "Lights you can only see with mage sight, that is a interesting trick if everyone you expect to come this way has the senses to use it."

The knight grunts noncommittally and shakes his head. The years of fighting sorcerers and spirits had given him his own sense of the arcane. Not near as acute as yours or Lya's could be, but enough to get along with, enough to see the pale golden light marking the way forward.

On their own home ground, the formians will fight with dedication bordering on madness, but they will rarely strike the first blow even against known foes, if faced with a clearly marked diplomatic party. They have been known to hold truces sacred even when they could otherwise exterminate the other side with ease, and would gain much from doing so. Mind that is not to say they did not exterminate the foe in any case under most such circumstances, but they did listen.

More of the envoy's words come back to you, sounding somehow more ominous in the echoing darkness of the tunnel lit only by radiance that mortal eyes could not glimpse.

Taking the words to heart, you had summoned six erinyes to be your guards, with Mereth at their head. It had seemed odd to press them into so mundane a task as holding banners limp in their hands and ringing horns upon their belts, but all had assured you that the task of herald was not strange to them nor unwelcome to their dignity. Mereth herself had even fought formians before under the tarnished gold banners of the Third and she had found them 'a better foe than most to cross blades with'. When you had asked if she meant that they were more worthy or more perilous for it, she had offered a rare smile and said simply 'yes'.

As the tunnel curves sharply left, you find yourselves abruptly looking down the firing line of enough arcane artillery to blast a Wyvern from the sky or dent the Moonchaser's armor, rings of arcane flame aligned perfectly to fill the whole tunnel, gears grinding as the firing solutions are being calculated behind glassteel and adamantine shields.

"Glad they did not get this thing up to the Rock," Ser Richard mutters, his shield hovering closer on sheer instinct, though you doubt it would do much good against this weapon.

"It's melded to the sides of the tunnel," you say, looking the thing over with a knowing eye. "It would be easier to move a mountain."

Before he can reply, or Lya can give her own thoughts on the device, the sound of chitin claws upon the smooth granite of the tunnel alerts you to the fact that you have more company. A formian officer gleaming with crimson markings like stylized blood-splatter emerges from the stone to your left like one breaking the surface of a pond.

"His mind is too still," Varys hisses in your mind, annoyed as she usually is when someone managed to hide from her most acute of senses. If anyone would develop that skill en masse, it would be the mind-bound formians.


The officers antennae twitch almost as though he had heard something in the distance. Could one overhear mind-speech, or was he instead carrying on a conversation of his own? "You are recognized, Viserys Targaryen," the being buzzed in the oddly accented though clearly understandable Draconic. "What do you seek?"

Be blunt as you wish, the Hive cares nothing for formalities, though it will respect such norms if it is asked of it.

That had been the last piece of advice the shaitan envoy had given you.

"To speak to the queen in the hopes of finding a path forward that is not war between us," you reply plainly.

"Do you pledge guest right?" The Westerosi formula sounds odd in this tongue, something they had learned from the Lannisters no doubt.

"Yes, by the power I wield and the crown I bear, I do, and those with me likewise." The answer comes easily to your lips. You may yet have to fight if negotiations fail, but you are willing to give it the best shot you can under the circumstances. The last thing your fledgling realm needs is another foe.

"Come," the officer hums in your mind, motioning you to follow in what one might consider a human gesture, though the multiple articulations of its arm turn is far more alien than the stillness before. As you continue down tunnel, now filled with the sounds of industry and the traffic of a thousand thousand insectile feet, you consider what you can offer and what you must ask of those who had so recently been allies of your foes.

What is your opening position vis-a-vis the Formian Queen?

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OOC: Hopefully interjecting what the Shaitan told you about Formians into the journey works as a narrative mechanism.