The Heir of the Dragon: A Rhaenyra Targaryen Quest

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You arrived at Harrenhal late in the day, the sky already beginning to take on shades of orange and red as you approached. A broken wheel had led to an hours long stop.

The castle that greeted you was as awe inspiring as it was unnerving. The curtain walls that surrounded it were so thick and tall, they resembled mountain cliffs more than anything built by the human hands. It's towers were tall and thickly built, reaching up into the sky like a massive, wounded hand. At the top, they were looking like burnt down candles, the stone having run like wax. Likewise, the massive curtain walls were blackened and melted in many places, the Black Dread's wrath was still clearly visible even a century after Aegon had laid waste to Harrenhal and killed it's namesake.

Everywhere you went in Harrenhal told a similar story. Every building you saw, and Harrenhal had more than a few, was massive and imposing, but also a crumbling ruin. Great halls of blackened stone that were often half collapsed or had gone to ruin. Bats flying out from various buildings to begin their nightly hunt. Parts of the castle resembled a crumbling maze of stonework more than a place to live in. It was so massive that the scale overwhelmed all perspective. You could easily see a city fitting within the great walls of this place and even with the crowds gathered to greet you, the castle felt empty.

You weren't being snubbed. You could tell that much. However dire things looked, you could see efforts to repair, clean, or at least hide the worst of it. The Hall of a Hundred Hearths, where your father was made King and where Lord Lyonel met you with offerings of salt and bread, was perhaps the best example of these efforts. The room was massive, with enough hearths you could almost believe the name was accurate. Almost. But one side was exposed to the outside, the remnants of it's walls and arches looking like the ribs of some massive animal in the fading light. There was plenty of proof of the efforts to repair the worst of the damage. The smooth stones were well cleaned and the whole hall smelled faintly of fresh paint in the autumn air. Lord Strong had done what he could, but no noble house had the coin to repair Harrenhal or even to just keep up with the maintenance that this massive castle required.

You, Alicent, her brother, and many others in your retiune dined together with Lord Strong, his sons, and his uncle Simon that night. Dinner was one of the best you had in a while. Fish was never your favorite, but whoever had prepared tonight's dinner may very well have just changed your mind. Lord Lyonel, knowing your eating habits fairly well, was surprised when you gave praise. Apparently his main chef had unexpectedly come down sick, forcing him to depend on one of the castle's wet nurses to oversee tonight's dinner.

After dinner, there was little time to do anything beyond go to bed. Your plans would have to wait until tomorrow. Lord Strong escorted you to your apartments for your stay, leading you through long, crumbling hallways filled with candles whose wax dripped from about shoulder level all the way to ground.

Like everything else about Harrenhal, your accommodations were huge. Larger than your father's room in the Red Keep, with a vast bed framed by white wood and tall windows. The dark stone walls were noticeably damp in places though. You did your best to ignore that though and climbed into bed.

To it's credit the bed was warm and comfortable, allowing you to easily fall asleep.

drip

drip

drip

Your eyes shot open. In the moonlight you could see water dripping from the ceiling onto the bedroom's floor, forming a small puddle. You quickly spotted a bowl not far away on one of the tables. It wasn't ornate and in fact looked rathe beaten up, likely left here for just such a situation.

"Unbelievable," you muttered as you pulled yourself out of bed, wondering why anyone lived in this ruined husk of a castle as you retrieved the bowl.

"I'm glad Alicent isn't staying with me tonight," you muttered to yourself. "She'd be hating this."

It would have been nice having someone else here to deal with this mess, but you knew if Alicent was here, she wouldn't be able to sleep until this place was halfway decent and there was no way to make it so without involving a mason. Thankfully, she had decided to stay with her brother in one of the smaller and less ruined towers.

A flickering light passed underneath your door. No doubt a guard on patrol.

Only, the light stopped outside your room, letting you make out the faint shadows of two feet.

That's when you heard it. A long, forcible scratch against the door.

"Who's there?" you asked in bewilderment.

Another scratch. Like claws were being dragged slowly across the door. Too slowly to be some animal looking for food, but what person would do such a thing? What person could?

"Who's there?!" you demanded, more forcibly this time.

Something slammed hard against the door with a solid thud, threatening to bring down the massive oaken edifice with one mighty push.

Your breath caught in your throat for a second before you rushed towards your bed and pulled out a sword from beside it, your heart pounding in your ears as you pointed your blade at whatever was trying to attack you. A thick, noxious heat radiated from the door.

And then the heat vanished, along with the fire and whoever had been outside of your door. The only sound you could hear was water dripping from the ceiling and your own labored breaths.

Part of your mind was urging you back to bed. This was clearly some dream playing tricks with you and the best thing you could do right now was to ignore whatever you thought you just saw and return to bed.

It may have been the best option, but it wasn't what you were going to do.

With only a sword in hand and still dressed in your night clothes, you yanked open the door and looked around. At one hand of the hallway you could see a torch held by a distant woman with long silver hair.

"I command you to stop!" you demanded. You couldn't even begin to make sense of how one person had done.... whatever it was that had just happened, but this person clearly was responsible.

The woman turned and two mismatched eyes, one purple, one deep blue, stared back at you

"You shouldn't be here," the figure warned before turning away, her torch light swallowed by the inky blackness that surrounded the both of you.

"Guards!" you called out, your voice echoing off the stone walls and floors.

You did not wait for them. Something told you there were no guards nearby and Ser Tarly was nowhere to be seen either. The whole place felt disquietingly empty.

A flash of lightening briefly providing light, followed by a a loud thunderclap that seemed to echo all around you, while you gave chase through the winding corridors.

Those eyes haunted your thoughts as you ran. None of this made any sense to your tired mind. Even from a distance, those eyes felt like they had been cutting you to your very core with their intensity.

After running for some time, you realized you had somehow ended up outside the castle, though the sky did not provide much in the way of light. The moon was hazy and half swallowed by thick storm clouds that must have rolled in while you slept. Lightning danced across clouds, painting bright spiderwebs onto them. Between the flashes, you saw familiar shapes flying through the clouds.

Another crash of thunder, this one sounding almost like a dragon's roar.

You found yourself in front of Harrenhal's Godswood. While the trees in King's landing were a bit of tame wilderness on castle grounds, this was a feral, overgrown thing. Full of large trees with huge canopies and thick gnarled roots that tangled around bits of broken stonework.

At the far end, you could see the castle's heart tree. A fat trunked Weirwood that sat in a clearing on the edge of God's Eye lake. It's many roots were climbing over the ruins that surrounded it. A figure stood in front of the tree, starring at it's face.

Something in your mind told you this was the woman you saw outside your door. You were about to approach when you heard a new sound in the distance. Steel clashing against steel. Your nose began to burn as you were struck by the smell of smoke and blood.

Turning to see where the smell came from, you saw a fire in the distance. Indistinct figures were clashing against each other in the firelight. There where no other signs of life. The castle behind you seemed hollow and lifeless, with no sign of Lord Strong, Alicent, Ser Tarly or anyone else. Perhaps they were at the battle. Perhaps not.

Nothing about what you saw made sense to your addled mind. Nothing of what you were seeing was possible and yet the smells and sights were simply too real to ignore.

You found yourself torn. Something told you that if you went towards the battle, the woman would not be there when you returned, and vice versa. Two paths lay ahead of you.

What do you do?

[] Confront the woman

[] Head towards the battle

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QM's Note: This is very different for me I admit and I very very nervous about this but I think it will be really interesting and I hope you enjoy it. Also I do promise this isn't just a random aside, this could have some interesting implications and affects on the quest. There is a point this.