On a Traitor's Trail
Thirteenth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given his current state, Balerion proves to be uncannily well-informed about the hidden nooks and passages of the keep and the others who make use of them.
"You should stop calling them 'little birds', the cat recognizes the words and it confuses him something fierce," Vee explains after the latest series of yowls and mews.
"They're way too big fer him to eat. He thinks of 'em as 'rock throwers' since that's how they chase him off sometimes." She lapses into communing with the cat again, as much with her posture and hands as with sounds.
"He says some of 'em live above the kitchen, the lucky ones..."
"How does the cat know they are lucky?" Dany asks, startled.
"Because they make 'happy-mouth-noises' and it's warm up there. Why wouldn't they be happy?" Vee shrugs, obviously in agreement with the old tomcat's priorities.
The cat proves less cooperative in being placed in a bottle by sorcery, only agreeing to it once Vee had demonstrated that it is safe before his eyes. Under other circumstances you might have resented the extra wish spent, but quite apart from making Rhaenys happy once you get him to her, Balerion has proven to be your best lead yet to finding Varys.
Moving quickly through the Holdfast, you see the guards and courtiers searching for Myrcella, at once relieved and disappointed at not seeing anyone of note among them, until you are finally out in the courtyard and back to the Kitchen Keep. Though a cat's-eye-view makes for somewhat confusing directions, Dany is able to find the crawl space at the back of a pantry, one Dany can navigate with ease and just wide enough for Vee to slip through but certainly not you.
As a thin ripple of
mist you follow them through, wary of traps, wards, or hidden spies, and good that it is so, for you find the first two in plenty but oddly not the third, from a simple alarm ward masking a much more complex and better hidden ward to tightly packed steel springs sharp as a dagger's edge that would have sprung on Vee and Dany, but for the fact that Vee had conjured a badger for the task of scouting ahead.
At the narrow tunnel's end, wedged between the kitchen and the lordly quarters above, you find at last those whom you seek, three children in ragged clothes upon equally ragged blankets. Two try to flee and to your horror the third tries to kill himself, though you are able to cast them all into enchanted slumber before the knife is even half drawn.
Picking through the children's' minds you find that while they do not know where the traitorous master of whisperers is now they do know where he will be in about three hours, waiting in his chambers for a report.
What do you do next?
[] Go to Varys's room to set up an ambush
-[] Write in plan
[] Try to find another of the foes you wish to deal with tonight
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: The encounter dice fell on 'no significant encounter', which is probably for the best as late as it's getting for me. I'm not sure I could have done a more interesting result justice.
