"What WHAT THE Fargh Princess!"
"Yes?"
"You stood in front of that thing with a club!"
"Sure. I had to use a touch spell."
"... I'm supposed to protect you!"
"Then you better up your game, Ser Sandor, won't you?"
"... :confused:o_O:mad::cry:"
I'm currently having the mental image of the group fighting a few cultists and Dany hanging back while the others do their thing. Then they are ambushed by a Bone Devil that was hastily called up. Sandor panics when it goes straight for Dany, but can't do anything about it. Dany just lifts a finger, casts Destruction and the snarling monster turns into a pile of dust.

"Please proceed to take out the chaff Clegane. I will take care of the rear."
 
"You get a little girl to poke and prod at your mouth??"

"No. She just yanks out the ground down toothy bits and regrows the rest.

":o"
 
Who should get the Type II Bag of Holding? For that matter, who should get the Type I Bag of Holding the Harvester Devil had?
 
Who should get the Type II Bag of Holding? For that matter, who should get the Type I Bag of Holding the Harvester Devil had?
One of them to the Lads and another to the Misfits?

Handy Haversacks are super convenient, but don't have nearly as much capacity as even a Type 1 Bag of Holding.
 
Part MMDCLXXXIX: Tower Amid the Thorns
Tower Amid the Thorns

Twenty-Sixth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

"A hunting accident for dear Alekyne it is, then. It almost sounds like something out of a ballad," you snort. "Here I am sounding like the villain again." It is only when you notice Lya's thoughtful look that you realize that you may have let a hint of bitterness into the words.

"You sounded like a hero to me today at the joust, and you actually will be a hero for dealing with the devils when no one else could or would," she replies firmly. "That the two do not more often converge in the same act says more about the nature of ballads, all tales really, than it does about any of us. I have not heard you regret that some of the Red God's priests decided you are not their Azor Ahai."

"Certainly not." You pause for a moment, digging through the incongruity she had pointed out. "I suppose I am simply more attached to Westerosi stories than I am Essosi ones, and this tourney has put me more into a mind to ponder them than usual."

"Maybe you should have ridden as a 'mystery' knight, then. I'd give you my favor and everything..." she offers with a smile.

"Your company and wisdom is worth more to me than all the favors ever worn," you answer sincerely.

Brief moments of insight aside the matter of the now defunct infernal conspiracy still simmers. So while Lya, with the aid of her daughters Aradia, Mercy, and Nuri, deals with the current heir of House Florent, just as Dany and her company handle the Lord of Brightwater Keep, you and Ser Richard will approach the Lord Seneschal of Highgarden.

***​

Highgarden certainly looks like it would be at home in those ballads you had been pondering earlier. Three rings of white stone, each higher than the next, ward it from foes while between the first and second sits the keep's famous briar labyrinth, its patterns somehow bewildering to the eye even from on high, the product not of one mind but of generations of gardeners each growing upon the work of the next. Having seen many hedge mazes in Essos you could never quite picture how such a thing was supposed to be a serious delay to an invading army, but looking down upon those foreboding walls of thorn and briar half again as tall as a knight and horse together you understand in full.

The towers behind the final wall are no less of an enduring proof of the legacy of House Gardener—broad square towers that recall the likes of Runestone or even the First Keep in Winterfell while newer ones, built after the Andal Invasion, are tall and slender as though aspiring to touch the clouds themselves.


To look upon the keep with the eyes of power is to see in other ways the works of the same hands, from the ancient rune-forged wards writ clear upon the face of the stone, enduring since the Age of Heroes, to the deep green shadows between the briars that seem to disdain the light of day, though it does raise an interesting question. What woodswitch or hedge mage had plied their trade to spin magic into the labyrinth even while the castle's sept looked down from on high? For once you suspect you have found a riddle you shall not be finding the answer to. No unquiet spirits haunt Highgarden willing to bequeath their secrets upon one who would offer a sympathetic ear, for it as the Tyrells' words proclaim—a place of life "Growing Strong".

Alas that it is the nature of life to draw rot also like a worm nestled inside an apple. The devil had been cautious and clever for all it had served her for naught in the end. She would not be returning to Garth's tower rooms to free the man kept a prisoner there not by stone, but by a prison of his own body. Unseen you dispel the devil's simple ward upon the leaded glass and open the window wide, relieved that it is wide enough for both you and Ser Richard to slip inside that you might speak with the Lord Seneschal of Highgarden.

Your first thought upon seeing Garth 'the Gross' Tyrell alone at his desk is that he has been maligned in his moniker. True he is of considerable girth, but nowhere near so much as say Wyman Manderly, nor can one call the man's blue-and-silver waistcoat over a light grey doublet poorly kept. The jeweled buttons are a touch excessive you suppose, but compared to most Tyroshi, even Myrish magisters, he is still the very picture of restraint.

Dark shadows linger under his eyes as he contemplates the parchment before him, the warning he would never be able to write, you realize with a pang of sympathy. At least had it not been for you.

How do you approach Garth Tyrell?

[] Write in

OOC: I hope the descriptive chapter works on its own, I felt Highgarden deserves it.
 
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Should we even bother trying to flip him? We have multiple options for magically messing with his mind, after all.

I'm not sure if I see any real advantage to trying to gain his service. Anything important he knows, we can just strip from the Pleasure Devil's mind.
 
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