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

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Adhoc vote count started by DragonParadox on Sep 23, 2019 at 5:10 AM, finished with 121 posts and 14 votes.
  • [X] Keep Ser Bryan alive for now, in fact it might be better if Lord Blount makes a hard decision starting with this traitor first.
    -[X] Approach Janna and try to convince her of the details of the scheme using your social skills and, admittedly, a vast power disparity. Then with the other hand offer salvation and hope. If she acts as a character witness you'll promise to make arrangements for her future fitting and commiserate to a noble-born scion of her status, with higher education or even magic open to her.
    -[X] Depending on how that conversation goes you'll try to convince Lord Petyr of this treachery together. You will give her at least a little help with Air of Nobility and Voice of the Dragon, and if fear is the issue, a boost of magical courage like with Samwell and Edric, if necessary.
    [X] Bottle ser Bryan, then use the greater ribbon of disguise to stumble out of the tavern, going for the outhouse if this Tavern uses one, in his appearance. If that's not possible, pretend to be going out looking for some "company" if it can be done subtly // we need to confuse the issue of his disappearance somehow.
    -[X] sneak into the castle and investigate the dreams of the current lord, widowed lady, and Janna.
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Part MMMLXXVII: Midnight Crossings
  • Threadmarks
    • Midnight Crossings ​

    Thirtieth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

    For a brief moment you weigh the would-be kinslayer's life in mind. There is certainly no reason to keep him alive for his own sake, but perhaps Lord Petyr might learn a valuable lesson in deciding the man's fate himself. So resolved you make your way out of the room and the inn to meet with Ser Richard and your mother and recount what you had learned.

    "How power makes monsters of men..." Your mother sighs. "The poor girl is going to be devastated."

    "Should have cut off the head of the snake while we had the chance," Ser Richard offers grimly.

    "Ser Bryan?" you snort as the three of you head down the darkened main street that winds out of the village towards the keep. "He's less a snake and more a bullfrog with borrowed fangs."

    "I mean Baelish," the knight clarified. "If the little weasel had sharp enough wit to impress you, Your Grace, I would sleep easier with him under three feet of dirt."

    "He is still useful where he is for now—one ally, one knowing tool, and one unknowing makes for a threefold tether to secure the Usurper's Small Council against rash action. For now let us concern ourselves with House Blount..."

    ***​

    Thirty-First Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

    The room is dark as pitch, the only window a narrow opening that had once been an arrow slit before the keep was expanded upwards, worn stone underfoot and of stone three of its walls while the forth is splintering pine wood. On the floor wrapped in a pile of ragged blankets is a young woman who likely counts five-and-twenty years, though the lines of sorrow and exhaustion that she bears even in sleep might first incline one to add ten years. Looks like the rumors in the tavern were wholly right about one thing at least.

    Your mother breaks her veil first, reasoning that she is less likely to alarm Janna than you would be. Conjuring a light to see by and affixing it to a rusted candle-holder above the bed she leans in to gently to shake the girl awake. "It's alright, I'm here to talk," she says, cutting off Janna's panicked question. It says quite a lot about her position that this is all the reassurance necessary. 'Any port in a storm,' the Braavosi say, and this one has been at sea for a long time.

    Janna is first disbelieving at just who is paying her a midnight visit, then awed and afraid and at last angry when your mother recounts Ser Bryan's true intentions, tears as much of rage as sorrow pouring down her cheeks.

    "What reason would she have to lie about this, what reason would I?" you ask, dropping your own veil.

    "What reason would you have to be telling the truth?! Why do you care?!" she shouts, loudly enough to make you grateful you had thought to cast a spell of silence on the door and the wall behind you.

    "Because it's unfair, because chance cast you down and I see no reason not to take a moment to lift you back up," you answer truthfully.

    Silence falls as Janna fully realizes who it was that she had just yelled at, then your actual words penetrate the haze of shock and a faint spark of hope glitters in her eyes. "What do you need me to do?" she asks shakily.

    "Speak to your cousin, recount what Ser Bryan asked you to do, and once that is well done you will have a chance to put this place and this life behind you in Sorcerer's Deep. Does that sound like a fair deal?" your mother interjects.

    "Kings and queens don't make deals with the likes of me," the young woman sighs.

    "You would be surprised at the kinds of deals kings and queens can make." Your mother's smile is a touch melancholy, but no less real for it.

    "It won't matter what I tell him. He's not really the lord, it's that Bitch that rules here." Janna's words are spoken with an odd mixture of venom and weary resignation as she sinks back into herself. "Lord Petyr feels his mother aught to have been the one made lady of the keep, so he handed her the reigns in all but name while he sits and molders with his books."

    "Perhaps together we might change his mind, then," you say half to yourself.

    ***​

    There is no need to wake the young Lord Blount, he is still immersed in his tome when the three of you appear into his chamber and even the sound of Janna almost losing her balance from the experience of her first translocation is not enough to draw his eye. Your clear your throat. "Greetings, my lord. Pardon the late hour and the strange manner of our coming, but we bear grave news that could not wait for morning's light."

    Fear is a distant second to sheer fascination as Lord Petyr scrambles to look at you. "Y-Your Grace," he stutters, looking over Janna's presence in askance, then stumbling slightly over his words he adds. "I mean, you are King in the east then..."

    You merely nod, sparing him the embarrassment and motion for Janna to speak. You had gifted her with spells of eloquence, though not near as many as Edric Mallery as both you and your mother can help openly.

    By the end of the grim tale Lord Blount is pale as a sheet, eyes wide not with surprise but horror. "I thought it was just words, just disappointment at how..." he trails off. "Well I'm not the most lordly fellow you've seen, am I?" Then almost too soft to hear even for you he adds: "I should have gone to the Citadel."

    What do you do?

    [] Lord Petyr is right, he is obviously not right for a lord's burdens, suggest the Imperial Academy in Sorcerer's Deep and secure his mother's fealty
    -[] Write in

    [] However ill-prepared he might be for the task, he was at last not cruel to the people of his fief nor even to Janna when she admitted to having known about a plot to poison him. Offer counsel on how best to rule while not losing the things that are important to him
    -[] Write in

    [] Write in

    OOC: I had Rhaella be the one to initially approach Janna because she was a lot less frightening to wake up to for a sudden talk in the middle of the night. Edited.
     
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    • Crake said:
    A Wizard's Wile
    ​
    Thirtieth Day of the Tenth Month 293 AC

    Lilly wiped at her eyes, not because she had been crying mind you, that was for stupid little girls who weren't brave and clever like her, but because all the slapping around and shouting her father had done which got him a week in lockup and mucking the streets to 'cool his head' had her out of sorts and she always got a little leaky when he was turning back to his cups.

    The image of the Dragon King leading her through the shadowed halls of his wizard school wouldn't leave her head from the moment she'd been lead to a new home by him--she learned pretty quickly not to use 'witch' lightly in the Deep, as it was more likely to get you laughed at unless you were using the word the proper way. And Lilly hated it when people laughed at her, hated it more than when they were braying or shouting or giving her a good boxing.

    She swung her legs on the park bench, feeling down, when someone landed next to her. "'Ello, love." She startled, peering up at the gruff figure with corded muscle on his arms, mismatched with the soft flowing robes and the staff balanced on his knee. "You been staring at the Plinth for hours, or dawdling about the Scholar's Grove. You don't have to keep away from the Philosopher's Tree, you know. Ain't off limits so long as you're respectful to 'em Trees."

    She muttered, "I got into a fight last time I got near. I mean... I argued with a sorcerer boy, and he called me stupid because I didn't believe him when he said I could never be a wit--wizard, because I was a dumb girl. Course when I pointed out that the Princess and half the Companions--them heroes the King keeps close to his side--were girls too, his friends laughed at him and now he hates me and bothers me whenever I get near there or the 'Brary." Not that she could read. "All 'cause I couldn't list off some stupid books..."

    "Books ain't so stupid, is my thought on that, love. An' maybe, if you'll pardon my pondering aloud, you made him so angry because you looked down on him for it. Sure, boys an' all, got soft skins that age. 'Specially this lot," the gaffer snorted as he gestured at the still bustling square, filled with magicians going about their business, carrying books or odder things in and out of the heavily guarded Shadow Tower entrance and the hexagonal stone arch. "You want to be a mage, eh love?" She glanced down at his collar, noticing a glint of silver, thinking it passing odd the way it looked and glittered in the mage lights casting their glow upon the pair.

    She wrinkled her nose. "...yes. I want..." she trailed off, suddenly realizing she was talking to a stranger. He gave her an encouraging smile. "I wanna be special, too..." she muttered, red in the face, since that was a dumb reason to want to learn magic.

    "You get it then," he said with a nod. "Most say they wanted to learn the higher mysteries of the world, or fight in the King's army, or go on adventures and discover new lands and fight monsters like the Companions, but more of that lot get turned away in the end when they ain't got the guts or will to press forward the second that things are gettin' tough. Half that crock about finding worthy purpose for magic isn't worth two shakes of..." he coughed, and she had been around fighting men long enough to know one cutting himself off before he said something just an inch too crude in front of a girl. "It ain't worth as much as knowing you want it and that you'll use it for yourself. So long as you follow the laws, uphold the Charter... that's all the King can ask of us."

    It was then that Lilly realized that the gaffer was a wizard himself, and she fumbled her words again as he lifted his brow in amusement at her awe.

    "You applying, then?" he wondered softly. She hesitated, then nodded. "Hm. Well, you'll need to know your letters. They'll have you in a school house for months if'n you march up there without a lick of knowin', but they won't turn you away out of 'and." He mused aloud, surprising her--she had thought it would be impossible without the fancy book-learning that pimple-faced boy raved on about.

    She hesitated, but saw a leading hand when it was waving right in her face clear as day. "Could you... teach me? To read, I mean! I ain't expecting handouts either, I can work..!" The man laughed.

    "Well, guess you won't be needin' this then, eh apprentice?" He mused, dropping the rolled letter wrapped in crimson ribbon and sealed with the Three-Headed-Dragon. To her surprise, when she unfurled it, she understood it clearly. Must be magic, she thought. Because of course the Dragon King had magic for making his words understood by those what didn't know how to read. At this point Lilly thought King Viserys could do anything.

    "The Crown has made dispensation, in light of recent entanglements of your legal guardian, pending investigation under purview..." she read on and was boggled at having even the slightest clue what most of the things it went on about meant. She understood most of it, though. "...and stipend, should you fail to show talent in matters Arcane... an orphanage?!" She said, incredulous. The gaffer--her teacher, she held out some mad hope, laughed.

    "Aye, you can't take a stipend without bein' a ward of the state or from some kind of special dispensation specific to the individual--" the man trailed off, clearing his throat awkwardly. "They send out 'em letters all the time, keepin' urchins off the pretty and clean streets and giving them something to dream after, even if it's just tightening bolts on some engine or something like that. If you don't have a way about magic, they'd toss you in a creche and give you lessons on reading, writing and sums, at least. It ain't a bad place," he told her soothingly. "Course if you have me teach you, you'll get a cell in my town house and we'll put you on minding an' sorting reagents for a start," he said as if working through the possibilities. "Going to be going on my Journey soon, things bein' so busy lately 'cause of that, having some help around the workshop is just the thing I need."

    Lilly pondered things a while longer. "What about my Pa, then?" She spoke woodenly, not sure if she should feel bad that she didn't really care he had no say in things.

    "Normally he could fight it in the courts, but I doubt he will," he said with surprising coldness. "Name's Tobyis. You can call me Master Tobyis or Master, if you've made up your mind." He lifted a brow in question. She stood, maybe a little too quickly, when he got up, and followed right after him.

    She didn't want to be just another forgotten dumb girl who got tossed into some pity place with the other children and told to mind herself and be thankful for what she had. That wasn't her.

    It was only much later on that Lilly had noticed she'd be played like a fiddle, but she didn't really have time to mind it over much.

    She was too busy trying not to set herself on fire.

    ...
    ​
    Asset recovered. Divination results remain consistent with previous. Next time, don't make me play messenger raven for some bureaucrat's idle fancy, all because of a passing comment from someone up in the Keep or whatever brought this last batch of acquisitions up. Sifting through immigrants is scutwork. I don't care if she's supposed to be 'the Last Hero' returned because some high-handed poof shot a sponsorship her way the minute someone threw some chicken bones in a circle and danced an answer out of the future that ain't likely to even come true.

    ***

    Noted. Await further instructions. And if you would like to lodge a complaint with the Grand Inquisitor and question his motives for how he allocates divinatory budgeting for the next quarter, you are more than free to do so.

    ***

    Right, and the next thing you're going to tell me is the King rescued her from an army of demons, and she's going to be the next Companion. I swear, this horse shite is what makes us played out to be paranoid cunts as like to bugger each other than do our jobs on them mirror plays.
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    That was cute. :)

    Remind me of where we first ran into Lilly. I cannot recall.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    Fear is a distant second to sheer fascination as Lord Petyr scrambles to look at you. "Y-your Grace," she stutters looking over Janna's presence in askance, then stumbling slightly over his words he adds. "I mean you are King in the East than..."
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    Nice to for once see a Westerosi that know what to call us, as while we aren't yet king of Westeros, calling us the king in the east, is not treacherous to either side.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    had once been an arrow list* before
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    Slit
    DragonParadox said:
    though the lines of sorrow and exhaustion that he* bears even in sleep
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    She
    DragonParadox said:
    Conjuring a light* see by and affixing
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    To
    DragonParadox said:
    You ahd* gifted her
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    Had
    DragonParadox said:
    admitted having known about a lot* to poison him.
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    Plot
     
    [X] However ill prepared he might be for the task, he was at last not cruel to the people of his fief nor even to Janna when she admitted having known about a plot to poison him. Offer counsel on how best to rule wile not losing the things that are important to him
    -[X] The time of Lords ruling through fear and might of arms is near at an end, the realm will soon have need of Lords who are good administrators and well versed in the law, if that doesn't seem enough for him, there is might to be found in books as well, though that particular sort of training might have to wait.
    -[X] However, the execution of the law is itself a test of character as much as a battle might be, he has a choice to make about a conspirator's fate, if he can do that he might yet regain his people's respect.
     
    TotallyNotEvil said:
    "Name's Butcher. Billy Butcher"

    I like to think we have a whole floor in the Shadow Tower for "Chosen Ones" and their plucky adventures.
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    Straight up was channeling Billy Boy. Loose cannon out for revenge! No other comes to mind now.

    [X] "Tell me true, my Lord--ordinarily I would offer counsel, but I feel I must know. Do you truly not wish to rule the lands of your birthright? More of my own right to rule I believe to be founded on my capability to rule where all in the realm know Baratheon to be unsuited, indolent even, refusing to take up the basic burdens or bare minimum of his duties to which he is obliged, much as the reason I refuse to resort to butchery and barbarism to impose my claim as many Lords might expect of a conquering king."
    -[X] "So what manner of Lady would your mother make? What rule would she bring to these lands? What I have seen is that she has allowed your name to be run aground, even though this weakens her own right to rule as she derives her power through your claim, nearly allowed this treachery to take place, and opened up your Keep to internal dissent for petty reasons."
    -[X] "Advice I can avail you to, tools and resources so that you might weather the storm, but one has to begin to try before one can start at any undertaking."
     
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    DragonParadox said:
    [] However ill prepared he might be for the task, he was at last not cruel to the people of his fief nor even to Janna when she admitted having known about a plot to poison him. Offer counsel on how best to rule wile not losing the things that are important to him
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    I'm thinking that it's better to have him stay as a ruler because he's willing to admit his flaws and doesn't see himself as infallible, close to priceless among the nobility. Plus I'd consider scholarly talent will probably, in the long run, be much more useful to the actual day to day running of this land than any fighting ability. Plus it could be helpful to have someone who knows what they are doing to help with reformation efforts.

    What do you all think?

    EDIT: After thinking this through I think that Crake's questions will help ensure he has the grit to use his talents effectively.

    [X] Crake
     
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    A willingness to rule would be a good start to realizing that he can choose how he does so.
     
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