Answers in a Hollow Gaze
Twenty Fourth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
"Shit," not a very helpful sentiment, but still one that needed to be voiced. The answer would not be as easy as divining Rickard Stark, you know not after thousands of years changing bodies as men changed clothes. Most likely you are facing a being as spiteful as an ancient wraith and just as driven to visit his dreadful curse upon the object of his ire, but by the same measure this is no wraith, no unhoused spirit free to wonder, he will need a body and though there may be beasts and birds everywhere you too can have eyes in the sky.
As the second hour of the day steals over the sky you return to Sorcerer's Deep and call to you all messenger ravens not otherwise bound to a task. They flow into your cloak and from there into the skies of Westeros to seek beasts that do not move according to their nature, but with the guile and purpose of humankind. Thankfully uncle Brynden's maps of the Riverlands allow you to lay a proper grid atop it without the guesswork and surveyor's errors getting in the way.
Subtlety is a grand thing when it is hidden, but once unveiled a rock will break the finest spider's web.
While the ravens' fly you try to divine more answers from the dream, alas foresight does not favor you, the same answer floating before your mind's eye no matter how you change the question.
"Listen to this," Waymar's voice interrupts your eight attempt at spell-work. In his hand is the bronze forged book of the warg king, the original likely so as not to risk losing some nuance. "Though the minds of beasts are easily dominated, it is unwise to crush the mind of one you wish to inhabit for any length of time for like stone crushed to sand it will cling to the unfortunate warg, eating away at his purpose and reason, better to reach some common cause with the beast and guide it with a light hand..."
"Wolf brother, yes," you nod. "Still a light touch would only take him so far, the mental strain of sharing a body with the native intelligence..."
"Well he does not have to be as careful with people, or so the madman who wrote this supposed," your friend frowns as much in distaste at the long dead warg who escaped the Night's Watch to trouble the world for who knows how many years in the mind of another . "A man's mind is more ordered more fit for swallowing without going mad... or better to say madder, for tis not good sense and sanity that would drive you to kill a man and wear his still breathing corpse like a new cloak."
"So we probably are not looking for animals alone, not unless our 'friend' is currently enacting a plot like the sickening of Copperidge," you muse looking down at the map. "Ideally he would need a body at home in the wilds, one with many beasts beside him as the more skilled wargs among the Free Folk do, to also at home enough in civilization that none would question his passage."
"Oh..." Dany breathes. "Wouldn't it be ironic if..."
You catch her meaning before she even finishes the sentence. Scrying the huntmaster at Raventree Hall you see not a trace of magic on his sleeping form, but looking to Stone Hedge you find the knight who holds that honor staring blankly at the ceiling of his room, gaze empty and spirit wandering, or rather the spirit that had overcome him wandering.
What do you do?
[] Teleport to the empty body at once, try to use the sympathetic link to draw back your foe
[] Be cautious, this is not Rickard body any more than any of the thousands of others he has worn, try to converse with the beasts of the keep to find out which beast may be carrying his spirit
[] Set watch on all the Blackwoods and Brakens you can fly a Greater Raven to lest your enemy try a blunter approach than usual
[] Write in
OOC: The gird searching was a good idea in general, but I rolled for it and at this point Rickard is working to keep his mind, not roughing it in the wilds. Not yet edited.
