A Fruitful Realm
Twenty Ninth Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC
The envoy had left, and the books set upon a shelf of high honor and no small secrecy in your library, but they would not be as secret as could be, on that you agree with Lya and Dany. No dark lore nor secret conjurations can be found within those tomes, no weapons of another age, only somber memories and in the end a glint of hope. A gift to the empire they were and so you would pass it to the empire's scholars, that something of what was lost might be remembered. You open the third volume again, the ghostly letters reflected not only in the eye but the mind itself, a bridge of perfect understanding...
No, not yet, you decide. There would be time enough to read and reflect upon these later, for now concern of the present called on your time, albeit of a rather unusual sort.
***
As morning is only just peeking over the silvery skyline of Lys, you, Dany, and Ser Richard, accompanied by Elaheh Marita draped in one of her subtler dresses and Maester Qyburn, or perhaps better to say Wisdom Qyburn for he had taken to wearing a robe befitting of his Scholarum rank, at least when in public, make your way through the city.
The five of you pass through what was once the Gilded District, though you suspect the name will not endure long. Although some of the priests have returned to their abandoned altars and a handful of new temples raised in thanks for deliverance from dark times, many more of the empty shops and houses had been filled by newly freed slaves who feared talk of lingering specters, of plague and curses, less than they did the memory of their bondage.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Great Tree and what had once been your embassy to the city had drawn many of these new inhabitants close, at first for the protection of the legion and the blessings of the Old Gods, but now to take advantage of the presence of Scholarum sorcerers, low mages, and leshy spirits performing one task or another in the forge. To your eyes, it looks like a piece of Sorcerer's Deep fallen in the middle of Lys, or perhaps a seed...
"I wonder what stories they tell..." Dany muses softly.
"Pardon?" the kyton apostle inquires.
To your surprise, it is Qyburn who answers. "Fey beings are living tales playing themselves out, eternal mummers and all the world their stage, yet it is mortals who write the script they must play out. So whatever awaits us behind the veil in the Feywyld might draw as much from tales about the forge as its own arcane nature."
"Fascinating, I have not encountered many of that kindred before coming to this realm. How does their flesh change when they exchange one mask for another, I wonder?" Elaheh asks, ever more intrigued.
"While mortals taken altogether may write the script the fey follow in tune with their desires, one should keep in mind the age of such spirits," you warn. "Only the newest lines are ones we are likely to recognize. Do not underestimate the fey or their realm of dreams and nightmares."
With these words, you cross the veil between the worlds, not in the whirl of sound and color that usually heralds passage, but in a subtle changing of the light. The air grows hushed, a subtle sweetness upon the tongue like honey and flowers. Well you can imagine how so many who find themselves in this realm by accident might not even know the difference... that is until you raise your eyes.
The towers seem not of pale marble, but true silver glittering under the light of false moon and witch stars, but it is the Great tree itself that stands most changed in this realm. Gone is the pale bark, crimson leaves, and the straight trunk. Knotted is its wood, with the color that brings to mind oak and black willow, and bent like an old man leaning at the waist, and little wonder. Golden spheres, ranging in size from slightly smaller a man's head to larger than a horse, pulse with an inner light upon its branches while others grow from the earth all around it, like strange pumpkins upon knotted vines. Spirals of flickering golden sprites dance around the tree in patterns only they can guess at...
"Well, I guess we should go talk to them," Lya speaks up first, motioning to the sprites who seem wholly unconcerned at your appearance in their home. Before anyone can answer, the roots of the tree shift to reveal an opening beneath the trunk from which the sound of drums and flutes resounds.
An invitation...
"Wait," you raise a hand to forestall the curious Qyburn from approaching one of the pods.
In a patch of gloom beneath the vine covered wall, the shadows twist and the Orphne Lord steps forth. The Hooded Lord had sent word that he could not make his way back to Lys in person, being too busy with arranging passage to other cities for the Goblin Market, but he had also sent word of what he knew of this corner of the Feywyd:
A place of new life, rancorous and bright in the hour of its making. Beware not malice, but rather the careless dancer's hand.
"The heart of the convergence is below, as in the mortal realms, but there is no ley line to follow here as a thread through the needle's eye. The chambers will be different," the lord of the shadow fey explains. "I would advise against partaking of food and drink, including anything you might pluck from the tree."
"You don't say," Dany says dryly, eyeing a 'fruit' twice as large as her.
What do you do?
[] Speak to the sprites
-[] Write in
[] Descend beneath the tree
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: Ignore the person in the pic, the tree is important. Not yet edited. 
