With Straightforward Subtlety
Sixteenth Day of the First Month 294 AC
"Does it matter to you?" you counter a question for a question. "From all I heard of you, politics were never something you were concerned with, preferring the higher mysteries to cloaks and daggers."
"Cloaks I have found useful depending on how cold it is out," the archmaester replies with a knowing glint in his eyes that makes you wonder if he is somehow aware of your recent battles against the servants of winter. He could not have divined you personally nor your companions, but there are no wards veiling the
Moonchaser from sight, nor for that matter the entirety of the Thenns. "As to daggers... well a man might wish to ignore them, but one does so at the peril of being stabbed unaware."
"Truly?" you tilt your head just so, inviting confidence. "As one who has drawn his first breath in Braavos I know something of daggers. Tell me, what have you been doing since the world changed? I must confess I have found it strange that one who bears the ring, rod and mask of Valyrian steel has had so little a hand in the doings of the Citadel in such times."
"Bah," Marwyn spits. "Sheep won't look up from chewing cud just because the wolves are loose."
Vargo looks exasperated at what you suspect is a familiar rant winding up, Sari amused. Ashin you notice has not taken his eyes off Soallae and you sense magic stirring, a spell of
sight, thankfully not one that would pierce his mortal seeming.
"I'm here more often than some think, more often than those fools grasping the vault keys in withered fingers know. Tools give no answers no matter how fine their make."
The Asabhadian mage looks up from his silent spell-casting, his brow still creased with thought. "Marwyn..."
"The Lantern Bearers know as much and our friends here were in contact with them," the archmaester counters, though he does look a touch guilty, or as close to it as he can manage at least.
"So you think well of the order of the Lantern Bearers then?" Kira asks lightly before the silence has time to linger.
"They are mad, all of them," the archmaester scoffs. "For what but madness do you call men armed with steel matching wits and strength against the Ones Beyond all Circles. It's madness more of us could stand to catch." His expression darkens as he continues. "When the tide rises likely as not they'll all be washed away, but at least they'll bleed the foul things fingers as they grasp and squeeze the life from the city."
"They are not
new you know," Soallae says. "Not like..." he cuts himself off, likely about to say 'like me'. "The Deep Ones have been here a long time and yet the world of form endures. They can be kept back, driven into the depths and harried to their doom."
"Oldtown isn't the bloody world, though you wouldn't know it to hear some of my esteemed fellows," somehow he manages to invest the courtesy with more venom than his earlier talk of sheep. "Old Darkness waking all around and the fools still play their games like babes tumbling towards a cliff's edge. You know what's stirring in the north, unless your lord is more stingy with the truth than I take him to be."
Subtly is manifestly not the archmaester's forte it seems. You nod slowly. A trusted agent of the Sealord which you are trying to seem like would know at least the general idea of what dwells in the Furthest North.
"As though the seas and the ice being
poisoned isn't enough those fools in Qohor are are waking the malice of the deep woods, scraping spines into the flesh of the Goat with a Thousand Young..."
Something about the name sends a chill down your spine, a memory you know instinctively but do not wish to contemplate in public.
"And what do we have to guard us, fey carving their pound of flesh with a silver knife, the Lantern Bearers and the Lannister kit if she weren't..."
"The walls have ears and secrets worth beyond gold, my freind," Ashin speaks up for the first time, his voice echoing with more than mortal sounds. It almost sounds like possession, but somehow lighter and unless you are much mistaken markedly less malevolent.
"Yes, yes, the worth of secrets," Marwyn waves him off with his tankard in hand. "They are about to try to bribe us into joining the Dragon's tame mages soon anyway." He turns back to you. "Well, aren't you?"
It does not escape your notice that he had given away only a crumb of knowledge about distant lands, and dangled something about the Lannisters unsaid just as he mentioned a bribe. The archmaester may be blunt, but he is far from thoughtless.
What do you reply?
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OOC: Marwyn truly does not have the best social skills for his level, but he is a clever man and has allies to cover for him. 
. I'm just joking that a Drake his size is oh so young when even compared to Dany.
