Waiting Game
Twenty Third Day of the First Month 294 AC
Once, all you would have had to do to impersonate another would have been to take on his face and form, a spell of the first circle, a glamor anyone strong enough of will could break. Once, all you would have had to worry about were foes using their eyes to see, their ears to hear, and maybe their noses to smell if you were particularly unlucky. Those days are gone. You take on Monford Velaryon's build in truth and from illusions weave a
veil enduring as adamant. No arcane sense can lightly pierce this guise, even a fury's sight, and no mortal divination can read your fate... which is a problem to be sure because until a few moments ago they could certainly have read that of the Lord of the Tides.
Thus you gift him such a ward for the day you, and do the same for his wife and even little Monterys after ensuring the child is not in any danger of swallowing the ring, though both Lady Elyra and her son remain safely in the Opaline Vault. Their parts are played by Dany and Glyra, freshly arrived from the Reach, because looking for elder trolls proves uninteresting to her beside the prospect of surprising a would be assassin from the guise of a helpless infant.
Privately,
very privately, you have to admit the prospect is quite amusing. It's not as though you have much else to do in this charade beyond contemplating humiliating fates for your enemy.
Playing the part of a shaken Monford Velaryon who has just been given new protections from his lord you have been informed by the man himself, involves a lot of sitting in his solar writing letters and reading ledgers. You have no intention of signing anything in his name, of course, or looking through his private ledgers, but you can at least sort his old letters. All of them are in code, hiding organization behind seemingly innocuous topics with a decent number of actually innocuous ones besides, but for some reason he feels that leaving them scattered provides one more layer of security. You inwardly shudder at how much time he probably wastes looking for things.
Something sharp scrapes against your skin, finding no purchase...
You look down surprised to see an old copy of the Imperial Times, it's hardened parchment edge sharpened sufficiently to cut skin and glistening with what can only be poison. Deadly to most, you suspect, though the crown you wear makes it no more than water to yourself.
Adding insult to not-quite-injury.
Reading the history of the parchment reveals that it had been brought through the stone floor in total silence by someone as warded against divination as you are. You hate competent enemies, the patient ones most of all. Your distinctly healthy self walking out the door in a few hours might just give the game away, though perhaps you can play it off as yet another ward gifted to Lord Velaryon in the wake of the recent killing. In any case, there is one person you trust best of all to answer questions about esoteric poison
***
"That would have poisoned you even through the crown's ward," Tyene says definitively, looking at the vial turning from burnt orange to sickly blue in her hand, her voice echoing in your mind all the way from Sorcerer's Deep. You did not strictly need to give yourself the
ability to see through her eyes, but there is little else to do when pretending to be asleep, though you had long since had your needed two hours of rest under Dany's watch.
"It probably wouldn't have actually hurt you that much because you are a dragon wandering around in Monford's shoes, but whoever made this is as good a poisoner as me, maybe better," your friend continues.
"I'd really like to meet them when you catch them... you know before you feed them to the snake," she continues with an edge of amusement to her words.
Tyene's confidence in you aside, you have a feeling the assassin has more time at his disposal than you do and he seemingly has no reason to conveniently charge into the open to get caught.
What do you do?
[] Keep trying to trap him (must leave for Heaven's Shore in three days)
[] Try a more active approach
-[] Write in
[] Write in
OOC: This was surprisingly tense and interesting to write given the background rolls, but I'm not sure how much comes out in the update. Not yet edited.
