By Bent Paths
Twenty Sixth Day of the Second Month 294 AC
The Bent Pyramid is perhaps the most decrepit monument in a city that seemed to collect them like pockmarks of the ages. It seems at first a strange place of gathering for those within the devils' snare who count themselves most exalted Masters made slaves to subtle whips. But then the past has a sort of fascination to it, one you are not yourself immune to to judge from the neo-Valyrian colonnades of the Empire's public buildings, so you shan't judge the Good Masters too harshly in this matter at least. Gods and Powers know there are plenty of other sins to judge them by.
From speaking to the locals, you know the pyramid contains a complex of dilapidated rooms that had likely once served a religious or administrative purpose, to judge from the last fading inscriptions that had seen the touch of too many hands. They are open to the public and indeed, the family that has come to own the land makes a tidy annual profit from taxing visitors. It is not these chambers that you and your company must infiltrate, according to the devils and confirmed by the spirits of these blood red stones through the power of the Old God's gift.
Beyond a passage that is a apparently irrevocably blocked by fallen rubble, but which is in fact no more than a glamor, lies a tunnel to an oracular chamber where in ancient days they say the Graces practiced haruspicy, divining the future in the entrails of beasts.
"I'm almost surprised they didn't practice that on their slaves, too," Dany mutters darkly.
"The Empire of Old Ghis practiced slavery, but not on such a grand scale nor with such malice," Benerro interjects softly. "In truth, I suspect they would be as horrified at seeing what their descendants have become in their defeat as we are, if not quite for the same reasons."
"You sound like you pity them, Holy one?" Garin notes, surprised.
"In my youth I have traveled this way before and seen enough of the ruins beneath the rot to know there was once greatness here. Valyria will be mourned, but Ghis will be forgotten when it is not distanced. Even over the ages, the victory of the Dragon Lords endures."
"I should hope it does, given the company you are now keeping," Dany jests, willfully breaking from her dark mood and earning a smile from the old priest, as much for the effort as the jape you suspect.
"For myself, I worry more for the pilgrims of the past than the past itself in this instance," you interject. "Normally there should not be anything worse than imps making use of the oracular chamber for their own divinations, but..."
"They know we're out for their blood," Ser Richard nods, rising to stand beside you from where he had been leaning in the shade of a frail date tree. Though the heat of the day cannot touch him, the knight born to the oft cloudy Stormlands had no love of the glare of the southern sun. "Still, it's a good thing if we want to be distracting."
"It would be, except for the fact that there are traps in there as well, and at least one of them could bring the whole edifice down according to our prisoners," you answer soberly. "That would draw all the wrong kinds of attention, especially from the Graces," you nod towards the tower amid its gardens of palms to the east. "Many of the visitors are themselves influential or at least rich."
"We could try to evacuate the mortals," Mereth interjects unexpectedly. "It might cost us the element of surprise, but as Ser Lonmouth rightly noted, we are trying to draw attention to ourselves."
"Not so much that we get proper ambushed while hauling the ass of some Giscari highborn who wanted to gawk at stones from the pyramid," Ser Richard grumbles, though more for form's sake you would judge.
What do you do?
[] Try to evacuate the pyramid first
-[] Write in plan
[] Attack at once
-[] Write in plan
[] Write in plan
OOC: Given the Ghiscari's obsession with their old empire I figured a bit of a cultural pilgrimage, truism by another name basically would fit them. Not yet edited.
