Part MMMDCCVI: Artisan's Bane
Artisan's Bane
Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC
For time out of history the Rock has stood over the city of Lannisport, a vigil and a threat all at once, and for just as long have men delved below into the stone of the sunset mountains seeking gold, seeking power heavy in the hand and bright in the eye. It is therefore appropriate you would judge that this should all end from above and below all at once. By stealth and trickery was Lann was said to have once taken the keep from its builders and by force that cannot be overcome which Tywin Bloody Lannister has made it his life's work to ensure that the realm would recall him as.
"Time," you say calmly to the officer standing besides you a moment before the watch in his hand clicks on the proper hour. Meeting his surprised gaze you shrug. "One of my lesser known talents is a good sense of timing."
"As long as he is not trying to hold a tune," Dany adds in impish jest from besides you.
"So do you think they see us?" Maelor asks, looking down at the arcane display to the image of the Rock alight in mage fire. Bolts of lightning arc through the air and thunder splits the sky as though the ground disdains the heavens and would overthrow them. The hull had been meant to hold against far worse punishment than this, the blooms of light not moving the great ship anymore than a light spring breeze.
"I think we found the range, yes," Lya replies, peering down at the weapon emplacements herself. All of them are being maned by mortal men in cloaks of red, so at least you are not fighting solely a formian hive in guise of a Lannister fortress. The weapons themselves though... well they are not the sorts that would have been remarkable in the war of the Three Spheres, the sort a salamander prince might buy or that one might in turn buy from them. It is clear the Lannisters' gold will only take them so far in worlds beyond this one.
The ship draws back and finds its proper range beyond the reach of lightning casters, but not beyond the react of its own steam cannons which fall into a deadly rhythm, silencing first one battery than another with bolts of steel and blasts of alchemical fire, a war like yet so very unlike what Aegon brought to these shores.
As though thinking the name of the Conqueror had summoned them the depths of the Rock disgorge three glittering draconic figures, each plate each joint a masterwork, a craft of fire and of blood, of screaming souls twice cursed. Lya sums up your thoughts pithy as you could ever say it. "Cunningly wrought and poorly thought..."
Atop each dragon rides a mage of the Golden Shields, or at least so it seems at first, but it is your eyes, sharpest of all those on the bridge, that see the cruel truth first. Gears and leavers, wheels and pistons of silver and gold bind each mage to their mount in an inseparable whole, as though someone had taken the arts Anu wields to craft the warforged and instead melded unwilling flesh and servile construct. Though you cannot say for certain what passed through the mind of the Butcher of Casterly Rock it occurs to you that he might be one to demand that the mage-smiths be shown for their work and by it to live or die as fate would have it.
"Do you think they are enchanted too?" It is a rare thing to hear your sister queasy these days. It is not the act itself of course, she has seen worse things with her own eyes and in the dreams of ages past, but to think that such a thing could take place in Westeros and for no cause but the greed and self-aggrandizement of a man so small as Tywin Bloody Lannister...
"Most likely they are slaved to the golems' controls," you reply after a moment's thought. "Their state would likely interfere with the casting of enchantments." At least you cannot think of any rational reason why one would do that to any mage if it is not to grant them access to the golem's protection against magic and fire.
"Do we keep to the plan, Your Majesty?" the call comes from the bridge.
What do you do?
[] Launch the ice bombs
[] Try to capture some one or more of them, grotesque as they are they would make for a fascinating study
-[] Write in how
[] Write in
OOC: I know the base golem does not have flight. These have been improved with wings in addition to the more esoteric aspects.
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