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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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DragonParadox said:
A Lesson in War ​

Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

Whatever working had allowed that melding of flesh and steel could make for a fascinating study, but you could name a dozen such studies that you had not the time to work through without pausing for breath. The world is strange, the world is wondrous, and it is terrible, but tonight in the sight of Lannisport and whatever portion of the folk of Casterly Rock are likely to survive the battle, you have not to learn a lesson but teach one.

"Shoot when ready, captain," you reply calmly.

Lya sighs softly, whether because she had hoped to learn something of the dragon golems or because she hoped to save the mages fused to the steel, you could not say for certain. It would not matter much longer in any case.

As munitions go, the beetle bombs are so expensive you know for a fact that airforce supply clerks joke about smashing foes' heads in with silver ingots, but as constructs they are a hell of a lot cheaper than flying torture thrones in the likeness of dragons meant to kill beasts that would not be coming within a thousand miles of the Rock tonight.

The skies are alight with the polar glare of liquid ice and the dreadful blooming of explosives, sending shards of adamantine flying faster than ever an arrow had flown from a bow. Though the iron wyrms roar in defiance and fire obliterates three bombs before they can go off, and though the wizards chant with broken voices and three more of the bombs never even reach them, it is not enough to save them. It is not nearly enough.

In the span of a dozen long breaths the Dauntless launches sixty beetle bombs. Frost slows the fires of arcane artifice and it blackens the flesh of their riders, but it is adamantine that makes an end of them, harder than even their steel scales, swifter than the eye can see. Tywin Lannister's vaunted dragon slayers do not die in battle, they are simply executed by broadside.

Alas, when the noise of the explosions finally clears there is another sound to be heard, a familiar buzzing... construct wasps. From the looks of it, every false dragon had been filed with the things, more like a cloud of buzzing animate metal than mere swarms. Thanks be to the Lannisters tipping their hand on this you actually had a tactic in place. 'Close order fire' is what it is technically called. In practice it is simply using the launchers and steam projectors to fire off explosions close to the hull, trusting in the arcane barriers to keep the ship safe from blowback.

"I don't think it is going to be..." Dany starts, but you have already noticed the sheer weight of mechanical drones on the starboard side. In the span of one breath you are standing in a launcher berth, face to face with a vastly surprised crew.

So it is that your first major personal involvement in the War for Westeros consists of melting diminutive constructs that just would not die fast enough to the Dauntless' weapons, not that one was likely to notice that from the outside. As far as the people of know from Lannisport looking out through their windows into a night made suddenly bright and terrible, the Dauntless had simply blasted the Lannister attack from the sky with not even a scratch to show for it.

You nod pleasantly to the gunner. "Excellent work there, carry on and good fortune to you all."

"Good fortune to you, too, Your Majesty," the head gunner manages to get out somewhat woodenly. You had met during the inspection of the sip, but that was under much different circumstances.

What do you wish to see next?

[] The Battle for the Golden Gallery

[] The Battle in the depths

[] The Hunt for Tywin Lannister

OOC: Really short, but the alternatives were rather daunting lengthwise to try to get out this late.
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Made a few additional edits to the chapter, DP.
 
Duesal said:
This line is so satisfying.
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This whole paragraph was awesome:
DragonParadox said:
As munitions go the beetle bombs are so expensive you know it for a fact airforce supply clerks joke about smashing foes' heads in with silver ingots, but as constructs they are a hell of a lot cheaper than flying torture thrones in the likeness of dragons meant to kill beasts that would not be coming within a thousand miles of the Rock tonight.
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[X] The Battle in the depths
 
Regular Quests: "I want to get to the action!"

ASWAH: "I want to savor the suffering of my enemies. How can we stretch this out as much as possible?"
 
Evaunit02mark1 said:
I'll save Tywin's death for last. I want to savor it.
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not death capture , followed by a public trial were we will use Tywin's actions to utterly poison house Lanister's reputation and dignity followed by taking away everything short of possibly their lives , then the public executions of house Lanister's leading figures then subsequent campaign of propaganda and historical revisionism were we will make sure that anytime the name Lanister is mentioned the first thing and only thing if possible that comes to mind is Tywin the slaver Bloody Lanister and his countless atrocities while at the same time rebranding the entire 8,000 year existence of house Lanister from that of a noble family to that of a really well established clan of dirty vial bandits removing any of the remaining legitimacy of house Lanister's 8000 year rule of the soon to be none existent Westerlands that might survive Tywin's public televised across westeros trial which will go a long way to make sure the Lanisters that remain not only abandon the name but do their hardest to distance themselves as much as possible from it , we will of course privately explain this to Tywin just before he dies to see the look on his face to know that everything he had done for house Lanister would amount to its ruin
 
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