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

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Part MDLXXXVI: A Glimpse of Darkness
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    • A Glimpse of Darkness ​

    Eleventh Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

    While Garin cuts some manner of talisman from the devil's neck and takes its sword and Tyene uses her magic to unravel any last arcane protections, you address the knights... at least those among them not overwhelmed with dragon-fear: "Good Sers, that is a devil. Specifically a fiendish assassin, infamous for making use poisons and other foul curses. I suggest you keep your distance..."

    "I feel neither cursed, nor poisoned," the changeling speaks with admirable calm, though he looks rather worriedly at the gleaming silver blood that still dribbles down his torn pants-leg. Indeed you sincerely doubt he had suffered either fate. He could do the most damage and cause the most confusion alive as a victim of the 'foul sorcerer Viserys Targaryen.'

    Speaking of foul sorcery, you waste no time reducing the drogai to the inoffensive and by now almost fondly familiar shape of a turtle under the amazed gazes of those witnesses not still crying, screaming... or unfortunately soiling themselves. Luckily Tyene is swift to break the power of your spell and return the knights to themselves, hopefully soon enough that any personal indignity will weigh less then saving their lord.

    "Treachery I saw and treachery I call it still," Ser Criston finds his voice and once more abandons sense and human decency. "Two hidden killers there were and one you name your friend."

    "Tell me, Ser, did someone remove the contents of your skull and replace them with horse shit recently, or do you merely make a habit of insulting everything which you do not understand?" Garin asks in an utterly disgusted, almost weary tone. Turning to the lord of Storm's End he speaks plainly: "I was indeed hidden to watch for treachery... though mostly from such things as these, for many are the foes one makes in protecting the world of men against the dark."

    "I was not aware the Wall extended into Essos," the false Baratheon offers a weak jest that nonetheless draws smiles from some and erases the scowls of others, the knights drawing strength from their liege. "Allow me to make myself clear, my lords," he continues in a far more serious tone, "I do not believe that our guests had anything to do with the... ah shelled devil." He waves vaguely at the turtle currently struggling in ser Richard's hand, trying and failing to bite through dragon-steel gauntlets.

    "My apologies," Ser Criston finally growls under his lord's glare. Then sounding much like a man whose teeth were being pulled one by one he adds, "Under current circumstances I would withdraw my challenge until these things have been dealt with..."

    You offer Ser Richard a small silent shrug, leaving the matter up to him, though you would rightly prefer the cretin be trimmed of at least one of his limbs.

    "There is more worthy blood to share than that of one's fellow knights this day," your sworn sword says at last, placing only the lightest emphasis on the words as one final barb, reminding you once again that Ser Richard Lonmouth is not a man wholly unused to subtly or courtly games for all he dislikes them.

    "Speaking of such blood, I must ask as lord of these lands, are there likely to be more of these devils about?" old lord Tarth asks, obviously caring very little for the fool's vendetta.

    "Not more drogai," you answer with surety. "They possess a twisted sort of pride and will never share a hunt with their fellows... Other, fiends, perhaps though distance is not as much of a barrier to fiends as one might hope, so they may have come from far indeed."

    "They must have had some way to know that the meeting would take place here," Garin notes. "That means some manner of spy... an imp perhaps, they can turn unseen and take on the shape of beasts or birds."

    The sound of a sharp indrawn breath interrupts you. "What do these imps look like?" lord Tarth asks urgently.

    "Much as one would expect fiends to, my lord: short twisted creatures with crimson skin curling ram's horns and the wings of bats," you answer carefully, wondering if the man had made some monumentally foolish blunder.

    "My daughter Brienne claimed to have seen something of that sort but no one believed her. There was often a bird or bat to explain matters away... she, well she is a child... they seen things that are not there all the time." The lord is obviously speaking more to himself than to anyone else at this point.

    "And sometimes they see things that are there," Tyene notes sharply.

    "But why would his dark spirit show itself to a child?" one of the other knights asks, obviously struggling with the concept of a world that had shown itself vaster and more perilous then he knew.

    "Base cruelty most likely," you answer. "Imps are malicious creatures that love nothing better than to torment those weaker than themselves."

    "Sers, lords, my lady," the changeling begins to speak solemnly, affording Tyene the title without hesitation. "Faced with such foulness it falls to all men of character and honor to purge this darkness from these lands as swiftly as possible. To that end I propose that we unite in common cause to slay these wretched things and obtain what answers can be had from the one already captured, then return to our business. What say you?"

    It is clear enough the question is addressed primarily to you though couched in such words as to restore the shaken confidence of the Stormlander knights further.

    What do you answer?

    [] Write in

    OOC: Fortunately for 'Renly' the knights are generally more worried about the literal creatures of hell than weird blood.
     
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    • Okay, I like this outcome.
    And I like Fake!Renly quite a bit too now.
    Let's expose him to the madness of our planning phase, and the even weirder madness of our actual fighting.

    "Of course! But first I must go and ask an 8 year-old, the ******* Bloodraven, and an eldritch slumbering serpent god what they think.
    Oh, and meet Xor! He's on guard duty for the kids. Because he's kid-friendly, you know. Invisible toys and magical music! What's not to love!"
     
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    Literal devils and demons make us look so much better! Thanks, infernal forces!

    We have an excuse to talk to Brienne now! She's a witness!

    Artemis1992 said:
    Why is the guy who is not really a Westerosi Lord the best Westerosi Lord we met so far?
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    I think you just answered your own question! :V

    Edit: I am way too excited by how well things are going. Look at all those exclamation marks. *shakes head*
     
    [X] Plan "Viserys just got a new ally of convenience!"
    -[X] "Agreed my Lord. Best we relocate however, where watching eyes might not easily go. Where shall we reconvene?"
     
    What should we ask the fiend? I'll compile it into my plan.

    Should we take any other measures for its interrogation, also?
     
    I don't want to demonstrate brainmelting interrogation, and I definitely don't want to demonstrate all the grafts that we're definitely harvesting from this thing. How do we shake Renly off and get him to just let us have the devil?
     
    Also, I wonder how long until our enemies realize they can get a lot more done if they stop reminding us they exist every other month. I realize we're a fairly large threat to their plans, but all they seem to be accomplishing is getting us to regularly kick their doors in.
     
    @Duesal "It'll take time and serious works of sorcery to bend this ageless neverborn enough without breaking it, and sending it cackling back into the aether. So too can it not be easily dispensed with or else it will simply recompose itself back in the Pits whence it came, so proper measures to obtain its true death are needed. Both these things I have access to in my domain."
     
    Diomedon said:
    Also, I wonder how long until our enemies realize they can get a lot more done if they stop reminding us they exist every other month. I realize we're a fairly large threat to their plans, but all they seem to be accomplishing is getting us to regularly kick their doors in.
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    Maybe that's the plan?

    Instead of giving us time to make a bunch of magical shit and go loot ancient tombs or meet with people of great power, instead we are forced to use our time hunting them down instead.
     
    Raichu1972 said:
    Maybe that's the plan?

    Instead of giving us time to make a bunch of magical shit and go loot ancient tombs or meet with people of great power, instead we are forced to use our time hunting them down instead.
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    Not really optimum strategy. We just made a fortune selling fiend body parts, which we can use to make more objects of power, and the XP from fighting more and more fiends piles up too.
     
    DragonParadox said:
    "Sers, lords, my lady," the changeling begins to speak solemnly, affording Tyene the title without hesitation. "Faced with such foulness it falls to all men of character and honor to purge this darkness from these lands as swiftly as possible. To that end I propose that we unite in common cause to slay these wretched things and obtain what answers can be had from the one already captured, then return to our business. What say you?"
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    Diomedon said:
    Also, I wonder how long until our enemies realize they can get a lot more done if they stop reminding us they exist every other month. I realize we're a fairly large threat to their plans, but all they seem to be accomplishing is getting us to regularly kick their doors in.
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    You'd think that yes, but once again it probably ties in to the whole 'Hairless Ape Thing' suit we're currently stuck with.

    A pretty princling is just a harmless target, a sorcerer prince is simply a slightly dangerous opponent.

    When a pissed off dragon clad in magical armor that radiates power with a voice that shreds the mind and spells that render the earth a scorched ruin starts breaking down doors and taking names then the fuckers will start to take notice.
     
    Crake said:
    @Duesal "It'll take time and serious works of sorcery to bend this ageless neverborn enough without breaking it, and sending it cackling back into the aether. So too can it not be easily dispensed with or else it will simply recompose itself back in the Pits whence it came, so proper measures to obtain its true death are needed. Both these things I have access to in my domain."
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    @Crake, what if he "bravely" offers to come to our domain in the interest of seeing things through if we offer no harm upon him and see to his safe return?
    DragonParadox said:
    obtain what answers can be had from the one already captured
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    Renly really wants to witness the interrogation of the thing that stabbed him--understandable--but the only prudent way to do that is to take the devil, curse it beyond recognition, and interrogate it in the Planar Binding tree using our Brainmelting since that's pretty much the best method we have. And brainmelting becoming public knowledge would be the deathblow to the last shreds of our reputation.
     
    @Duesal We could just use less potent means of interrogation, then save the hard hitting questions for later brainmelting.

    As for questions of how we intend on disposing of the fiend, just saying we'll feed it to a heart tree will probably make them leery of us but well, the northmen worship the Old Gods too, and we make a salient point by saying that we can either feed it to the roots or it'll recompose itself to strike at us both again at a later date.
     
    PR > Grafts, in my opinion.

    Although if we could convince Lord Tarth to convert by growing an anti-devil / chaos hearttree..
     
    I know people get salty about the negative rumors surrounding us, but rumors =/= facts. (Half-intelligent) Lords know rumors are barely worth the breath used to spread them as an information source. They take the "Grain of truth approach" which translates the rumors into "probably unsavory sorcerous things." This does not compare to confirmation from a reliable (Read: Important Noble) source of things like mind control, human sacrifice, etc.
     
    Saying "we'll take all the icky magic rituals and blood sorcery back to my island, don't worry" is different in context from "let's perform scary witchery right on your lands!"

    We just barely didn't burn any good will by using pants-shitting terror condensed into spellform here because it was in defense of their liege lord.
     
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    Crake said:
    @Duesal We could just use less potent means of interrogation, then save the hard hitting questions for later brainmelting.

    As for questions of how we intend on disposing of the fiend, just saying we'll feed it to a heart tree will probably make them leery of us but well, the northmen worship the Old Gods too, and we make a salient point by saying that we can either feed it to the roots or it'll recompose itself to strike at us both again at a later date.
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    What? No, we're having Vee harvest grafts. This is a devil that we have dead to rights that hasn't done us any service so Dany won't bug us to spare it.
    Also, it has these, any of which I would love for the Seeker:
    Senses: blindsight 60 ft., see in darkness
    DR: 10/good
    Special Abilities: Immune to fire, poison; Resist acid 10, cold 10
    Spell-Like Abilities (CL 14th): At will - dimension door, fog cloud, nondetection, tongues; 1/day - greater teleport(self plus 50 pounds of objects only)
    Assassin's Shadow Step (Su): As a swift action, an assassin devil can turn invisible until the end of its current turn. The creature remains invisible even if it attacks. An assassin devil can use this ability at will.
    Shadow Form (Su): As a swift action, an assassin devil can cause itself to turn into a shadowy, indistinct figure seemingly carved from pure shadow. While in this form, an assassin devil has concealment (20% miss chance) in all but sunlight or in the area of a daylight spell. In addition, an assassin devil gains a +4 bonus on Hide checks. An assassin devil can end this effect with a second swift action, and it can remain in shadow form for as long as it wishes.
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    Fehu said:
    PR > Grafts, in my opinion.

    Although if we could convince Lord Tarth to convert by growing an anti-devil / chaos hearttree..
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    Absolutely no reason we can't do both. What were you imagining where we have to give up all possibility of grafts in favor of better PR?
     
    I'd argue that we secure the hall first, and make sure it's clear of imps, and talk to Brienne about what she saw. She might be able to use the wayfinder to pinpoint the imp that was hanging about.
     
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