Of Halls of Stone and Days Gone By
Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC
Not long after you leave Bloodraven's presence, Soft Strider finds you again and offers to show you the cave, or at least those parts of the vast halls that the Children have explored in their time here, for there remains fastnesses so deep and inaccessible that none have ventured there in more than a millennia of life and death. Driven by a desire to keep Dany from any more rash exploration as well as curiosity of your own, you gladly accept.
You see first the barn of sort where hardy grey goats are kept. They seem quite large and strong to your intermittently inexperienced eye in such matters, but your guide insists that there is nothing special about their breed. Then you are brought by deep and winding paths to the very shore of the river that flows beneath the Last Greenseer's cave. and there you see blind white fish set out to dry upon simple frames and seaweed left to ferment into tea-stock of some kind.
The further you go from the central complex the more the sounds and sights of life recede... until only the dead watching from the alcoves remain in silent witness of your passage: the delicate skulls of the Children lie besides those of giants and more rarely of men, as well as those of beasts and birds set either at random, or more likely, in a pattern you cannot guess at.
"Why do you keep them around you?" Dany asks at last as you pass by a row of skulls that are diminutive even by the measure of the Singers—the bones of infants.
"Where else would we keep them? This is our home," your guide answers. The fitful torch-light shines in wide golden eyes. "It is comforting to know them near, their wisdom still close to us at need."
"Their spirits still linger here?" you ask, surprised. Not once have you felt the unnatural cold that marks the unquiet dead in these twisting corridors.
"No." For a moment she seems quite disturbed by the notion, but visibly controls herself. "They come when called. If their true names are sung the bones remember for a short time at least."
"So any one of these many dead could be called?" your sister asks.
"Only those whose names are remembered," Soft Strider replies. After a moment she adds, "A name is only truly heard from one's own lips, and the dead cannot speak of them for they do not remember all that they were."
"So you may only summon back those you knew in life," you conclude. A part of you wonders how they do it, but you can hardly ask for a demonstration.
Luckily the next chamber is distracting enough, being filled with the bones of giant bats hanging from the ceiling and strung together by threads of withered flesh, and the one after that is filled with the rancorous calls of scores,
hundreds of ravens and crows...
"That one has a letter," Ser Richard calls, pointing to one which indeed seems to have something strapped to its leg.
"Sometimes that Seer calls them from the south, when he wishes a message lost, and sometimes he writes others in their place," Soft Strider explains.
"Surely it would be suspicious with the time it takes the birds to fly all the way from here," the knight says.
"Not if they are sent beforehand as I was," she replies with a small smile. "For three weeks I traveled south knowing that you would offer sacrifice and ask the gods for safe passage."
For all your great deeds and plans grander still you cannot help but feel rather small before the implications of that, all the more so for the fact that they are spoken plainly, a simple fact of life here, in the heart of the Old Gods' power.
***
When you return to Bloodraven's chamber you find him in good spirits and thus conclude what whatever his business it must have ended favorably but still you do not press. Instead you ask of the secrets of your House that might be found sealed in the Red Keep or else in Dragonstone or Summerhall.
He begins to speak slowly as though he struggles with the memories of another life, but his voice quickly gains strength. "Of Summerhall I can say with some surety that it held no heirloom in my day and if any were brought there in Aegon's failed bid to return the dragons to the world I would not think they would have survived the fire. I suppose any artifacts of Valyrian Steel
might have endured though I would not wager much upon the notion."
"Did you ever learn anything of the deeper magics of spellsteel?" you interrupt. "In our travels we have found some things but the lore remains incomplete." You continue to explain all that you had learned of the matter.
"There is only one spell that I worked with Valyran steel in my youth, one I discovered in notes I suspect must have belonged to Queen Visenya or King Maegor. It drained the virtue from it to empower a ritual of good fortune." No doubt seeing your surprise he adds, "You must remember that magic was thin then, as rare as water in the Dornish desert compared to the flood we see about us today. Spells I can work in an instant now cost hours, perhaps even days of preparation and sacrifice then."
"What object did you sacrifice?" Dany asks, probably as reticent as you are to ask if he ever used some other kind of sacrifice.
"Three razor blades, half a dozen needles, and a hair comb if memory serves," he replies, lipless mouth twitching into a smile at your reactions. "Kings and princes are not always the most sensible with how they use their treasures. Do you wish to learn the ritual?"
"What will it do?" you ask
"
Now, I'm not sure," he admits. "It might allow you to use spells beyond your strength. It might simply unmake the steel for no true use. It might even create a perilous conflagration of magic. It might offer some insight into the nature of the steel if nothing else."
What do you do?
[] Learn the ritual
[] Do not learn the ritual, Bloodraven will have it transcribed along with all the other lore
OOC: Information on the Red Keep, Dragonstone, and the death of the dragons in the next update.
