In the Reader's Hall
Twenty-First Day of the Sixth Month 293 AC
After weighing the matter at length the five of you decide that it would be best to approach the regent of Pyke and the Iron Islands before making any moves upon a board you can only glimpse through rumor and supposition. For his part Bronn does not interject, jesting that 'he'll handle lordly matters when he is a lord', a broad a hint as any you have ever been given. Still, you can't fault the man the alacrity with which he took up the charge of finding and hopefully interrogating the peddlers of cursed stone alongside Tyene and Xor.
Meanwhile you take on the well-worn guise of a merchant from the east bearing spices, silks, and dyes from the east. When that alone fails to impress the doorwarden of Pyke you hint that your holds might contain more unusual treasures and rare texts of a sort you had heard his lord would find most intriguing. That earns you long suspicious looks and likely as not would have had you tossed out of the keep entirely were you not both quick and persuasive in your arguments. Finally, however, the guards relent and allow you to pass under the weather-worn curtain walls and onto the sparse headland that holds the stables and kennels as well as a small herd of cattle chewing on the hardy grasses that can find root even in the islands thin soil.
However it is neither horse, nor dog, nor cow that draws your eye most keenly but the men and women who work here, lesser they are called fit for work no ironborn should do,
thralls. Though you see no chains upon their wrists nor any sign of ill use upon them they are still no freer than any slave in Myr or Lys. After all, where would they go if they wished to flee, into the crashing waves?
You swallow your bile walking quickly with Ser Richard and your mother keeping peace, though it is clear the knight would rather be going ahead, the better to protect you.
Surprisingly your guide does not lead you to the Great Keep at the heart of which lies the Seastone Chair. Instead you cross a second covered walkways to the second largest of the towers, the Guest Keep, sometimes called the Bloody Keep in memory of an ancient massacre. Here you are bid to wait amid the echoing silence and darkness only half dispelled in the wavering torchlight. Servants creep in with platters of food around mealtime but they know little about when you are to be received. At least your mother had been right about keeps serving food with spices worth the name. You may never truly enjoy mutton, unless you eat it as a dragon, but the flavor of the wine-cooked roast is unique enough that you will have to remember it for variety.
Finally the same dour guard who had brought you this far motions you to follow him on, not upon bridges of stone this time but fragile wood and rope that sways dramatically with every swelling of the wind.
It would be just my luck for the damn think to break while you are on it... Catching yourself would be the lest of your troubles
.
Thankfully that prediction does not come true and so you come at least to what is simply called 'the Sea Tower', the oldest and from the look of it most precarious construction in all of Pyke. It's lower third is white from the kiss of the sea while a beard of moss and lichen hangs upon its upper stories and the top is black from soot, giving the whole construction the semblance of a burnt out candle. The door at least seems to have been replaced recently, though you have little doubt its iron bands will one day rust and its wood rot to match the rest of the tower.
Behind it you find a man of early middle age with a brow beard and hair save for a few turned silver. Judging from the book he is studying intently even now he was well named by his fellows.
Shrewd searching eyes look up at the sound of the door closing behind you with a creek: "No merchant would have been as insistent on an audience, nor as persuasive as to convince so many of my household to let your through after all they have seen, and yet neither are you one of
Them. Who are you truly?"
Though you are curious as to why the regent is so certain you are not a Deep One thrall or sorcery shrouded magus it would hardly be polite to ask. Instead you answer the question honestly and simply: "Viserys Targaryen, king by right of descent from Aegon whom the Greyjoys swore allegiance and the Harlaws through them, though I am not here to demand fealty but offer aid against the scourge from the depths that is the enemy of all right-thinking men."
The book snaps shut in the lord's hand: "I know the rumors about your magic my lord and I have more than just rumor to count upon beside. Thus I would wish for nothing more than to count your words in good faith and accept your aid, but first I would know where are Asha and Theon now? Sailing you told lord Stark, reaving and that is in a Greyjoy's blood as little else can be, but I would know your purpose for them. Is one of them to be lord or lady in truth, educated to rule in the House of their fathers or are they just another feather to your cap, away to draw the Ironborn into war at your side?"
"Your tongue is sharp lord regent," your mother interjects with faint reproach.
He sighs. "My apologies. I fear times of hardship make churls of us all, but I must know before I take one more step upon the path that could lead the people under my guardianship to war."
"An admirable sentiment," you nod. "To answer your question I have little use for poor lords in my service." As far as it goes the sentiment is true, though you certainly would not mind lords who would rather leave the governance of their lands to imperial administration and busy themselves with some other useful task.
The regent nods slowly. "Lord Stark said Asha was in good health and high spirits, and he would certainly not be one to lie on such a matter so I am content in knowing that the letters she has been sending are by her hand and no other. As such I will hear out any counsel you would wish to give and fulfill any reasonable request, so long as secrecy it kept. The isles do not need another war."
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OOC: Well you got through the introductions and initial positioning very well, now to the meat of the discussion. 
