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

[DragonParadox]

Wisdom of the Raven ​

Eighteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

"To her who aided in its recovery," you answer at last. Sensing that Bloodraven seeks more than a simple answer you continue, "First because I gave my word and do not lightly break it, secondly because neither I nor Daenerys have time to properly bond with such a beast..."

"You said I'm supposed to have fun. A pet would be that, wouldn't it?" Dany says in a faux childish whine which draws a snort of amusement from you, yet you carry on.

"Thirdly and most importantly it is a message. Aegon took the Seven Kingdoms on such a beast's back, and by their savagery and the folly of their riders the Dance nearly cast down all into ash. I need no such creature under me to wield fires such as those kindled upon the Fields of Fire. I can only pray the warning will be enough," you finish gravely.

The elder sorcerer ponders your words for a few moments then replies, "I am glad you thought the matter through, but I fear you may at least in part be making the most common mistake of a clever person, believing most of one's fellows share that cleverness. A dragon rider is something highborn and low can understand, but a dragon in truth, not bard's fancy nor a scribe's flattery, that they will fight for fear of the unknown and those who prey upon it... are fighting in a sense as with the tales of you boiling down infants for soup-stock... "

"Boiling babies for soup...?" You keep telling yourself you should not be surprised, and yet you still feel a flush of anger rise to your cheeks

A skeletal hand twitches as if to motion somehow. "Foul potions to restore your sorcerous vigor in most of the places it is told, but 'soup-stock' is more amusing. I have found it serves to be able to laugh at such absurdity from one's worst detractors so as not to be moved to rash action."

"Who are those who prey upon that fear, who spreads such foulness with malice and not merely ignorance?" you ask at last, reminding yourself that it would be madness blame every peasant who lends an ear to such talk.

"The ones you are thinking of, certainly," Bloodraven answers. "The great rebel lords and the lesser, all who profited from the Usurpation, but it goes deeper than that I am afraid. With magic come monsters, whether merely those who would abuse it to sate their vices or horrors out of tale and song. The common man, even most simple knights, will never have seen a sorcerous healing, nor fields blooming and giving fruit by a mage's word. But by now all will have heard darker things: a family butchered like hogs inside their house though all the doors and windows were barred, a girl lost on the moors one night and finding herself pregnant knowing not who or what the child is, a village by the coast gone as if it had never been, the coast haunted by the spirits of the unquiet dead... and on it goes, often things that have nothing to do with sorcery are blamed upon it: sickness, blight, simple misfortune. Witches die by the score who are nothing of the sort, or else they are shunned by all save the desperate..."

"I've seen it myself," you admit, remembering the tale of how Vee had been driven out for the 'sin' of not being able to perform the miracles asked of her. "But... the bloody pyromacers use it, even fucking Tywn Lannister made an order of sorcerers."

"And for that they are reviled, though perhaps not as much as you and yours, for they do not carry the specter of war with them like a banner," comes the simple answer. "Most are content to think that their lords have not sunk too far into foul practices, for surely they would have noticed, but the Dragon King in his far off land where every man is a killer and pirate and a slaver..."

"How in the festering pits of hell are we slavers?" Dany hisses between clenched teeth.

"There are places within three days' travel of the coast who have never seen an Essosi and would not know a Braavosi from a Summer Islander, but what they do know is that the heathen eastern lands the Andals came from are full off slavers and murderers, none more than the Stepstones..."

"Not all of them," you counter, as much to remind yourself as him. "Some come to be healed in hope of a better life..."

"A trickle only they do, and many of those who stay behind tell themselves that they go to perdition lest they be overcome by envy," A soft rasping sigh echoes through the chamber. "The human heart can be an ugly thing even in those who are not monsters in the skin of man."

"So what the fuck do I do?" you explode, frustration finally bubbling over.

"Conquer, rule, show them all that no demons come in the night for their children and the fears will wear away in time... In truth they already are by the acts of your foes..." Bitter reassurance, but perhaps true.

"What of the true monsters? The fiends reaping souls in White Harbor, the Deep Ones rising along Crackclaw Point?" Dany asks, perhaps to distract you.

"An opportunity," Bloodraven replies simply. "Every hero needs a villain, and you both have a surfeit of them. Have bards sing your tales..."

"But you..." Dany begins.

"Yes, what should I do here?" the sorcerer asks, and for the first time you can hear a hint of anger in his voice. "Should I peck out the eyes of every fool who might take cursed coin, try to drive fishermen from the sea and vilages from the shore. I act through those who hear the voice of the gods where and how I can, against monsters, traitors and even gods..."

What do you ask next?

[] Write in

OOC: Bloodraven does not need to be told about Renly when the Assassin devil struck his deal with you in front of a heart-tree and otherwise you can assume he is reasonably well informed of your actions in Westeros.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Green and the Gold ​

Eighteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

There is a moment's awkward pause before Dany concedes the point, though you can clearly see she chafes at Bloodraven's... or perhaps better to say Brynden Rivers' callousness in thinking horrors an opportunity to shine like a knight in a tale. Finally she asks in a rush, "When last we met you seemed to know something of she whom I once unwillingly served. Can you..."

"Stop, breathe," the Last Greenseer counsels. "As you can plainly see," the ghost of a smile passes over his worn and pallid features. "I shall not be going anywhere. The Children will lead you to a chamber where you may rest from your journey and eat..."

You are about to mention that you need neither food or rest when he forestalls you. "I sense upon you magics meant to blunt the frailties of mortal flesh, but such things should be used at need, not as a matter of course..." The words seem to you to hold the weight of experience. "Go now while I ponder what is known of the Mother of Wyrms. You may walk these halls where you will, though you should be wary of loose soil where the roots have shifted. The Children know where such peril lies."

Soft Strider approaches you again with another of her kind by her side. Green and gold are this one's eyes, and green the cloak of leaves about her shoulders. To your surprise she speaks in the tongue of Westeros, yet her words are rippling music and nuance beyond what any mortal voice can hold: "Hail, King of Men. It is pleasing to me to see the days of the Dragon once more in the twilight of my life as it was in its dawn. A sign perhaps that not all circles are meant to be broken."

"Hail to you also, attendant to the Seer and the Gods. By what name might you be known to us?" you ask with equal gravity.

"Speaker to Men I was once, when my feet led me south, and here you are men once more before me that we may converse. Speaker I will be again, if it please thee."

As you walk back through the labyrinth under the hill however it is mostly you who speak and she who listens, for you find that she holds a keen interest in the goings of the wider world, having traveled far in her youth, not only South of the Wall but beyond even the Neck to the God's Eye and the Isle of Faces where the Green Men still tend the hallowed place on which the Pact was made in days long gone. "I looked upon the world of men in flower under the sun and I wept for what I saw, for I knew there was no place for us. Now the wheel turns and dark things come from the North or reach out grasping fingers from the waves. As many did before me, I find that I am not overfond of riddles in my own age, and yet I cannot keep myself from seeking them out."

With that the Children bid you farewell at the entrance of a fair-sized cave, dry and spare covered in woven dyed in the colors of autumn: reds and oranges and yellows mingling in ways that bewildered the eye. "Fire colors, that we may feel at home," Dany says, and you can almost hear the smile in her voice.

"I'd be happier with a sturdier door myself," Ser Richard grouses, though you feel more for form's sake.

"What did you think of them?" you ask curiously.

"The Children seen nice enough as spirit-kin go," the knight shrugs. "I would not trust Bloodraven further than I can throw him and his nest of roots. A courtier's tongue he has and he knows too much by far, and not just about our enemies."

"He can probably hear you," Dany reminds him as she leans against the wall and pokes at the food left in the chamber: goat cheese and some manner of stew that smells of onions and herbs.

"Well I'm hardly good enough at games of court to keep it off my face, now am I?" Ser Richard asks. "Whether he overhears me say it or not hardly matters."

"And what of your thoughts, sister?" you turn to her.

"He's ambitious, not for his gods or for his legacy, he wants out," she answers seriously. "I suspected it before but hearing him back there I'm sure of it. Brynden Rivers has no intention to let his body rot in this cave and his soul to join the Gods."

"Do you think we should help him?" you press, mind whirling with possibilities.

"If he wanted our help he would have asked for it," she shrugs. "He might yet do it in his own time. Bloodraven is not as I was, he does not resent his patrons, but neither does he truly revere them."

"The Old Gods have little care for worship, it was one of the first things he told me," you reminisce aloud.

***​

When Soft Strider comes to call you back what must be three hours later you find Bloodraven looking the worse for wear, his head lolling to one side, the red mark upon his flesh even brighter against pale skin, almost like a bruise. "Gods are strange things..." he says. "Even the knowledge of them is as close to them as a man is to his shadow, yet even shadows can be cut if you know the trick of it. Ask your questions and I will answer what I can."

He listens in silence as you and Dany tell him all you have learned of the Mother of Wyrms, paying careful attention to the loose threads of the tale: a promise made in dreams, a glimpse of scales of another hew, the sight of golden banners upon Essaria's ruins.

"I cannot make heads or tails of the tale of the stone spirits, I fear, save to say that the Old Gods never fought the Mother of all Wyrms. No matter how long the passage of ages they could not have forgotten that. As to the Sundering this I have found, it began far to the east, further than Valyria for certain: a wound in the world and its blood was Darkness and the Shadow its scar."

"Asshai," you whisper to yourself, yet somehow the Greenseer hears you.

"That was my thought also, to the Shadow you must go if you would find the full answer to that riddle, if indeed it still exists anywhere in thisworld. Now on to the queen's poisoned gift, that was far easier to divine. From old tales as much as the whispers of the gods it is known that Wyrms of ice and snow roost in the Lands of Always-Winner, under the hands of the powers that dwell therein. Their maker might hold some dominion over them still, or perhaps she could gain it as her influence grows..."

"And grown that influence has," you remind him grimly.

"Damn Bittersteel to a frozen hell once for a traitor, twice for a madman and thrice for being too skilled half in treason and madness both that his company haunts us still. If you would hear my advice in the matter I say remember that they have been sellswords for generations. To coin have they prayed before any god and such men they are still... slay the high officers, the mages old or new, and take the men into your service and scatter them. Let banners of gold be forgotten, and skilled blades to serve a better cause."

"And... the scales?" Dany asks. You have the strongest feeling she almost asked something else.

"There were once runes of the First Men that might serve the purpose, but I cannot find them again in the span of a few days," Bloodraven replies.

What do you to next?

[] Ask more questions
-[] Write in

[] Learn the Day of Change ritual

[] Speak of hatching dragon eggs

[] Write in

OOC: I had to take a break from exposition in the middle of the chapter. Hope it does not feel jarring, but all the Q&A was exhausting.

 

[DragonParadox]

Where Blood Might Fail​

Eighteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

Much of the rest of the day is spent in the study of a matter you had wished to learn ever since you first dreamed true of this place. How different might your deeds have been if instead of blood you would had chosen to pay the Secret Gods of the stone stream and tree in treasure of a different sort? Might your name be less feared, or would you have merely done without all the aid and protection that those same sacrifices had granted your subjects?

You shake off the thought and fix your mind upon the mater at hand. Today's opportunities matter now, not yesterday's.

"Remember that in the beginning the Children worked no metals, and even bronze was a thing of the First Men and only the chiefs and heroes among them," Bloodraven explains. "Thus you cannot simply break a sword before the Heart Tree and expect the gods to drink the power brought forth. It must be worn and ground apart until its purity is lost and it becomes again one with the earth..." Bloodraven's voice is as dry as ever, but the subject matter is not. He works history, song, and the exploits of heroes into the explanation of arcane matters, in a way that shows a keen intellect not dulled by his long life, but sharpened to a razor's edge.

Learned Day of Change Ritual

So you discover the secrets behind what had always struck you as an odd moment in history: Theon the Hungry Wolf's 'Scouring of Andalos.' How could northmen, few and with little skill at seamanship and few ships, bring such ruin to the rich lands that would one day be the Pentosi heartlands? Such scenes are vivid in the mind and the eye, frightful for a generation perhaps, but to have deterred Andal raiders forevermore, to have broken their heartlands always felt to you like an excess of the scribe's quill. However, Bloodraven tells that more than swords went into the doing of it.

Locked in a fortified septry guarded with more fervor than the towers of Andal lords, the Hungry Wolf found a chalice sacred to the Mother that flowed with life-giving water that could make any who drank of it fruitful and even make fields sprout in midwinter. The Stark took then this chalice and broke it before the Heart Tree of Winterfell with his sword before burning the pieces in a fire made with the bones of seven times seven Andal knights and their petty king Argos Seven Star together, all to work a mighty curse upon the invaders: fallow fields, cold hearths, and barren loins he wished to give them.

"Alas for King Theon, he did not truly know his foe. He did not realize that in the veins of the Houses already across the water ran as much or more the blood of the First Men as that of eastern warriors, and that the septons had drawn to their faith many common men with not a single drop of foreign blood. So it came to pass the lasting legacy of Theon Stark was not to take back the South as he had hoped, but vengeance upon those Andals who had not set out upon the sea," the greenseer finishes his tale. There might be the faintest touch of amusement in his voice.

"A lesson?" you ask archly.

He snorts. "You are no child to be taught lessons and neither is your sister though she may still look it. Call it a reminder that blood is not all that matters, a thing easy to forget in eastern lands, and that the greatest of magics can fail from the simplest of causes."

"You teach history far better than the grandmeaster, lord Bloodraven," you answer with a slight bow.

You learn then that the red staring eye of the Last Greenseer can still roll back in his head.

OOC: Level up vote is now open.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Secrets Under the Hill ​

Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

Sleep comes easily under the hill, but the dreams it brings are strange things: slender fingers reaching through verdant light and twisting shadow... the sense of being trapped and embraced, sustained and killed by enfolding roots though between which eyes of green and red watch... and through it all a song of branches, creaking leaves rustling, beasts howling...

You come awake suddenly in what might be the middle of the night, morning, or even midday, for time flows strangely here without sun, moon, or stars to mark them to find Dany sitting cross-legged on the mat in front of you: "They are loud, aren't they? The Singers Before?"

"What do you mean?" you ask, still bleary.

"She decided to go exploring," Ser Richard explains, volumes of disapproval in his voice.

"We aren't in an enemy stronghold, you know," Dany counters in what sounds like the tail end of an old argument. "This place is as safe from attack as the Shadow Tower... safer in some ways, since there's no dead dragon lurking about."

"What did you find?" you ask, knowing that it would be pointless to chastise Dany for something you might have done yourself.

"Bloodraven is not alone among those who lie upon a throne of roots. There are others in the far chambers, Children of the Forest, thought it is clear they have lain here for far longer. They seem as dead and do not hear one's calls no matter how loud you shout, though one opened his eyes when I conjured light nearby. I managed to speak with that one in his mind, though it was like shouting against a howling gale... He was very surprised and I think impressed."

"You decided to touch the mind of something that was directly linked with a age-old God-Mind?" You suddenly feel a surge of sympathy to Ser Richard.

"I've dealt with worse things," Dany reminds you. Seeing that you are still not appeased she adds. "I was warded as well as I could manage and if something did pull me away Bloodraven would have been able to help me out. I foresaw it."

"Alright," you sigh. Sometimes you miss the times when Dany did not have so many ways to justify rash action, nor opportunities to take it. "What did he tell you?"

"There are some among the 'voices of the Gods' who thoroughly despise Brynden Rivers for one, voices that do not sing in the True Tongue of the Children of the Forest, but speak with the tongue of men of old. Oathbreaker and kinslayer they name him, one who has lain with his own blood..." She pauses for a moment then asks, "Have you considered how many issues of our House might never have come to light if Aegon's heirs chose not to marry brother and sister?"

"I see little point to considering may-have-beens that would have made impossible my own birth," you answer honestly. "What else did you learn?"

"Something of the nature of the Children and their lives, I think he was rambling for a bit, glad to speak to one rooted firmly in time, and also a prophecy of sorts: 'The Wanderers return to Throne of Oak shrouded in Roses to bear their gifts upon a child crowned in thorns...' I think that may have something to do with the rumors we have been hearing from the Reach, of the fey moving more and more openly through the wilderness, though who this child might be I cannot say."

"Thorns as much much as roses would mean the Tyrells," you muse. "They called... and I suppose still call Olenna Tyrell the Queen of Thorns, and there should be only two children of her blood now: Lord Tyrell's daughter and his youngest son."

"Perhaps," Dany answers. "But as the Singers count time are not all men as children no matter how many years they may count?"

Ser Richard laughs. "I met the Queen of Thorns once at court," he explains. "I would pay good money to see someone call her 'child' to her face, from a safe distance of course."

What do you do next?

[] Resurrect Rhaella

[] Speak of hatching Dragons

[] Ask counsel on the matter of how to deal with your father's final, greatest folly, the wildfire in King's Landing

[] Ask more questions
-[] Write in

OOC: There is something to be said for resurrecting Rhaella before you talk about the wildfire so that you only have to go over the matter once, and so that Viserys does not have to directly tell his mother the depths Aerys stooped to.

 

[DragonParadox]

Upon Fire Reflecting ​

Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

After a simple meal of flatbread and sharp-tasting goat cheese, the three of you head out once again through the labyrinthine corridors to find the throne of the Last Greenseer. Driven by idle curiosity you draw out the Wayfinder to check the path. However, as the device begins to hum and shake in your hand as though trying to pull in every direction at once, you quickly snap the lid closed to sever the connection. It seems that from the inside Bloodraven is everywhere around you... and you would wager that from the outside of the caves he is nowhere.

Fortunately Dany's recollection of the path proves more than equal to the task of finding the chamber and soon you hear the rushing sound of water before at last stepping into Brynden Rivers' company once more. You wonder where the Children of the Forest had gone?

"When I said that you might search for your own answers I did not expect you to be quite so direct, your highness," the ancient sorcerer greets Dany. "Now yearnings for what can never be echo through the Greendream, stirring even the quietest of voices."

Where she had been dismissive of any threat to her own safety, now your sister looks truly abashed. "I apologize for the pain my intrusion caused."

"It was not pain, for that is too sharp to endure the tides of the Greendream for long..." he sighs. "Perhaps this too can be of some use in the end." His head moves slightly to the side with a creak that could be either wood or bone. "What questions have you for me today?"

"Are we so predictable, my lord?" you quip.

"I am a seer," he answers, the dry humor only enhanced by the harsh rasping whisper.

"When first we met you showed me my father's failings to the last and greatest, the one that might still bring ruin if the bloody wildfire is not removed from King's Landing. From my own divinations I know that it has not yet been removed. As I have pondered the notion I came upon the notion of using it one final time against the greatest fastness of those who love the cold and dark. Fitting that they would die by such torturous flames who thought to use them against me and mine," you explain the notion that had been ripening in your thoughts form months.

Bloodraven is silent for a long moment before answering, not as though he is listening for the gods, but merely thinking. At last he speaks: "Were you another man your grace, less skilled in the arcane, I would say forget this and any notion of using the Pyromancers' wretched Substance for any cause. As things stand I ask you, would you try to stab a mighty foe with a dagger made by a half blind smith using the leavings of better craftsmen for his tools?"

"What then would you counsel?" you ask, not truly surprised that he speaks of caution.

"If you must use wildfire for the task, and I grant it can be quite potent in destruction, then I would counsel you find the formula for making it, hand it to someone whose skill you trust, such as your lover or even the Royce boy, and then use that concoction for your ends," he replies

"The miserly 'Wisdoms' will not lightly give up their secrets, especially now that they have more of them worth the name," Ser Richard interjects.

"Then they would die traitors' deaths and the kingdoms will be better for it." Bloodraven's words have a sort of chill finality to them that reminds you that this is far from the first time he has engaged in this sort of calculus.

What do you do next?

[] Resurrect Rhaella

[] Speak of hatching Dragons

[] Ask more questions
-[] Write in

OOC: Here we go again.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Glimpse of Secrets Old and New​

Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

From fire to ice your thoughts pass then, for though the peril in the north had receded from your mind somewhat here, guarded beneath root and soil, you will not soon forget it. First you ask what manner of twisted beasts and horrors the Others can bring to bear beyond the lords of winter themselves and their armies of the dead and the dragons you had heard of. Alas to that Bloodraven has no clear answer.

"Their forms are a warped reflection of the world and as life is bewildering in its countless shapes to too are their thralls, still some things call to them: black despair that sees no path forward, hunger on cold winter nights that sees men lower themselves to the basest acts, the sacrifice of light and hope to the ever hungering gloom in the hope of but a breath's more wretched existence... that is how they will see all life before the end."

The words send a shiver down your spine as though some cold wind had managed to penetrate even here, and so you move on to your next request, for a map of the Lands of the Far North beyond what the Watch was able offer. You carefully unroll the seal-skin for him to inspect.

He gives a short cough of seeming disgust. "Even worse than when I left. Some of those rivers would be running uphill by their reckoning." So saying he utters a single word in the Old Tongue and the map hovers midair, then another and a point of fire begins to sear fine lines into the map. With a start you realize it is the first time you have ever seen Bloodraven use magic in the flesh, beyond his dreams and visions.

"Could not the Old Gods aid the Watch in this hour?" Dany asks after a few moments. Few and poor though they be, they are not without courage and they are the Watches at the Wall, set to guard the realm of men. "Their foe is clear as day..."

"Would that I could act so openly so soon," the greenseer answers, the cracks upon his skin growing deeper as he scowls in frustration. "Alas balance still holds the powers in check. It is still summer, so the first move is mine, but for every move I make the powers of the North may counter in turn. I would not wager on the Brothers of the Night's Watch to use new-gleamed sorcery against frost-touched mages rather than to defect to warmer lands."

"Yet I sensed the touch of the Old Gods upon the youngest Stark girl. Why her?" you ask.

"She is near enough an infant. By the time she can move the conflict will be fought in earnest." He hesitates a long moment as though pondering how much of his plans to reveal. "It also gives me an envoy of sorts in the confidence of the lord of Winterfell. Whether by fate or chance it fell to me to guide the Nameless Gods in this hour. No warrior first and foremost I for all I fought my share of wars. Master of Whispers I was, and so I learned that a whisper in the right ear can be worth more than the thunder of a thousand knights across the battlefield."

"I see it now," Dany says. "You are making the Others play a game of indirect influence, they who hate men and do not truly understand them."

"They lost one pawn already by being too heavy-handed. A Stark... cousin of a very distant sort," Bloodraven confirms, eye still fixed upon the map.

"What is his name?" you ask, intrigued.

"Brandon, fittingly enough. He is in Old Town now being feted as a hero for the rescue of the Hightower ancestral sword, Vigilance, if not the missing lord who was quite beyond help by the time he was found," Bloodraven answers.

The name reminds you of the titanic presence of the Wall and the power that is locked within it, power that reaches you even here. "How was the Wall built, and why of ice? It seems a strange choice given what it was meant to guard against?"

"Alas I am not Bran the Builder, nor can I recall his arts..." Bloodraven laughs then, though the sound is more melancholy than bitter. "In truth those were the first secrets I sought when I first took this seat. Still lesser runes I can recall with time and patience as I have told you yesterday, though It will take weeks even months..."

"And so the great wards like those in Runestone and Winterfell that guard against even the dreamer's mind will be locked away forever?" you ask, dispirited at the loss.

"Such ambition..." He looks up from his work to give you an approving look. "From fundamentals and from study of the finished wards old secrets may yet come to light."

What do you do?

[] Offer to leave him a calligraphy wyrm and some empty books to be retrieved at a later date (slow progress)

[] Have Lya come here to study (fast progress, locks Lya's schedule)

[] Write in

OOC: I skipped the Casterly Rock question since it would not quite fit and instead asked about the aid to the Night's Watch.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Work Beyond Compare​

Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

"Then it would be most appreciated if you might share this lore, my lord, in your own time of course," you answer, drawing forth an elegant golden stylus and tapping it awake.

As the diminutive false-wyrm flows into its other form, Bloodraven watches with a glimmer of interest in his eye. Once it is fully formed the servitor takes to the air and presents himself in the ringing somewhat fussy voice that you wager is quite unlike what this chamber had ever witnessed. You would have done without being called Supreme Sorcerer and Archon of the Western Seas, however.

"Remarkable, a quill that writes on its own. I've known more than one clerk who would have killed for such a thing," Bloodraven rasps. "Something you recovered from the east or had made like the... ravens?"

"You disapprove?" Dany asks, surprised.

"Hardly, imitation can be flattering... and I have not quite lost all vanity even like this." Again his hand twitches as if to motion with it. You realize the small human gestures have grown more common since you arrived.

"To answer your question, my assistant here is both. We found one of his kind in the catacombs beneath a nearly dead city," you say, returning to the matter of the golden scribe. You allow another heavy coin pouch of the same girth as the one you had given to the Watch to fall upon the stone floor with a clatter. "If you would be so kind," you motion to the hovering scribe.

Lost 200 Gold

"Of course... of course..." The four of you watch in silence as it gorges itself on gold before splitting itself in two, one returning to your side and the other hovering shyly near Bloodraven.

"At least this one is honest about eating gold, much better than most scribes I've employed," the ancient sorcerer replies with a dry rattle that is probably a laugh before returning his attentions to the map.

Perhaps ten minutes later he hands it to you, improved beyond human penmanship. From the heart trees to wildling settlements to the paths of wandering tribes, ancient barrows of the forgotten dead and lost fortresses to ever winding paths that mark the comings and goings of mammoths and other large game all are marked. Small notes in the margins speak of the likely peril that might be found in each place as well as the rewards the hardy traveler may gleam.

Gained Legendary Seal-Skin Map of the Far North.

"If you enter any of the places I have marked as likely to hold servants of the Others I ask that you warn me beforehand, lest they react is some unexpected manner."

"Of course," you agree at once, as is only courteous upon receiving such a gift.

Abruptly the greenseer falls into one of his strange trances, leaving you wondering what he sees. When he wakes he speaks quickly. "My apologies your grace, but I fear something requires my full attention."

You assure him that it is no bother and pointedly do not ask what the urgent matter is. It is not in the nature of such as Bloodraven to give away all their secrets and he has been quite generous already.

What do you do next?

[] Ask of Dragon-lore

[] Resurrect Rhaella

[] Ask questions
-[] Write in

OOC: Good thinking about the map.

 

[DragonParadox]

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.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Tale of the Kings of Yesteryear ​

Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

It is the task of several hours to learn the complex spell work that Bloodraven teaches. In the tongue of the Freehold that had perhaps never been heard in this hidden chamber, he speaks the incantations. Here in the dark where no light of sun, moon, or star can reach, you learn of astrological conjunctions and the way they can be used to coax fire from steel. And through these teachings you learn something more of the nature of the world before the silent unseen rebirth of magic, when even the feeblest of powers had to be wrung from the sweat of one's brow, the blood of one's foes, or else the relics of a greater age. How small the world you had been born into had been...

Gained Sundered Steel Ritual

For all the horrors you had witnessed you would not wish to live without the wonders, you admit, not even had there been no Usurpation and had you remained a prince in far King's Landing. It feels a betrayal to think it... and yet it would be a lie to say the opposite, and the lies one tells one's self are of the most perilous sort.

"I'm fine with having wings too, no matter how I got them," Dany says, taking your hand.

"Was I being that obvious?" you ask her with a smile, glad for the support.

"Only to me," she answers. Then with an impish smile she looks to Bloodraven and says, "Maybe to him too, but he cheats."

"Of all those who might accuse others of cheating, highness, you have the least cause to do so," the greenseer replies. There is something that might be fondness in the ancient rasping voice.

The matter settled he moves on to the reminder of your questions. "Best among all the places you have named I know Maegor's Holdfast. There blood magic hangs so thick upon the walls I was often surprised the stone does not bleed rivulets of red through its pores... King Maegor was less skilled in sorcery than his mother I think, but far more willing to pay a grand price for it. These wards keep even my eye away unless I have some affinity with what I wish to observe..."

"Like father or me as a child," you nod in understanding. "I cannot deny that I am disappointed to hear that you cannot tell me of the councils of the Usurper as though you sat upon them, but the world rarely holds such perfect boons."

"Can you not see through the Heart Tree?" Dany asks.

"The Heart Tree in the Red Keep in an oak," Bloodraven explains. "If only my sight had been clearer in my youth, or my predecessor more forceful in his acts. In any case I would advise against trying to will yourself across the threshold of the keep by sorcery. King Maegor might have allowed a free path for those who shared his blood, but given his character and deeds I would not stake much upon it."

"So the legacy of Maegor is a strong fortress for the Usurper to squat within," you say. "That sounds about right given them man's other 'achievements'."

"At least history remembers him as unkindly as his failures deserve," the old sorcerer counters. "Alas that is not the case for the man who is responsible for purging most arcane texts from the royal collection as well as manifold other forms of idiocy and ill-rule: Baelor the Blessed." The last word is spoken with venom only slightly less than that with which he speaks of Bittersteel.

"He did the Faith fewer favors than one might think," Dany offers, surprisingly. "An illiterate stone mason as High Septon did little to aid the dignity of the position, particularly one named at the king's whim."

"So am I to understand from this that you did not give up on the history lessons like the law ones?" you tease her gently.

She huffs and scowls up at you. "I was little."

You forebear from reminding her than eight years would still be counted as 'little' by most.

Bloodraven smiles faintly at the byplay before continuing. "Your best chance of finding sorcerous texts or objects of power would be in Dragonstone, for Baelor was never formally enshrined as Prince of Dragonstone before his ascension to the throne following the death of Daeron the First. At the very least the stone eggs should still be in the treasury, there were four and ten at last count."

What do you do next?

[] Ask about dragon lore

[] Resurrect Rhaella

[] Ask questions
-[] Write in

OOC: I'll add all the rituals to the front page next.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Conspiracy of Dragons​

Nineteenth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

"I would know of dragons, then," you say. "Of their coming to Westeros, the building of the Dragonpit, their flowering and withering, as well as how I might hatch the egg that I possess and these others you have told me of. Was it a curse upon the Dragonpit, some conspiracy, or simple mischance that saw to their fall?"

"Again you ask for history, before dealing with the future before you," the old sorcerer replies. "And here I thought that it was the privilege of the old to bore their descendants with tales of days long passed." He sounds lighthearted, not something most would associate with the ghastly figure bound and sustained in bone-white roots, but so it seems to you nonetheless.

He speaks on in what must have once been a voice trained to shout commands across a battlefield, now little more than a whisper but somehow no less powerful for it. "Many claim the Dragonpit was cursed for having been built upon the ashes of the Sept of Remembrance. For myself I do not believe it, not only for having felt no malice beneath the broken dome, save perhaps the lingering weight of those who died to Dreamfyre's flame. The Storming of the Dragonpit holds a certain grim humor if you will consider it. Driven by their preacher the mob marched out to avenge Helaena and her children, and it was her dragon that slew most of them. Even beyond my appreciation of the Seven's capacity for ironic slaughter or lack thereof, however, the supposed cause and effect do not match up. The Dragonpit was built by Maegor, not Aegon the Third, and if the dragons somehow grew less in that period, well, no one seems to have told the lunatic traitors who used these 'lesser' dragons to bring about the Dance and the near-ruin of the Seven Kingdoms."

"So you think it was a natural thing, a lessening of magic perhaps?" Dany asks.

"It might have been," Bloodraven admits. "But to one of my experience it is impossible not to entertain at least the possibility of conspiracy. Yet if I would have to search for it it would be among the regents of the boy king Aegon the Third or..." he hesitates. There would be very few in that distant age he should have any reason to avoid accusing before you.

"The young king himself," you guess. "The boy who saw his mother devoured by a dragon before his very eyes, who had to rule a land in the shadow of the Dance and its horrors. You think Aegon Dragonbane deserved his title fully."

"I think he would have been too young to be at the head of such a conspiracy," the ancient Sorcerer says. "But he might have guessed later and offered his tacit approval, or simply done nothing as the dragons died." He sighs a soft rattling sound. "As I said this is merely my guess, but one thing I know for certain—the more brutal the war the more grudges it leaves behind. No war in the history of the Seven Kingdoms has been more vicious than the Dance. If the smallfolk could blame 'all dragons' for their ill fate and die in their thousands to 'avenge' themselves, why not the nobles? Why not the king?"

"The dragons were the steel fist of the royal House against the high nobles, but Aegon was raised as much or more by those same high nobles as by his kin," Dany muses. "It fits well enough, though it matters little so late. What thoughts have you on turning fate upon its head?"

"I have never seriously considered the matter since I was very young and dreaming a young man's dreams, but what I managed to gleam then I will share," Brynden Rivers replies. "For the egg you recovered from the Lannisters I would say give it to the girl to hold at all times, particularly when she is practicing sorcery. Teach her to conjure fire and have her cast it upon it each day at sunset, for that is when dragon mothers often returned from the hunt."

"And for the eggs of stone?" you ask.

"For that, one should remember that we live in an age of marvels... What is stone may yet be flesh to the sorcerer's will." His staring red eye fixes upon a stone the size of a large dog tumbled near the far wall of the cave. The spell he works then is no petty cantrip, but one as potent or more so than any you have ever worked. "From stone, life!" he commands, and so where there had before been a stone there is now a lump of reddish meat.

"You think the stone dragons are petrified, as though touched by a gorgon's breath?" you ask, wondering why the notion never came to you. Perhaps you had simply been to fixated on the transformation from flesh to stone being weapon.

"It would seem a marvelous protection against the fading of magic, would it not?" Bloodraven says. "Once flesh has been transmuted one is neither living nor dead, not dependent on constant magic to endure, and of course as hard to damage as stone. Should that stone also be enveloped in the hard shell of dragon eggs, I would not be surprised if an unborn dragon could endure thus millennia."

"But who then would undo the magic?" Ser Richard asks, ever one to see flaws in wild flights of fancy.

"Dragons were not always mere beasts," Dany says grimly, though there is triumph lurking in her eyes.
What do you do next?

[] Ask more questions
-[] Write in

[] Speak with the Children of the Forest again
-[] Write in

[] Resurrect Rhaella

OOC: I really was a little surprised no one considered Stone to Flesh when speaking of stone dragon eggs.