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

[DragonParadox]

Inexorable Ice​

Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

Though your instincts rage against staying pinned to the ground like a mouse before a hawk you realize Ser Richard speaks sense. How could you hope to even see in the swirling snow-cloud, thicker than any mist? At best you might guide yourself by touch and hearing, by the taste of the air. But your blood turns to ice thinking how easily it would be for a silent foe to slip past you in the cover of the clouds. And so you take on winged shape but do not fly and instead wait as Dany whispers her blessings upon as many of those present as she can: against the cold and against death, the weapons of the Others while you drape yourself in fire.

"How clever, little maggot, who does not dare the sky" the voice is one with the cutting wind and it speaks the dragon tongue of old. Within it you hear the pride and arrogance all wyrms share, but also loathing that goes beyond mere hate, beyond what the mortal heart can contain, least it burst with venom. "I have time... all the time in the world, the void is patient for it knows it is at the end of all things. Savor these last breaths of fetid warm air then, trembling upon the ground as you try to guard she whom you freed from death's embrace, only to lead her into a chasm darker by far."

"You speak much for one who hides behind the veil of masters as a cur that has not even a hunting hound's courage!" you shut back in the same tongue, pushing back the cold dread at its words, the confirmation that it had come for your mother. "That you would call cowardice wisdom shows that the long ages have stolen what few wits you may once have had!" From dreams of times long past you know that the white wyrms of the north were the least of Tiamat's brood in wits and power and ever have they been easily baited by that fact.

Yet your foe does not answer your taunt and for a long moment there is silence save for the cutting wind.

"What did the damn frozen lizard say?" Ser Richard calls to Dany, showing that he had heard the tongue of wyrms enough times to recognize it at least.

"It said it's not coming down here while we're ready." Then almost as an afterthought. "It made threats too, they all make threats." Though another might not know it you hear the tightly leashed rage in her voice.

The moments continue to slip by then at last the frozen voice from the sky speaks again. "Your destruction will tip the scales as much as hers, half-breed. Come forth and I will spare her."

"Tis sad to see thine wits having gone wandering so far as to propose something with that would favor only you on the strength of mercy. Thinkest thou I have not looked upon the face of your masters?" Something is not right here. White wyrms were the most savage, least clever of all the children of Tiamat the Many-hued. This one should be enraged by your insults, not trading barbs at its leisure

What do you do?

[] Call up to the dragon
-[] Write in

[] Wait until it descends

[] Rise up and meet it
-[] Write in plan

[] Write in

OOC: Whoever guessed dragon first, congratulations, though it may not be quite what you expected.

 

[DragonParadox]

Black Wings Rising ​

Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

Light as a reed is the staff of weirwood in your hand, yet still through scales warded by arcane powers you still feel the strength within it, the magics of the earth mated with the yearning for the sky. "Play your games, wretched pawn, and I shall play mine. If the aspect of the Bitch Queen of Dragons cannot lay me low, what hope does a creature so debased as you have?"

So saying you strike the ground with the staff and for just a moment it sings in your hand, the merest echo of the Great Song. Upon a hundred wings an unkindness of ravens rises, black wings against the storm of white, and through a hundred pairs of eyes you see the worlds yet your mind is not clouded. Is this how Bloodraven sees the world? you wonder.

Heedless of peril are your spies as they ascend for they are not creatures of flesh but sorcery made manifest, a raucous cacophony flying into the eye of howling white. Seek you bid them and so they do. Where one pair of eyes may be blinded by swirling snow, a dozen or a score are not so easily fooled.

Here a flash of white shining too bright... there the veil of a wing cutting almost soundlessly though the cold mist.

Through eyes not your own you cast a veil of fire, tinged in blood, and out of the cold heavens a scream of pain echoes upon the wind, like ice shattering.

You take 5 Damage

The Dragon that dives at you jaws agape is not merely white of scale, it is wrought of purest ice as though carved from some ancient glacier. Its scales a thousand shimmering shades as they reflect the fire that torments it: from pale blue to frigid green to crystalline white, its form lithe and graceful in the air. Only its eyes belie its deceptive beauty: blacker than night they are, an emptiness that is more than darkness, a hunger without end that you had seen but once before in far Volantis.

Spoiler: Ice Dragon

It breathes upon you a cone of icy wind laced with darkness that pulls at your very soul and screams of death beyond death, but against both you are warded. Seals of power flash into incandescence against the darkness, and so you stand unharmed save for the blood still trickling from your hand where you had pried open the scales to work your magics.

Seeing her chance Dany rushes in, hand glowing with pulsing blood-red light like a star of ill omen, and with it she strikes the beast as a hammer blow from the blue. Cracks begin to show in the icy scales, showing the writhing void beneath.

What do you do next?

[] Write in

OOC: Viserys did not roll high enough to identify the dragon, but Dany did, which is why she knew it is a living creature and would be harmed by negative energy.

 

[DragonParadox]

Frostfall​

Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

In your left hand you draw another rod, white also but of bone not wood, ancient beyond your knowledge and new as a serpent's blessing all at once. Again your blood falls upon the snowy ground, the only harm this battle has so far done you, and ten embers bright with blood red flame spiral towards your foe.

You take 4 Damage

With frustration and a distant sort of amusement both you realize the dragon of Winter had warded itself somehow also, for two of the bolts fall away, glancing off some unseen force. But eight others pierce deep, fire melting ice with a hissing whistle that covers the beast's own roars of pain, blood red flame burning back the darkness within. Great chunks of 'flesh' break and fall off like pieces from a calving glacier, and of the cold malice you had heard upon the wind not a trace remains, only desperate savagery. Its thrashing head turns to Dany and a wave of tainted icy breath descends upon her.

Dany takes 9 Damage

So swift and so sure is your sister in the air that the breath of frost hardly touches her, and though the warding waver she laughs, drunk on the joy of battle and victory to come. In that laughter a single word is uttered in the tongue of the Freehold that is no more: "Shatter."

What fire did not ruin is sundered then, the ice dragon's form flying apart into a hail of ice, lost in the storm, the blackness of the void spilling out to become naught but common darkness, a final scream of rage and hate... Or is it only the howl of the wind? The snow falls on as snow is wont to do, but the shadow under the cloud is less, the chill no longer piercing bone. You had won.

"It's gone, we're safe!" Dany exclaims, rushing to hug you, as much as she is able at least. You allow yourself to take human shape again, still holding her.

"A bit of ice would not have seen the end of us," you say.

"That thing was not just ice," she says. "It did not lie when it called itself born of the void eternal. Its breath would sap the very strength of self from one unwarded, until at last their souls would just give up on being."

"They would die?" you ask, knowing there is more, there must be more.

"No," she shivers a little. "The one so drained would be lost forever, not even a memory of them remaining upon the earth, just empty clothes and the notion that there a man once was. Our foe is more than winter, no matter how savage, it is a corruption of all that is, a gaping void that screams for the End of All Things. If my wards had failed... I can't imagine it. I won't."

She draws back and you can see the fear pushed back in her gaze by sheer strength of will. "Let's see how mother is doing. I would wager she has quite a few questions..."

What do you say to Rhaella?

[] Write in

OOC: Yes there is loot and XP. It will be in the next update. Now that it is dead I might as well tell you, that thing was an Frost Dragon from the Bestiary of Krynn, and in some ways it makes the Gloom Dragon look harmless by comparison.

 

[DragonParadox]

Life Enduring ​

Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

As you hold your sister close and warm healing light pulses through her, erasing the little harm that the ice dragon's freezing breath did to her, your mind flinches from thinking how much more it could have done. The power to unmake one until not even memory remains... Never have you more fervently wished for a god's power before, not the gasp of stillborn light you held in Mantarys but truly power divine, you own and no others' that you might turn back even the void at need.

The sight of your own blood still dripping onto the snowy ground, the twinge of pain in your palms where you had torn at them with claws pulls you into more immediate concerns. Still holding Dany in a one-armed hug you heal yourself with a trickle of power drawn from your belt, then with a wave of a hand you scour the ground with flame to leave nothing of yourself in this place.

"Mother witnessed all this," Dany whispers to you, then you feel her wings vanish as a dream before morning's light. "I think it might help her to see us both like this now."

And so side by side and now entirely unchanged and unharmed, the two of you walk back to the cave you had carved in haste. Recalling the terrible powers you had wielded and the foe you had battled, you steel yourself to see fear in your mother's eyes, the raw uncomprehending terror you had seen so many times before. Instead she rushes both of you into a hug that is almost painfully tight, seeking wordless assurance. You do not know just how long you stand thus amid the swirling snow before she asks voice shaking. "Are... are you alright? Is it gone?"

"Very much so," you assure her. "I would say it's in several thousand pieces."

"Can you..." she swallows, visibly shaking and struggling to blink away tears, "ask the Children if more of those things are coming?"

Nodding to herself Dany utters a brief spell to give herself the power to speak as though in the True Tongue of the Singers and ask just that though her words are oddly slow, a song twinged around them as an echo barely heard. For a moment you wonder why she can not simply gifted the power to speak the common tongue onto the Children themselves, then you realize what her worry must have been.

After listening to Soft Strider Dany replies. "No more of them will come, they are rare as to be almost unheard of even in the Deep North, near the Lands of always Winter, and it is summer still." Of course she could not offer the true reassurance, for every move Bloodraven made the Others would counter and now that counter had been played.

"Rare..." She shakes her head in disbelief. "That was a dragon... a dragon made of ice."

"Such a thing could not cross the Wall, nor go around it, no more than its true masters might," you reassure her confidently. "Soon we will be at Castle Black and then beyond it where such things cannot trouble us." In your heart you know the words to be hollow in essence even as they are true in the particular. There are horrors and monsters in the south also, but your mother does not need to hear that now.

"What were those... things?" she asks, trailing off at a loss for words.

"Wards to guard against dark powers, and as to the shape I took that is just another working, like Dany's, though..." you offer a smile, "for obvious reasons I do not use it as often, or inside."

"Indeed," Dany picks up the jest with a show of mock-severity. "The treasury is not so full that it can stand for you breaking keeps all the time."

Your mother starts to laugh then, and if there is an edge of hysteria to it... well you would hardly be one to blame her. "Old Gods, New, and any others that may be listening, I'm glad you are safe," she says fervently.

"Do we press on or make camp here, your grace?" Ser Richard asks, sounding as though he wishes to ask other questions but does not know what else is safe in present company.

Somewhere beyond the snow-laden clouds you know the sun is well past its zenith but there are a few more hours of light still you know.

What do you do next?

[] Make camp here
-[] Write in plan

[] Ride on
-[] Write in plan

OOC: The write in is for stuff like looting, talking to Rhaella, talking to the Children etc... XP will be granted in one shot once you cross the Wall southwards. Also you can thank your lucky stars for Dany's high wisdom. The Children with their alien fatalistic outlook would have seen no reason not to mention why they do not fear a second dragon coming.

 

[DragonParadox]

Picking Through the Pieces ​

Twentieth Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

It was the strangest thing.... the words kept chasing each other in her head as soon as she was sure her children were unharmed. The first time Rhaella had seen her daughter in the body she had been born to was after watching her diving like an avenging angel upon a dragon of ice, the ones the Maesters said did not exist. Of course, she was quite sure whatever the Bloodraven had become should not exist, not to mention a woman dead eight years who was now walking around a snowy field looking blearily over the mass of brittle crackling ice.

Truth be told she had not the faintest clue what she was supposed to be looking for. "Anything that looks magical," her daughter had said before turning to look down, her face set in a frown of concentration, looking to all the world like a girl out to pick the perfect wildflowers holding her mother's hand. She changed so quickly, a child one moment and something else the next. Strangest of all was what she was both together.

What had her child seen and done to become as she was now? Rhaella feared in her heart she would never understand the answer, but for now she was content holding hands and being dragged gently along, snow crackling gently underfoot.

"There! Do you see that?" Daenerys was pointing at something near a spruce tree that had been splintered and broken under the weight of crashing ice... a splinter that gleamed blue as long as a knight's sword and looking just as sharp.

"Be careful," she said instinctively... needlessly.

Unlike most children finding something that struck their fancy, Daenerys stood well away from the thing, whispering under her breath. Whatever spell her daughter had worked Rhaella could see no sign of it, but she seemed satisfied.

She called over Viserys and Ser Lonmouth to have a look. The knight pried the shard bluish ice from the wood with one gauntlet-encased hand, looking at it with a sort of habitual suspicion.

"It's not cursed or even enchanted, but that does not have the look of ordinary ice," Viserys confirmed after he too had stared at the thing for a long moment speaking quickly under his breath. "Try to break off a piece."

Rhaella could not even summon proper surprise when the thing did not break like ice but bent like iron in the knight's hand. Maybe it wasn't supposed to even be surprising. She forced herself to pay attention, this thing could be dangerous. "Are you sure you should be taking that?" she asked.

She half-expected a simple yes, but instead he replied, "Both I and Dany worked magic to dispel any illusion or trickery and still it looks utterly unmagical, simply an uncommon sort of material... like dragonbone."

That.. made sense as much as anything did. She nodded to show she understood.

Then of course, as if the world had taken this for a challenge, Viserys took out the little golden box he had looked to when the snowstorm had first shown itself and peered at it. She considered asking about it, but decided she was not ready for the world making even less sense, not just yet.

For the next hour they walked around the field seemingly at random, unerringly finding pieces of the odd blue ice, from the size of one's palm to one enormous chunk almost as long as a man was tall. Rhaella could not keep herself from asking how all of that fit in a belt-pouch. At least 'extra-dimensional space' made sense as a word, if not something that should exist outside a tale.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed noticed something shining white in a pile of leaves and snow. She seriously considered leaving it be. What if its masters manage to put the beast back together? It should have been an absurd worry, alas it made no less sense than many of the other things she had seen today.

The fist-sized piece of ice glowing with a ghostly light that chilled the air around it enough to be felt through the sorcery keeping her warm. "That is magical," Rhaella said. Making japes was a good way to keep one from dwelling on things, she had learned over the years.

"Which is why it is going into a lead box and Ser Richard is holding on to it," Viserys replied. At her curious look he explained, "He is too stubborn to see with magic."

Rhaella could not tell if he was serious or not, but into a box and the knight's possession the strange glowing ice chunk went.

***​

The hollow in the stone smelled of pine resin and sweet herbs, and the Children had brought more than the firewood that crackled merrily beneath the largest air-hole. There were also baskets full of berries and another filled with wild mushrooms and truffles to be roasted over the fire. She had never eaten mushrooms this good before, but then even the banquet halls of the king did not have their fruits picked out by legendary creatures.

As Rhaella ate she realized she was not up to hearing another story of journeys into the City of Monsters far to the east, but one thing she needed to know. "What did the voice on the wind say and what did you answer?"

OOC: As you can see Rhaella's coping mechanisms have coping mechanisms. She is exceptionally good at putting up a brave front. The next vote is obviously how to answer her.

 

[DragonParadox]

A Thousand Small Steps ​

Twenty-Second Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

Every step southwards is a relief, every stream crossed under clear skies a weight off your chest, and yet looking forward to the Wall and beyond you cannot help but worry, not for foes that can be fought with sword and spell and but for how your mother will deal with the kingdom you have wrought, the world entire around it. Before when you had thought of her return as anything besides a distant dream you had been concerned for her possible disapproval of your ways, your choices, and the company you keep.

Now you worry about her happiness and her safety in equal measure. The strain of all the strange revelations is writ clear upon her features no matter how she struggles to hide it, and you cannot help but think of how helpless she was yesterday, how easily she could have died again... or worse. She accepted your vague description of what the ice dragon said with near-incomprehension at the thought that dragons could speak. What might she say if she knew the blood of such dragons flows in your veins and hers, that you have made pacts with one such and he rules in Tolos as lord?

In truth you suspect you without Dany you might already have made some terrible misstep that would push her over the edge into a gaping maw of fear. Your sister plays her part upon a knife's edge, to be helpful and soothing without lying about her nature, to teach of magic without revealing her own dark secrets. You listen with half an ear as she recounts some of the more harmless antics of your unusual subjects.

"... the hard part is not getting a tinker fey working, for they love their craft, it's keeping them from flying off on some strange fancy like the unfortunate notion of the Battle Wheel. You see, this thing was supposed to roll across the battlefield sweeping aside all before them better than a charge of knights, with the driver suspended inside the spokes of the wheel. Fortunately they never made it past the scale models though I did have to heal one who was run over."

"Surely that was the intent," your mother answers, her tone making it clear she is playing along.

"Not when the one in need of being healed from broken bones was the driver," Dany finishes her story.

"Are such notions... common?" your mother asks you.

"Compared to the number of projects, yes," you reply. "However, the sheer volume of work goes to more reasonable things like better-than-Myrish crossbows and the projects for wide-scale use of water wheels like the one that raises the water gate at Riverrun, though granted that one required simplification. Still, they were of great use in the town's water-works..."

You launch into a discussion of the growing infrastructure of Sorcerer's Deep, making sure how much had already been done not grand plans for the future, she must have heard quite enough of those from your father's mad fancies. As you speak you can see her relaxing bit by bit, hearing of the extraordinary mixed with the commonplace concerns of rule on which she can offer advice with confidence.

"I'm glad you found a place... or made it as the case may be," she says at last. Then, visibly steeling herself, "I think I'm ready to hear about the journey eastwards now."

What do you answer?

[] Write in

OOC: I might as well tell you guys I'm not longer rolling encounters since the last one completed the arc quite well as far as combat goes.

 

[Wheel of time]

@Takesis I said I would write a Omake in thanks of your Monk Omake and here it is at last

The trees stand as silent sentinels with roots grasping tight the stern earth, and the sky wide and clear to shine with the stars silent burning bright. The shadows are long and soft as they are layered over the forest to weave and tumble as they will. The wind sings a song of battle lost and victory desired as the warm grass and gentle soil make a comforting bed for a weary soul sick with rage and hungover with fury. His flesh is scarred like the storm-riven mountains and gouged like the earth carved by the rushing stream. His bones have been beaten and cracked by blows like thunder and he has bled rivers and oceans of blood to water the parched earth beneath his feet. Every inch of him bears and is marked by battle and strife. Not one inch of flesh has not been broken and reforged in the relentless fires of war. His muscles ache with searing pain and his tongue is a rusty blunted thing, heavy and leaden in his mouth.

The warrior savage and brutal as the burning dawn and the fearsome storm lays down besides the fire to warm himself and rest for a time before the drums beat in his heart once more and the storm howls in his blood for pounding vicious release. Before the voice of the gods whispers, carried by the leaves rustling and shaking and the earth, groaning and moaning to give him once more his instructions of death and ancient madness founded on bloody unforgiving rage. Before the fury held in the boundless storm surges through him like vicious lighting and the wrath of the old earth sings in his marrow like battle songs of everlasting and thirsting war. Blood rending and tearing apart his veins as his heart crashes against his rib cage, pressing and pushing against it till it is on the verge of bursting. His ears ring and burn with a fiery warmth that fills him from head to toe with a slick and sublime flame.

Rage in the dawning light of morning is his mead and hate in the closing hours of twilight his bread. The warrior's back is curled and corded with thick and great muscles. Standing out like the face of a brutal mountains side stark and sheer as he sits and relaxes by the warming and comforting fires. The shadows dance over his face beaten and bruised from many thunderous blows of great might and scared by cruel slash's of howling steel and racing blades. His eyes are smoldering coals bound with a corona of jumping and dancing lighter that sparks when there is great joy or bloody passion bursting and crushing through his miracles sharp eyed gaze.

His beard is flecked with charcoal black rough and harsh in texture. Spiked and stinging, it is affixed and held to his face like a thorny bush bristling with venom anger and spiteful malice. His arms as they tend to the fire are thick and bulge with tightly bound and wound muscles and ligaments lying dormant and waiting for the electrifying stimulus to awaken and explode into violent action. His knees hard as rocks and further strengthened by republic bashing skulls in bend upwards as he lays his thick tree trunk legs down besides his merry gentle fire that warms and soothes him this night. His hands fall down to rest on the protruding knob of his rock hard knee bone and his other falls down by his side to hang. Hands that are brutal claws or savage hammers as his tempestuous and violet changing mood shits and alters. With these brutal fists he cooks his food and feeds his mouth with careful and precise motions entirely at odds with his hulkish and brute demeanor. With a tentative sip he tests out his stew to see if it is too hot, and upon finding it is warm but not scalding in its liquid heat he begins to ravenously consume it and chug it down.

With some bread to balance it out he lays down by the tree covered in warm furs and snuggles up in a finely woven blanket, he closes his eyes and lets his mind drift on currents of memory. The sounds of the birds twittering and the squirrels chattering fades away to be replaced by the loud braying shouts of battle, a mixture of spine tingling and shit breaking terror and rapid bloodlust forced to the boiling point under the stress of the clash of blades and the charges of horses' hooves cracking down like thunder and smashing at the broken bodies littering the ground like lighting. Free Folk and Westerosi knights scattered across the ground gutted and hacked at, limbs thrown every which way, and intestines tangled in the muck and filth of the torn and churned battlefield. Skulls cracked by maces clipping them and chests bleeding out from viscous spear wounds and lances shattering through them forcing their way past their bones and organs to rip everything in its path apart. Horses' legs shattered and bent sending them crashing to the ground with their riders being hurled from their saddles to crash face first into the ground snapping their necks and breaking their spines with the violent impact. The battle had raged and clashed in the pouring rain as tides of fur and bright gleaming armor had struck at each other again and again to overwhelm their embattled foe. Snarling with rage the Free Folk struck again and again at their foes with cleaving axes and hacking swords chipped and of poor make but driven by a vicious and equally bloody will.

The knights cleaved at their heads as they ran past, sending fountains of blood flying into the air and decapitated skulls to roll in the dirt. Rusty blades managing to pierce past their finely-crafted plate and chainmail to gouge out their flesh and rip through them, cutting deep and nasty wounds into their flesh. When the Knights fell from their horses from stones and arrows they would descend on them like a rabid mob to rend and butcher them while they were down, crushing their mail and caving in their plate in their mad frenzy. In turn the knights ran over the savage and feral wildlings like a storm wind ripping up trees and sending them flying or in this case limbs and heads soaring through the air in beowulf grizzly arcs painted by noble swordsmanship.

In the muck and grime a soul lay dying and broken, a young boy of those beyond the Wall who would not kneel or bow from a mixture of brave daring and foolish pride. He had gone to fight chosen by a one of the Old Gods' Druids to earn glory and riches from the soft kneeler folk of the south only to find their steel was harder than his confidence in his skills and sharper than his easily disabled bladework. When the battle had come he molded and flowed with the rest of the onrushing horde that had crashed and fought against the Knights.

He had quickly discovered that those soft kneeler he had mocked could sweep him aside with barely any effort at all, and had found himself perplexed as he discovered he was prone on the ground unable to move lest he experience excruciating agony and find himself blacking in and out of consciousness. With blurry vision smothered by the howling rain and beating slaughter he gazed upon the relentless slaughter around him, feeling shame at his weakness erode his spirit and fury at the cruel and unforgiving hand fate had cast for him, fury that rose with the storm and crashed with the deafening thunder, fury that burned in his blood and boiled in his veins, fury that raced and surged through him searching for a way to escape. It scorched his muscles and seared his bones with scouring hatred and blazing wrath. He did not know when he started screaming or climbing to his feet, the storm raging and boiling with ear-splitting thunder and shrieking lighting above him. He did not feel the blade soaked in the grime of blood and viscera enter his hand as he gripped it with knuckles bleeding as under his flesh, bone, and ligaments warped and twisted into monstrous contoured shapes and barbaric forms of brutal murder and slaughter. He did not feel his arm hurled like a sling cleave through horseflesh and sunder knights armor with one fell blow.

He did not know when he started beating the knight's skull into the ground to kiss the bleeding dirt with the pommel of his blade. Or when he ran screaming and howling across the field cutting and striking down any found in his frenzied madness. His blade become a whirling storm of death whose steel reaped a harvest of blood that flowed with its curve and dance in great sweeping arcs of dismemberment and disembowelment. When the blade finally found itself locked and secured in warm soon-dying meat he tore from the cooling hands of his foes an axe and ran amok among them with its crescent blade as the storm cried out with wrath and fury above and the rain fell like the hammering blows of the heavens to crash upon the naked and bloodied ground. Racing towards the knights victorious and relieved at at battle's end he leaped from the ground to crash among them with the blade of his axe falling like grim fate to separate them from each of their dearly beloved halves.

When even that blade was thrown to spinning and turning through the air to carve a swath of bloody ruin through another force of knights, he clawed for a mace and hammer for each hand to crack their bones and shatter the blood vessels in their veins. With these mauls of carnage he splintered and broke the knights who went to slay the gore-slathered madmen who could not stop laughing with the rushing wind and roaring with the crashing thunder. His heart had become a roaring bonfire, savage and fierce, and his mind was awash in the racing lighting of bloody fury and deranged rage.

Wounds that would have felled any lesser men a thousands, nay a million times over, covered his body, and yet he did not fall as chopped down tree but stood like an ancient oak that shook and writhes against the winds slicing fury and cutting anger. With hammer as thunderbolt he smashed through the knights' lines and with the mace in the other hand he shattered through brittle bone and warm spongy flesh, viscera and gore coating both weapons in a thick greasy sheen. With one last surge of raw rage and primal fury he embedded both of his weapons in the bodies of his foes breaking their rib cages and caving in their hearts with the raw force driven into them at that moment.

With the last of the knights slain and slaughtered to the last, dull fury echoing in his ears and leaden hate old as stones and harder than the cutting steams coursing through his veins the young warrior not fully processed by an age old battle frenzy and dark madness from the first days of the Song tore open the door of the Sept and with his bare hands clawed and his eyes wild and mad grabbed the Priest of the Seven who are One all covered in his fine robes and wielding his star to ward off the approaching calamity and smashed him again and again against the altars of his gods mangling and twisting his body as blood splattered and splashed over the floor as the Priest was absolutely ruined.

When the Wildlings came in to see what had happened at the end of the battle they found a figure covered and painted in scarlet, one of his hands clutching the torn-out heart of one of his foes excavated chest and with a cruel burning light in his eyes crushed the heart to steaming pulp to drip down onto the floor at his feet. And in the trees above ravens cawed and danced, wheeling through the gray skies, their black eyes giving off a sense from their blank bottomless depths like sable inkwells of satisfaction and victory achieved.

 

[DragonParadox]

In Uncommon Company ​

Twenty-Second Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

Rather than speak in the saddle, you had chosen to take a small break for lunch by the banks of a small nameless stream bubbling between mossy banks as it meanders its way westwards towards the Sunset See. The trees grow tall here just as they have in other parts of the True North you had seen, but there are fewer evergreens and more hardy broad-leaves, more to house squirrels and chirping songbirds, their voices a welcome reminder that these lonely lands are not just places of savagery and danger, but also of unexpected beauty, a welcome respite from the rush of the journey south.

"...so having set off from the Deep, leaving it in as good an order as can be in such a short notice, we headed as we had been bid to stand against the evils stirring there."

"On the word of a cat?" For once the disbelief is tinged with humor rather than horror.

"A spirit of older days in the shape of one, and once a sorcerer's familiar," Dany interjects. "That he spoke truth all the magics we could bring to bear agreed, and the threat he spoke of was dire."

"Do either of you have... er... familiars?" your mother asks with an air you remember from your childhood, when you had once taken a few months' fondness with a hawk you saw once upon the hunt, and precious little notion of how such a thing should be cared for.

You explain that your familiar is a small snake that found you soon after your magic quickened but she is busy laying a clutch of eggs, forbearing to mention the blessings upon them.

"Mine can be a little startling..." Dany warns. "Not truly frightening, but strange."

"I'm as ready as I am ever likely to get," your mother replies, eyeing her warily.

To your relief Feeder's ungainly appearance in flight together with his dogged insistence that he is a dragon draws out a smile. If anything this should have been your mother's introduction to the notion that things that are not and never have been men might speak as they do. It also gets you past the delicate matter of Dany carrying a dagger, seeing as the weapon is in fact a 'pet.' Dany must have coached him rather well in what he can and cannot say, for the little dragon-kin mentions nothing of how they met save that he is the last of an ancient race and had been drawn to one who bears the blood of the dragon as like is called to like.

"I will allow that the talking cat is probably as good a source of lore as any, then. Continue," she bids you.

Forbearing to mention Relath or the tritons for the moment, much less your first brush with the Deep Ones, you speak directly of your coming to Volantis the Great. "The blood of Valyria runs deep in its first Daughter, if not always in the ways that one might prefer, and magic had begun to awaken there to trouble the magisters."

The tale of the burning plague, while gruesome in its substance, has the marked advantage of being able to truthfully say that you where half a continent away when it happened unlike so many other magical calamities you will have to go over eventually. Further as you explain the workings of the Mysterium and how the mighty of Volantis reacted to such power in the hands of slaves, you can set as contrast your own notions of accountability and respect given to those who would wield such powers. Still such matters are framed as musings amid travelers' tales of seeing the wonders of the east. Several times you even go so far as to conjure a particular vista from memory.

"Alas Volantis itself had also left itself open to dark things that wish only ill to humankind by the manner in which it raised up some to be as kings and princes and trod others into the dirt. Even as we stepped upon the scene two factions sought to re-enter the ruined manse from which the burning times begun. The first to approach us was a woman who claimed to serve the Red God and served instead... well ultimately I cannot speak of what she served here."

"So far to the east?" your mother gasps.

"Tis said the Long Night covered the wold from Westeros to Yi Ti," Dany reminds her somberly. "Darkness knows not the borders that men draw between themselves."

Of your battle with the false priestess you speak little, and of the disastrous attempt at resurrection not at all, but then you come at last to your meeting with the Flame Keeper Benerro, self-professed slave to R'hllor the Red, a good man by your measure and... worker of miracles.

"So he was a sorcerer, like you?" You might cheer for the fact that she barely hesitated before the last words, save for the fact that the time has come to broach a delicate matter.

"No, mother," Dany replies. "He prays to the Red God and something grants him the power to work his magics, so do many of his order in these days of rising magic. This does not mean that among their number one cannot find fools and madmen. It bespeaks of power, not wisdom or the holding of some great truth."

"So a demon, then?" the question is rather faint.

"As I said, he seemed a kind man to me and wise after his own lights," you reply. "I do not think he would serve any sort of fiend."

"So the Red God is... true?" Disbelief is too small a word for what you hear in her voice. She sounds as one adrift.

What do you answer?

[] Write in

OOC: Best not to think of the fact that Feeder is part of a predominantly CE species of gruesome parasites. That is one thing Dany for one intends to never tell Rhaella.

 

[DragonParadox]

The Games of Gods and Mortals ​

Twenty-Second Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

"I'd hoped that you might not ask that question, that there would be time for you to process the rebirth of magic from its ashes before you asked of the divine." A sigh passes your lips, then a faint, wistful smile. "I need to ask you something first, mother. Are you sure you want me to answer you now? You know that the world has changed, and," it was hard to admit, "I know you can tell what I've been doing to try and help you adapt to it. But if I answer you, you can't unask that question. Are you sure?"

"There is no shame in saying no," Dany adds softly. "You are back with us, and you have all the time you might need," Dany adds softly. Her eyes darken for an instant, remembering how that time had almost been ripped away.

Your mother looks between the two of you wide-eyed, a dozen fears and more chasing each other behind her eyes, for once entirely unable to put a brave face on matters. Then slowly, she nods. "Better to know now than to drive myself mad with worry at what might be."

"R'hllor truly exists, as do many other gods and goddesses," you answer plainly. "I've seen the workings of the divine on my travels on many occasions, yet the truth is rarely comparable to the stories the priests tell. Though his will is that all men be his slaves, there are countless multitudes who live their entire lives free from any mention of his name. Those we call gods are neither omniscient nor omnipresent, but they are vastly powerful and beyond the reckonings of most mortals, as a dragon would be to a common ground squirrel."

A sigh of relief follows this declaration. You are not entirely sure what your mother would know of the Red God, but it is unlikely to have been spoken in a complimentary manner. "There was a... priest from the east come to King's Landing because he had heard of your father's love of fire. He did not seem particularly devout to me but... now I wonder should I have gone to him?"

The question strikes you as a blow from the blue. You had expected to struggle against the faith she had been taught her whole life, not this. The Seven had not been kind to her, you remember all too well. How many prayers unanswered lay beneath the feet of effigies of silent stone?

"That the gods exist does not mean their servants cannot be ill-suited for the task, that they are mighty does not mean they are not limited also, even in this time of awaking power," you explain.

Seeing that your mother remains bewildered, Dany picks up the tale. "In Braavos there is an island dedicated to all the gods worshiped in the city, truth be told you might think it all the gods in the world to look upon it. Upon this island there is a place that seems more storehouse than temple. It is named the Holy Refuge by the highborn and the Warren by the common folk. There are kept in dusty silence the effigies of gods lost and forgotten. Some may never have been more than mortal fancy, but others were likely as 'true' as R'hllor the Red, yet now they are naught but echoes in the dusty halls for none now alive to pay them worship. The Gods need us, mother, perhaps more than we need them, for worship must be given freely. From the loftiest of princes to the merest wretch all are sovereigns of their souls."

"Breathe, your grace," Ser Richard speaks into the deathly silence that follows your sister's words. "Remember what I said in the cave."

"If..." she swallows thickly. "If this is your notion of easy, Ser knight, then I would hate to see what you consider hard." The smile she forces upon her features is a wan thing. She turns back to you and asks, "What of the Old Gods? They are true, are they not? And that man is their priest."

"The Old Gods have no priests for they need no obeisance as other gods might," you answer honestly. Though you know it will complicate matters, it will also bring up a point that needs revealing. "Their strength is drawn from the Heart Trees and those who serve them are the Greenseers, voices of the silent gods, of whom Lord Bloodraven is the last."

"Why him?" she asks, and you hear anger as much as confusion in her voice. "Oathbreaker and kinslayer..."

"Because there was no one else," Dany answers starkly. "You saw the ice dragon. Maybe you think unc... Lord Bloodraven is wrong and evil, but compared to that thing and those it served we are all on the same side."

"What Dany says is true, or at least it aught to be," you carry on. "And yet the gods carry their own grudges and play their own games. Much as the games of court they are save played upon a different board."

"If this is as a court then who is the king?" The question has an air of desperation. You wish you could give her the answer she wants.

"No one," you reply instead. "No more than any one man is king of the world and all within it. A god is to a mortal as a lord to a hedge knight, but as a king, I have a duty to my people. And my journey has led me to a different relationship with those who reward the deeds of man fairly and render aid in the fight against the creatures that prey upon them, and it is not just the things in the north. As some gods might be fair lords, so too might others be beasts and brigands, those who only take and destroy. Their servants I will ever stand against." You only just stop yourself from declaring open war on gods, a step too far not only for your metaphor, but you suspect for your mother to bear.

"When you were little you did say you would be as Galladon of Morne," your mother says half-wonderingly.

"All little boys say that," you counter, feeling a slight flush on your cheeks at the memory.

"I bet more little girls would say so too if it weren't for all the people shoving them in dresses you can't even move in," Dany grumbles just loudly enough to be heard, lifting some of the tension.

The moment of levity passes and you sigh. "Strange that you would mention the legendary knight from Tarth, mother. On that isle I slew a fiend that sought to kill a noble Lord as I treated with him. There, I met a young girl graced with the blessings of the Seven, and yet she did not thank me for saving the life of that Lord, or even her own father who had been present and could have died himself. She told me I should forsake the arts that had saved them, for they are unseemly in the eyes of her masters. The world is not so simple a place as in the tales...."

"Or you might say it is the simplest thing," Dany steps in. "You fight the monsters and protect the innocent and just and let whatever gods may be watching judge as they see fit, they have precious little power over those who do not choose to worship them."

"I... I will have to think on this," your mother replies. Again a wan smile. "I'll probably keep asking questions too, but for now I would speak of something I have a better grasp upon. what lord did you deal with in Tarth?"

What do you say of your dealings with Westerosi lords?

[] Write in

OOC: I have to say I'm impressed at how well and thoughtfully you guys are handling this. It's not just matter of lucky dice rolls or Viserys' and Daenerys' exceptional social skills. The votes and the discussion have been great.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Crown and Kin ​

Twenty-Second Day of the Twelfth Month 292 AC

You hold back a sigh, relived to leave the mater of Mantarys and its demons to another day, and instead speak of things closer to home and less likely to be a strain upon your mother's vision of the world. "We journeyed to Tarth to parlay with Renly Baratheon, youngest brother of the Usurper and current Lord of Storm's End. He brought with him various knights of little import, and the Lord of Tarth, seeing as we were using his island as a meeting ground. The meeting followed a letter offering ransom for Stannis Baratheon, who the Usurper named Master of Ships and Lord of Dragonstone. We captured him when he attempted to sail the Royal Fleet to Sorcerer's Deep with orders to take or sack the port. As I told you a few nights ago, they failed. The fleet never came within sight of the island, in fact, but for those that defected to my banner."

"Stannis, a very serious boy, almost grim he was. I saw him but a few times at court, and never once did I know him to laugh or even smile," your mother muses. "I think he would have tried to take the town over burning it, at least if his orders allowed. Are your considering giving him the Stormlands or leaving it to the younger brother?" Seeing your surprised look she adds, "There is little other reason to ransom a traitor unless you expect him to turn his cloak twice."

"I would not say so, the gold shines very prettily," you counter, earning a reproving look that is only half-serious. "To answer plainly, I think Stannis is a fine lord if too rigid in some matters and loyal to an unworthy cause."

"Of course treason is unworthy," comes the instant reply.

"Not precisely what I meant. That the Usurper is a traitor makes him my enemy. That he cannot look past his next wine cup even to see to the release of his own kin makes him unfit to rule... anything at all." You feel old anger rise within you, not a child's helplessness, but the sheer frustration of one faced with negligence deep enough to be a crime itself. "As you can well imagine, he has been even more lax in other matters and these are not days for a king to be napping. More than once I've traveled to Westeros in secret to not only gather support but aid against threats to body and soul. At Crackclaw Point there was no one beyond me and my friends to send aid against the same sort of foulness that drove Damphair because the Lannister 'queen' is more concerned with making japes at her subjects' expense and her husband was probably blind drunk while she did it. At White Harbor no one even considered sending a raven to King's Landing and so I happened upon a plot of devils by chance."

"It was not strictly speaking chance, a sorceress in lord Manderly's employ sought us out, wary of our intentions," Dany interjects. "The old lord was grateful by the end... even if he was not happy to be so."

"The Manderlys are loyal to House Stark and ever have been." Your mother shakes her head. "What made you go north if not knowledge of this... plot?"

"Oh," Dany gasps. "We should have told you this before. Rhaegar had a second son by Lyanna Stark. Fearing the Usurper's wrath, Lord Stark named the boy Jon, claimed him as his bastard and took him to be raised alongside his cousins in Winterfell."

"I... How do you know this?" You catch sight of a tear in her corner of her eye, thinking of your brother and his fate.

"Bloodraven showed him to me..." Seeing her about to object you raise a hand to forestall her. "I worked my own divinations into the matter, the boy is our closest living kin and that would only make sense if he is Rhaegar's son. We who bear the dragon blood are few, if not as few as our foes would have it: we three here, Bloodraven upon his weirwood throne, Maester Aemon at Castle Black where we are heading, and Jon Snow, a dragon's get hidden in a wolf's litter. For that alone I would excuse Lord Stark much, never mind that he had cause to raise his banners if anyone ever did."

For a long moment your mother looks into the fire, you suspect caught in the grip of memory. "I'm glad something of him lives, even only a bastard," she says at last, voice thick with emotion. Rhaegar's death was only months ago for her, not years, you realize abruptly.

"I did not mean to upset you, mother," Dany says contritely.

"Sweetheart, you did not upset me, you gave me good news. It's just that sometimes even the best of tidings can remind you of grief and loss." Though the smile she gives your sister is melancholy and wavering, it is by far the most genuine she has worn today.

"It might help to talk about him," you offer.

Dany nods. "I'd like to know about him too if you feel like talking."

And so you send the reminder of your time by that nameless northern stream speaking not of matters grand or terrible but of a son and bother now lost: of a quiet clever child who grew into a often moody but skilled and even kind man. You might never be able to see your brother unshadowed by his great folly, but he is kin and so you will remember him.

OOC: I know I keep derailing these parts, but I feel this is more realistic than having everything nice and ordered.