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

[DragonParadox]

Those Who Serve ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

If there is one small mercy to the men perched upon the guard towers it is that they are not Unsullied. Well-armed, well-trained freemen guards you would guess. Arrows rattle harmlessly against your scales and Amrelath's bones, though he disdains descending to fight what he would likely count as mere irritants... The painful sting of a heavy arrowhead puncturing your left wing reminds you why it would be unwise for you to count them thus, for you are yet flesh, and a piece of sharpened steel in the wrong place can still make you bleed if only a trickle.

You take 5 damage

The archers nearest to where you land merely die, by fang claw and whipping tail, some even horribly crushed to death by your sheer bulk. You feel the sickening crunch in your bones. Distantly you realize that were this form to allow it you might be sick from the wanton slaughter you are working, but such thoughts quickly slide from your mind. You must be terror and you must be death, not from any love of either, but to end this as swiftly as can be.

Some of the men guarding the tower you landed upon hurl themselves from the battlements in sheer unthinking fear, others simply collapse, weeping, weapons falling from nerveless hands. Seeing you ignore those unfortunates, the remainder of the men atop the tower have the presence of mind to cast down their own weapons.

No sooner had you risen in the air again that the sounds of yet more voices raised in surrender reach you. Almost as many of the Tyroshi soldiers lived on the tower Amrelath had been attacking, though not through any mercy on his part, of that you are sure.

The companies of the legion do not march against arrow bolt, stone and boiling oil cast through murder holes but simply through gates hastily cast aside by the surrendering defenders. The gates are yours... and before you stretches the palace itself, a maze of chambers and corridors that had grown over the centuries with the ambition and fancy of every archon.

"There is no way we can keep all of them safe in there," Dany says softly as you land besides her.

"If they wanted to be safe they would not have gone to war," Ser Richard gruffly reassures her. "Even so, they have a hell of a lot better chance of making it out alive than most men storming a prepared position could hope to get. Healing in a bottle, arms as good as any knight's and weapons that cut better than Valyrian steel..." He shakes his head as though in disbelief. No, disbelieving in truth, for he alone among all of you had known war before magic swept over the land.

Lya lands a moment later, her face grave: "There's news from Moonsong's group and it's... not good."

"They've found something they can't fight?" you ask worriedly. Had you misjudged sending Rina into battle you wonder? For all her power she had never faced battle before, much less against such unrelenting horrors as lurked beneath Tyrosh.

"Yes, but not in the way you think. There are hundreds coming out of the catacombs, poorly armed and not at all armored, but impossible to break. The bodies of the dead form barricades for those yet living. You would think they are fanatics, save for the fact that they beg for mercy even as they are cut down, and according to Moonsong they are enchanted... She thinks whatever's down there is preparing something and using those poor wretches to stall for time. She asked for something to bypass the tunnels and divine the true heart of the canker before they have to fight it on its terms."

"That's surprisingly tactical for her," you reply, willing yourself not to think of the implications of her words overlong. There would be time enough for heart-sickness when all this is over.

"We can take this place, Your Grace," the Legion's most senior officer hastens to assure you when you ask his counsel. "This place may have been meant for defense once, but now it's more like an egg than a stone and we are past the shell now. We can use guides from those surrendered to find the head of the snake and cut it off."

No sooner had he said the words that one of the men who had thrown himself to the ground, a servant or slave not a warrior from the look of him, dared to interject: "I know the palace well, the back ways that will be less well-guarded at this hour, only please... my family."

"We have no quarrel with you or your family," you assure him quickly, though he does not seem convinced. Indeed from the looks he throws Yrael you suspect it is only the hallowed presence that makes the poor man the least bit comfortable to even speak in your presence. Gods alone know what manner of rumors the magisters have been spreading about you.

Holding back a sigh you turn back to Lya and ask of the others.

"In this case it can be hoped that no news is good news, for one can hardly offer a report while advancing against any sort of real opposition," she replies, though the look in her eyes makes it clear that she is aware of the other albeit far less likely possibility.

What do you do?

[] Continue taking the palace as per the initial plan

[] Fly to reinforce Moonsong's group
-[] Write in plan

[] Write in

OOC: That five damage was from someone getting a crit with a longbow, which triples the damage dice. Amrelath of course laughs at crits since he is a large pile of bones that flies on the strength of sorcery and malice.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Traps and Trickery​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

Low mud-brick huts thatched with moldy straw huddled together alongside a stream that likely flowed as much with human effluvia as water, while worn mile markers as old as the city had been defaced with crude carvings layered one atop the other in mute testament to all the petty things which were closer to the rulers of this benighted place than the 'Archon' of Tyrosh and his pathetic court. In short it was the sort of place Malarys Vanor would have seen burnt with scarce a second thought secure in the knowledge that nothing and no one of import would be lost and the true foe would be smoked from its den. Alas this was not the sort of company in which such sentiments would be welcome.

"Well there's our way down," the Rhoynar, or rather Dornish girl said, motioning towards a large hill of refuse with a poorly made wooden door hidden behind an even worse attempt at a glamor. She at least was not unwilling to see a job done even if it stained her hands with blood and he was hardly one to try and guess the mind of the one who called itself Xor, besides the cautious conclusion that he was unusually well disposed to mortal life for one of his ilk.

However, the boy Waymar, now striding forth with an air of challenge was quite enough to set the mage-lord's teeth on edge, was a patron to damn near every lost cause he came across. For all that he was nothing next to the last and thankfully most temporary member of their company. An 'angel', who those who little understood the magic of the spheres might call it. Malarys knew its kind by its proper name... and the ones his long dead teachers had given them: 'meddlers and pests.'

"One of us should guard the way back up, lest something comes up and starts venting its rage on these innocent souls," it began, making Malarys briefly consider the advisability to sending it to scout ahead... far ahead, where his stupidity could not infect younger and still malleable minds.

"I do not think we have cause to hold out a foe in such contempt as to willingly split our strength," was all he said instead, heading purposefully towards the entrance. Thankfully the needed focus to see the world stripped of all trickery and illusion washed away such petty irritations. "Clever..." he muttered to himself, spotting the faint marking of an arcane trap built of twined enchantments. One was keeping the stone and earth above the entrance solid while the other held some sort of curse of pestilence, presumably to be dispersed to any who passed through there without showing some marking or speaking words of passage. To break one would unmake the other also, collapsing the entrance and warning of their approach as surely as if they had rang of gong.

Had they the time Malarys would have preferred to snare one of the fools as they meant to pass through and extract the secretes of opening the way from his mind. Alas, that time was not something to lightly spend, heart-beats as precious as silver in such times as these so instead he smiled at the crow-headed archon and said. "Perhaps we might be served in remaining up here and battling whatever comes... if you were to show yourself while the rest of us stayed hidden they might well mistake you for a lone scout. Such a prize your death would be that I doubt any of them would care for attacking the locals then."

"You speak wisely, their thirsts betray them," the bright spirit replied lowering its hood and allowing golden light to play over his feathers

The Dornish girl gave him a dark look to which he offered a subtle shake of the head to show that he was not planning any sort of treachery. Entertaining as it might be to consider being just a moment 'too late' this was neither the place nor the hour for such tactics.

It did not take long for the trap to show its use. Men came furtive, hungry and tainted, though theirs was a hunger no mortal food could sate, and behind them waiting in the shadow of the tunnel entrance the misshapen form of a fiend, blackened wire and shards of steel embedded into its flesh and crude armor and weapons both. Eyes burning like dyeing embers.

Spoiler: Genthodaemon

How bold these things had grown, the magelord thought, who once stood among the company of the greatest mages the world had ever known. It was time and past time to remind them that the Freehold was not as dead as they might have hoped, if such wretched things could even know it. For certain they would know fear and Malarys intended to remind them of it.

"Now!" The Royce boy shouted, lightning along the edge of his sword and thunder in his voice.

The four of them charged the fiend, taking advantage of his presence to bypass the trap as one might force a door ajar fully open after persuading those who dwelt within to open it by trickery. After all, ones far less skilled but more desperate then they could have simply thrown their lives to slay the foe and seal them in.

The fiend so mighty and so proud perished so swiftly before the rain of blows, exacting in return a mere pittance of blood upon its iron spikes.

OOC: Technically you guys should not know what the fiend pictured is since Malarys, the PoV character did not, but Waymar identified it so when you hear about this IC you will know anyway.

 

[DragonParadox]

Blood Price ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

You tear your eyes from the sight of Lya and Dany vanishing over the horizon Northward in the company of a pair of raven-servitors tasked with a message for the gathering currently in the plaza if things will have settled there. The temple guardsmen of Trios would have no real cause to leave their posts, and the Fountain of the Drunken God would hopefully remain a fountain and nothing more. You had made damn sure your attack would not coincide with any night of revelry....

Those legionaries tasked with taking the northern slums or at least keeping the fiends there too busy to begin their wanton slaughter had also begun their slightly delayed journey, the Shadow Tower's plinth held firm in Amrelath's claws.

"Alright, time to clean up here and move on," you call, taking on a shape more akin to the one you were born to, though still armored in crimson scale. "The audience room and the bed chambers first, then the record rooms and the treasury..."

"Your Grace?" the cohort commander who had come to sand beside you asks, startled.

"It is all to easy for people to die the chaos from deserters and such..." or angry slaves, you forbear from adding. There will be no mob 'justice' staining this conquest, at last as far as you can help it. "Further fires are just as much of a threat and it's all too easy for decades of records to go up in smoke. Gold on the other hand is rather heavy to flee with in the middle of the night, and the docks are not precisely welcoming for any would-be thieves."

***​

Even with the twin advantages of surprise and speed the palace claims its toll in lives, mostly from crossbowman firing from ambush, or desperate charges by Unsullied, fighting with impossible fervor though little of the skill they are famed for. Still, for every legionnaire fallen more than a dozen foes join them even in the narrow corridors where many of your men's skills are useless.

"They are coming!" the corporal ahead of you shouts as he had done so many times before that you had lost count.

Fire kindles in your throat, some utterly absurd part of your mind mourning the Myrish carpets set lavishly not upon the walls but the floor, likely to be charred beyond recognition. Then you notice precisely what is coming... not soldiers at all, but a wave of terrified servants driven forward by the spears of the Unsullied you can see behind them.

"Hold!" you shout, hoping the crossbowman and mages behind you can hear, before twisting time to your will. Between one instant and the next you fill the hall behind the last of the servants with fire hot enough to melt even steel, much less mere flesh and bone, more thankful than you can say that you had reached the ancient heart of the palace where the walls were fused dragonstone.

Alas this cannot stop the panicked flight of the servants, and they smash into the lines driven by sheer unthinking terror that sees a few of the soldiers knocked to the ground by the sheer weight of bodies.

When some semblance of order is restored the hall is filled with the groans and screams of the dying who had been trampled underfoot: men, women, children...

What do you do?

[] Move on

[] Ask the legionnaries to share their healing potions

[] Use Bloodwish to cast Mass Cure Moderate Wounds

[] Write in

OOC: Your rolls came out pretty well so far. The palace in not on fire, and resistance is scarce and disorganized.

 

[DragonParadox]

Woe to the Vanquished ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

Gazing upon the piteous scene you find yourself weighing practicality against compassion and even the tales that might be told of this day, distasteful as that might be to consider at such a time as this. Of all sorcery healing is the one most readily accepted, yet your power is not truly meant for such a thing, and to spread tales to the contrary may do more harm than good. "Use the elixirs," you command. "Remember to let them drink it all. Interrupting will only make them lose their virtues entirely."

As several of the legionaries still fortunate enough to posses potions rush to aid the servants most in need of it you notice a few of them staring at the ground as though admonished, the ones who had tried to stretch out the potions, as one would any other ration. Though you do not blame them you suspect their officers would have quite a lot to say on the matter once the battle was out and none of it pleasant to hear.

All but three of those lain upon the floor, save the three for which nothing more could be done, rise shakily to their feet. They heap praise upon the men and woman who healed them and upon you in equal measure, though there is fear yet in their eyes at your inhuman form.

Holding back a sigh, you instruct all those present, "Find some out-of-the-way room and barricade yourselves inside. The streets outside shan't be much safer than the corridors I fear."

That gets you quite a few nods, no doubt thinking that you mean the threat of a invading army set to looting and rapine. You do not see fit to frighten them further by explaining that fiends and worse are loose in Tyrosh this night.

***​

After burning your way through several makeshift barricades, slaying or routing a few more contingents of Unsullied, you finally find yourself in the wing of the palace your guide tells you houses the chambers of most highborn courtiers, including the Archon's family. No sooner had you taken your first steps down the long vaulted corridor that you hear the terrified scream of a child echoing from up ahead.

Thoughts of another sack, another massacre fill your mind. "Be wary of traps," you call to the red-cloaked captain. Without another word you proceed to utterly ignore your own advice, laying a blessing of swiftness upon both yourself and Ser Richard. The two of you race ahead through the empty hall, likely to the shock of the legionaries following behind at a more reasonable pace.

You catch sight of a boy who can count perhaps eight namedays, his sliver hair and fine though torn clothes marking him as someone of high station, running from a pair of guardsmen, short spears already glistening with blood.

The boy stops, wide-eyed at the sight of you and trying to say something about surrender between sobs. You also catch the name Taelreon, the House of the current Archon of Tyrosh. Meanwhile the murderous sons of bitches who are chasing him smirk, as though expecting a reward, like hounds that had driven a rabbit at bay before their new master. It takes scarce a moment to realize the treachery that must have gone on here, one that is ultimately in your favor, though it turns your stomach to think in those terms.

What do you do?

[] Kill the traitors try to save any of the boy's family that might yet be alive

[] Demand that the guards explain themselves
-[] Write in

[] Write in

OOC: Normally there would be an option to thank the traitors or even let them kill the boy, but this hits too close to home for Viserys after resurrecting Elia and Rhaenys a few weeks ago.

 

[DragonParadox]

Blood and Sorrows​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

"I would like them alive if you please," you address Ser Richard in a calm almost conversational tone, only the slight flatness in your voice marking your desire to strike them down where they stand.

The sight of the two stunned traitors being battered into unconsciousness without being able to put so much as a scratch on the knight's armor is a balm to the soul, as is the knowledge that you will see them hanged properly, for justice not convenience. Though you cannot deny that their deeds might have been to your advantage just the same.

The boy wakes from his own momentary stupor as the last of his pursuers falls, and to his credit understands the implications of your deed quickly. "Please, my mother, my sisters you have to..."

"Can you show us?" you interrupt even as you will yourself to grow larger, wings bursting from your back, not from any notion of flying through the corridors, but simply to carry the child along as quick as you are able.

"Yes," he answers, breath still coming in ragged bursts.

Though he pales when you pick him up he speaks not a word of protest, merely stuttering out directions mixed in with some of the events of the evening. He had heard something about dragons in the sky and his old nurse had tried to get him to safety, alas that the journey ended abruptly when faced with the guards who chose to profit from treachery. From the sound of things this was no planned attack, simply terror sweetened by the lure of greed.

***​

Such scenes you see then that you will revisit in nightmares, not the horrors of a fiend's twisted imaginings nor yet the unnatural workings of the Deep One's dreadful will, only the inhumanity man shows his fellows. So might the world seem upon its last day when all order and restraint is cast aside in the pursuit of the darkest and most selfish urges. Perhaps you should not be surprised for their world is ending and you are the herald of its death, but still you are heartsick to see the self-destructive madness that seemed to have infected most of the palace.

As best you can with word and deed you struggle to quiet the chaos, slaying the worst of the looters and deserters you see where they stand and promising quarter to others. Thankfully many listen, more than you would have thought, truth be told. Perhaps the scales you are clad in are proof enough that you have some standing that their surrender will be respected.

You do not find the Archon, but thanks to the boy's directions you manage to find both his sisters alive, though far indeed from being unharmed. Their mother lies dead, blood pooling into silken sheets.

"This place is well and truly gutted, Your Grace," Ser Richard declares, laying a gauntleted hand upon your shoulder to draw you from your dark thoughts. "It might take a while to be rid of all the vultures, but that is hardly proper fighting."

What do you do?

[] Write in

OOC: Keep in mind that you have one little boy and two traumatized young women to deal with somehow. Also if anyone is wondering why everything fell apart so quickly for the Tyroshi it's not that they were particularly bad at defense but because you presented them with an enemy they could not really fight, one that was moving with impossible swiftness. Basically, if Unsullied are breaking in battle anyone else is likely to break beforehand.

 

[DragonParadox]

Ashes of an Age ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

On wings of gold the dreamer flew free of the passage she had made to witness the night of Tyrosh's breaking. Each tongue of flame, each figure bearing arms, each fel misshapen fiend was clear before her sight... too clear, perhaps. The city was tearing itself apart in terror and confusion while daemons cavorted among its ruin. Daenerys Targaryen cursed lest she weep for those who had fallen and those who would yet follow them before this dreadful night was out. The puppet master had been slain, the strings cut from those he had so cunningly entangled, but now it seemed their foes had abandoned all pretense of planning, all hope of using the invasion as their chance to take Tyrosh for their own and were instead reveling in the slaughter.

Fiends bearing the skulls of horses and putrid vulture's wings flew through the air surrounded by a court of flies and pestilence, heralds of plague set to bring the city to a swift end now that the festering sore of their presence had been unveiled. Black-shafted arrows fell down upon the legions of the Deep and the Unsullied both, with no more care than pestilence itself was wont to show.

Spoiler: Leukodaemon

With a peal of thunder lost to the voice of the storm she flung one from the air, the heavenly warrior it had been dueling a moment ago following it down smiting it again and again with blessed hallowed flame. To men they might show mercy and honor to honorable foes, but Yrael's kin were not above striking at fiends whenever the chance showed itself.

Another two were trading bolts with the ancient iron sentinels, to their disfavor Daenerys saw with glee, for thrice accursed flesh could not match unyielding iron, nor powers of ruin catch hold upon wards wrought long ago in lost Sarnor.

The legions battled those daemons without wings to carry them forth in their depredations, through waves of spell fire and walls of blinding darkness marched the monstrous hosts of Abaddon and by cold steel touched by sorcery they were met. Proud flew the Banner of the Slayers, as once it must have done above the armies of Valyria.

"Fools and cowards, bring forth thine feeble arts!" Amrelath challenged, his voice like the crack of bone, like the roars of fires ever-hungry. "Come forth that I may break you swifter and spare the world thine wretched presence!"

Seeing that her aid was not urgently needed between the dead wyrm and the constructs Daenerys dived close, using her lesser magics to strike at the sorcerers amid the foes. Madmen and fools whose very souls had rotted from within but were no less dangerous for it, their art given wholly to the corruption and ruin of the world.

Glancing above she saw one of the last remaining fiends of pestilence die a death of a thousand cuts, or perhaps a thousand pricks, slain by Aradia as it futilely struggled to catch one of the griffins. Its companion sorely wounded found itself in Amrelath's path, though in the moment before it was ripped apart it did work one last piece of sorcery... an unraveling, perhaps hoping to undo whatever protections the dragon had against its ilk.

There were no wards to break... but the glamour that gave the long dead wyrm the semblance of life were torn away, revealing the horror of his own being for all to see.

Just then the wind began to howl farther to the north, deeper in the slums and unnatural sound that marked some blasphemy against life. Could they afford to be without Amrelath's aid when the dead began to rise in earnest?

OOC: So far the demons are managing only sightly more better than the Unsullied, the poor things. Dany and Lya killed the cultist leader who got his wits together first before the others could formulate a plan which so far has led to Daemons, cultists, and lesser mages running wild.

 

[DragonParadox]

Death Unveiled ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

Getting your charges through the palace and back to where the legion companies continue their steady advance proves easier than you had anticipated, though you take little joy in it given the cause. They walk through the ruin of their lives as ones in the grip of an all-too-familiar fugue, driven beyond the ability to truly understand or care about what is going on around them merely going through the motions when prodded. Silently vowing to do something to help when you can spare the magic for the task, you leave them in the charge of a slightly confused captain with orders to keep them safe and away well from other surrendered captives.

Before departing you get word that Yrael had secured the palace records and a good number of the clerks who had barricaded themselves inside. They had apparently been entirely willing so set everything, including themselves, alight if they were not guaranteed safety for both themselves and their families, until the lord of Mantarys managed to talk them down by staking his own honor upon it.

Perhaps I should offer him some sort of gift by way of thanks, you think in relief as you hurry out of the palace in Ser Richard's company. Those documents are worth far more than their weight in gold in your eyes.

Looking out from the arch of the gate you behold a city in the grip of chaos and turmoil, assailed by fiends and its own defenders turned to looting and desertion, likely 'aided' by some of the sellswords in your employ. The hangman will not lack for boots in the days to come, but for now your business is with fiends and the madmen who consort with them, not yet with merely mortal outrages.

"The dead dragon seems to be missing his fake skin," Ser Richard says, pointing towards the serpentine skeletal form of Amrelath spewing wide arches of flame over something in the slums to the North.

You curse briefly in frustration. Wyla had laid that spell and she would not have another ready you wager. Either you or Dany would have to use wishcraft or dreaming for the task if you are to restore the seeming before the battle is out.

What do you do next?

[] Restore Amrelath's glamour

[] Fly north to join the fighting that seems fiercest

[] Interrogate a Raven Servitor as to the course of the battle

[] Write in

OOC: I know this feels a bit slow, but you guys did not have all the information when you made the last decision so I think another decision point here is called for.

 

[DragonParadox]

Storm of Ruin ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

Rather than leave Ser Ricard behind you signal for one of the Griffins to land in the palace courtyard and take him up. Not the most comfortable arrangement for either of them, tis true, but better by far than leaving him to the task of subduing the looters and killers loose in the halls.

Together you ascend swiftly into the growing storm, the rain steaming off your scales as you go, until you encounter Amrelath at last fight above the city just as he tears the wings from a fiend before contemptuously casting the pieces aside

"That is the last of the vermin who dared pollute the sky..." he hisses. Unsurprisingly you notice the fiend's bow of bone and bloody sinew still clutched tightly in the dead dragon's claws that he then sets down gently atop a nearby tower.

Like a magpie bringing trinkets to its nest, you think, very privately amused. "The battle is not over by far," you reply instead. "The worst of the daemons have not arisen nor their accursed thralls." After a pause you add, "I would restore your shrouding glamour, ancient one, the better to deceive the foe as to your nature and protections."

The dead dragon gives a laugh akin to the screech of rusted metal tearing. "And so that the wingless ones do not all befoul themselves in fear and dirty your new city."

With a touch of your claw and a twist of ancient memory restored your once more veil accursed bone in the semblance of flesh and scale before the two of you descend out of the clouds.

By lightning's flash you see the city laid out beneath you like some immense canvas, painted in greys and browns, fiends and legionaries clashing nearby before the Northern gate while more and more companies are flowing in from the central plaza to bolster the lines. The damned and downfallen have rage and hate for their weapons, but little of skill and it seems little hope of victory.

In the distance you can hear something like the crack of thunder yet not, the rumbling of the tortured earth as some long sealed vault rips itself open and disgorges a torrent of bone borne upon a foul wind. Unharmed amid the formless blasphemies stride forth four tall skeletal figures garbed in tattered black, iron-banded staffs griped firmly in their hands, the deacons of death you had long expected.

Between them, however, moves one whose coming you did not predict. Armored in night-black spellsteel over which lie the flayed skins of old victims writhing in the torment of unlife, you know not if it is alive, undead, or a dark-hearted daemon. Upon it you spy wards and protections like a dark constellation, against fire and lightning, against magic itself. Even his steed, festering plague-ridden monstrosity that taints the very ground it treads upon, bones held together as much by foul sorcery as rotting skin and sinew, is gifted with the power to stride upon the air.

"Finally a foe worthy of dying by claw and fang," Amrelath hisses, the fel lights of his eyes pulsing blood red as he wields his own sorcery to assess the foe. "Let us tear him apart between us and claim his treasures likewise between us."

Almost as though he had somehow heard the words the figure's helmeted head turns to look upon the sky: "Why do you demean yourself in serving the living child of the Pale Queen?" The words are in the dragon tongue of old, the voice uncannily soft, a kindhearted scolding. Beneath them there is something wet and rotting, like the squirming maggots through red flesh.

"Little wonder thou would bow to festering that revel in decay, who are little more than a pale worm thrashing in the earth," the accursed dragon calls back, voice dripping with disdain, and as the two of your circle closer and Dany, Lya, and Moonsong join you in the air, looking unharmed to your relief... and in Moonsong's case even enthusiastic.

"That was a well-wrought mockery," she compliments Amrelath, seemingly sincerely, though it only earns her a huff of smoke dark smoke in reply, though you cannot tell if it is a mark of dislike or simple confusion.

"We need to kill those things before they can hit the lines," Dany says urgently.

To that you must agree, you have seen this night how powerful magic can break armies, and though you trust your soldiers to stand firm longer than even the Unsullied, this is not a foe they can defeat.

What do you do?

[] Write in battle plan

OOC: I spent a lot of time trying to find a proper picture for the leader, but in the end I did not manage it so rather than have pictures for everything except the scariest thing on the field I decided to do without.

 

[DragonParadox]

By Will and Word​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

As thunder rolls and lightning crackles you hear the voice of Moonsong's lute between the notes of nature's wrath, defiance in mirth and mockery that cuts deeper than steel. For all their grand and dreadful presence you feel laughter welling up inside your chest at their absurd contortions, as though you gazed upon some poorly-crafted mummery. It is not rotten fruit that is hurled upon the foe for all of that, but words of power meant to cast them out beyond the boundaries of the world.

One burns in a flash of searing white, leaving naught but burnt rags in its wake. The others turn their hooded faces towards Dany, the pale witch lights of their eyes promising fates far darker than death. Three bolts of living darkness splatter against her golden wings, enough to slay most men thrice over, but to your relief her radiance scarce dims.

Dany gains 1 Negative Level

Swift as a striking viper is the grim lord in the wake of the daemon's curses, invocations polluting the very air. Your blood goes cold in your veins once more as you understand them, at once to tear at Dany's protections and cast her into cold accursed Abbadon, an offering to some foul lord of the damned.

For just a moment her form wavers like a vision in the distance but then it grows sharp and clear again, her gaze undaunted from looking damnation in the eye as she ascends to give you the best chance to hurl your own power against the foe. And so you do.

No spells spill from your lips, no works of a mage's art and artifice, only the flame that is the first and greatest gift of dragonkind, bright with the dance of elder magic that was before the first incantation was set to fragile parchment and fading ink. All sorcery is will and your will is that he burn!

In this hour your magic proves the stronger over dark blessings and thrice damned faith, thus burns the foe in agony beyond agony, his screams heard even over the rattle of the accursed bone, louder even than the thunder above. Somehow he manages to stagger from the muck amid the charred remnants of his 'steed' and casts off his helm, still sparking and smoking, to reveal a ruined face, flesh sloughing off, eyes dripping blood.

"I have seen the Truth!" he screeches to the heavens.

"There is no truth save that which each of us works," Lya says more to herself than to the dying monster beneath you as she casts down a sphere of crystalline power bright as a falling star upon him. Once more he collapses and this time he is still.

Amrelath laughs and the dead turn to his command, tearing and ripping at the remaining daemons robes as best they can, a poor effort if the purpose was to harm them in truth, but as Moonsong would say, "a worthy mockery."

The three horrors look to each other, conferring in some unknowable manner, then the speak as one, their voices creeping into your mind, a darkness unlooked for. "Death is patient..."

"But we are not!" Dany shouts as she tangles one of the things to earth before it can flee by dream-rooted power. "Your death will serve a purpose yet."

What do you do next?

[] Write in plan

OOC: Lya went with the orb of force since she saw that the mage was at death's door.

 

[DragonParadox]

Of Blood and Beasts ​

Twenty-Seventh Day of the Second Month 293 AC

The air stank of stale beer and wet cows, but above all else it smelled of blood, not the coppery scent that came after a fight, but the sickly sweetness of rot that sank into stone and timber alike. Most would not have thought that odd of a butcher's shop, but the six gathered outside that night as the rain fell ever thicker over Tyrosh knew far more of blood than most. They had seen it spilled in battle, in sacrifice to strange and thirsting gods, and some of them from other purposes besides.

Maelor shivered, and not against the trickle of rain that had found its way past his cloak and down his back. He'd seen his share of killers, young as he was the boy counted himself one too, but some things... some people could still give him that empty feeling in the pit of his stomach, the smiling killers, the ones who did not care one whit for the blood spilt.

"So, shall I bring one of them out here to have a chat?" the blood-drinker asked with the lazy smirk of one showing off in good fun. The boy did not begrudge her the fangs, or even the absence of a heart-beat. He counted friends those who likely did not even have a heart of any sort, but something about how lightly she spoke of killing reminded him forcefully that not all the monsters were on the other side of the sagging weather-beaten walls.

"I don't like her," Glyra admitted in a whisper after Wyla had vanished into mist.

"How come?" Maelor asked, startled, leaning close. Though she had grown kind in her own odd way, the gremlin was still not one to become upset over the hows and the wherefores of things. Only deeds truly mattered in the games of the fey.

"Because she gets to have all the fun!" the red-headed girl who was not child in truth said, voice rising slightly in aggravation.

"Do not let her smiles fool you, cousin," the crow-headed archon said, his voice grave. "She is chained against herself. The pain she inflicts upon others echoes upon her own soul in ways hidden from her eyes by the veil of her curse."

The advice only earns a familiar roll of the eyes from the little fey. "If you think you are having fun then you are having fun, you don't have to get agreement or permission, that's why it's called fun and not duty."

Fortunately for the conversation the arrival of Wyla and her latest puppet soon interpreted the discussion which Maelor suspected could last until the end of days without one persuading the other.

"You might want to save some of the cattle..." she began. Seeing the looks directed at her the blood-drinker sighed, much put upon. "I mean the actual yearlings, the ones in the pen over there," she motioned to the pen. "Some of them only became beasts quite ah... recently, according to Torgen here. The magus who rules this place makes a habit of stealing children away then transmuting them into cows or pigs and having them cut up and served to the families, after they have been properly inspected by the customer of course."

"Wouldn't they change back once killed?" Garin asked, sounding sick to his stomach.

"They have a spell for that too... a daemon, really," the dead woman explains, looking suddenly sympathetic to Garin's feelings if nothing else.

"I always did wonder, what would happen if I fed someone to a conjured bear," Vee interjected darkly, her words holding more of the marshlands than usual.

"You'd get a rather unsightly mound of flesh to clean up once the beast was gone," Wyla replied instantly.

Maelor almost asked if she was speaking from experience, before thinking the better of the question. Instead he reminded Vee, "There's more use to them if we feed them to the snake or the trees."

The girl huffed. "Don't suppose we can ask either to make it hurt more, is there?"

The crow-spirit sighed but he did not speak up, eyes still looking to the north where the signal for the attack would be given. Even it must have known some battles were not worth fighting.

OOC: Did not want to interrupt the combat for more combat, so here's a bit more about how daemon cults operate and of course some character development.